The Parts Men Play Part 15

He had readied the stream, and was about to retrace his steps, when he heard the rustle of a dress, and coming round a bend in the path he saw Elise Durwent. She was in an evening gown that looked oddly exotic in those surroundings, and, still in a haze of reverie, he stood in perplexed silence until she stopped opposite him.

'Have I interrupted the muse?' she said.

'On the contrary, you have awakened it. I was just thinking how vivid you looked with that setting of overhanging bushes and the background of fields. I--I think it must have been your gown that gave such a quaintly incongruous effect.'

'And, of course, there is nothing incongruous in a dinner-jacket near a trout-stream? If I were an artist I should paint you, and call the picture "Despondency."'

'Well,' he smiled, 'that would be an improvement on most Academy t.i.tles. An ordinary artist would simply name it "Young Gentleman by Trout-Stream." Haven't you often gone through a gallery picturing all sorts of dramatic meanings in paintings, only to have your illusions shattered by the catalogue?'

She nodded. 'You have expressed no surprise at my coming,' she said abruptly. 'Are women in the habit of tracking you in this way?'

'I'm sorry,' he answered, lazily thrusting his hands into his pockets.

'As a matter of fact you are never very far from my thoughts. Perhaps that is why I felt no surprise.'

'How are you enjoying your visit?'

'Tremendously.'

'How do you like the guests?'

'Is this a catechism, Miss Durwent?'

She shrugged her shoulders and pulled a leaf from a bush. 'I was wondering,' she said, 'whether they bored you as much as me.'

'Why,' he said with a slight laugh, 'to be frank, people never bore me.

The moment they become tedious they are of interest to me as a study in tediousness.'

'Just the same,' she said quickly, 'as when a woman interests you she becomes an object of a.n.a.lysis. I wish I could detach myself like that.'

'And yet,' he said gently, wondering at the intensity of her eyes, 'I should have thought you possessed the gift of detachment to a greater degree than I. You always seem separate and distinct from your a.s.sociates.'

She said nothing in reply, and as if by tacit agreement they started back along the path. He did not break the silence, feeling that words might be provocative of a retort that would dispel the growing feeling of mutual confidence.

'No,' she said, after a long pause, 'I do not possess the power of detachment. It's just that I don't mix well. Have you read Robert Service's poem about the men that don't fit in?'

'Yes.'

'Well, it's far worse for the women who don't. A man can go out and try to find some place for himself. We have simply to stay and endure things.'

Half in compa.s.sion he watched her from the corner of his eye, but again refrained from saying anything. He felt intuitively that she was trying to break down the barrier of impersonality, but he knew that she must do it in her own way of timid starts and quick withdrawals.

Although her movements were more restricted by her gown than when she wore ordinary walking-garments, her vitality and limitless energy lent a lilt to her step, and even touched the shoulders with a suggestion of restless virility. When she walked there was an imperious tilt to her head; but no matter how carefully planned her toilette, or how cleverly her coiffure might have been arranged by her maid, there was nearly always some stray bit of colour or carelessly chosen flower that combined with her nature in a suggestion of outlawry: the same instinct of rebellion that had dominated her brother d.i.c.k during their childhood. Inside the house she would sometimes look, in her quickly changing moods, as if she were some creature of Nature imprisoned within the walls.

Selwyn wondered if heredity, in one of its strange jests, had recalled the spirit of the smuggler ancestor and recast it into the soul of the girl.

They were nearing the house, when, emerging upon a clearing, they came to a rustic bench looking across a short field lined with shrubbery.

'Let us sit down a minute,' she said. 'We can hear the dinner-gong from here.'

He took his seat beside her, and dreamily watched the yellow rays of the sun casting their receding tints along the bushes opposite them.

It was strangely quiet, and the hum of insects seemed like a soft orchestral accompaniment to the crickets' song.

'It is not very sporting of me, Mr. Selwyn,' she said softly, but with her old staccato mannerism, 'to force my mood on you like this. I did it once before--that dreadful night at the Cafe Rouge--and I know that you must think it is just selfishness on my part that makes me so unhappy. But--you know I never had a real friend--except little d.i.c.k--and I felt to-night as if I had lost all my courage about life.

That's why I followed you. I knew you would be patient and kind.'

'My dear girl,' said Selwyn gently, speaking almost listlessly for fear the smouldering power of retort should be fanned into being, 'for months I have been hoping that some day we should be able to talk like this, as friends. Perhaps it was my fault, but there always seemed a sort of third-person-singular att.i.tude in our talk, as if we were speaking at each other, which served to block our friendship from becoming anything of value to each other. Naturally I have seen that you are not happy, though there have been moments when you were the very personification of light-hearted ness, and I have known for a long time that the motif of your whole nature is resentment. Believe me, Miss Durwent, if I could be a friend--and I mean that to the last ditch--I should be deeply grateful for the privilege.'

'Thanks,' she said simply, and placing her hand in his, let it remain there.

The hot blood of his impressionable nature mounted to his cheeks, and his heart was aflame with a sudden intoxication of desire. But chivalry told him how much it had cost this girl, whose whole being rebelled at the thought of being physically conquered, to show such a mark of confidence. And reason warned him that any triumph he might obtain would be only for the moment. He watched the flight of a hawk in the sky--and his lips were parched and hot.

'For a long time,' she said, 'I have had a growing sensation of suffocation in life. It's stifling me. When I look ahead and see nothing but this kind of life--visiting, visiting, entertaining, entertaining, listening to that endless talk in London--well, I think I understand why some women go to the devil. At least there's something genuine about sin.'

A rabbit leaped from a bush opposite as though it bad seen something terrifying, and scampered madly across the field to some burrowed refuge by a great oak. Selwyn felt the hand in his tighten convulsively.

'Look!' she cried. 'Austin--look!'

Her face blanched with sudden alarm. He sprang to his feet.

'What is it?' he cried.

'The bush--there--where the rabbit darted out.'

He looked at the spot indicated by her trembling hand, but the dwindling sunlight had just pa.s.sed it, and he could see nothing but a clump of shrubbery.

'It was a man,' she said, her voice shaking querulously. 'I saw his face. He was crouching there and watching us.'

Selwyn frowned. 'Some poacher fellow,' he said, 'that's all. At any rate, I'll make sure.'

He started for the bush, when, with a tearful laugh, she stopped him, her hands clinging to his arm.

'No--no,' she said swiftly, 'it's nothing. It was just my nerves.

There is no one there. The rabbit startled me.'

He hesitated momentarily, then, turning to her, gripped her arms with his hands. A great feeling of pity for the high-strung girl welled up in him, and he wished that it were possible to impart some of his own strength to her. 'Elise,' he began hoa.r.s.ely, his whole being in a cloud of pa.s.sion through which his brain slashed its lightning shafts of warning--'Elise'----

The hall gong, growing in a clamant intensity, rang out on the quiet air. With the lightness of a fawn she released herself from his grip, and gathering her skirts in her hand, moved towards the path. 'Come along,' she cried; 'we shall be late for dinner.'

He followed her slowly, his hands in his pockets and his mind besieged with countless thoughts. As he crossed the lawn he looked up.

From a window in the tower of Roselawn there was shining an angry, blood-red reflection of the sun's dying moments.

VI.

It was a few minutes after midnight when the party at Roselawn retired to their rooms. There had been an impromptu dance, following some spirited bridge, and there was more than the usual chaffing and laughter as the guests dispersed to the various wings of the house.

Tired with the many events of the day, the American quickly undressed, and soothed by the comfort of cool sheets, lay in that relaxation of mind and body which prefaces the panacea of sleep. With half-closed eyes and drowsy semi-consciousness he heard the sounds of life growing less and less in the roomy pa.s.sages of Roselawn, as his mind lingered over the burning memory of Elise's proximity a few hours before. He felt again the perfume of her hair and the radiant freshness of her womanhood, with its inexplicable sense of spring-time. And memory, with its power of exquisite torture, recalled to his mind the questioning eyes and the trembling, beckoning lips.