The Stronger Influence Part 4

He was thinking of Hallam, considering him a fair example of failure; she also was thinking of Hallam, but with greater kindness. Derelict though the man appeared, the belief held with her that one day he would pull himself together and make good. She got up suddenly.

"We are growing too serious," she said; "and it's nearly lunch time.

What a blessed break in the day one's meals make."

Hallam was in his accustomed seat when she returned, but he did not look up when she pa.s.sed him on her way inside. He was reading a newspaper.

His hands, holding the printed sheet, shook more than usual, she fancied; otherwise he looked much the same. She believed that he was aware of her presence, though he made no sign that he saw her. She pa.s.sed him and entered the narrow pa.s.sage and went direct to her room.

An unaccountable shyness had come over her. She shrank from going into lunch, shrank from the thought of sitting beside him in the embarra.s.sing silence which his taciturnity imposed. The thing was getting on her nerves. In the case of any other man, she believed that she would not have minded this blunt ungraciousness; but this man had the power to hurt her. The thing was incomprehensible and astonished her greatly.

Why should his behaviour wound her when in another man it would merely have given offence?

The gong for luncheon sounded; but still she lingered in her room, reluctant to leave this quiet haven for the dining-room and the disquieting influence of her unresponsive neighbour. But the ordeal had to be faced. It was ridiculous to allow her nervousness to get the upper hand. With an action that was almost violent in the suddenness of her resolve, she opened the door, and stepping into the pa.s.sage went swiftly along to the dining-room. At the door of the dining-room she and Hallam met face to face. He was going in, but he drew back to allow her to precede him. Thanking him briefly, she pa.s.sed him and went on and took her seat. He followed leisurely. When he was seated and waiting to be served, he turned to her with unexpected suddenness and observed:

"You missed a great deal this morning through oversleeping. I have never seen a finer sunrise in my life than the one I witnessed on my walk."

"You were up at sunrise?"

Her surprised tone, the almost incredulous look in her eyes, drew a wondering glance from him. She saw it and felt furious with herself for her stupidity. She had imagined him sleeping late that morning, had supposed his non-appearance at breakfast was the result of his overnight excess; and she had been tactless enough to betray surprise on learning that he had been abroad so early. She flushed with confusion and averted her eyes.

"I am always up before the sun," he said. "I do most of my walking before breakfast. It's the best time of the day."

"Yes," she agreed; "I suppose it is. I slept late."

An inexplicable vindictiveness came over her. She turned to him again and added almost brusquely:

"I was extraordinarily wakeful last night. I did not get to sleep before the dawn broke."

"You should cultivate the habit of sleeping in a hurry," he advised. "I get all the rest I need in a few hours."

He began to eat. She watched him for a moment in silence and with a swift compunction for her recent ill-humour.

"I am sorry I missed the sunrise," she said, relenting, and wishful to make amends. "Tell me about it."

He smiled faintly.

"Can any one describe a sunrise?" he asked. "Are there any words in our language which will paint nature in her most wonderful aspects? If there are I am ignorant of them. You must go out and see these things for yourself."

This was not encouraging, but she persevered. A sort of inflexible determination to abolish finally the frigid distances he insistently maintained armed her with a temporary bravado which amazed herself. It probably amazed him equally, but he made no sign if so.

"I do not like seeing things by myself. Won't you let me accompany you some morning?"

"Most a.s.suredly," he answered, after a barely perceptible hesitation.

"But quite possibly you will miss your breakfast. I tramp far."

"I shall not complain," she said. "If you are equal to fasting I have no doubt I can stand it."

Hallam looked quietly amused. He surveyed her quite steadily for the fraction of a second, and then very deliberately turned his attention again to his plate.

"Do you really think," he asked presently, "that your endurance is equal to mine? You don't look to me very strong."

She was thinking the same about him, but she did not voice her thought.

Possibly he read what she was thinking in her face when he glanced again momentarily towards her; whether this were so or not, he added after a pause:

"My const.i.tution is made of cast iron. If it were not it would have broken down long ago. Notwithstanding that my hand has difficulty in raising this gla.s.s without spilling its contents, I could lift you with it as easily as I could lift a feather."

She looked at the hand stretched out towards the gla.s.s of milk and soda beside his plate, and noticed how it shook, and wondered that he should draw her attention to it. He had done so intentionally, mastering his usual self-consciousness in regard to this physical defect, for what reason she failed to understand. Oddly, she felt no embarra.s.sment while she looked at his hand, and he betrayed none either. He lifted the gla.s.s unsteadily and drank from it and set it down again on the cloth.

"I have travelled for a week on a pocketful of dried mealies, and been none the worse for it," he said. "But I shouldn't recommend that diet for you."

"I think," she said unexpectedly and without annoyance, "that you don't wish to be bothered with my company."

"From the fear that I may have to carry you?" he suggested. "You are mistaken. If you like to be energetic to-morrow I will show you where best to view the sunrise. And I promise you that if we miss our breakfast here I will take you to a house where I can obtain a meal at any hour of the day."

"You breakfasted there this morning?" she said, turning a face flushed with pleasure to his.

"I breakfasted there this morning. They are accustomed to my irregular habits, and they don't mind."

"That will be nice," she said.

He laughed.

"I hope you won't be disappointed."

"Disappointed in what?--the sunrise, or the breakfast?"

"I pay you the compliment of supposing that such material pleasures as food do not interest you," he returned; "nevertheless, you will find the fare sufficient. The air in the early morning is chilly, so dress warmly."

With which advice he closed the conversation as resolutely as a man who, talking over a telephone, shuts off communication by replacing the receiver. He bent over his plate and went on eating as though he had forgotten entirely the girl's existence. He finished his breakfast before she did and got up and went out by the window.

Book 1--CHAPTER SEVEN.

During the twenty-two unenlivening and, latterly, busy years of her life Esme Lester had never been in love, had not known the excitement which many girls of her age enjoy of possessing a lover. She was not a sentimental young woman, and she had not had much time in which to indulge in these distractions. The woman who earns her livelihood has her mind occupied with graver matters generally. Love, if it succeed in penetrating her preoccupation, takes her usually unaware and remains sometimes unsuspected for quite an appreciable while.

It was possibly not love which in the early stages of their acquaintance aroused her interest in Hallam. Mainly her feeling for him was a mixture of womanly compa.s.sion and of repugnance so intense that at times it shouldered pity into the background, and left her chilled with disgust for his weakness and bitterly ashamed for him.

Her acquaintance with Hallam developed surprisingly. The occasion of their walk to view the sunrise advanced it to a stage of easy intimacy.

The tentacles of friendship reached out and struck deep into the natures of both. The man accepted rather than welcomed the change in their relations. He deplored, despite its agreeableness, the growing intimacy as something dangerous to his peace, something which might not be pursued and developed beyond a certain point, which, because of its limitation, was disturbing and undesirable. No man cares to set a boundary line to his intercourse with a woman who attracts him; immediately with the appearance of the barrier the desire to surmount it is bred.

The state of Hallam's mind was that of paralysed initiative. He was incapable of making any sustained effort. He drifted into this friendship as he drifted into less desirable practices. Hereditary tendencies and inclination both led him to follow his present mode of life; nor had it seemed to him in any degree shameful until this girl stepped suddenly across his path and altered his view of things. But her influence was not yet sufficiently strong to cause him more than a pa.s.sing regret for the waste he was making of life. His life was his own affair; it was no one's business how he elected to use it.

On the morning of their first walk together he came out on to the stoep, stick in hand, ready to start, and found Esme waiting for him. He returned her greeting unsmilingly, and scrutinised her attentively with brows drawn together above the keen eyes.

"You had better fetch a coat," he said. "The morning air is chilly."

"It is fresh," she agreed; "but I thought perhaps walking--it may be very hot before we return."

"It probably will be," he replied. "But I would prefer that you wore a coat. When it gets hot I will carry it for you."

Smiling, she went inside to follow his instruction. When she came out again she wore a woollen sport's coat over her thin dress.

"That's better," he said. "It is unpleasant to feel cold."