"Perhaps," Mrs. Parry said, but so extremely skeptically that Norma decided not to pursue the subject further.
During that evening and the whole of the following day, Norma tried to find an opportunity to talk frankly to her guardian. But the chance never presented itself. For one thing, his cool, remote air towards her continued, so that it was difficult to speak of anything but conventional matters. And, on the two or three occasions when she almost decided to force the issue, her courage failed at the last minute, because the thought of experiencing his cold anger again was more than she could bear.
But there was more than the fear of actual anger involved. Norma most desperately wanted to restore their previous relationship. She had found that half sarcastic, half indulgent air of his supremely attractive, and she longed once more for his approval or at least his amused interest.
She was surprised, and even faintly dismayed, to find how greatly his opinion already mattered to her. And she was relieved and delighted, out of all proportion to the event, when, after breakfast on the Friday, he said with a touch of his earlier manner: "Let me see, it's to-day you go to visit Mrs. Cantlin, isn't it?"
"Yes." Norma spoke with breathless eagerness, because the topic no longer seemed to provoke cold disapproval, but to have become one which might be discussed in a normal manner. "You did say you would show me the short cut," she added, a little pleadingly.
"Yes. Of course. When do you want to go? About twelve?"
"I thought about then would do."
"Very well. I'll be in my study most of the morning.
Come and tell me when you're ready."
"Oh, yes, I will," cried Norma, with such a joyful note in her voice that her guardian raised his eyebrows and gave her a most quizzical glance. And Norma, blushing, felt sure that he was fully aware of the dismay he had caused her during the last two days, and the degree of relief he was capable of conferring on her now.
"It's silly to mind so much, one way or the other," Norma told herself. But nothing could alter the upward trend of her spirits.
In the end, she had no need to fetch him from the study. He was standing in the hall waiting for her when she came downstairs, and he looked with critical approval at the red suit and girlish white blouse which set off her vivid type of beauty to such advantage.
"Who chose your clothes during the last few years, Norma?" he inquired. "Not Janet, I think."
"Oh, no. I chose most of them myself."
"Hm. You have quite good taste," he conceded.
"Of a slightly flamboyant nature," he added, but his smile was not unkindly. " When we go to London in October, we must see about some evening dresses for you."
"But" Norma gave him a quick, surprised glance "is it settled that I go to London in October?"
There was a second's pause, and she had the impression that he had said more than he had meant to. Then he smiled really charmingly at her and said: "I have an, idea that, once you have passed your exam, and got used to the idea that your schooldays are virtually over, you will be quite ready to vote for leaving school now and coming to London with me."
When he put it like that, Norma thought that perhaps he was right. Besides, if for some reason he preferred her to do so, then she certainly had no objection for which it would be worth risking his displeasure again.
"I dare say you're right,'" she agreed, and was gratified and a little touched, that he was obviously pleased by the prospect of her company in London.
They were walking through the orchard towards the spruce plantation by now and, emboldened by the fact that she need not actually look at him and that he was undoubtedly in a more indulgent mood than he had been at any other time since Mrs. Cantlin's visit she said: "You aren't cross with me any longer about wanting to go and visit Mrs. Cantlin, are you?"
"I was never cross with you, as you put it, about your wanting to visit Mrs. Cantlin," her guardian informed her dryly.
"Oh, you were!" cried Norma reproachfully. "You made me quite miserable about it."
"Did I?" He looked sardonically amused" rather than regretful. "Well, don't expect me to deplore the fact that my displeasure apparently has its effect upon you. And you may as well understand that what did displease me was your obvious intention to cultivate your friendship with young Cantlin, in spite of my expressed wishes to the contrary."
"But, Mr. Yorke" impulsively Norma slipped her arm into his, which seemed to surprise him slightly "I liked what I saw of Paul Cantlin, and there isn't really anything serious against him, is there? I mean it isn't necessary for a guardian to like all his ward's friends personally, so long as they're respectable and decent and all that."
"You seem to have studied the duties of a guardian pretty closely," was the rather disagreeable rejoinder. "What about the duties of a ward?"
"You mean?"
"Don't you think you might show a little deference to my wishes?"
"Oh, I do! I mean, I 'will," cried Norma eagerly.
"I terribly want to please you." He smiled faintly at this naive statement. "But I thought you might have explained a bit more to me. Not just expected me to give up an apparently harmless friendship, at a word from you. That's why I decided to talk to you about it now. I thought we might arrive at some compromise," she finished coaxingly.
"I'm afraid I'm not very much given to compromise, Norma," her guardian said.
Then, as she remained silent, he glanced at her disconsolate face, laughed softly and drew her arm rather close against him.
"Now, listen to me, my child," he said, quite gently.
"Up till now Janet has left you with the outlook of a school girl, and no worldly wisdom whatever. That isn't your fault. Worldly wisdom is something you learn only in the world, and I intend that you shall acquire a certain amount in the normal way. You are not going to be an unimportant school child any more. You are a beautiful girl, and you will be a singularly beautiful woman handled properly" he added, with one of his characteristic flashes of impersonal frankness. "As my ward, you will have a certain social and financial standing and"
"What do you mean by that?" gasped Norma, at this unexpected disclosure.
"That when it comes to your marrying, I don't intend you to figure as a penniless orphan. I shall expect to provide for you suitably and "
"Oh!" Norma exclaimed, astounded and deeply moved by her guardian's coolly stated generosity.
"Oh, I'd no idea I mean, it isn't in the least necessary! I'm not even a relation of yours!"
"But you are my ward," he reminded her, with what Norma thought was the most charming smile she had ever seen on anyone's face.
"Oh, I do think you're a darling," she cried, pressing the arm she was holding.
He laughed a little protesting.
"Well, perhaps I think you are a darling," he conceded. "When you behave yourself," he added.
"Don't I usually?" She looked a little dashed.
"Yes. You're a good child," he said quite seriously.
"The point I want to make is that, as a beautiful, reasonably, wealthy and reasonably influential girl, you should marry well. Therefore I expect to have a certain amount of supervision over the choice of men with whom you pass your time. Young Paul Cantlin, for instance, is not at all my idea of a suitable husband for you and-"
"But, good heavens! I've only talked to him for quarter of an hour. I never thought of him in that light," cried Norma.
"I'm glad to hear it," her guardian said dryly.
Whereupon Norma immediately, and quite illogically, thought what a very nice husband Paul Cantlin would probably make for some lucky girl one day.
"But remember," her guardian continued, "that every girl naturally chooses her husband from among the men with whom she associates. You must not think me capricious and unreasonable, therefore, if, as I said, I exercise a certain amount of supervision over your choice of associates."
"Yes, I see what you mean," Norma agreed soberly. "Good child. Then we understand each oth
er now," her guardian said finally, with an air of dismissing the subject. And Norma was left with the inexplicable impression that, reasonable though her guardian's arguments had sounded, they somehow threatened to hedge her in with more restrictions than their face value suggested.
However, it would be ridiculous to start raising fresh difficulties now. It was so wonderful to be on good terms with her guardian again, and to know that she was approved and perhaps a little loved. At any rate, he had said that "perhaps he thought her a darling," and, from Justin Yorke this was, Norma judged, a good deal.
He halted just then, at the edge of the plantation, and pointed the way across the field in front of them.
"Follow the path along by the hedge, and after crossing the stile turn left along the lane. It will bring you straight to Fairleeif Paul Cantiin doesn't meet you before then, which no doubt he will," her guardian remarked dryly, but without any further sign of real annoyance.
Thank you," Norma said, and the eagerness in her tone showed that she was thanking him for very much more than his directions for reaching Fairlee.
Evidently he guessed that, because he patted her cheek rather hard and said: "All right," before he bade her good-bye and turned to retrace his steps.
Feeling extremely light-hearted and happy, Norma ran most of the way across the field, and arrived at the stile just as Paul Cantlin came up to it from the other side.
"Hallo!" The smile which lit up his sun-tanned face was so frank and charming that, even then, Norma spared a thought for the absurdity of her guardian's prejudice against him.
But, as she climbed the stile and he lifted her down on the other side, she was aware that his pleasure and his admiration might have been enough to arouse annoyed speculation in her guardian's mind. For certainly Paul Cantlin was a very attractive person, someone of whom one might grow very fond, guardian or no guardian.
However, there was no need to worry about that just now, for there was nothing at all serious in their present relationship. They were just two people who liked each other's company, and enjoyed' the same sort of gay conversation. '
"I hear Xenia carried all the defenses on Wednesday," he remarked, as they strolled along the lane. "With a certain amount of assistance from the garrison within, of course."
"Meaning me?"
"Meaning you," agreed Paul with a laugh. "Xenia said you were splendid. Insisting coolly that there wasn't the least reason why you shouldn't come and spend the day with your own friends."
"Yes I know" Norma laughed too, but she bit her lip. "I was awfully sorry to have to oppose Mr. Yorke, because he really doesn't want anything but my good, and in nearly everything he's an absolute darling to me. But I did feel I was justified in making a stand and, without wanting to be difficult"
"That's all right," Paul interrupted cheerfully.
"Don't bother to justify yourself to me. I couldn't agree with you more. I'm only too thankful that you did make a stand, and I hope you'll continue to do so."
"Oh , Paul! Don't talk as though I and my guardian will often be up against each other"
"But you will, if you want to call your soul your own."
"No, I shan't! You don't understand at all. He's dear and generous and rather wonderful, really."
"He's also clever," Paul retorted," Particularly if he's made you think all that about him."
"That isn't true! At least of course he's clever. But why do you make that sound as though it's discreditable of him to be clever?"
"Because of the way he uses his cleverness, of course."
"Paul, what do you mean"
Her companion looked' at her with something like real worry m his clear, grey eyes.
"Hasn't it dawned on you yet, Norma," he said soberly, "that, in some ways, your guardian is rather a dangerous man?"
CHAPTER FOUR
FOR several moments Norma walked on in silence beside Paul Cantlin. Every loyal instinct in her prompted her to say that "dangerous" was a ridiculous and offensive' word to apply to her guardian. And yet, even as Paul had used it, she had recognized that, in some peculiar way, it described the essential quality of Justin's Yorke's attraction.
"However desperately you loved him, you'd never feel quite safe with him," thought Norma. And then, half scared by the expressions which had come unbidden into her own mind, she sought reassurance from Paul with the troubled question: "Why do you say dangerous, Paul? It's a funny word to use of anyone."
"It isn't a word one would use of most people," Paul conceded. "And I suppose it's going a bit far to use it of him. But ruthless people always have an element of danger about them, Norma. And I think your guardian is quite ruthless over the things he really wants. I don't mean to say that he'd be running around with a dagger in one hand and prussic acid in the other. But, if he wanted something very much, he wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice the interests of anyone else."
"Not even if he were very fond of that person?" Paul glanced at her, half amused and half pitying.
"I don't imagine Justin Yorke has ever been 'very fond' of anyone in his life," he said dryly.
Norma was disturbedly silent. And, after a moment, Paul took her arm in an affectionate, almost brotherly way.
"I know, you sweet darling, you want me to say that he'll probably grow very fond of you, don't you?
But he won't, you know. So don't harrow yourself with expectations and disappointments."
"But he is fond of me already. I know he is," declared Norma, who found she very much liked being called a sweet darling by Paul. "I can't tell you how interested and amusingly indulgent he is. People don't react like that unless they're fond of one."
"Yes, they do. At least, Justin Yorke does. He wants you to be fond of him, because he knows that's the way to manage you through your affections," Paul told her. "But he's cold-hearted and unloving himself, though, I grant you, he can charm a bird off a tree, if he sets out to do it. Don't lose your heart to him though, Norma," he added, more than half seriously.
"He'll only break it, before he hands it back to you."
"Oh, Paul, there's no question of that! Only it's so nice to belong to someone and" she paused" I suppose I like being loved," she finished naively, and looked so serious that Paul was hard put to it not to
kiss the curve of her round cheek.
"Plenty of people will love you in your life, Norma," he said soberly. "You're going to find that out, now that you've left school and are coming out into the world."
"I haven't really left school," murmured Norma, wondering why it was that everyone seemed to conspire to insist that she had. "At least, I don't think I have." And then she explained about the alternatives that were being discussed.
Somewhat to her surprise, Paul voted for her leaving school immediately.
"But why?" She smiled doubtfully, touched and flattered that he should be so deeply interested in what she did.
"Because Xenia and I shall be in London during the autumn, and if your guardian brings you to town, I shall have lots of opportunities of taking you about I. and showing you things," he explained promptly.
And Norma felt glad that her guardian could not j know how completely this changed the whole aspect of J. school-leaving for her.
"Well if pass my exam, I daresay that's what I'll I do," she said. "Though I suppose one ought to give a term's notice, or else one has to pay the fees anyway, or something."
"Oh, never mind. That won't break Justin Yorke," declared Paul cheerfully. "He's made of money."
"Oh, Paul, he isn't! At least" she remembered his amusement when she queried the expense of his providing her with a horse" at least, I don't know that he can be so rich. Didn't the previous generation get through a good deal of the family fortune?"
"Yes, I think they did make a bit of a hole in the ancestral money-bags," Paul conceded. "At least, Xenia always says that everything at Bishopstone used to hum a pretty expensive tune when she was a girl. But your guardian must have more than righted that by now
. He has the reputation of being something of a financial wizard, you know."
"Has he?" Norma was interested and would have asked more. But by that time they had arrived at the gate of Fairlee, and Mrs. Cantlin, indescribably girlish and charming in pastel blue linen, was coming down the short drive to meet them.
"Hallo, my dear." She took Norma's hand and greeted her very kindly, gently bumping her soft cheek against Norma's in charming simulation of a kiss which, Norma was afraid, meant nothing at all. But it was all very pleasant and cordial.
She made no reference whatever to the minor victory which this visit represented. To Xenia Cantlin it was quite enough to have achieved the victory, without making any indiscreet comments on it. Instead, she showed Norma round the 'small but beautiful garden, and then took her indoors to have lunch.
Life at Fairlee, Norma soon found, was on a very different plane from life at Bishopstone. Here, too, there seemed to be no lack of money. But Xenia Cantlin believed in being adored rather than feared, and she was on indescribably gracious terms with her two maids and her gardener all of whom obviously worshipped the ground she walked on.
Norma was amused and fascinated to see how her hostess twisted everyone round her little finger in the nicest way possible. And, if one did sometimes suspect that this was sweet insincerity carried to a fine art, at least it created a very agreeable atmosphere, and enabled Mrs. Cantlin to achieve most of the tilings she wanted without anyone else feeling any resentment about it.
She, too, when Paul explained about the possibility of Norma's going to London with her guardian, seemed to think a further term at school would be a waste of time.
"You're quite old enough now to start learning all the things outside the lesson books, dear," she told Norma. "And I must say that Justin will be quite a good teacher."
"I'm only just on eighteen, you know," Norma said with a smile.
"Yes. It doesn't sound much of an age, I know. But I was married and had Paul by then," Mrs. Cantlin said, with a sigh for the absurdity of it all and a complacent little smile for the triumph of having carried off a husband at such an early age.
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