The Vision of Desire Part 33

"Not a bit. Merely necessary. And neither people nor animals bear a grudge when once they are mastered, fair and square." His eyes, with a gay, dare-devil challenge in them, flashed up and met hers. "You'll find that out some day," he added.

"I hope not," replied Ann stiffly. Then, remembering how near death he had been, she softened. "Anyway, I'm thankful you're alive. I don't know how you managed to pull the mare round as you did."

"_I_ pull her round? My dear girl, if it had rested with me, we should both be lying in smithereens at the present moment, on the rocks below. She realised the drop just in the nick of time, and wheeled before we got to it."

"What do you mean--she realised it? How could she?"

For a moment Brett's eyes held a curious gravity.

"I can't tell you," he said at last, simply. "Only I know horses have a kind of instinct which very often warns them of danger. I've seen a similar thing happen once before, in the hunting field. A man was riding straight for a high bank that looked just like an ordinary on and off jump. You couldn't see what lay beyond it, and on the further side there was a forty-foot drop into a quarry. His horse had its forefeet actually on the bank--and then it must have sensed the danger, for it swung right round, just as the mare did to-day."

As he finished speaking, he gathered up the reins and remounted.

"We'd better be jogging homeward, I think," he said. "The mare's too hot to stand about. I don't want her to catch cold."

They rode slowly over the springy turf, the bay mare beaten but not cowed, responding docilely to every touch of Brett's hands on the bridle. She had learned her lesson, recognised the man who rode her as her master.

Ann was very quiet, her thoughts preoccupied with the happenings of the afternoon. In some sort, they shed a fresh light on the character of the man beside her. It was impossible not to admire his cool composure in the face of danger, and his unexpected kindliness to the mare, once he had a.s.serted his supremacy over her, and her responsiveness to his caress, had astonished Ann considerably. She had thought Brett purely brutal when she had watched him force the frightened, flagging horse anew into a gallop, but no man could be all brute to whom an animal would turn with such mute confidence as the mare had shown when the struggle between them was over.

Behind Brett's careless courage, Ann recognised an insistent force and dominance that frightened her. If he could be so invincibly determined to subdue the will of a horse, how would it fare with any woman whom he had made up his mind to conquer? Would his persistency at last beat down her opposition? Or, if the woman's will were strong enough to resist him, would the fight between them go on--endlessly? Somehow she could not imagine Forrester laying down his weapons to admit defeat.

They were now approaching the big headland flanking Silverquay harbour, and, as the waters of the bay came into view, Ann's eyes went instinctively to the _Sphinx_, where she rode at anchor, specklessly clean and shining in the brilliant sunlight. She had often admired the yacht, with her long, graceful lines that promised speed, and on occasion, when she had steamed out of the bay, Ann missed her from her accustomed anchorage--feeling rather as though a bit of the landscape had vanished, leaving a gap. But now, for the first time, she was conscious of a disagreeable impression at the sight of the yacht gleaming there in the sun. It seemed as though it were there on guard, watching ... waiting ... motionless and silent, like a sleek cat watching at the mouth of a mousehole. Interminably patient. She glanced at Forrester, riding quietly at her side, and recalled his battle with the bay mare. He and the yacht--his yacht. Both so quiet, and both with such an infinite latent capacity for swift, directed action.

She shivered a little, and was aware of an inward sensation of relief when the horses at last pulled up at the gate of the Cottage and Billy Brewster flew out from the stables to take charge of the pony. The sight of the boy's rubicund, commonplace face gave her a feeling of rea.s.surance, seeming to restore the normal, everyday atmosphere which the uncomfortable train of thought evoked by the _Sphinx_ had momentarily dissipated.

"Well, I suppose I shan't see you to-morrow--until the evening?" Brett, standing by her side, the mare's bridle over his arm, was regarding her with an oddly mocking expression in his eyes. She almost felt as though he had been reading her thoughts. "I shall be going backwards and forwards to the yacht, to see that everything is shipshape for my party to-morrow night."

"Don't forget to hang up a full moon in the sky, by way of decoration,"

suggested Ann, trying to speak lightly.

"The matter shall receive attention," he replied gravely. "Aunt Susan and I shall go aboard early, of course, but the dinghy will be waiting for you all at the jetty at half-past seven." He shook hands, sprang into the saddle, and a minute later his horse's hoofs clattered away into the distance.

Ann turned and walked slowly up the path into the house. She wondered whether--now--Eliot Coventry would be at the dinner on board the yacht. She had not seen him since the day of the rectory garden-party, and she could think no other than that he had deliberately kept out of her way.

CHAPTER XIX

ACCOUNT RENDERED

Dinner was over on board the _Sphinx_, and the whole party were gathered on deck for coffee. It had been a very perfect little dinner. Forrester was a confirmed diner-out in London, and no one knew better than he how to arrange a menu. Lady Susan played hostess charmingly, and under her benign influence the various unsympathetic elements included in the party had fused together more pleasantly than might have been antic.i.p.ated.

Coventry had duly arrived, and although, as luck would have it, he found himself seated next to Mrs. Halyard, the fact that no one but the two people most intimately concerned were aware of any particular reason why they should not sit together enabled them to carry off the situation without visible effort. It had been a matter of more difficulty to merge Miss Caroline's personality into the prevailing atmosphere, but every one helped. They were all used to the fact that if they wanted to enjoy the rector's company they must be prepared to put up with his sister's, since the canons of a country neighbourhood forbade inviting the one without the other, and on this particular evening Forrester had chaffed her into such good humour that she became quite skittish, and contributed some truly surprising outbursts of frivolity to the general conversation.

"Rejuvenation while you wait," Robin had murmured to Cara, under cover of the buzz of talk.

Mrs. Hilyard had laughed that low, pretty laugh of hers which was always free from the least suspicion of "cattiness." "I defy any one to maintain a grown-up att.i.tude when Brett decides that they shan't," she made answer.

Thanks to the arrangement of their respective seats at the table, Ann had been able to avoid holding any conversation with Eliot without provoking comment. She had dreaded meeting him again, feeling that it would be difficult to re-establish the merely friendly relations which had existed between them until one tense, glowing moment had swept aside convention and pretence and let each see deep into the other's heart.

But the meeting pa.s.sed off more easily than she had dared to hope. They exchanged brief greetings on the quay, where Brett Forrester's guests had collected together and were waiting to board the yacht's dinghy, and during the short pa.s.sage across the bay to where the _Sphinx_ lay anch.o.r.ed she and Cara and Miss Caroline had sat chatting together in the stern of the boat, leaving the three men to talk amongst themselves. And now, as the whole party emerged on to the deck for coffee, Ann found herself safely wedged in between Brett and the rector, with Coventry, much to her relief, established at the other end of the semicircle of chairs.

It was a glorious evening. The moon--"according to, orders," as Brett had laughingly reminded her--hung like a great lambent globe in the sky, throwing a shimmering track of silver across the waters of the bay, and dappling the ripples of the sea beyond with shifting Jack-o'-Lantern gleams of light. The deck of the _Sphinx_ shone with an almost dazzling whiteness, accentuated by the black patches of sharp shadow flung across it.

Ann sat quietly enjoying the peaceful beauty of it all, oblivious to the hum of conversation around her. For the time being she lost that sense of fear and dread of the yacht which had so curiously obsessed her yesterday.

Now it seemed but a component part of the beautiful scene--to sh.o.r.eward, a ragged string of cottage lights climbing the hill-side, speaking of hearth and home and of rest after the day's labour, and beyond, the still, calm moon and tranquil bay, and the yacht, with its whiteness and sharp-cut shadows, lying motionless like some legendary vessel carved in alabaster.

"What's your opinion, Ann?"

The question startled her, severing the dreaming thread of her thoughts.

She roused herself with a smile.

"My opinion about what? I'm afraid I didn't hear what was being said."

"About pains and penalties," explained Cara,

"They sound unpleasant."

"They are--very," agreed Lady Susan with her jolly laugh. "The question under discussion is whether we all eventually have to pay up for our misdeeds--even in this world."

"I think we do--in some form or another," said Tempest quietly. "Only perhaps we don't always recognise the penalty, _as_ a penalty, when it comes."

"Then it seems rather a waste, doesn't it?" suggested Brett idly.

The rector's quiet eyes rested on the speaker.

"I don't think so. If we recognised it as a punishment, we should probably resent it so much that it wouldn't do us any good--just as spanking doesn't really do a child any good but only rouses its naughty temper. Whereas when it comes unrecognised, even though it may be the outcome of our own mistaken actions, it educates and changes us--does, in fact, just what punishment is really designed to do, acts as a remedial force. I think G.o.d often works like that."

"Only, sometimes, the sinner isn't the only one who pays," threw in Coventry shortly.

"He's the only one who doesn't pay, generally speaking," answered Brett, with a grin. "He flourishes like a green bay tree instead. I never dream of paying for my sins," he added cheerfully.

Tempest smiled--that tolerant, good-humoured smile of his which always took the sting out of anything he might say.

"You're not at the end of life yet, Mr. Forrester," he observed quietly.

Brett laughed.

"Are you threatening me with an 'account rendered' of all my evil deeds--to he paid for in a sort of lump sum?"

"Even that might be preferable to having your punishment spread out all over your life," said Cara, with a faint note of weariness in her voice which pa.s.sed unnoticed by all except Coventry, who threw her a quick, searching glance.

"Like thinly spread b.u.t.ter?" suggested Brett blithely.

"Cara didn't say anything about it being thinly spread," retorted Ann, laughing. "I should think yours might be rather thick."

Amid the general laughter and chaff which followed the original topic of conversation was lost sight of, and presently some one suggested a game of auction. Miss Caroline's blue bead eyes gleamed at the very sound of the word. She loved a game of bridge, but for parochial reasons adhered firmly to stakes of not more than a penny a hundred. Tempest had vainly argued with her that she might equally as well play for a more usual amount, such as sixpence or a shilling, and this without outraging the susceptibilities of the parish--that if she played for money at all the principle involved was precisely the same, but she either could not or would not comprehend.