The Knave of Diamonds Part 47

Nap drove in almost unbroken silence. He was wearing a mask, and she had no clue to his thoughts; but she scarcely speculated about him. She did not want to talk. She only desired to give herself up to the pure pleasure of rapid movement. She had complete faith in his driving. If daring, he was never reckless, with her beside him.

The meadows were full of hay, and the scent of it lay like a spell upon the senses. The whirr of the mowing machine filled the air with a lazy droning. It was like a lullaby. And ever they sped on, through towns and villages and hamlets, through woods and lanes and open country, sure and swift and noiseless save for the cheery humming of the motor, which sang softly to itself like a spinning top.

They went through country of which Anne had no knowledge, but Nap seemed fully acquainted with it; for he never paused to ask the way, never raised his eyes to the finger-posts that marked the cross-roads. She marvelled at his confidence, but asked no questions. It was not a day for questions.

Only when they emerged at last upon a wide moor, where the early heather grew in tufts of deepest rose, she cried to him suddenly to stop.

"I must get some of it. It is the first I have seen. Look! How exquisite!"

He drew up at the side of the long white road that zigzagged over the moor, and they went together into the springy heath, wading in it after the waxen flowers.

And here Anne sat down in the blazing sunshine and lifted her clear eyes to his. "I won't thank you, because we are friends," she said. "But this is the best day I have ever had."

He pushed up his goggles and sat down beside her. "So you are not sorry you came?" he said.

"I could not be sorry to-day," she answered. "How long have you known this perfect place?"

He lay back in the heather with his arms flung wide. "I came here first one day in the spring, a day in May. The place was a blaze of gorse and broom--as if it were on fire. It suited me--for I was on fire too."

In the silence that succeeded his words he turned and leisurely scrutinised her. She was snapping a stalk of heather with minute care. A deep flush rose and spread over her face under his eyes.

"Why don't you look at me?" he said.

Very slowly her eyes came down to him. He was smiling in a secret fashion, not as if he expected her to smile in return. The sunlight beat down upon his upturned face. He blinked at her lazily and stretched every limb in succession, like a cat.

"Let me know when you begin to feel bored," he said. "I am quite ready to amuse you."

"I thought it was only the bores who were ever bored," she said.

He opened his eyes a little. "Did I say that or did you?"

She returned to her heather-pulling. "I believe you said it originally."

"I remember," he returned composedly. "It was on the night you bestowed upon me the office of court-jester, the night you dreamed I was the Knave of Diamonds, the night that--"

She interrupted very gently but very resolutely; "The night that we became friends, Nap."

"A good many things happened that night," he remarked, pulling off his cap and pitching it from him.

"Is that wise?" she said. "The sun is rather strong."

He sat up, ignoring the warning. "Anne," he said, "have you ever dreamed about me since that night?"

She was silent, all her attention concentrated upon her bunch of heather.

His eyes left her face and began to study her hands.

After a moment he pulled a bit of string out of his pocket and without a word proceeded to wind it round the stalks she held. As he knotted it he spoke.

"So that is why you were afraid of me to-day. I knew there was something.

I winded it the moment we met. Whenever I hold your hand in mine I can see into your soul. What was it, Anne? The Knave of Diamonds on a black mare--riding to perdition?"

He laughed at her softly as though she had been a child. He was still watching her hands. Suddenly he laid his own upon them and looked into her face.

"Or was it just a savage?" he asked her quietly.

Against her will, in spite of the blaze of sunshine, she shivered.

"Yes," he said. "But isn't it better to face him than to run away?

Haven't you always found it so? You kissed him once, Anne. Do you remember? It was the greatest thing that ever happened to him."

He spoke with a gentleness that amazed her. His eyes held hers, but without compulsion. He was lulling her fear of him to rest, as he alone knew how.

She answered him with quivering lips. "I have wondered since if I did wrong."

"Then don't wonder," he said. "For I was nearer to the G.o.d you worship at that moment than I had ever been before. I never believed in Him till then, but that night I wrestled with Him--and got beaten." He dropped suddenly into his most cynical drawl, so that she wondered if, after all, he were mocking her. "It kind of made an impression on me. I thought it might interest you to know. Have you had enough of this yet?

Shall we move on?"

She rose in silence. She was very far from certain, and yet she fancied there had been a ring of sincerity in his words.

As they reached the car she laid her hand for an instant on his arm. "If it did that for you, Nap," she said, "I do not regret it."

He smiled in his faint, cynical fashion. "I believe you'll turn me out a good man some day," he said. "And I wonder if you will like me any when it's done."

"I only want you to be your better self," she answered gently.

"Which is a myth," he returned, as he handed her in, "which exists only in your most gracious imagination."

And with that he pulled the mask over his face once more and turned to the wheel.

CHAPTER XI

THE RETURN TO EARTH

It was nearly two before they reached Bramhurst and drew up before the one ancient inn the place possessed. Upstairs, in a lattice-windowed room with sloping floor and bulging ceiling, a room that was full of the scent of honeysuckle, Anne washed away the dust of the road. Turning to the mirror on the dressing-table when this was over, she stood a moment wide-eyed, startled. Through her mind there swept again the memory of a day that seemed very far away--a day begun in sunshine and ended in storm, a day when she had looked into the eyes of a white-faced woman in the gla.s.s and had shrunk away in fear. It was a very different vision that now met her gaze, and yet she had a feeling that there was something in it that remained unaltered. Was it in the eyes that shone from a face so radiant that it might have been the face of a girl?

She could not have said. Only after that one brief glimpse she looked no more.

Descending, she found Nap waiting for her in the oak-beamed coffee-room.

He made her sit facing the open window, looking forth upon hill and forest and shallow winding river.

The stout old English waiter who attended to their wants very speedily withdrew.

"He thinks we are on our wedding-trip," said Nap.

She glanced at him sharply.