The Stronger Influence Part 6

"I have been here some months," he replied.

"And you seek your friends outside the hotel?" she said.

"I neither seek nor find friends," he answered bluntly. "I have some slight acquaintance with these people which they do not discourage because it is profitable to them. I do not understand disinterested friendship. I do not believe in it."

"Which is to say you have never felt a disinterested friendship for any one," she said. "You don't know what you miss."

"In that case, I miss nothing," he replied. "One has to be conscious of a need in order to appreciate its absence. Life is a huge business of bluff. A few persons only remain sincere because they will not take the trouble to pose. To be sincere is to become unpopular. But unpopularity is less irksome than maintaining a pose of sociability. I believe there are very few people who honestly love their kind."

"That is too cynical a belief to be worth discussing," she said, pausing with the half eaten fruit in her hand to look at him with puzzled eyes.

He seemed amused rather than vexed at her answer, and smoked for a moment reflectively before resuming the talk.

"I doubt whether you are quite sincere in making that a.s.sertion," he contended. "It is an easy way of disposing of a subject which one feels unequal to combat in argument. Friendship is mere sentiment, so is love of one's fellows; let either interfere with self-interest, and what becomes of it? It is only with a few rare souls that altruism becomes a workable theory."

"So long as there are a few souls great enough for disinterested love,"

she said quietly, "there is a little light of hope in the world."

She got up and threw away the remains of the apple as though her pleasure in the fruit were spoiled. She hated this cynical bitter talk; at the moment she almost hated the speaker. Because of his own wasted life, his morbid views and perverted ideals, he was trying to poison her mind with the hopeless doctrine of his deliberate self-deception. There was something mean in her opinion in this wilful attempt to darken the world for others.

"Let us go on," she said. "Active exercise puts you in a better mood.

I do not like your ideas. I'm sorry; but I don't wish to listen to them."

"No one likes my ideas," he answered, rising. "I don't like them myself. Truth is rarely agreeable; that is why so many people affect lies. I think we had better turn and see about breakfast. Your lack of patience suggests to me that you are hungry."

She broke into a laugh. At the sound of her mirth his face cleared immediately; he stood still in the road and looked at her curiously.

"I am glad that the sun still shines," he said, and started again to walk along the uphill path.

It was rather a silent walk back to the little house among the trees.

Esme felt shy at having been so outspoken. He had taken her rebuke in good part; she liked him for that. She liked, too, the quiet way in which he a.s.sumed command of herself and of everything when they reached the house and stepped up to the little stoep. He presented a new and more forceful side to his character.

The woman of the house fetched two chairs at his request, which she placed side by side in a corner of the stoep beyond the reach of the sun's rays that fell slantwise upon the white stone floor under the low roof. Hallam separated the chairs and pushed a little deal table between them and sat down opposite the girl.

"It is pleasanter to eat out of doors," he said. "I didn't consult your wishes, because I knew it was unnecessary to do so. And even if you preferred breakfasting inside it would not be good for you."

"I am satisfied with your choice," she answered, smiling, and took off her hat and dropped it on the floor. "I could eat anywhere; I am so hungry."

"Good!" he exclaimed, looking pleased, and surveying her across the narrow table, which the housewife had spread with a much-darned snow-white cloth.

It gave him an odd satisfaction to see her there, seated opposite to him, hatless and very much at her ease, a pleasing picture of fresh bright girlhood, with the glow of returning health showing in her cheeks.

The woman came out from the house and made further preparations towards their meal. Occasionally she addressed a remark to Hallam; but she was not loquacious. She stared a good deal at his companion: it doubtless caused her surprise to see him with any one. During all the months since he first came to her house he had never brought a friend with him before. She was obviously familiar with Hallam's requirements. Without consulting him she placed a gla.s.s of milk on the table beside him, and inquired whether the lady drank tea or coffee. Esme looked at the gla.s.s of milk and made up her mind quickly.

"Neither. I will have milk also," she said.

The woman departed with the order, and the girl and the man sat gazing out on the sunny road and saying nothing. But the silence which hung between them was the silence of comradeship. There was an absence of all constraint in their manner; they were like old friends between whom speech is unnecessary.

With the arrival of breakfast the girl drew her chair nearer the table, and served the omelette and pa.s.sed his plate across to Hallam; a.s.sisting him un.o.btrusively, because of the shaking of his hands and his pitiful consciousness of it. The sight of those nervous unsteady hands hurt her. She was always painfully aware of them and keenly anxious to conceal the fact. She observed that the man endeavoured to control their trembling, and that his inability to do so distressed him. He bent low over his plate. It was this habit of bending over his meals and of looking down when he walked which caused the stoop of the shoulders, giving him an appearance of ill health.

While she ate and attended to his needs and her own she wondered about him. What could be the secret of his downfall? Life had been generous to him in some respects; possibly in other, more important matters, it had treated him ill. She continued her study of him while she sat at the little table opposite to him and watched the sunlight slowly encroaching on the patch of shade in which they breakfasted. Before they had finished their meal it had reached Hallam, dividing them like a curtain of fire which wrapped him about in its radiant warmth and left her in the shadows.

"Hadn't you better move your seat?" she suggested. "The sun strikes on your head."

He got up, dragged his chair nearer to hers, and sat down again. Their chairs were side by side now. She leaned back in hers and smiled at him.

"This is infinitely pleasanter than breakfasting at a long table among a crowd. They will wonder at the hotel what has become of me."

"They will certainly never suppose that you are in my company," he said.

"Why not?"

A dry smile twisted his lips. He scrutinised her for a brief moment, and then answered abruptly:

"They wouldn't credit the possibility of my inviting you to come."

"You didn't," she answered, and laughed with amus.e.m.e.nt. The laugh was infectious; Hallam joined in it.

"I wish you hadn't such an awkward memory for blunt facts," he said. "I know I was abominably rude. I am always rude. As a rule that doesn't trouble me; but in your case I regret my lack of manners."

"I did not notice it," she replied. "I think perhaps I was preoccupied with the lack of manners betrayed on my part. You must think me rather pushing."

Again he smiled dryly, but in the keen eyes shone a kindly look.

"One day, if it will interest you to hear it," he said, "I will tell you what I think of you. But at the moment I do not feel equal to so much frankness. If you have finished breakfast, let me carry your chair into the shade of the trees. Since there is no one to whom your absence will cause anxiety we will suit our own convenience as to the time of our return."

Book 1--CHAPTER NINE.

The two or three guests at the hotel who witnessed Esme's return in the company of Hallam were filled with amazement at the unusual spectacle of the man who was never known to a.s.sociate with any one, walking beside the girl and carrying her coat across his shoulder, with an air of being on perfectly friendly terms with his companion and with himself. The two were laughing when they neared the gate; but the man's expression settled into its habitual boredom as he followed the girl up the path and mounted the steps on to the stoep.

He removed the coat from his shoulder and handed it to her with a brief smile.

"I have enjoyed my walk," he said. "Thank you."

"Thank _you_ for taking me," she answered, conscious of the curious eyes observing her. "I have enjoyed it also."

Then she went inside. Hallam waited for a minute or two before entering, the hotel, while the people on the stoep watched him, puzzled and immensely interested in these proceedings. He did not appear to notice them; and presently he went in, and the restraint which his presence always imposed on the rest relaxed perceptibly.

They started to discuss him, to deplore his friendship with the girl; they pondered the question whether it was the particular duty of any one to warn her against pursuing the acquaintance: every one thought that she ought to be warned; but no one volunteered to undertake this friendly office; they were all a little in awe of the man of whom they disapproved.

Esme went to her room with the intention of remaining there and writing letters until lunch time. She was tired and wanted to rest. But while she sat at her window with her writing materials on her knee she saw Sinclair approaching from the direction of the garden beyond the kei-apple hedge. She remembered that he was leaving that morning. The early walk, and her pleasure in it, had caused her to forget.

He strolled as far as the vley, and stood by the edge, moodily kicking little stones into the water. He looked up and saw her at the window and looked away again, making pretence that he did not know she was there. She leaned out and spoke to him.

"Isn't it a perfectly wonderful day?" she called softly.

"Is it?" he said, and came towards her slowly, frowning, and with his hands in his pockets. "It's much like any other day, I think."

He leaned with his shoulder against the wall of the house, and regarded her with sulky reproach as she sat on the low sill, facing him, smiling into the hurt boyish eyes. She liked him, and he was going away. She decided to ignore his irritable mood.