In Secret Part 29

"Anything you like, Kay. I'm in paradise--or would be if only somebody would tell me stories till I fall asleep."

"Stories about what?"

"About YOU, Kay."

"I'll not talk about myself."

"Please!"

But he shook his head without smiling: "You know all there is," he said--"and much that is--unspeakable."

"Kay!"

"What?"

"Never, never speak that way again!"

He remained silent.

"Because," she continued in her low, pretty voice, "it is not true.

I know about you only what I somehow seemed to divine the very moment I first laid eyes on you. Something within me seemed to say to me, 'This is a boy who also is a real man!' ... And it was true, Kay."

"You thought that when you knelt in the snow and looked down at that beastly drunken--"

"Yes! Don't use such words! You looked like a big schoolboy, asleep-that is what you resembled. But I knew you to be a real man."

"You are merciful, but I know what you went through," he said morosely.

She paid no attention: "I liked you instantly. I thought to myself, 'Now when he wakes he'll be what he looks like.' And you are!"

He stirred in his chair, sideways, and glanced at her.

"You know what I think about you, don't you?"

"No." She shouldn't have let their words drift thus far and she knew it. Also at this point she should have diverted the conversation.

But she remained silent, aware of an indefinite pleasure in the vague excitement which had quickened her pulse a little.

"Well, I shan't tell you," he said quietly.

"Why not?" And at that her heart added a beat or two.

"Because, even if I were different, you wouldn't wish me to."

"Why?"

"Because you and I are doomed to a rather intimate comradeship--a companionship far beyond conventions, Yellow-hair. That is what is ahead of us. And you will have enough to weary you without having another item to add to it."

"What item?" At that she became very silent and badly scared. What demon was prompting her to such provocation? Her own effrontery amazed and frightened her, but her words seemed to speak themselves independently of her own volition.

"Yellow-hair," he said, "I think you have guessed all I might have dared say to you were I not on eternal probation."

"Probation?"

"Before a bitterly strict judge."

"Who?"

"Myself, Yellow-hair."

"Oh, Kay! You ARE a boy--nothing more than a boy--"

"Are you in love with me?"

"No," she said, astonished. "I don't think so. What an amazing thing to say to a girl!"

"I thought I'd scare you," he remarked grimly.

"You didn't. I--I was scarcely prepared--such a nonsensical thing to say! Why--why I might as well ask you if you are in--in--"

"In love with you? You wish to know, Yellow-hair?"

"No, I don't," she replied hastily. "This is--stupid. I don't understand how we came to discuss such--such--" But she did know and she bit her lip and gazed across Isla Water in silent exasperation.

What mischief was this that hid in the Scottish sunshine, whispering in every heather-scented breeze--laughing at her from every little wave on Isla Water?--counselling her to this new and delicate audacity, imbuing her with a secret gaiety of heart, and her very soul fluttering with a delicious laughter--an odd, perverse, illogical laughter, alternately tremulous and triumphant!

Was she in love, then, with this man? She remembered his unconscious head on her knees in the limousine, and the snow clinging to his bright hair--

She remembered the telephone, and the call to the hospital--and the message. ... And the white night and bitter dawn. ... Love? No, not as she supposed it to be; merely the solicitude and friendship of a woman who once found something hurt by the war and who fought to protect what was hers by right of discovery. That was not love. ...

Perhaps there may have been a touch of the maternal pa.s.sion about her feeling for this man. ... Nothing else--nothing more than that, and the eternal indefinable charity for all boys which is inherent in all womanhood--the consciousness of the enchantment that a boy has for all women. ... Nothing more. ... Except that--perhaps she had wondered whether he liked her--as much as she liked him.... Or if, possibly, in his regard for her there were some slight depths between shallows--a grat.i.tude that is a trifle warmer than the conventional virtue--

When at length she ventured to turn her head and look at him he seemed to be asleep, lying there in the transformed shadow of the lawn umbrella.

Something about the motionless relaxation of this man annoyed her.

"Kay?"

He turned his head squarely toward her, and 'o her exasperation she blushed.

"Did I wake you? I'm sorry," she said coldly.

"You didn't. I was awake."

"Oh! I meant to say that I think I'll stroll out. Don't come if you feel lazy."

He swung himself up to a sitting posture.

"I'm quite ready," he said. ... "You'll always find me ready, Yellow-hair--always waiting."

"Waiting? For what?"