Winding Paths Part 48

"He looked splendid," he declared enthusiastically; "and het was delightfully calm and self-possessed. He'll soon get another brief now. You see."

He did; and the future began to look very full of promise to this favourite of fortune.

As Lorraine had predicted, his growing success filled his mind, and kept him safe from many pitfalls; while her sympathetic companionship satisfied him in other respects, and formed a substantial bulwark between him and the women who would have tried to spoil him.

He had other women friends as well, but Lorraine felt they were not dangerous, by the way he talked of them. As long as he did not get foolishly engaged, and cripple his career at the very outset, as he easily might while he had no income to rely on, she did not fear. Lord Denton advised her to marry him to an heiress as soon as possible, but Lorraine knew better than to risk an impeding millstone of gold, and insisted he must just win his way through on the allowance his father gave him.

In the meantime they were a great deal together, and though they seldom went to any public place alone, they occasionally broke their rule; and it was known, at any rate in theatrical circles, that Lorraine rarely went out with her own old set, and had grown reserved and quiet. Hal knew something of the absorbing friendship, but she still made light of it, and sparred with Hermon whenever she saw him - "for his good."

As a matter of fact, she did not go quite so much to Lorraine's as usual herself; for many of the hours she had been accustomed to spend there she now spent with Sir Edwin Crathie. All through the winter they continued to take motor rides into the country; and often they went together to a quiet, unfashionable golf club, where they were both learning to overcome the intricacies and trials of that absorbing pastime.

It was easy for Sir Edwin to silence curious tongues. He spoke of her quite frankly as his niece, and Hal more or less acquiesced, because it was simpler to arrange an afternoon's golf, for Dudley had managed to become very thoroughly absorbed in Doris, and she aksed no questions.

The only two to raise any real objections were d.i.c.k and Alymer Hermon.

d.i.c.k had to be talked round, and thoroughly impressed with Sir Edwin's great age (of forty-eight), and though Hal did not state the actual years, she was perfectly correct in insisting that he was old enough to be her father; though she need not perhaps have said it in quite such a tone of ridiculing an absurd idea.

Anyhow, d.i.c.k was pacified up to a certain point, and obliged to see that the new friendship did her good, keeping her cheerful and hopeful in spite of her bitter disappointment about Dudley's engagement, and generally brightening the whole of the winter routine for her.

With Hermon it was rather different. Ha was less cosmopolitan than d.i.c.k, and he insistently adhered to his first idea concerning what he would have felt had Hal been his sister.

Why she should have been specially interested did not occur to him.

d.i.c.k, of course, actually was a sort of brother, being much more so in a sense than many real brothers, as far as personal interest and protection went.

When Has was first left an orphan she had been a great deal with him, at his own home, and they had always been special friends both then and since.

But Hermon was in no sense either a brother or a special friend. They had never done anything else but spar, howerver good-naturedly; and Lorraine, in consequence, twitted him once or twice about looking grave over Hal's doings.

And Hermon had laughed, and coloured a little, saying something about a feeling at the flat that they all had a sort of right in Hal, and he didn't see what that brute, Crathie - a Liberal into the bargain - wanted to be taking her about for.

He even went so far as to say something to Hal herself about it; one day, when they were alone in Lorraine's drawing-room, waiting for her to come in, Hal had just told him frankly she had played golf with Sir Edwin the previous day; and in a sudden burst of indignation Hermon exclaimed:

"I can't think how you can be so friendly with the man. Surely you know what he is? He has about as much principle as my foot."

Hal had turned round and stared at him in blank astonishment.

"Goodness gracious!" she exclaimed, "what an outburst! What has Sir Edwin done to hurt you?"

But he stood his ground steadily.

"You know it isn't that. If you were my sister, I wouldn't let you go out with him as you do."

"Then what a comfort for me, I'm not. And really, Baby dear! I'm much more adapted to be your mother."

"Rot!"

He looked at her almost fiercely for a moment, scarcely aware of it himself, buth with a sudden, swift, unaccountable resentment of the old joke. Hal, surprised again, backed away a little, eyeing him with a quizzical, roguish expression that made him want desperately to shake her.

"Grandpapa," she murmured, with a mock, apologetic air, "you really mustn't get so worked up at - at your advanced years."

His face relaxed suddenly into laughter.

'I don't know whether I want to shake you or kiss you... you... you - "

"Thanks, I'll take the shake," she interrupted promptly. "I certainly haven't deserved such severe punishment as a kiss."

He took a step towards her, but she stood quite still and laughed in his face; and he could only turn away, laughing himself.

Yet he was conscious that her att.i.tude riled him. He was not in the least vain, but all the same it was absurd that Hal should persist in being the one woman who was not only utterly indifferent to his attractions, but seemed almost to scorn him for them. In some of the others it would not have mattered in the least - at any rate he thought so - but in Hal it was sheer nonsense.

He liked her better than any one, except perhaps Lorraine, and he always enjoyed their sparring; but of course there was a limit, and she really might be seriously friendly sometimes; and anyhow he hated Sir Edwin Crathie.

While he thought all this more or less vaguely, Hal watched him with undisguised amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Don't think so hard," she said; "it spoils the line of your profile."

"Hang my profile!" he exclaimed, almost crossly. "Can't you be serious for five minutes, you're always so - so - "

"Not at all. I'm perfectly serious. A frown doesn't suit you one little bit. Imagine a scowl on one of Raphael's cherubim."

"I don't want to imagine anything so silly, and I'm not in the least like a cherub. It would be more sensible if you want to do some wise imagining, to think of Sir Edwin Crathie, and imagine yourself in the devil's clutches."

"But I've not the smallest wish to be in Sir Edwin's clutches, so why should I try to imagine it?... and you're not at all polite, are you?"

"I'm honest anyway; and I'll warrant that's more than he can rise to."

"But really, dear Alymer," reverting again to the mocking tone, "at what period of your friendship with him have you had occasion to find him out?"

"Your sarcasm won't frighten me. A man knows more about this sort of thing than a girl. Of course he is all right in an ordinary way, but you are so often with him... Considering his political career, it is positively unpatriotic of you to be such close friends."

"Such nonsense! Do you want me to be as bigoted and narrow-minded as those Conservatives who are continually holding the party back, because they are quite incapable of realising there are two sides to a question? I don't hold the same views as Sir Edwin at all. I'm not likely to, being on the staff of the _Morning Mail_; but that isn't any reason why I should object to him as a friend."

"No; but his reputation might be."

Hal stamped her foot.

"Oh, don't stand there and talk about a man's reputation in that superior, self-satisfied fashion. What is it to you anyhow? My friendship can't possibly be any concern of yours."

She moved away with a restless, ruffled manner, and threw back at him:

"Of course I'm awfully grateful to you for being so interested in my welfare, but your concern is a little misplaced. I am quite capable of taking care of myself, and have been for at least seven years."

He looked hurt, and about to retort, but at that moment Lorraine's latch-key sounded in the door, and Hal went out into the hall to meet her.

"I'm so glad you've come," she remarked, as they re-entered together.

"Baby is in one of his insufferable, superior moods, and is lecturing me on my friendship with Sir Edwin. And all because I casually mentioned I had had a game of golf with him."

Lorraine looked a little surprised, but she only remarked laughingly: