The Top of the World Part 41

Sylvia glanced swiftly round. "Did he? How uncomfortable for him!

He mustn't do that again,"

"He didn't notice," Guy a.s.sured her. "He was much too pleased with himself. I rather like him for that, you know. He has a wonderful faculty for--what shall we call it?--mental detachment? Or, is it physical? Anyway, he knows how to enjoy his emotions, whatever they are, and he doesn't let any little personal discomfort stand in his way."

He ended with a careless laugh from which all bitterness was absent, and after a little pause Sylvia sat down by his side. His whole att.i.tude amazed her this morning. Some magic had been at work. The fretful misery of the past few weeks had pa.s.sed like a cloud. This was her own Guy come back to her, clean, sane, with the boyish humour that she had always loved in him, and the old quick light of understanding and sympathy in his eyes.

He watched her with a smile. "Aren't you going to light up, too?

Come, you'd better. It'll tone you up,"

She looked back at him. "Had you better smoke?" she said. "Won't it start your cough?"

He lifted an imperious hand. "It won't kill me if it does. Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Like what?" she said.

"As if I'd come back from the dead." He frowned at her abruptly though his eyes still smiled. "Don't!" he said.

She smiled in answer, and picked up the matchbox. It was of silver and bore his initials.

"Yes," Guy said, "I've taken great care of it, haven't I? It's been my mascot all these years."

She took out a match and struck it without speaking. There was something poignant in her silence. She was standing again in the wintry dark of her father's park, pressed close to Guy's heart, and begging him brokenly to use that little parting gift of hers with thoughts of her when more than half the world lay between them.

Guy's cigarette was in his mouth. She stooped forward to light it.

Her hand was trembling. In a moment he reached up, patted it lightly, and took the match from her fingers. The action said more than words. It was as if he had gently turned a page in the book of life, and bade her not to look back.

"Now don't you bother about me!" he said. "I'm being good--as you see. So go and cook the dinner or do anything else that appeals to your housekeeper's soul! That is, if you feel it's immoral to smoke a cigarette at this early hour. Needless to say, I shall be charmed if you will join me."

But he did not mean to talk upon intimate subjects, and his tone conveyed as much. She lingered for a while, and they spoke of the farm, the cattle, Burke's prospects, everything under the sun save personal matters. Yet there was no barrier in their reserve. They avoided these by tacit consent.

In the end she left him, feeling strangely comforted. Burke had been right. The devil had gone out of Guy, and he had come back.

She pondered the matter as she went about her various tasks, but she found no solution thereof. Something must have happened to cause the change in him; she could not believe that Kieff's departure had effected it. Her thoughts went involuntarily to Burke--Burke whose wrath had been so terrible the previous night.

Was it due to him? Had he accomplished what neither Kieff's skill nor her devotion had been able to achieve? Yet he had spoken of Guy as one of his failures. He had impressed upon her the fact that Guy's, case was hopeless. She had even been convinced of it herself until to-day. But to-day all things were changed. Guy had come back.

The thought of her next meeting with Burke tormented her continually, checking all gladness. She dreaded it unspeakably, listening for him with nerves on edge during the busy hours that followed.

She made the Kaffir boy bring the camp-bed out of the guest-hut which Burke had occupied of late and set it up in a corner of Guy's room. Kieff had slept on a long-chair in the sitting-room, taking his rest at odd times and never for any prolonged spell. She had even wondered sometimes if he ever really slept at all, so alert had he been at the slightest sound. But she knew that Burke hated the long-chair because it creaked at every movement, and she was determined that he should not spend another night on the floor.

So, while with trepidation she awaited him, she made such preparations as she could for his comfort.

Joe, the house-boy, was very clumsy in all his ways, and Guy, looking on, seemed to derive considerable amus.e.m.e.nt from his performance. "I always did like Joe," he remarked. "There's something about his mechanism that is irresistibly comic. Oh, do leave him alone, Sylvia! Let him arrange the thing upside down if he wants to!"

Joe's futility certainly had something of the comic order about it.

He had a dramatic fashion of rolling his eyes when expectant of rebuke, which was by no means seldom. And the vastness of his smile was almost bewildering. Sylvia had never been able quite to accustom herself to his smile.

"He's exactly like a golliwog, isn't he?" said Guy. "His head will split in two if you encourage him."

But Sylvia, hot and anxious, found it impossible to view Joe's exhibition with enjoyment. He was more stupid in the execution of her behests than she had ever found him before, and at length, losing patience, she dismissed him and proceeded to erect the bed herself.

She was in the midst of this when there came the sound of a step in the room, and Guy's quick,

"Hullo!" told her of the entrance of a third person. She stood up sharply, and met Burke face to face.

She was panting a little from her exertions, and her hand went to her side. For the moment a horrible feeling of discomfiture overwhelmed her. His look was so direct; it seemed to go straight through her.

"What is this for?" he said.

She mastered her embarra.s.sment with a swift effort. "Guy said you slept on the floor last night. I am sure it wasn't very comfortable, so I have brought this in instead. You don't mind?"

with a glance at him that held something of appeal.

"I mind you putting it up yourself," he said briefly. "Sit down!

Where's that lazy hound, Joe?"

"Oh, don't call Joe!" Guy begged. "He has already reduced her to exasperation. She won't listen to me either when I tell her that I can look after myself at night. You tell her, Burke! She'll listen to you perhaps."

But Burke ended the matter without further discussion by putting her on one side and finishing the job himself. Then he stood up.

"Let Mary Ann do the rest! You have been working too hard. Come, and have some lunch! You'll be all right, Guy?"

"Oh, quite," Guy a.s.sured him. "Mary Ann can take care of me.

She'll enjoy it."

Sylvia looked back at him over her shoulder as she went out, but she did not linger. There was something imperious about Burke just then.

They entered the sitting-room together. "Look here!" he said.

"You're not to tire yourself out. Guy is convalescent now. Let him look after himself for a bit!"

"I haven't been doing anything for Guy," she objected. "Only I can't have you sleeping on the floor."

"What's it matter," he said gruffly, "where or how I sleep?" And then suddenly he took her by the shoulders and held her before him.

"Just look at me a moment!" he said.

It was a definite command. She lifted her eyes, but the instant they met his that overwhelming confusion came upon her again. His gaze was so intent, so searching. All her defences seemed to go down before it.

Her lip suddenly quivered, and she turned her face aside.

"Be--kind to me, Burke!" she said, under her breath.

He let her go; but he stood motionless for some seconds after as if debating some point with himself. She went to the window and nervously straightened the curtain. After a considerable pause his voice came to her there.

"I want you to rest this afternoon, and ride over with me to the Merstons after tea. Will you do that?"

She turned sharply. "And leave Guy? Oh, no!"

Across the room she met his look, and she saw that he meant to have his way. "I wish it," he said.

She came slowly back to him. "Burke,--please! I can't do that.

It wouldn't be right. We can't leave Guy to the Kaffirs."

"Guy can look after himself," he reiterated. "You have done enough--too much--in that line already. He doesn't need you with him all daylong."