Man and Maid Part 18

"Well--now you know better, why don't you come back and talk to people in the ordinary way?"

This was the first and last sign she gave that the circ.u.mstances in which she found herself with him were anything but ordinary.

"I have a book to finish," said he. "Would you like to have tea in the wilderness or in here?" He wisely took her consent for granted this time, and his wisdom was justified.

They had tea in the garden. The wilderness blossomed like a rose, to Maurice's thinking. In his mind he was saying over and over again: "How bored I must have been all this time! How bored I must have been!"

It seemed to him that his mind was opening, like a flower, and for the first time. He had never talked so well, and he knew it--all the seeds of thought, sown in those long, lonely hours, bore fruit now. She listened, she replied, she argued and debated.

"Beautiful--and sensible," said Maurice to himself. "What a wonderful woman!" There was, besides, an alertness of mind, a quick brightness of manner that charmed him. Camilla had been languid and dreamy.

Suddenly she rose to her feet.

"I must go," she said, "but I have enjoyed myself so much. You are an ideal host: thank you a thousand times. Perhaps we shall meet again some day, if you return to the world. Do you know, we've been talking and wrangling for hours and hours and never even thought of wondering what each other's names are--I think we've paid each other a very magnificent compliment, don't you?"

He smiled and said: "My name is Maurice Brent."

"Mine is Diana Redmayne. If it sounds like somebody in the _Family Herald_, I can't help it." He had wheeled the bicycle into the road, and she had put on hat and gloves and stood ready to mount before she said: "If you come back to the world I shall almost certainly meet you. We seem to know the same people; I've heard your name many times."

"From whom?" said he.

"Among others," said she, with her foot on the pedal, "from my cousin Camilla. Good-bye."

And he was left to stare down the road after the swift flying figure.

Then he went back into the lonely little house, and about half-past twelve that night he realised that he had done no work that day, and that those hours which had not been spent talking to Diana Redmayne, had been spent in thinking about her.

"It's not because she's pretty and clever," he said; "and it's not even because she's a woman. It's because she's the only intelligent human being I've spoken to for nearly a year."

So day after day he went on thinking about her.

It was three weeks later that the bell again creaked and jangled, and again through the spotted gla.s.s he saw a woman's hat. To his infinite disgust and surprise, his heart began to beat violently.

"I grow nervous, living all alone," he said. "Confound this door! how it does stick--I must have it planed."

He got the door opened, and found himself face to face with--Camilla.

He stepped back, and bowed gravely.

She looked more beautiful than ever--and he looked at her, and wondered how he could ever have thought her even pa.s.sably pretty.

"Won't you ask me in?" she said timidly.

"No," said he, "I am all alone."

"I know," she said. "I have only just heard you're living here all alone, and I came to say--Maurice--I'm sorry. I didn't know you cared so much, or----"

"Don't," he said, stopping the confession as a good batsman stops a cricket ball. "Believe me, I've not made myself a hermit because of--all that. I had a book to write--that was all. And--and it's very kind of you to come and look me up, and I wish I could ask you to come in, but---- And it's nice of you to take an interest in an old friend--you said you would, didn't you, in the letter--and--I've taken the advice you gave me."

"You mean you've fallen in love with some one else."

"You remember what you said in your letter."

"Some one nicer and worthier, I said," returned Camilla blankly, "but I never thought---- And is she?"

"Of course she seems so to me," said he, smiling at her to express friendly feeling.

"Then--good-bye--I wish you the best of good fortune."

"You said that in your letter, too," said he. "Good-bye."

"Who is she?"

"I mustn't tell even you that, until I have told her," he smiled again.

"Then good-bye," said Camilla shortly; "forgive me for troubling you so unnecessarily."

He found himself standing by his door--and Camilla on her bicycle sped down the road, choking with tears of anger and mortification and deep disappointment. Because she knew now that she loved him as much as it was in her to love any one, and because she, who had humbled so many, had now at last humbled herself--and to no purpose.

Maurice Brent left his door open and wandered down across his five acres, filled with amazement. Camilla herself had not been more deeply astonished at the words he had spoken than he had been. A moment before he had not even thought that he was in love, much less contemplated any confession of it: and now seemingly without his will he stood committed to this statement. Was it true, or had he only said it to defend himself against those advances of hers in which he merely saw a new trap? He had said it in defence--yes--but it was true, for all that; this was the wonderful part of it. And so he walked in the wilderness, lost in wonder; and as he walked he noted the bicycles that pa.s.sed his door--along his unfrequented road, by ones and twos and threes--for this was a Sat.u.r.day, and the lower road was still lying cold and hidden under its load of chalk, and none might pa.s.s that way. This road was hot and dusty, and folk went along it continually. He strolled to his ugly iron gate and looked over, idly. Perhaps, some day, she would come that way again--she would surely stop--especially if he were at the gate--and perhaps stay and talk a little. As if in mocking answer to the new-born thought came a flash of blue along the road; Diana Redmayne rode by at full speed--bowed coldly--and then at ten yards' distance turned and waved a white-gloved hand, with a charming smile. Maurice swore softly, and went indoors to think.

His work went but slowly on that day--and in the days that followed. On the next Friday he went over to Rochester, and in the dusk of the evening he walked along the road, about a mile from "The Yews," and then, going slowly, he cast handfuls of something dark from his hand, and kicked the white dust over it as it lay.

"I feel like the enemy sowing tares," said he.

Then he went home, full of anxious antic.i.p.ation. The next day was hot and bright. He took his armchair into the nightmare of a verandah, and sat there reading; only above the top of the book his eyes could follow the curve of the white road. This made it more difficult to follow the text. Presently the bicyclists began to go past, by ones and twos and threes; but a certain percentage was wheeling its machines--others stopped within sight to blow up their tyres. One man sat down under the hedge thirty yards away, and took his machine to pieces; presently he strolled up and asked for water. Brent gave it, in a tin basin, grudgingly, and without opening the gate.

"I overdid it," he said, "a quarter of a pound would have been enough; yet I don't know--perhaps it's well to be on the safe side. Yet three pounds was perhaps excessive."

Late in the afternoon a pink figure wheeling a bicycle came slowly down the road. He sat still, and tried to read. In a moment he should hear the click of the gate: then he would spring up and be very much astonished. But the gate did not click, and when next he raised his eyes the pink blouse had gone by, and was almost past the end of the five acres. Then he did spring up--and ran.

"Miss Redmayne, can't I help you? What is it? Have you had a spill?" he said as he overtook her.

"Puncture," said she laconically.

"You're very unfortunate. Mayn't I help you to mend it?"

"I'll mend it as soon as I get to a shady place."

"Come into the wilderness. See--here's the side gate. I'll fetch some water in a moment."

She looked at him doubtfully, and then consented. She refused tea, but she stayed and talked till long after the bicycle was mended.

On the following Sat.u.r.day he walked along the road, and back, and along, and again the place was alive with angry cyclists dealing, each after his fashion, with a punctured tyre. He came upon Miss Redmayne sitting by the ditch mending hers. That was the time when he sat on the roadside and told her all about himself--reserving only those points where his life had touched Camilla's.

The week after he walked the road again, and this time he overtook Miss Redmayne, who was resolutely wheeling her bicycle back in the way by which she had come.

"Let me wheel it for you," he said. "Whither bound?"