Prince Charlie Part 15

"Call it so if you wish."

He really did not care what she thought of him; plainly showed that. The indifference roused her; she tried again. Spoke with forced quietness--standing a little way from him--her voice full of contempt:

"There is a man bearing your name in the High Street: a blacksmith. I could understand such behaviour on his part. But--a--gentleman!"

Her satisfaction came then: she had hurt. A deep flush streamed over his face, then faded altogether away, except for two red streaks.

"Am I not behaving as one?"

Keenly sensitive to her rebuke, he spoke half-apologetically. The bitterness of the incident was making him more himself. Brought home to him, forcefully, the irony of things.

"Pray pardon me." He rose and stepped towards her. "Will you allow me to see you home?"

"Don't touch me!"

There seemed an absolute fire burning in her eyes, so intense was her scorn. She could not have shrunk from him, or found him more repellent, had he been a leper. Her eyes seemed to scorch him.

He knew himself to be in the right; knew it perfectly well; beyond the shadow of a doubt. But standing before that searing indignation, it was he who appeared to be in the wrong, even to himself--his inmost self.

Such treatment hurt. Thought of the gross unfairness of it too was positively stinging. He who was suffering--the victim--to be put in the wrong! To be arraigned by the victimiser!

His blood, his forehead, seemed to be burning hot, the while he was conscious of cold shivers running through him. Was this--he despised himself as he questioned--carrying out his intention? Was he plucking up his love by the roots?

It was weakness--he labelled it so--weakness on his part that her words, her presence, had still such power to move him. He would be strong--strong and just. But he realized the hardness of the task he set himself. It was man's work; he would prove himself worthy of it.

She did not deign him another word; the wound to her pride was too severe for that. Her blue eyes blazed, as perhaps only blue eyes can.

She would have given worlds for tears to soften their burning heat, but no tears came. Without another glance at him she turned and walked away--a.s.sumed an every-day gait; he should not think she was excited.

He did not attempt to stop her. Why should he? It was better so. Better that the sharp severing blow had been struck then than later: clean cuts heal quickest. He would let her get well on her way home before he moved. She must not think he was trying to follow.

Standing on the edge of the wall he looked out to sea. The water wore an appearance of invitation: that dangerous aspect which has proved irresistibly attractive to so many. Right out too, it looked so--so--so away from everything.

The tide was receding; was going out and away--to the Great Beyond. He knew that if he chose he could go with it. It would be so easy an act, if he stepped off the rocks further down--into the water that was always deep.

Then he pulled himself up with a jerk. Pride came to the rescue. Was he to cave in, go under, just because of a woman? What a fool he was! What an unmitigated, arrant fool! Was there a woman in the world--the whole world--worth caring so much for? No. Not one!

But his heart contradicted. He remembered that anxious look on her face, the loving att.i.tude, the feel of her arms as they rested on his breast, his shoulders. His, too, was the remembrance of the warmth of the sweet human breath; her eyes that had looked into his. Then he looked out to sea again; mentally out to the Great Beyond. Asked himself the old, old question: Was life worth living?

Bathos saved the situation. He remembered that a character in one of his stories had asked the same question: Was life worth living? The comic doctor had replied that it depended--depended on the liver!

He walked home.

CHAPTER XIII

FEVERISH SYMPTOMS

Masters did not leave Wivernsea. The obstinacy of his character came into play there; he had come down for a month, and he stopped.

He had come for a purpose too--business purpose--had his book to finish.

Was a trifling incident, the accident common to men's lives, to disturb the current of his life? To turn him from his prearranged plan in the smallest degree? Perish the thought!

All he altered was the direction of his walks; he thought that wisdom.

Because, like other wise men, he left the east and went west. It was Cliffland there; sheltered spots innumerable were easily found.

She, yet more proud than he, altered nothing; took her walks with Gracie as usual. Sat on the seat at the far end of the walk; read novels there with stoic fort.i.tude--except for an occasional long look across the waters.

Looking across the wide sea seems to afford scope for, to encourage, limitless, aimless reflections. At any rate hers were aimless; she knew that. But a woman dearly loves the memories of the past, to bring them before her: to pet and fondle and keep them alive with the warmth of her heart.

Being at opposite poles, east and west, their daily meetings ended. Once he met her in the post office; he was leaving as she was entering. He raised his hat, and would--from mere courtesy--have said: Good Morning.

But the unframed words wilted on his lips.

Her eyes, as they fell on him, lighted up with indignation; a second edition of what he had seen before. As they for a moment rested on him they seemed to scorch up what he would have said. His raised-to-hat hand trembled and fell: he pa.s.sed out.

Reaching home she found that she had carried with her a recollection of his face. By the seat he had said things to her that no woman could forgive. She told herself that an average hundred times a day--to say nothing of the sleepless nights she pa.s.sed with thoughts full of him.

But she was sorry to see the haggard, worn look he was wearing as he left the post office.

He had appeared ill. His, she had told him, was a face which had borne no worry lines; lines of thought but not of trouble. The absence of the latter had made him appear younger than he really was.

With a smile she thought back on the time--it seemed quite a long while ago--when she had fancied that she had almost come to love that eager, enthusiastic face; boyish, but still with an air of manly determination about it, set in a manly frame.

Masters' shoulders were quite abnormally broad and square; accentuated the impression of strength made by the broad bronzed forehead. How foolish women were, she thought. Well, she had learnt a lesson; she would profit by it. Experience had taught her; she would prove herself a grateful pupil.

She had deceived herself for the first time and the last. Of course it was painful--the awakening. Waking up to the perception of unvarnished facts generally is unpleasant. But she could look at her own foolishness without wincing, indulgently--her foolishness of a week ago. Just an error of judgment that there was no sc.r.a.p of likelihood of her repeating.

Still--she admitted it to herself--he was undeniably attractive. Hardly less so because he looked older in the post office than he had done formerly. The worry lines, whose absence she had remarked, were there now.

One hasty glance had shown them to her; they were so apparent. She wondered--a kindly feeling stealing over her--whether she had anything to do with it: the change. Then memory came and withered up the softness; pointed out what had been said to her that night when she knelt by the seat! The memory was a blasting breath; her softness fell away.

The mere remembrance of it made her feel hot all over. She--she to kneel to a man! Because she had fancied he was ill--full of kind feelings towards him, she had knelt; and he had talked of hugging and s...o...b..ring!

To have her kindness, so well meant, recoil on her, thrown back on her hands as it were, with gratuitous, unwarranted insult instead of thanks!

It is galling to have a gift returned; the gall is greater when the gift is of the heart's kindness; more galling still when the ungracious recipient vacates a place in that heart itself. The return then savours of brutality.

Fury, too, came to her at the mere memory of his speech. She was almost as angry as when the words rang freshly in her ears. But with all the temper there was mingled wonder. Surely he could not be a man to whom brutality came easily. Why--why--why--had he behaved so?

Fool? No. She told herself that she was not that. She had read in his eyes that he loved her; indeed, had more than once checked his telling her so. What could be the cause?

He had spoken of seeing her in the back garden that night--but that was a mere incident--there were a thousand-and-one explanations of that. He would know that; there must have been something else.

But why should she worry herself about the matter--about the man?

Plainly he was not worthy a second thought. Ready to misjudge her as he had been--well let him! She did not care; not a sc.r.a.p. She was quite capable of fighting her way alone.

Then she picked up one of the books of his he had given her. On the fly leaf she read:

_Miss Mivvins; to remind her of Our Seat, on which so many of these pages were written._ _William Masters._