The Shield of Silence Part 43

"How--did you find your way here? How did you know?"

"Forgive me; I had to come. I telephoned to the Brier Bush--they gave me your number."

Raymond closed the door behind him and came to the centre of the big room, and there he stood smiling at Joan.

"So your name is Sylvia?" he said.

Then Joan understood--Elspeth had respected her wish to be unknown outside her business, she had given Sylvia's name, had made Sylvia responsible.

"I tried to get you earlier by telephone."

"I was not home." Joan was thinking hard and fast. Something was very wrong, but she could not make out what it was.

"Forgive me for breaking rules: I wanted to see you so that rules did not seem to count. Go on with your dance. You look like the spirit of twilight. Dance. Dance."

Joan grew more and more perplexed. The anger she felt was less than the sense of unreality about it all. Raymond was a stranger; he repelled her; in a way, shocked her.

"I'm through dancing," she said. "Since you are here, sit down. I will turn on the lights."

"Please don't. And you are angry. I'm awfully sorry, but it was this way: I was having dinner with some friends and suddenly I seemed to hear you calling to me. It gave me quite a shock. I thought you might be in danger, might be needing me."

Joan kept her eyes on Raymond's face. She was trying to overcome the growing aversion which alarmed her.

"No, I was not calling to you," she said. "I was bidding you good-bye--really, though I did not know it myself."

"Oh! come now!" Raymond bent forward over his clasped hands; "you are peeved! Not a bit like the little sport with that line in her hand."

"I--I wish you wouldn't talk like that." Joan frowned. "And I know it will sound rude--but I--wish you would go."

"You are--surly!" Raymond laughed again, and just then a deep, rumbling note of thunder followed a vivid flash.

"Come," he went on; "dance for me. There's going to be a devil of a storm--keep time to it. I'm here--I ask pardon for being here--but you can't turn me out in the storm. Come, let us have another big memory for our adventure."

Still Joan sat contemplating the man near her, her hands lightly clasped on her lap, her slim feet crossed and at ease--little stocking-shod feet to which Raymond's eyes turned. She had never looked, to Raymond, so provoking and tempting.

"What's up, really?" he asked, "you're not going to spoil everything by a silly tantrum, are you?"

Joan hadn't the slightest appearance of temper--she was quite at ease, apparently, though her heart almost choked her by its beating.

"You have spoiled everything," she said, "not I. You somehow have made our play end abruptly by coming here. I don't think I ever can play again. It's like knowing there isn't--any--any Santa Claus; I can't explain. But something has happened. Something so awful that I cannot put it into words."

Raymond got up and stood before Joan. He looked down and smiled, and at that moment she knew that he was not his old self and she knew what had changed him! And yet with the understanding a deeper emotion swept over her, one of familiarity. It was like finding someone she had known long ago in Raymond's place; as if she had lived through this scene before.

She summoned a latent power to deal with the new conditions.

"You pretty little thing!" Raymond whispered, and touched Joan's shoulder. She got up quickly and moved across the room.

"I always want light when there is a storm," she said, and touched the switch.

Raymond, in the glare, looked flushed and impatient. A crash of thunder shook the old house.

"Will you dance for me?" he said.

Joan stiffened--she was dealing with the strange personality, not the man who was part of the happy past.

"No," she said, evenly. "And you have no right to be here. I wish you would go at once."

"Out in this storm, you little pagan?"

"You could go downstairs and wait in the hall."

"You are afraid of me?"

"Not in the least."

"Afraid of yourself, then?"

"Certainly not. Why should I be afraid of myself?"

"Afraid _for_ yourself, then?"

Raymond was enjoying himself hugely.

"No, but I'm a bit afraid--for you!" Joan was watching the stranger across the room, and she shivered as peal after peal of thunder tore the brief lulls in the storm.

"Oh! that's all right--about me!" Raymond said, mistaking the trembling that he saw; "you know, while I was at dinner to-day I got to thinking what fools we were--not to--to take what fun there is in life--and not count the costs like mean-spirited misers. You've got more dash and courage than I have--you must have thought me, many a time, a---- What did you think me, little girl?"

With the overpowering new knowledge that was possessing her Joan spoke hesitatingly. It seemed pitifully futile and untruthful; but her own thought was to get this stranger from her presence.

"I thought you--well, I thought about you just as I thought about myself. Someone who was strong enough and splendid enough to make something we both wanted come true! It was believing that we two grown-up, lonely people could--play--without hurting--anything--or each other. I see, now, just as I used to see when I was a little girl--that one can never, never do that."

Tears dimmed Joan's eyes and she tried to smile.

The whole weird and unbelievable experience was making her distrust herself, and the storm was more and more unnerving her. She feared she could not hold out much longer.

"You're a--d.a.m.ned good little actress!" Raymond gave a hard, loud laugh so unlike his own wholesome laugh that Joan started back.

"I want you to go away at once!" her eyes flashed. "I think you must be mad."

"But--the storm." Raymond walked across the room.

"I do not care--about the storm. I want you to go!" and now Joan retreated and unconsciously took her stand behind a chair.

A sudden, blinding flash, a deafening crash and--the lights went out!

In the terrifying blackness Joan felt Raymond's arms about her.

So frightened was she now that for an instant the human touch was a blessing. She relaxed, panting and trembling. In that moment she felt kisses upon her lips, her eyes, her throat!