The Obstacle Race Part 27

"She won't go," flashed back Mrs. Fielding. "She's on my side. Ask her if she isn't! She won't leave me to your tender mercies again. She knows what they are like."

"Hush!" Juliet said. "Don't you know there isn't a man living who can stand this? Be quiet, my dear, for heaven's sake! You're making the most hideous mistake of your life."

She spoke with most unwonted force, and again the squire's steely eyes shot upwards, regarding her piercingly. "You're quite right," he said briefly. "I won't stand it. I've stood too much already. Now, Vera, you behave yourself, and stop that crying--at once!"

There was that in his tone that quelled all rebellion. Vera shrank closer to Juliet, but she began to make some feeble efforts to subdue her wild distress. Fielding sat on the edge of the bed, her hand firmly in his, and waited. His expression was one of absolute and implacable determination. He looked so forbidding and so formidable that Juliet wondered a little at her own temerity in remaining. She decided then and there that a serious disagreement with the squire would be too great a tax upon any woman's strength, and she did not wonder that Vera's had broken down under it.

Suddenly he spoke. "Has she had any breakfast?"

"Not yet," said Juliet.

"Oh, don't!" implored Vera, with a shudder.

He got up and went to the untouched tray. Juliet watched him pour out some tea as she smoothed the tumbled hair back from his wife's forehead.

He came back with the cup in his hand. "Now," he said, "you are going to drink this."

She lifted scared eyes to his stern face. "Edward!" she whispered.

"Don't--oh, don't look at me like that!"

He stooped over her, and put the cup to her lips. She drank, quivering, not daring to refuse. When she had finished he brought her bread and b.u.t.ter and fed her, mouthful by mouthful, while the tears ran silently down her face.

At last he turned again to Juliet. "Miss Moore, my wife will not object to your leaving us now."

It was a distinct command. But she hesitated to obey. Vera looked up at her piteously, saying no word. The squire frowned heavily, his eyes grimly, piercingly, upon Juliet.

She met his look with steady resolution. "Won't you leave her to rest for a little while?" she said. "I think she needs it."

"Very well," he said, and though he did not look like yielding she realized to her surprise that he had done so. He turned to the door. "I should like a word with you in the library," he said, as he reached it.

"Please come to me there immediately!"

He was gone. Vera turned with a sob and clasped Juliet closely to her.

"He is going to send you away. I know he is," she wailed. "What shall I do? What shall I do?"

"Lie down!" said Juliet sensibly, releasing herself to settle the tumbled bedclothes. "Don't cry any more! Just shut your eyes and lie still!"

She laid her down upon the pillow with the words as if she had been a child, smoothed the rumpled hair again, and after a moment bent and kissed the hot forehead.

"Oh, thank you!" murmured Mrs. Fielding. "I'm dreadfully unhappy, Juliet.

I don't know what I shall do without you."

"Go to sleep!" said Juliet, tucking her up. "I'll come back presently.

Lie quite still till I do!"

She guessed that exhaustion would come to her aid in this particular as she drew the curtains close and turned away to face her own ordeal.

"Come back soon!" Vera called after her as she softly shut the door.

"Presently," Juliet said again.

She realized as she descended the stairs that her heart was beating uncomfortably hard, but she did not pause on that account. She wanted to face the squire while her spirit was still high.

She held her head up as she entered the library where he awaited her, but she knew within herself that it was bravado rather than fearlessness that enabled her to face him thus. And when he turned sharply from the window to meet her she was conscious of a moment of most undignified dread.

Whether her face betrayed her or not she never knew but she was aware in an instant of a change in his att.i.tude. He came straight up to her, and suddenly her hand was in his and he was looking into her eyes with the gleam of a smile in his own.

"Come along!" he said. "Let's have it! I'm the biggest brute you ever came across, and you never want to set eyes on me again. Isn't that it?"

It was winningly spoken, restoring her self-confidence in a second. She shook her head in answer.

"No. I'm not in a position to judge, and I don't think I want to be. I have no real liking for meddling in other people's affairs."

"Very wise!" he commented. "But you won't have much choice if you decide to stay with us. Are you going to stay?"

"Are you going to keep me?" said Juliet.

"Certainly," he returned promptly. "I regard you as the most valuable member of the household at the present moment. Miss Moore, will you tell me something?"

"If I can," said Juliet.

"Where did you learn such a lot about men?" he said.

She coloured a little at the question. "Well, I haven't lived with my eyes shut all this time," she said.

"You evidently haven't," he said. "Allow me to compliment you on your tact! Ninety-nine women out of a hundred would have taken the obvious course of siding with their own s.e.x against the oppressor. Why didn't you, I wonder?"

"I'm not sure that I don't," she said, smiling faintly.

He pressed her hand and released it. "No, you don't. You've too much sense. You know as well as I do that she deserved all she got and more.

You haven't always found her exactly easy to get on with yourself, I'll be bound."

"I don't think you are either of you that," Juliet said quietly.

He nodded. "Now it's coming! I thought it would. No, Miss Moore, I am not easy to get on with. I've had a rotten life all through, and it hasn't made me very pliable." He paused, looking at her under his black brows as if debating with himself as to how far he would take her into his confidence. "I've been cheated of the best from the very outset," he said, "cheated and thwarted at every turn. That sort of treatment may suit some people, but it hasn't made an archangel of me." He fell to pacing up and down the room, staring moodily at the floor, his hands behind him. "Life is such an infernal gamble at the best," he said; "but I never had a chance. It's been one d.a.m.n thing after another. I've tripped at every hurdle. I suppose you never came a cropper in your life--don't know what it means."

"I think I do know what it means," Juliet said slowly. "I've looked on, you know. I've seen--a good many things."

"Just as you're looking on now, eh?" said the squire, grimly smiling.

"Well, you profit by my experience--if you can! And if love ever comes your way, hang on to it, hang on to it for all you're worth, even if you drop everything else to do it! It's the gift of the G.o.ds, my dear, and if you throw it away once it'll never come your way again."

"No, I know," said Juliet. She rested her arm on the mantelpiece, gravely watching him. "I've noticed that."

"Noticed it, have you?" He flung her a look as he pa.s.sed. "You've never been in love, that's certain, never seriously I mean,--never up to the neck."

"No, never so deep as that!" said Juliet.

He pa.s.sed on to the end of the room, and came to a sudden stand before the window. "I--have!" he said, and his voice came with an odd jerkiness as if it covered some emotion that he could not wholly control. "I won't bore you with details. But I loved a woman once--I loved her madly. And she loved me. But--Fate--came between. She's dead now. Her troubles are over, and I'm not such a selfish brute as to want her back. Yet I sometimes think to myself--that if I'd married that woman--I'd have made her happy, and I'd have been a better man myself than I am to-day." He swung round restlessly, found her steady eyes upon him, and came back to her. "The fact of the matter is, Miss Moore," he said, "I was a skunk ever to marry at all--after that."