The Vision of Desire Part 30

Ann was silent. The sense of constraint left her and an odd feeling of contentment took its place. He was no longer cold and distant and aloof--in the mood to dispatch a groom with a message of inquiry! The friend in him was uppermost.

"I think yon deserve a thorough good scolding," he went on presently.

"What possessed you to attempt bathing in a rough sea like that?

Seriously"--speaking more earnestly. "It was a most foolhardy thing to do."

Ann's eyes, goldenly clear in the sunlight, met his frankly.

"I think I went--partly because I was told not to," she acknowledged, smiling.

His lips twitched in spite of himself.

"Good heavens! What a woman's reason!"

She nodded.

"I suppose it was. But I never dreamed the waves could be as strong as they were. I felt absolutely helpless to stand up against them, and the ground seemed to be slipping away under my feet all the time, dragging me with it--oh, it was horrible!"--with a shiver of recollection. "And I have to thank you--again--for coming to the rescue!" she resumed more lightly after a moment. "I think I must really be destined to end my days in Davy Jones's locker--and you keep frustrating the designs of fate!"

"Well, don't trouble to go out of your way to give me another opportunity,"

he advised dryly.

Ann laughed.

"I won't," she promised. "Especially as it must go against all your principles to have to take so much trouble over a woman."

He made no answer, and, fearing she had unwittingly wounded him in some way, she hastened to change the conversation. She had instinctively come to know that beneath his brusque exterior he concealed a curious sensitiveness, and, remembering all that Cara had told her of the man's history she regretted her insouciant speech as soon as it was spoken.

"Are you going to the dinner-party on board the _Sphinx_?" she asked, grasping hurriedly at the first topic that presented itself.

A quick e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n escaped him.

"I'd clean forgotten all about it," he replied. "No, I didn't intend going.

I must send along a refusal, I suppose."

"Why?"

"Why?" He looked at her rather blankly. The monosyllabic question, uttered so naturally, seemed to take him aback. "Why? Oh"--with a shrug--"these social gatherings don't appeal to me. I prefer my own company."

"It's very bad for you," observed Ann.

"What is? My own company?"

"Yes"--simply.

He was silent a moment. Then he asked abruptly:

"Will you be there--on the yacht, I mean?"

She bent her head, conscious of the sudden flush that came and went quickly in her face.

"Yes. Robin and I are going."

"In that case"--there was an infinitesimal pause and, although she would not look up, she was sensitively aware of the intentness of his gaze--"in that case, I shall change my mind and go, too."

"You'll meet plenty of friends there," replied Ann. "Lady Susan, of course, and the Tempests, and Mrs. Hilyard."

"Acquaintances only," he returned shortly.

"Well, at least you'll admit that Mrs. Hilyard is an 'auld acquaintance',"

she said, laughing. "And she's so pretty! I do love people who are nice to look at, don't you?"

"Yes." Just the bare monosyllable, rather grudgingly uttered--nothing more.

"Don't you think she's very beautiful?" asked Ann in some astonishment at the lack of enthusiasm in his tones.

"Yes. But, after all, that's only the outside of the cup and platter. It's the soul inside the sh.e.l.l that matters."

"Well, I should think Cara has a beautiful soul, too," replied Ann loyally.

"Probably you know her better than I do," he said indifferently. Then, as though to change the subject: "What book have you been reading?" He picked it up from her lap, where it lay face downward, open at the lyric which had been occupying her thoughts when he joined her. "Oh, verse?"

"I felt too lazy to begin a novel," she explained.

His eyes travelled down the brief lines of the little song she had been reading, his face hardening as he read.

"Charmingly optimistic," he observed ironically, as he closed the book.

"I'm afraid, however, that the 'garden of happy hours' is a purely imaginary one for most of us."

"Of course it's bound to be--if you don't believe in it. You've got to _have_ dream-flowers first, or naturally they can't materialise."

"I suppose all of us have had our dream-flowers at one time or another," he replied quietly. "And then the frost has come along and scotched them. But I forgot!"--with a short laugh. "You're one of the people who believe that if you think and believe them hard enough, your dreams will come true, aren't you? I remember your flinging that bit of philosophy in my face the first time we met--at the Kursaal."

"Yes," she acquiesced. "But if you haven't any, they can't come true, can they?"

"I don't imagine that what we hope or think makes any perceptible difference," he said shortly.

"That's because you're a cynic! I think it makes _all_ the difference.

Robin and I are a concrete example of it. We've always wanted to live together--we hung on to the thought in our minds all the time circ.u.mstances kept us apart. And now, you see, here we are--doing precisely what we wanted to do."

"I see that you're a very good advocate," he replied smiling. And then Robin came out of the house and joined them and the conversation drifted away on to more general lines.

It was late in the afternoon before Coventry finally proposed taking his way homeward--so late that Robin suggested he might as well make it still later and stay to dinner with them. Rather to Ann's surprise he consented, and, in spite of his a.s.sertion, earlier on, that he "preferred his own company," he seemed thoroughly to enjoy the little home-like _diner a trois_. There was something about the cosy room and the gay, good-humoured chaff and laughter of brother and sister which conveyed a sense of welcome--partaking of that truest kind of hospitality which creates no special atmosphere of ceremony for a guest but encompa.s.ses him with a frank, informal friendliness.

Perhaps, as Maria moved briskly in and out, changing the plates and dishes, and not forbearing to smile benignly upon her young master and mistress if she chanced to catch the eye of one or other of them, some swift perception of the pleasant, simple homeliness of it all woke Eliot to comparisons, for just as he was leaving he said with characteristic abruptness:

"Thank you both immensely. To-night's been a great contrast to my usual evenings in that great empty barrack of a dining-room at Heronsmere."

Unconsciously he spoke out of a great loneliness, and Ann's heart ached for this supremely hurt and bitter soul which sought security from further hurt behind the iron barriers of a self-imposed reserve and solitude.