The Limit Part 29

"Here I am, dear," and she vanished into the garden.

The second she had gone Harry opened the letter very carefully, and read--

"Dearest Harry,

"You are a rotter never to write. I'm having _such_ a time. Weather priceless, but very sick at not hearing from you. Algie Thynne is here. Do you know him? He's rather a nut. Wish you were here. No more to-day. Bye-bye, old son.

"Your loving "ALEC."

"P.S.--Do write. The moonlight nights are simply topping. Just like a picture. I think you'd like it; otherwise everything is beastly.

"I love you more than ever.

"A."

He put the letter back in the untorn envelope and carefully fastened it up again. He then placed it on the mantelpiece, and having finished his breakfast, lit a cigarette.

He looked thoughtful.

"Algie Thynne, indeed!" he said to himself. "How pathetic, trying to make me jealous! Well, it's a pretty letter, and what's more, it must be answered."

Val came back.

"Romer wants the lawn mown," she said. "He's perfectly mad on the subject of mowing the lawn. He seems to think it ought to be shaved every day. It's the only thing he knows about the country. Well, have you read your letter?"

"There it is," said Harry. "You can read it if you like." He watched her carefully as she took it from the mantelpiece.

"I don't want to read it," she said, holding it.

"Nor do I," said Harry.

"Harry, tell me honestly, wouldn't you really mind if I tore it into little bits and put it in the waste-paper basket--just as it is?"

"Not a straw," said Harry, shaking his head.

She clapped her hands, tore it into tiny pieces, and threw it in the basket. Then she said, in a low voice of deep grat.i.tude--

"Oh, Harry, you are sweet! Do forgive me."

"I don't see that there's anything to forgive," said Harry.

"Yes, there is; lots. I'm afraid I've been horrid. I'll never bother you about any thing again."

She was simply beaming.

"Good," answered Harry indifferently.

But as he followed her into the garden he looked rather perplexed. He felt that this sort of thing was not leading up very well to what he would have to tell her soon. However, why spoil a lovely day by thinking of it?

Like a schoolboy with his holiday task before him, he put it off as long as possible.

Though he didn't own it to himself, and was disdainfully amused at Alec's letter, still the thought of Algie Thynne, moonlight nights on the yacht, topping weather, and his own neglect, gave him some cause for alarm. Algie Thynne was _crible_ with debts, and probably keen on marrying for money. Contemptible young a.s.s! Why didn't he _work_? Harry despised him.

At the earliest opportunity (which, by the way, did not arise until he had made an excuse to go into the village, where he wrote at the post office) the answer was sent.

Even Harry found the beginning of the letter too difficult, so he always began (as Valentia might have said) without a beginning, which impressed Miss Walmer much more. Ever since he had reached the age of discretion, which, in his case, was at his majority, Harry had been thoroughly trained in the habit of writing letters that gratified the recipient enormously without compromising the writer in the slightest degree. The habitual dread of those _betes noires_ of Don Juan--the breach of promise case and the Divorce Court--had got him into the way of writing the sort of letter that he would have had no objection to hear read aloud in court. Perhaps that was why the sentences were always polished, and the meaning a little vague.

"... I don't speak your language, perhaps, but I understand your letter, reading between the lines. It came like a whiff of fresh sea air. Yes, it would be delightful to be on board _Flying Fish_ now. However, no doubt Algie Thynne--(_how_ eloquently, by the way, you describe him! putting all the complications of his character and the dazzling charm of his personality in a nutsh.e.l.l by the simple sentence '_He's rather a nut!_')--amply compensates for my absence. You ask if I know him. I do, though perhaps more by reputation than anything else. We have met once or twice. Where? I can't quite recall. Perhaps at the Oratory, or at the Supper Club or some place of that sort. But somehow I never pursued his acquaintance, nor did it ever ripen into friendship. I felt, instinctively, that he was too clever for me.

"I trust all the same that his brilliance will not altogether overshadow your memory of _others_. I should not like to think that we were drifting apart. Still, if it should be so, I must resign myself. I could still be happy in thinking of you, Alec.

_'Love that is love at all Asks for no earthly coronal'_--

but, I remember, you once expressed to me your opinion that _all poetry is rot_. So I will not bore you with quotations. It is pleasant here, and my cousins are very kind, and leave me alone to think as much as I like. I'm not, somehow, quite in the mood for the usual gaieties and frivolities of a country house. Last night we played Musical Chairs until two in the morning, and to-day I am a little weary. Your postscript gave me joy. I need not say that I reciprocate it, need I?...

"I feel all that you are feeling, and somehow even know what you are doing, and if you did not write again until we meet, I should not be anxious. I have a trusting nature. But when you wire, remember that the telegraph boy has a good way to walk, and when telegrams arrive after midnight, it causes a sensation and much inquiry. Also I cannot help feeling that every one in the village, as well as at the Green Gate, has read the words I would like to keep to myself alone. I have a curious love of mystery--isn't mystery the great charm of all romance?--So to gratify this fancy of mine, sign your next telegram 'Johnson.' I know you won't mind.

"When we meet again, all, I trust, will be clear and definite before us. Best love to dear Lady Walmer, and to yourself what I am sure you will know. Don't be angry with me for not writing oftener.

I find it very difficult to express my thoughts, for alas, I have no command of language. Not only that, the pens here have one great fault--they won't write. Otherwise they're quite excellent.... Yes, your note has given me, as the French say, 'furiously to think.'

"Hoping that all will go well with you, and looking forward, think me as always,

"Yours, faithfully, "HARRY BROKE DE FREYNE."

"There! that ought to keep her quiet for a month," he thought as he posted the letter, and with a sigh of relief turned back towards the Green Gate.

CHAPTER XXV

A SUNDAY AFTERNOON

By this time Van Buren was entirely in Harry's confidence; that is to say, Harry had gradually trained him to bear without flinching the situation as Harry represented it. He believed Harry had a hopeless romantic affection for Mrs. Romer Wyburn which he was trying to stifle, and that Miss Walmer being hopelessly in love with _him_, he was doing his best to marry her, partly, as he candidly admitted, on worldly grounds.

Van Buren was deeply touched at Harry's trust in him, and was always trying to keep him up to his good resolutions by pointing out that any understanding (however Platonic) between the pretty Valentia and the handsome guest was dishonourable, a breach of hospitality towards Romer, that silent but admirable host.

Indeed, he repeated to Harry so often and so firmly, "It can't be done; one can't make love to the wife of a friend," that Harry was driven to the point of replying that he hardly saw whom else, as a matter of fact, one _could_ very well make love to; it being impossible to have romances with people one didn't know. And in this case the fact that Harry was very fond of Romer made the temptation far greater, as he explained; Harry being (as he pointed out) so very sensitive and highly strung that he could never, somehow, be really attracted by a woman whose husband was not sympathetic to him. Which point of view Van Buren, shaking his head, regarded as unsound.

Harry now spent much time giving picturesque sketches and impressions of his feelings to his friend, for he had an almost feminine love of talking over personal affairs to the sympathetic. In his benevolence Van Buren longed to protect Valentia and Romer, and to give Miss Walmer all she wanted; but most of all his idea was to save Harry from himself, so he always accepted with alacrity invitations to the Green Gate for altruistic reasons. Besides, his desire to see Daphne, although she was now becoming more and more remote to him, was still persistent, if a little less vivid.

"I've had a beautiful womanly letter from Alec to-day," Harry confided in Van as soon as he arrived. "You know the sort of thing she writes: all in jerks and subaltern's slang. With sincere sentiment showing between the lines. And I answered it."

"A beautiful manly letter, I hope? I'm sure you could do that as well as any one, Harry."

Harry smiled.

"Oh, just some vague, cautious slosh, not unamusing in its way--it'll _get_ there all right."