Greatheart Part 56

"Certainly," she said.

He stood looking down at her intently. "Are you all right today?" he asked abruptly.

A faint colour rose in her cheeks. "I am--as usual," she said.

"What does that mean?" Curtly he put the question. "Why don't you go out more? Why don't you get old Lister to make you up a tonic?"

She smiled a little, but there was slight uneasiness behind her smile.

Her eyes had the remote look of one who watches the far horizon. "My dear Eustace," she said, "_cui bono_?"

He stooped suddenly over her. "It is because you won't make the effort,"

he said, speaking with grim emphasis. "You're letting yourself go again, I know; I've been watching you for the past week. And by heaven, Isabel, you shan't do it! Scott may be fool enough to let you, but I'm not.

You've only been home a week, and you've been steadily losing ground ever since you got back. What is it? What's the matter with you? Tell me what is the matter!"

So insistent was his tone, so almost menacing his att.i.tude, that Isabel shrank from him with a gesture too swift to repress. The old pathetic furtive look was in her eyes as she made reply.

"I am very sorry. I don't see how I can help it. I--I am getting old, you know. That is the chief reason."

"You're talking nonsense, my dear girl." Impatiently Eustace broke in.

"You are just coming into your prime. I won't have you ruin your life like this. Do you hear me? I won't. If you don't rouse yourself I will find a means to rouse you. You are simply drifting now--simply drifting."

"But into my desired haven," whispered Isabel, with a piteous quiver of the lips.

He straightened himself with a gesture of exasperation. "You are wasting yourself over a myth, an illusion. On my soul, Isabel, what a wicked waste it is! Have you forgotten the days when you and I roamed over the world together? Have you forgotten Egypt and all we did there? Life was worth having then."

"Ah! I thought so." She met his look with eyes that did not seem to see him. "We were children then, Eustace," she said, "children playing on the sands. But the great tide caught us. You breasted the waves, but I was broken and thrown aside. I could never play on the sands again. I can only lie and wait for the tide to come again and float me away."

He clenched his hands. "Do you think I would let you go--like that?" he said.

"It is the only kindness you can do me," she answered in her low voice of pleading.

He swung round to go. "I curse the day," he said very bitterly, "that you ever met Basil Everard! I curse his memory!"

She flinched at the words as if they had been a blow. Her face turned suddenly grey. She clasped her hands very tightly together, saying no word.

He went to the door and paused, his back towards her. "I came in," he said then, "to tell you that the de Vignes have offered to put us up at their place for the wedding. And I have accepted."

He waited for some rejoinder but she made none. It was as if she had not heard. Her eyes had the impotent, stricken look of one who has searched dim distances for some beloved object--and searched in vain.

He did not glance round. His temper was on edge. With a fierce movement he pulled open the door and departed. And behind him like a veil there fell the silence of a great despair.

CHAPTER IV

THE NEW HOME

A small figure was already standing outside the station when the car Sir Eustace drove whirled round the corner of the station yard. He was greeted by the waving of a vigorous hand, as he dashed up, grinding on the brakes in the last moment as was his impetuous custom. Everyone knew him from afar by his driving, and the village children were wont to scatter like rabbits at his approach.

Dinah however stood her ground with a confidence which his wild performance hardly justified, and the moment he alighted sprang to meet him with the eagerness of a child escaped from school.

"Oh, Eustace, it is fun coming here! I was so horribly afraid something would stop me just at the last. But everything has turned out all right, and we are going to have ever such a fine wedding with crowds and crowds of people. Did you know Isabel wrote and said she would give me my wedding dress? Isn't it dear of her? How is she now?"

"Where is your luggage?" said Eustace.

She pointed to a diminutive dress-basket behind her. "That's all there is. I'm not to stay more than a week as the time is getting so short I don't feel as if I shall ever be ready as it is. I've never been so rushed before. I sometimes wonder if it wouldn't be almost better to put it off a few weeks."

"Jump up!" commanded Eustace, with a curt sign to a porter to pick up his _fiancee's_ humble impediments.

Dinah sprang up beside him and slipped a shy hand onto his knee. "You look more like Apollo than ever," she whispered, awe-struck, "when you frown like that. Is anything the matter?"

His brow cleared magically at her action. "I began to think I should have to come down to Perrythorpe and fetch you," he said, grasping the little nervous fingers. "I thought you meant to give me the slip--if you could."

"Oh no!" said Dinah, shocked at the suggestion. "I wanted to come; only--only--I couldn't be spared sooner. It wasn't my fault," she urged pleadingly. "Truly it wasn't!"

He smiled upon her. "All right,--Daphne. I'll forgive you this time," he said. "But now I've got you, my nymph of the woods, I am not going to part with you again in a hurry. And if you talk of putting off the wedding again, I'll simply run away with you. So now you know what to expect."

Dinah uttered her giddy little laugh. The excitement of this visit--the first she had ever paid to anyone--had turned her head. "Do you know Rose is actually going to be my chief bridesmaid?" she said. "Isn't that--magnanimous of her? She is pretending to be pleased, but I know she is frightfully jealous underneath. The other bridesmaid is the Vicar's daughter. She is quite old, nearly thirty but I couldn't think of anyone else, except the infant schoolmistress, and they wouldn't let me have her. I shall feel rather small, shan't I? Even Rose is twenty-five. I wonder if I shall feel grown up when I'm married. Do you think I shall?"

"Not till you cease to be--Daphne," said Sir Eustace enigmatically.

He started the car with the words, and they shot forward with a suddenness that made Dinah hold her breath.

But in a few moments she was chattering again, for she was never quiet for long. How was Scott? Was he at home? And Isabel--he hadn't told her.

She did hope dear Isabel was keeping better. Was she? Was she?

She pressed the question as he did not seem inclined to answer it, and saw again the frown that had darkened his handsome face upon arrival.

"Do tell me!" she begged. "Isn't she so well?"

And at last with the curtness of speech which always denoted displeasure with him, he made reply.

"No, she has gone back a good deal since she got home. She lies on a sofa and broods all day long. I am looking to you to wake her up. For heaven's sake be as lively as you can!"

"Oh, poor Isabel!" Quick concern was in Dinah's voice. "What is it, do you think? Doesn't the place suit her?"

"Heaven knows," he answered gloomily, "I have a house down at Heath-on-Sea where we keep the yacht, but I doubt if it would do her much good to go there this time of the year. She and Scott might try it later--after the wedding."

"Couldn't we all go there?" suggested Dinah ingenuously.

He gave her a keen glance. "For the honeymoon? No I don't think so," he said.

"Only for the first part of it," said Dinah coaxingly; "till Isabel felt better."

He uttered a brief laugh. "No, thanks, Daphne. We're going to be alone--quite alone, for the first part of our honeymoon. I am going to take you in this car to the most out-of-the-way corner in England, where--even, if you run away--there'll be nowhere to run to. And there you'll stay till--" he paused a moment--"you realize that you are all mine for ever and ever, till in fact, you've shed all your baby nonsense and become a wise little married woman."