The Bars of Iron Part 52

He laughed at that, a quick, insolent laugh. "Do you think I don't know what I'm doing, then?"

"I am quite sure," she answered, "that when you know, you will be more ashamed than any honourable man should ever have reason to be."

He winced at the words. She saw the hot blood surge in a great wave to his forehead, and she quailed inwardly though outwardly she made no sign.

His grip was growing every instant more compelling. She knew that he was bracing himself for one great effort that should batter down the strength that withstood him. His lips were so close to hers that she could feel his breath, quick and hot, upon her face. And still she made no struggle for freedom, knowing instinctively that the instant her self-control yielded, the battle was lost.

Slowly the burning flush died away under her eyes. His face changed, grew subtly harder, less pa.s.sionate. "So," he said, with an odd quietness, "I'm not to kiss you. It would be dishonourable, what?"

She made unflinching reply. "It would be despicable and you know it--to kiss any woman against her will."

"Would it be against your will?" he asked.

"Yes, it would." Firmly she answered him, yet a quiver of agitation went through her. She felt her resolution begin to waver.

But in that moment something in Piers seemed to give way also. He cried out to her as if in sudden, intolerable pain. "Avery! Avery! Are you made of stone? Can't you see that this is life or death to me?"

She answered him instantly; it was almost as if she had been waiting for that cry of his. "Yes, but you must get the better of it. You can if you will. It is unworthy of you. You are trying to take what is not yours.

You have made a mistake, and you are wronging yourself and me."

"What?" he exclaimed. "You don't love me then!"

He flung his arms wide upon the words, with a gesture of the most utter despair, and turned from her. A moment he stood swaying, as if bereft of all his strength; and then with abrupt effort he began to move away. He stumbled blindly, heavily, as he went, and the crying of the wheeling sea-gulls came plaintively through a silence that could be felt.

But ere that silence paralysed her, Avery spoke, raising her voice, for the urgency was great.

"Piers, stop!"

He stopped instantly, but he did not turn, merely stood tensely waiting.

She collected herself and went after him. She laid a hand that trembled on his arm.

"Don't leave me like this!" she said.

Slowly he turned his head and looked at her, and the misery of that look went straight to her heart. All the woman's compa.s.sion in her throbbed up to the surface. She found herself speaking with a tenderness which a moment before no power on earth would have drawn from her.

"Piers, something is wrong; something has happened. Won't you tell me what it is?"

"I can't," he said.

His lower lip quivered unexpectedly and she saw his teeth bite savagely upon it. "I'd better go," he said.

But her hand still held his arm. "No; wait!" she said. "You can't go like this. Piers, what is the matter with you? Tell me!"

He hesitated. She saw that his self-control was tottering. Abruptly at length he spoke. "I can't. I'm not master of myself. I--I--" He broke off short and became silent.

"I knew you weren't," she said, and then, acting upon an impulse which she knew instinctively that she would never regret, she gave him her other hand also. "Let us forget all this!" she said.

It was generously spoken, so generously that it could not fail to take effect. He looked at her in momentary surprise, began to speak, stopped, and with a choked, unintelligible utterance took her two hands with the utmost reverence into his own, and bowed his forehead upon them. The utter abandonment of the action revealed to her in that moment how completely he had made her the dominating influence of his life.

"Shall we sit down and talk?" she said gently.

She could not be other than gentle with him. The appeal of his weakness was greater than any display of strength. She could not but respond to it.

He set her free and dropped down heavily upon a rock, leaning his head in his hands.

She waited a few moments beside him; then, as he remained silent, she bent towards him.

"Piers, what is it?"

With a sharp movement he straightened himself, and turned his face to the sea.

"I'm a fool," he said, speaking with an odd, unsteady vehemence. "Fact is, I've been out all night on this beastly sh.o.r.e. I've walked miles. And I suppose I'm tired."

He made the confession with a shamefaced laugh, still looking away to the horizon.

"All night!" Avery repeated in astonishment. "But, Piers!"

He nodded several times, emphatically. "And those infernal sea-birds have been squawking along with those thrice-accursed crows ever since day-break. I'd like to wring their ugly necks, every jack one of 'em!"

Avery laughed in spite of herself. "We all feel peevish sometimes," she said, as one of the offenders sailed over-head with a melancholy cry.

"But haven't you had any breakfast? You must be starving."

"I am!" said Piers. "I feel like a wolf. But you needn't be afraid to sit down. I shan't gobble you up this time."

She heard the boyish appeal in his voice and almost unconsciously she yielded to it. She sat down on the rock beside him, but he instantly slipped from it and stretched himself in a dog-like att.i.tude at her feet.

His chin was propped in his hands, his face turned to the white sand on which he lay. She looked down at his black head with more than compa.s.sion in her eyes. It was horribly difficult to snub this boy-lover of hers.

She sat and waited silently for him to speak.

He dropped one hand at length and began to dig his brown fingers into the powdery sand with irritable energy; but a minute or more pa.s.sed before very grumpily he spoke.

"I've had a row with my grandfather. We both of us behaved like wild beasts. In the end, he thought he was going to give me a caning, and that was more than I could stand. I smashed his ruler for him and bolted. I should have struck him with it if I hadn't. And after that, I cleared out and came here. And I'm not going back."

So with blunt defiance he made the announcement, and as he did so, it came to Avery suddenly and quite convincingly that she had been the cause of the quarrel. A shock of dismay went through her. She had not antic.i.p.ated this. She felt that the suspicion must be verified or refuted at once.

"Piers," she said quickly, "why did you quarrel with your grandfather?

Was it because of your affair with Miss Rose?"

"I never had an affair with Miss Rose," said Piers rather sullenly. He dug up a small stone, and flung it with vindictive force at the face of the cliff. "Ask her, if you don't believe me!"

He paused a moment, then went on in a dogged note: "I told him--of a certain intention of mine. He tackled me about it first, was absolutely intolerable. I just couldn't hold myself in. And then somehow we got violent. It was his fault. Anyway, he began it."

"You haven't told me--yet--what you quarrelled about," said Avery, with a sinking heart.

He shrugged his shoulders without looking at her. "It doesn't matter, does it?"

She made answer with a certain firmness. "Yes, I think it does."