The Flying Mercury Part 7

"I have thought of it often. Every one else that I know just lives the way things happen--there are only a few people who grasp things and _make_ them happen. That is real work; so many of us are just given work we do not want--" she broke off.

"If we do not want the work, it is probably not our own," said Lestrange. "Unless we have brought it on ourselves by a fault we must undo--I need not speak of that to you. One must not make the mistake of a.s.suming some one else's work."

He spoke gently, almost as if with a clairvoyant reading of her tendency to self-immolation.

"But may not some one else's fault be given us to undo?" she asked eagerly. "May not their work be forced on us?"

"No," he answered.

"No?" bewildered.

"I don't think so. Each one of us has enough with his own, at least so it seems to me. Most of us die before we finish it."

Emily paused, contending with the loneliness and doubts which impelled her to speech, the feminine yearning to let another decide her problems. This other's nonchalant strength of decision allured her uncertainty.

"I am discouraged," she confessed. "And tired. I--there is no reason why I should not speak of it. You know d.i.c.k, how he can do nothing in the factory or business, or in the places where a Ffrench should stand. All this must fall into the hands of strangers, to be broken and forgotten, when my uncle dies, for lack of some one who would care. And Uncle Ethan seems severe and hard, but it grieves him all the time. His only son was not a good man; he lives abroad with his wife, who was an actress before he married her. You knew that?" as he moved.

"I heard something of it in the village," Lestrange admitted gravely.

"Please do not think me fond of gossip; I could not avoid it. But I should not have imagined this a family likely to make low marriages."

"It never happened before. I never saw that cousin, nor did d.i.c.k; but he was always a disappointment, always, Uncle Ethan has told me. And since he failed, and d.i.c.k fails, there is only me."

"You!"

She nodded, her lip quivering.

"Only me. Not as a subst.i.tute--I am not fit for that--but to find a subst.i.tute. I have promised my uncle to marry the first one who is able to be that."

The silence was absolute. Lestrange neither moved nor spoke, gazing down at her bent head with an expression blending many shades.

"It is a duty; there is no one except me," she added. "Only sometimes I grow--to dislike it too much. I am so selfish that sometimes I hope a subst.i.tute will never come."

Her voice died away. It was done; she, Emily Ffrench, had deliberately confided to this stranger that which an hour before she would have believed no one could force from her lips in articulate speech. And she neither regretted nor was ashamed, although there was time for full realization before Lestrange answered.

"I did not believe," he said, "that such things could be done. It is nonsense, of course, but such magnificent nonsense! It is the kind of situation, Miss Ffrench, where any man is justified in interfering. I beg you will leave the affair in my hands and think no more of such morbid self-sacrifice."

Stupefied, Emily flung back her head, staring at him.

"In _your_ hands?"

"Since there are none better, it appears. Why," his vivid face questioned her full and straightly, "you didn't imagine that any man living could hear what you are doing, and pa.s.s on?"

"My uncle knows--"

"Your uncle--is not for me to criticize. But do not ask any other man to let you go on."

Her ideas reeling, she struggled for comprehension.

"You, what could you do?" she marveled. "The subst.i.tute--"

"There won't be any subst.i.tute," replied Lestrange with perfect coolness. "I shall train d.i.c.k Ffrench to do his work."

"You--"

"I can, and I will."

"He can not--"

"Oh, yes, he can; he is just idle and spoiled," the firm lips set more firmly. "He shall take his place. I can handle him."

Emily sat quite helplessly, her eyes black with excitement. Slowly recollection flowed back to her of a change in d.i.c.k since his light contact with Lestrange; his avoidance of even occasional highb.a.l.l.s, his awakening interest in the clean sport of the races, and his half-wistful admiration for the virile driver-manager.

"I almost believe you could," she conceded.

"I can," repeated Lestrange. "Only," he openly smiled, "it will be hard on d.i.c.kie."

It was the touch needed, the antidote to sentiment. Emily laughed with him, laughed in sheer mischief and relief and leap of youth.

"You will be gentle--poor d.i.c.kie!"

"I'll be gentle. He is coming now, I think." He took a step nearer her. "You will leave this in my care, wholly? You will not trouble about--a subst.i.tute?"

"I will leave it with you. But you are forgetting your own doctrine; you are taking some one else's work to do."

"Pardon, I am merely making Ffrench do his work. I have seen a little more of him than you perhaps know; I understand what I am undertaking.

Moreover, I would forget a great many doctrines to set you free."

"Free?" she echoed; she had the sensation of being suddenly confronted with an open door into the unexpected.

"Free," he quietly rea.s.serted. "Free to live your own life and draw unhampered breath, and to decide the great question when it comes, with thought only of yourself."

She drew back; a prescient dismay fell sharply across her late relief, a panic crossed with strange delight.

"He's off," called d.i.c.k, emerging from the park. "I made Anderson take him down with the limousine. At least, Rupert is driving while Anderson sits alongside and holds on; when they came to the turn in the avenue, your precious mechanician took it full speed and then apologized for going so slowly because, as he said, he was an amateur and likely to upset. Is he really a good driver, Lestrange?"

"Pretty fair," returned Lestrange serenely, from his seat on the edge of the ditched machine. "When I'm not using him, he's employed as one of the factory car testers; and when we're racing I give him the wheel if I want to fix anything. However, I'm obliged to that steering-knuckle for breaking here, instead of leaving me to a long wait in the wilds. Come down to the shop to-morrow at six, and Rupert and I will even up by taking you for a run."

"Who; me? You're asking me?"

"Why not? It's exhilarating."

d.i.c.k removed his hat and ran his fingers through his hair, gratification and alarm mingling in his expression with somewhat the effect of the small boy who is first invited into a game with his older brother's clique.

"You--er, wouldn't smash me up?" he hesitated.

"I haven't smashed up Rupert or myself, so far. If you feel timid, never mind, of course; I'll take my usual companion."

d.i.c.k flushed all over his plump face, the Ffrench blood up at last.