The Divine Fire Part 118

Kitty went, and found Keith Rickman standing in the hall. Her instinct told her that Lucia must be obeyed. And as she sent him in to her, she saw through the open door that Lucia rose to her feet, and came to him and never swayed till his arms held her.

She clung to him and he drew her closer and lifted her and carried her to her couch, murmuring things inarticulate yet so plain that even she could not misunderstand.

"I thought you were going to Paris?" she said.

"I'm not. I'm here."

She sat up and laid her hands about him, feeling his shoulders and his sleeves.

"How wet your coat is."

He kissed her and she held her face against his that was cold with the wind and rain; she took his hands and tried to warm them in her own, piteously forgetful of herself, as if it were he, not she, who needed tenderness.

"Lucy--are you very ill, darling?"

"No. I am very, very well."

He thought it was one of those things that people say when they mean that death is well. He gathered her to him as if he could hold her back from death. She looked smiling into his face.

"Keith," she said, "you _didn't_ have a mackintosh. You must go away at once to Robert and get dry."

"Not now, Lucy. Let me stay."

"How long can you stay?"

"As long as ever you'll let me."

"Till you go to Italy?"

"Very well. Till I go to Italy."

"When are you going?"

"Not till you're well enough to go with me."

"How did you know I was ill?"

"Because I saw that Kitty had had to finish what your dear little hands had begun."

"Ah--you should have had them sooner--"

"Why should I have had them at all? Do you think I would have published them before I knew I had dedicated them to my wife?"

"Keith--dear--you mustn't talk about that yet."

She hid her face on his shoulder; he lifted it and looked at it as if it could have told him what he had to know. It told him nothing; it had not changed enough for that. It was like a beautiful picture blurred, and the sweeter for the blurring.

He laid his hand over her heart. At his touch it leapt and throbbed violently, suggesting a new terror.

"Darling, how fast your heart beats. Am I doing it harm?"

"No, it doesn't mind."

"But am I tiring it?"

"No, no, you're resting it."

She lay still a long time without speaking, till at last he carried her upstairs and delivered her into Kitty's care. At the open door of her room he saw a nurse in uniform standing ready to receive her. Her presence there was ominous of the unutterable things he feared.

"Kitty," said Lucia, when they were alone. "It looks as if I had been shamming after all. What do you think of me?"

"I think perhaps Sir Wilfrid Spence needn't come down to-morrow."

"Perhaps not. And yet it would be better to know. If there really is anything wrong I couldn't let him marry me. It would be awful. I want to be sure, Kitty, for his sake."

Kitty felt sure enough; and her certainty grew when Lucia came down the next morning. But she was unable to impart her certainty to Keith.

The most he could do was to hide his anxiety from Lucia. It wanted but a day to the coming of the great specialist; and for that day they made such a brave show of happiness that they deceived both Kitty and themselves. Kitty, firm in her conviction, left them to themselves that afternoon while she went into Harmouth to announce to Lucia's doctor the miracle of her recovery.

When she had left the house a great peace fell on them. They had so much to say to each other, and so little time to say it in, when to-morrow might cut short their happiness. But Lucia was sorry for Kitty.

"Poor Kitty," said she, "she's going to marry her cousin Charlie Palliser. But that won't be the same."

"The same as what?"

"The same as my marrying you. Oh, Keith, that's one of the things I said we weren't to say. Do you know, once Kitty was angry with me. She said I was playing with fire--the divine fire. Ought I to have been afraid of it? Just a little bit in awe?"

"What? Of the divine fire? I gave it you, dearest, to play with--or to warm your little hands by."

"And now you've given it me to keep, to put my hands round it--so--and take care of it and see that it never goes out. I can do that, can't I, whatever happens?"

There was always that refrain: Whatever happens.

"I keep forgetting it doesn't really belong to me; it belongs to everybody, to the whole world. I believe I'm jealous."

"Of the British public? It doesn't really love me, Lucy, nor I it."

"Whether it does or not, you _do_ remember that I loved you first--before anybody ever knew?"

"I do indeed."

"It _is_ a shame to be so glad because Kitty is away."

Yet she continued to rejoice in the happiness that came of their solitude. It was Keith, not Kitty, who arranged her cushions for her and covered her feet; Keith, not Kitty, who poured out tea for her, and brought it her, and sat beside her afterwards, leaning over her and stroking her soft hair, as Kitty loved to do.

"Lucy," he said suddenly, "can you stand living with me in a horrid little house in a suburb?"

"I should love it. Dear little house."

"Maddox is in it now; but we'll turn him out. You don't know Maddox?"