The Danger Mark Part 49

"Of course he has affected me. I don't know how it might have been with me if I were not so--so utterly starved."

"You mean to say you are beginning to care for Delancy Grandcourt?"

"Care? Yes--in a perfectly nice way----"

"And otherwise?"

"I--don't know. I am honest with you, Duane; I don't know. A--a little devotion of that kind"--she tried to laugh--"goes to my head, perhaps.

I've been so long without it.... I don't know. And I came here to tell you. I came here to ask you what I ought to do."

"Good Lord!" said Duane, "do you already care enough for him to worry about your effect on him?"

"I--do not wish him to be unhappy."

"Oh. But you are willing to be unhappy in order to save him any uneasiness. See here, Rosalie, you'd better pull up sharp."

"Had I?"

"Certainly," he said brutally. "Not many days ago you were adrift. Don't cut your cable again."

A vivid colour mounted to her temples:

"That is all over," she said. "Have I not come to you again in spite of the folly that sent me drifting to you before? And can I pay you a truer compliment, Duane, than to ask the hospitality of your forbearance and the shelter of your friendship?"

"You _are_ a trump, Rosalie," he said, after a moment's scowling.

"You're all right.... I don't know what to say.... If it's going to give you a little happiness to care for this man----"

"But what will it do to him, Duane?"

"It ought to do him good if such a girl as you gives him all of herself that she decently can. I don't know whether I'm right or wrong!" he added almost angrily. "Confound it! there seems no end to conjugal infelicity around us these days. I don't know where the line is--how close to the danger mark an unhappy woman may drift and do no harm to anybody. All I know is that I'm sorry--terribly sorry for you. You're a corker."

"Thanks," she said with a faint smile. "Do you think Delancy may safely agree with you without danger to his peace of mind?"

"Why not? After all, you're ent.i.tled to lawful happiness. So is he....

Only----"

"Only--what?"

"I've never seen it succeed."

"Seen what succeed?"

"What is popularly known as the platonic."

"Oh, this isn't _that_," she said navely. "He's rather in love already, and I'm quite sure I could be if I--I let myself."

Duane groaned.

"Don't come to me asking what to do, then," he said impatiently, "because I know what you ought to do and I don't know what I'd do under the circ.u.mstances. You know as well as I do where the danger mark is.

Don't you?"

"I--suspect."

"Well, then----"

"Oh, we haven't reached it yet," she said innocently.

Her honesty appalled him, and he got up and began to pace the gravel walk.

"Do you intend to cross it?" he asked, halting abruptly.

"No, I don't.... I don't want to.... Do you think there is any fear of it?"

"My Lord!" he said in despair, "you talk like a child. I'm trying to realise that you women--some of you who appear so primed with doubtful, worldly wisdom--are practically as innocent as the day you married."

"I don't know very much about some things, Duane."

"I notice that," he said grimly.

She said very gravely: "This is the first time I have ever come very near caring for a man.... I mean since I married." And she rose and glanced toward the forest.

They stood together for a moment, listening to the distant music, then, without speaking, turned and walked toward the distant flare of light which threw great trees into tangled and grotesque silhouette.

"Tales of the Geneii," she murmured, fastening her loup; "Fate is the Sultan. Pray G.o.d n.o.body cuts my head off."

"You are much too amusing," he said as, side by side, they moved silently on through the pale starlight, like errant phantoms of a vanished age, and no further word was said between them, nor did they look at each other again until, ahead, the road turned silvery under the rays of the Lodge acetylenes, and beyond, the first cl.u.s.ter of brilliant lanterns gleamed among the trees.

"And here we separate," she said. "Good-bye," holding out her hand. "It is my first rendezvous. Wish me a little happiness, please."

"Happiness and--good sense," he said, smiling. He retained her hand for a second, let it go and, stepping back, saluted her gaily as she pa.s.sed before him into the blaze of light.

CHAPTER XI

FeTE GALANTE

The forest, in every direction, was strung with lighted lanterns; tall torches burning edged the Gray Water, and every flame rippled straight upward in the still air.

Through the dark, mid-summer woodland music of violin, viola, and clarionet rang out, and the laughter and jolly uproar of the dancers swelled and ebbed, with now and then sudden intervals of silence slowly filled by the far noise of some unseen stream rushing westward under the stars.

Glade, greensward, forest, aisles, and the sylvan dancing floor, bounded by garlanded and beribboned pillars, swarmed with a gay company.

Torchlight painted strange high lights on silken masks, touching with subdued sparkles the eyes behind the slanting eye-slits; half a thousand lanterns threw an orange radiance across the glade, bathing the whirling throngs of dancers, glimmering on gilded braid and sword hilt, on powdered hair, on fresh young faces laughing behind their masks; on white shoulders and jewelled throats, on fan and brooch and spur and lacquered heel. There was a scent of old-time perfume in the air, and, as Duane adjusted his mask and drew near, he saw that sets were already forming for the minuet.

He recognised Dysart, glorious in silk and powder, perfectly in his element, and doing his part with eighteenth-century elaboration; Kathleen, tres grande-dame, almost too exquisitely real for counterfeit; Delancy Grandcourt, very red in the face under his mask, wig slightly awry, conscientiously behaving as nearly like a masked gentleman of the period as he knew how; his sister Nada, sweet and gracious; Scott, masked and also spectacled, grotesque and preoccupied, casting patient glances toward the dusky solitudes that he much preferred, and from whence a distant owl fluted at intervals, inviting his investigations.