Captivity Part 56

Marcella laughed again, and knew who he was.

"If it hadn't been for those fires I should never have got here. But, perhaps you can tell me where Mrs. Farne lives? They all seemed to know her at Klond.y.k.e."

Marcella pointed towards the glowing gorse.

"That's where I live. I'm Marcella Farne," she said. "But why didn't you say you were coming? Mr. Twist would have fetched you in his buggy. He loves meeting people at Cook's Wall because he tries to convince them that it's a real road he's driving them along. And it isn't, you know."

He sat down on the edge of the verandah, looking distastefully at the mare, who shook her head impatiently. Marcella gave her water and let her wander, when she had taken off her saddle and bridle.

"Suppose you hadn't been able to ride. I didn't think Professors had time for that sort of thing."

"Neither did I till a few hours ago," he said, with a short laugh, taking out a cigarette-case and offering it to her. She sat down rather trustfully on a verandah rail Louis had carpentered. Andrew stared at them both and made off silently towards the noise. "But how did you know who I was?"

"I only know one other man in the world, you see, and he's an old doctor in Scotland."

He was watching her as she spoke.

"I see," he said. "And you think you know me?"

"Yes. I know you like I know St. Paul and Siegfried and Parsifal--people living in my mind all the time. I've talked to you for hours, you know--hours and hours--"

"It was very good of you to ask me to come. But--embarra.s.sing, you know!

I simply had to come, out of curiosity. To find someone reading one's lectures right in the heart of the Bush!--"

"I thought you would come," she said, staring at him gravely, "when Dr.

Angus told me what you said about the socialization of knowledge. But I can hardly believe it's you, even now. Yet somehow you look as if you could think those last lectures of yours. Before I read those you seemed tremendously clever and--and rousing. To speak biologically--"

"Oh, please!" he said, smiling. "They've been doing that in Sydney--out of encyclopedias--!"

"I was going to say that your thoughts always fertilize my brain. But you must be hungry, so I'll not tell you what I want to about the lectures yet."

She slipped off the verandah rail and went indoors, leaving the Professor rather amazed. He was not quite sure whether to think she was a serious and dull young person, absolutely sincere and very much a hero-worshipper, or one of the lionizing type he had met in the city. He was deciding that she was too young for the latter role when she called him inside the candle-lit room.

"I hope you drink tea. We drink quarts of it here."

He nodded rea.s.suringly.

"There's some beer, too, but the shepherds and old Mike from Klond.y.k.e will have to drink that. It was put into a kerosene tin that hadn't been boiled and it smells terrible. But they won't notice."

"They'll probably be dead," he remarked.

"Mike drinks methylated spirit and the shepherds have a bottle of squareface each on Sunday afternoons when Betty and Andrew and I look after the sheep. Nothing hurts us. We're hard people out here."

"What made you write to me like that?" he asked, still puzzled. "I still have no idea--"

"I wanted to see you, for one thing. But that's only a small thing. I can't tell you now. I'm the cook to-day, you see, and they'll be wanting their supper in a little while. I must go and find somewhere for you to sleep, too. How long can you stay?"

"I'm not sure," he said guardedly. "I don't want to embarra.s.s you, however much you embarra.s.s me."

"I'd like you to stay for months," she said simply. "I--we're very lonely."

The gramophone groaning out the "Merry Widow" waltz seemed to contradict her words, with its accompaniment of tramping feet, laughter and talk.

"This only happens on birthdays and things. Even then, it's lonely."

"I don't believe you're any more lonely than I," he said.

"I can understand that. I've felt it in your lectures. You're so much wiser than most people."

"What rubbish!" he said with a laugh, wondering again if she were sincere. "Much less, very much less wise than most people."

"If you tell me that I'll be wishing you'd not come. I'm counting everything on your being wiser than other people--and shining--like your lectures. But Louis once said that people usually _think_ much better than they can do--"

"That was very penetrating of Louis," he said. Then--"I hope I don't disappoint you. I do--most people. Women especially--"

"Do you? Why?" she said with her puzzled frown.

"I suppose it's because I'm what you called, in your letter, a student of life. I like to understand things--and people. Particularly do I like to understand women. But one finds it impossible to take them seriously, as a rule."

"I don't know many women--" she began.

"And how many men did you say? Two?" he said, smiling. She shook her head.

"I'm afraid I take everyone rather seriously."

"It's a mistake," he said. "I used to. But they disappoint one. When I stopped taking people, women especially, seriously, and made love to them, I found them quite adorable--"

"It seems silly."

"It's quite a delightful pastime."

They had gone out on the verandah again now, and she looked across at the lake that glimmered red in the fire-glow.

"You didn't seem to think women a pastime in those lectures of yours three years ago. You said then that they were man's heel of Achilles.

You seemed rather in a panic about them--"

He nodded his head and, meeting her intent eyes, decided that she had to be taken seriously. He was just going to speak when she went on:

"But you've got past that now--the panic stage, the pastime stage, the cynical stage--"

"I suppose you're thinking of those last Edinburgh lectures? They're the furthest I have got yet. I believe they are a very clever piece of work, a sort of high-water mark. But there are so many pulls to jerk us back from the high-water mark, don't you think? And as Louis--wasn't it?--said, we most of us think better than we do--"

They had reached the haze of the ballroom by this time. People sitting on the flour-bags sent up white auras which mingled with the dust and the smoke of strong pipes to make an effective screen. Kraill looked astonished. Marcella smiled.

"They say Englishmen take their pleasures sadly," he whispered confidentially. "I don't think they could say the same for Colonials."

"They work so hard, and they like to let off steam sometimes," she said.

"By the way, I must simply say you are a friend from England. If I say you are someone very wise they'll either be rude to you or frightened of you. And all the girls will want to dance with you if I say you're from London. They're mad on dancing, and they'll take it for granted that you are. They'll expect you to teach them all the new things."

He looked startled as he watched the swaying crowd. It certainly looked dangerous, if it was not difficult. The gramophone was playing the "March of the Gladiators"; the mandolines were tinkling anything and the mouth-organ had given it up entirely, merely punctuating the first beat of every bar with a thin concussion of the bell. Betty had sprinkled the floor with a slippery preparation she got from the store, called "ice-powder."