The Lighted Way Part 36

At heart I do believe in you, Fenella. What is it you want?"

She leaned back on the couch and laughed. It was no longer the subtle, provoking laugh of the woman of the world. She laughed frankly and easily, with all the lack of restraint to which her twenty-four years ent.i.tled her.

"My dear boy," she declared, "you have conquered. I give in. You have seen through me. I am a fraud. I have been trying the old tricks upon you because I am very much a woman, because I want you to be my slave and to do the things I want you to do and live in the world I want you to live in, and I was jealous of this companion for whose sake you would not accept my invitation. Now I am sane again.

I see that you are not to be treated like other and more foolish young men. My brother wants you. He wants you for a companion, he wants you to help him in many ways. He has been used to rely upon me in such cases. I have my orders to place you there." She pointed to her feet. "Alas, that I have failed!" she added, laughing once more. "But, Arnold, we shall be friends?"

"Willingly," he answered, with an immense sense of relief. "Only remember this. I may have wisdom enough to see the lure, but I may not always have strength enough not to take it. I have spoken to you in a moment of sanity, but--well, you are the most compellingly beautiful person I ever saw, and compellingly beautiful women have never made a habit of being kind to me, so please--"

"Don't do it any more," she interrupted. "Is that it?"

"As you like."

"Now I am going to put a piece of scarlet geranium in your b.u.t.tonhole, and I am going to take you out into the garden and hand you over to my brother, and tell him that my task is done, that you are my slave, and that he has only to speak and you will go out into the world with a revolver in one hand and a sword in the other, and wear any uniform or fight in any cause he chooses. Come!"

"You know," Arnold said, as they left the room, "I don't know any man I admire so much as your brother, but I am almost as frightened of him as I am of you."

"One who talks of fear so glibly," she answered, "seldom knows anything about it."

"There are as many different sorts of fear as there are different sorts of courage," he remarked.

"How we are improving!" she murmured. "We shall begin moralizing soon. Presently I really think we shall compare notes about the books we have read and the theatres we have been to, and before we are gray-headed I think one of us will allude to the weather. Now isn't my brother a wonderful man? Look at that flush upon Miss Lalonde's cheeks. Aren't you jealous?"

"Miserably!"

Sabatini rose to his feet and greeted his sister after his own fashion, holding both her hands and kissing her on both cheeks.

"If only," he sighed, "our family had possessed morals equal to their looks, what a race we should have been! But, my dear sister,--a question of taste only,--you should leave Doucet and Paquin at home when you come to my bungalow."

"You men never altogether understand," she replied. "Nothing requires a little artificial aid so much as nature. It is the piquancy of the contrast, you see. That is why the decorations of Watteau are the most wonderful in the world. He knew how to combine the purely, exquisitely artificial with the entirely simple. Now to break the news to Miss Lalonde!"

Ruth turned a smiling face towards her.

"It is to say that our fete day is at an end," she said, looking for her stick.

"Fete days do not end at six o'clock in the afternoon," Fenella replied. "I want you to be very kind and give us all a great deal of pleasure. We want to make a little party--you and Mr. Chetwode, my brother, myself and Mr. Weatherley--and dine under that cedar tree, just as we are. We are going to call it supper. Then, afterwards, you will have a ride back to London in the cool air. Either my brother will take you, or we will send a car from here."

"It is a charming idea," Sabatini said. "Miss Lalonde, you will not be unkind?"

She hesitated only for a moment. They saw her glance at her frock, the little feminine struggle, and the woman's conquest.

"If you really mean it," she said, "why, of course, I should love it. It is no good my pretending that if I had known I should have been better prepared," she continued, "because it really wouldn't have made any difference. If you don't mind--"

"Then it is settled!" Sabatini exclaimed. "My young friend Arnold is now going to take me out upon the river. I trust myself without a tremor to those shoulders."

Arnold rose to his feet with alacrity.

"You get into the boat-house down that path," Sabatini continued.

"There is a comfortable punt in which I think I could rest delightfully, or, if you prefer to scull, I should be less comfortable, but resigned."

"It shall be the punt," Arnold decided, with a glance at the river.

"Won't any one else come with us?"

Fenella shook her head.

"I am going to talk to Miss Lalonde," she said. "After we have had an opportunity of witnessing your skill, Mr. Chetwode, we may trust ourselves another time. Au revoir!"

They watched the punt glide down the stream, a moment or two later, Sabatini stretched between the red cushions with a cigarette in his mouth, Arnold handling his pole like a skilled waterman.

"You like my brother?" Fenella asked.

The girl looked at her gratefully.

"I think that he is the most charming person I ever knew in my life," she declared.

CHAPTER XXII

THE REFUGEE'S RETURN

Sabatini's att.i.tude of indolence lasted only until they had turned from the waterway into the main river. Then he sat up and pointed a little way down the stream.

"Can you cross over somewhere there?" he asked.

Arnold nodded and punted across towards the opposite bank.

"Get in among the rushes," Sabatini directed. "Now listen to me."

Arnold came and sat down.

"You don't mean to tire me," he remarked.

Sabatini smiled.

"Do you seriously think that I asked you to bring me on the river for the pleasure of watching your prowess with that pole, my friend?" he asked. "Not at all. I am going to ask you to do me a service."

Arnold was suddenly conscious that Sabatini, for the first time since he had known him, was in earnest. The lines of his marble-white face seemed to have grown tenser and firmer, his manner was the manner of a man who meets a crisis.

"Turn your head and look inland," he said. "You follow the lane there?"

Arnold nodded.

"Quite well," he admitted.

"At the corner," Sabatini continued, "just out of sight behind that tall hedge, is my motor car. I want you to land and make your way there. My chauffeur has his instructions. He will take you to a village some eight miles up the river, a village called Heslop Wood.

There is a boat-builder's yard at the end of the main street. You will hire a boat and row up the river. About three hundred yards up, on the left hand side, is an old, dismantled-looking house-boat. I want you to board it and search it thoroughly."