The Keeper of the Door Part 5

The temptation to run down to the edge of the water was irresistible. It babbled with such delicious coolness between its ferns. The mossy pathway gleamed emerald green. Surely there was no need for haste! She could afford to give herself five minutes in her paradise. Violet certainly would not be ready yet.

She sat down therefore on the edge of the stream, and gave herself up to the full enjoyment of her surroundings. An immense green dragon-fly whirred past her and shot away into the shadows. She watched its flight with fascinated eyes, so sudden was it, so swift, and so unerringly direct. It reminded her of something, she could not remember what. She wrestled with her memory vainly, and finally dismissed the matter with slight annoyance, turning her attention to a wonderful coloured moth that here flitted across her line of vision. It was an exquisite thing, small, but red as coral. Only in this fairyland of Nick's had she ever seen its like. Lightly it fluttered through the chequered light and shade above the water, shining like a jewel above the shallows, the loveliest thing in sight. And then, even under her watching eyes came tragedy. Swift as an arrow, the green dragon-fly darted back again, and in an instant flashed away. In that instant the coral b.u.t.terfly vanished also.

Olga exclaimed in incredulous horror. The happening had been too quick for her eyes to follow, but her comprehension leaped to the truth. And in that moment she realized what it was of which the dragon-fly reminded her. It was of Max Wyndham sitting on the surgery-table watching her with that mocking gleam in his green eyes, as though he knew her to be at his mercy whether she stayed or fled.

It was unreasonable of course, but that fairy tragedy in the glen increased her dislike of the man a hundredfold. She felt as if he had darted into her life, armed in some fashion with the power to destroy.

And she longed almost pa.s.sionately to turn him out; for no disturbing force had ever entered there before. But she knew that she could not.

She went on up to the house in sober mood. It had been left to the care of the servants since Nick's departure. She found a French window standing open, and entered. It was the drawing-room, all swathed in brown holland. Its dim coolness was very different from the stony chill of the Priory. She looked around her with a restful feeling of being at home, despite the brown coverings. Many were the happy hours she had spent here both before and after Nick's marriage. It had always been her palace of delight.

As she paused in the room, she remembered that there was a book Nick had said he wanted out of the library. This room was a somewhat recent addition to the house and shut away from the rest of the building by a long pa.s.sage. She pa.s.sed from the drawing-room, and made her way thither.

It surprised her a little to find the door standing open, but it was only a pa.s.sing wonder. The light that came in through green sun-blinds made her liken it in her own mind to a chamber under the sea. She went to a book-shelf in a dark corner, and commenced her hunt.

"If you are looking for Farrow's _Treatise on Party Government_,"

remarked a casual voice behind her, "I've got it here."

Olga started violently. Any voice would have given her a surprise at that moment, but the voice of Max Wyndham was an absolute shock that set every nerve on edge.

He laughed at her from the sofa, on which he sprawled at length. "My good child, your nerves are like fiddle-strings after a frost. Remind me to make you up a tonic when we get back! Did you bicycle over?"

Olga ignored the question. She was for the moment too angry to speak.

"Sit down," he said. "You ought to know better than to scorch on a day like this. You deserve a sunstroke."

"I didn't scorch," declared Olga, stung by this injustice. "I'm not such an idiot. You seem to think I haven't any sense at all!"

"My thoughts are my own," said Max. "Why didn't you say you were coming?

You could have motored over with me."

"I didn't so much as know you would be in this direction. How could I?"

said Olga. "And even if I had known--" she, paused.

"You would have preferred sunstroke?" he suggested.

"That I can quite believe. Well, here is the book!" He swung his legs off the sofa. "I dropped in to fetch it myself, as your good uncle seemed to want it, and then became so absorbed in its pages that I couldn't put it down. We seem to have a rotten Const.i.tution altogether.

Wonder whose fault it is."

Olga took the book with a slight, contemptuous glance. That he had been interested in the subject for a single moment she did not believe. She wondered that he deemed it worth his while to feign interest.

"Are you taking a holiday to-day?" she enquired bluntly.

He smiled at that. "I cut off an old man's toe at the cottage hospital this morning, vaccinated four babies, pulled out a tooth, and dressed a scald. What more would you have? I suppose you don't want to be vaccinated by any chance?"

Olga pa.s.sed the flippant question over. "It's a half-holiday then, is it?" she said.

"Well, as it happens, fair lady, it is, all thanks to Dame Stubbs of 'The Ship Inn' who summoned me hither with great urgency and then was ungrateful enough to die before I reached her."

"Oh!" exclaimed Olga. "Is old Mrs. Stubbs dead?"

"She is," said Max.

She turned upon him. "And you've just come--from her death-bed?"

He arose and stretched himself. "Even so, fair lady."

Olga stared at him incredulously. "You actually--don't care?" she asked slowly.

"Not much good caring," said Max.

"What did she die of?" questioned Olga.

He hesitated for a second. Then, "cancer," he said briefly.

"Did she suffer much?" She asked the question nervously as if she feared the answer.

"It doesn't matter, does it?" said Max, thrusting his hands into his pockets.

"I don't see why you shouldn't tell me that." Olga spoke with a flash of indignation. "It does matter in my opinion."

"Nothing that's past matters," said Max.

"I don't agree with you!" Hotly she made answer, inexplicably hurt by his callous tone. "It matters a lot to me. She was a friend of mine. If I had known she was seriously ill, I'd have gone to see her. You--I think you might have told me."

She turned with the words as if to go, but Max coolly stepped to the door before her. He stretched a hand as if to open it, but paused, holding it closed.

"I was not aware that the old woman was a friend of yours," he said.

"But it wouldn't have done much good to anyone if you had seen her. She probably wouldn't have known you."

"I might have taken her things at least," said Olga.

"Which she wouldn't have touched," he rejoined.

She clenched her hands unconsciously. Why was he so maddeningly cold-blooded?

"Do you mind opening the door?" she said.

But he remained motionless, his hand upon it. "Do you mind telling me where you are going?" he said.

Her eyes blazed. "Really, Dr. Wyndham, what is that to you?"

He stood up squarely and faced her, his back against the door. "I will answer your question when you have answered mine."

She restrained herself with an effort. How she hated the man! Conflict with him made her feel physically sick; and yet she had no choice.

"I am going down to 'The Ship' at once," she said, "to see her daughter."

"Pardon me!" said Max. "I thought that was your intention. I am sorry to have to frustrate it, but I must. I a.s.sure you Mrs. Briggs will have plenty of other visitors to keep her amused."