The Motor Pirate Part 16

Then she paused, and I discreetly kept silence. Presently she resumed.

"Men are so stupid, or I would tell you all about it. You would never understand."

I saw my opening and made use of it. "We men may be stupid both individually and collectively," I said. "But I can answer for one man being sympathetic to anything you like to say to him."

She laughed. "I am so afraid you will think me silly."

"Miss Maitland--Evie----" I began.

"Hush!" She stopped me with an adorable smile. "You know you haven't caught the Motor Pirate, yet."

I summoned up the most injured expression permitted by my contentment with my surroundings and fell silent again.

"Poor boy!" she said mockingly. "It is unkind of me to remind you of your vow, when you have already done your best to fulfil it."

"Not quite my best, yet," I muttered sullenly.

"Anyhow I think you have done quite enough to warrant my taking you into my confidence."

She said this quite seriously, and glancing up at her, I saw she was looking into a glade of the wood with a preoccupied expression on her pretty face, which showed me that it was in reality no petty trouble which worried her.

"This scene is so delightfully restful. I love the cool green lights and the cool grey shadows of the woodlands in early summer," she remarked absently.

I had no eyes for aught but the face of the speaker, though I was indirectly conscious that there was a good deal of beauty in the wood.

To me it seemed an appropriate background, that was all.

"Yes," I said. "But about this presentiment of yours----"

"It is hardly a presentiment; in fact, I don't know what to call it,"

she replied. Then she turned and faced me. "Now listen. There's an acquaintance of mine, whom I know very well and used to like a great deal. Yes, I think I am right in saying used to like. Well, for some undefined reason, my liking has change to something very like fear."

"For what reason?" I asked.

"None," she replied. "Absolutely there is no reason whatever."

"A case of Dr. Fell," I said. "Well, avoid your Dr. Fell."

"That is exactly what I am unable to do," she answered, and I could see she was speaking truly. "This fear has grown up in some degree, I think, from a subtle sort of consciousness that the person in question has it in his power to exert a curious influence over me. I seem to be drawn against my will into an att.i.tude towards him which is not only against my judgment, but also against my inclination."

"Him?" I asked. "Him? Is it Mannering?"

"Why, what made you think of him? Does he affect you in the same way?"

she said eagerly.

"Far from it," I replied. My first feeling was one of delight at discovering that my rival was more feared than loved. But as I thought over the matter, my astonishment grew. I had looked upon Mannering as a rival, and as a favoured rival, but I was not prepared to hear that Evie Maitland was afraid of him, or of any other man for the matter of that, and I said so.

"A month ago, I should have laughed at the idea myself," she replied, "but to-day----" She shuddered slightly. "Now you know why I feel so gay this morning. The fact is, when on awakening this morning I realized that I should be absolutely free from his presence for two whole days, I hardly knew how to contain myself for joy."

"Surely you must have some grounds for fearing him, something in his manner----"

"No. Yet I have thought--but it is nothing. When we have been alone together he has sat once or twice staring at me. I try to speak to him, but he sits and stares and stares, with his eyes so bright and all the time so sombre--so penetrating that I feel that he sees quite through me. Just like one does in those unpleasant dreams where one's clothes have somehow disappeared. To-day, and now, it seems very silly, yet I am certain I shall feel exactly the same the next time I meet him. Then when he sees how confused I am he gives a sort of a laugh, an unpleasant kind of a chuckle without any merriment in it."

"He's a d----d cad!" I cried hotly.

"I--I don't know," she answered. "I don't seem to mind at the time. It is just as if I were in a dream, for I am so fascinated in watching him that I have no thoughts left for myself. It is when he has gone that the thought seems unpleasant. Then I always think I will never see him again, but the next time he calls I feel bound to do so. There, now I have confided in you, don't tell me I am a weak hysterical girl or I really don't know what will happen to me."

She laid one of her little hands on my arm and looked imploringly into my eyes.

"I know you are neither weak nor hysterical," I replied.

"You will help me, won't you?" she asked.

I took both hands in mine and looked straight into her eyes.

"The only way I see of helping you," I said deliberately, "is for you to give me the right to do so."

She did not take her hands from my grasp.

"Do you know, Jim," she said an hour later, when we came out of the wood into the meadow, "that I told you not to speak to me until you had captured the Motor Pirate."

"You could not answer for me, darling," I replied. "But I should not have done so if I----"

"Had not found the temptation to do so irresistible," she said, taking the words out of my mouth with so bewitching an air, that again I found an irresistible temptation confronting me.

We did not revert again to the curious influence which Evie had declared Mannering exercised. She would not allow of it. She wanted to think that he had gone completely out of her life, and that no more shadows were ever to fall across her path. And I was too happy myself to wish to refer to anything which should bring an unpleasant memory to her mind.

I shall never forget our walk home. The silver thread of the Ver, the old monastery gate-house and the ruins of Sopwell Priory in the foreground, the churches of St. Stephens and St Michaels on either hand, and in the centre of the picture the Abbey of St. Albans brooding over all. We decided to be married in the abbey. I trod on air.

CHAPTER XIV

A CLOUD APPEARS ON LOVE'S HORIZON

MANNERING remained absent for a week, and during that time I learned from Evie a good deal about the curious dread which he had inspired in her mind. Had inspired, I say, for she a.s.sured me it had pa.s.sed away, and that she felt quite safe now she was promised to be my wife. Our betrothal had been announced the day after the never-to-be-forgotten walk to Bricket wood, and I had hastened to make it known as widely as I could, for I could think of no likelier method of ensuring her against any further annoyance on the part of Mannering. When he saw that he had lost, I could not think that he would do otherwise than retire gracefully from the scene. If, however, he failed to take his failure kindly, I should not have the slightest hesitation about sending him about his business. I should have been tempted to do so without further delay, if there had in reality been anything in Mannering's conduct to which open exception could have been taken. Evie recognized there was nothing of the sort as strongly as myself, and she was even averse to do as I suggested, and ask her father to hint to him that he should, for a while at least, cease his visits to the house.

"You see," she remarked, "if he had made himself offensive in any other way, I should have welcomed the opportunity of speaking to papa about it. But he has not. His att.i.tude has been outwardly perfectly courteous, and papa would only laugh at me if I were to tell him what I have told you. He would not believe me if I told him I was afraid of Mr.

Mannering."

"Besides, you are now no longer afraid?" I said.

"No; I am no longer afraid of him. I am quite sure of that," she repeated.

The manner in which she made the a.s.sertion ought to have warned me that she was not quite so certain on the point as she was willing to believe, but no such thought crossed my mind at the time.