“Mr. Siward,” in quick displeasure.
“Yes?”
“What you do for your amusements cannot concern me.”
“Right as usual,” he said so gaily that a reluctant smile trembled on her lips.
“Then why have you done this? It is unreasonable — if you don’t feel as I do about killing things that are having a good time in the world.”
He stood silent, absently looking at the fowling-piece cradled in his left arm. “Shall we sit here a moment and talk it over?” he suggested listlessly.
Her blue gaze swept him; his vague smile was indifferently bland.
“If you are determined not to shoot, we might as well start for Osprey Ledge,” she suggested; “otherwise, what reason is there for our being here together, Mr. Siward?”
Awaiting his comment — perhaps expecting a counter-proposition — she leaned against the tree beside which he stood. And after a while, as his absent-minded preoccupation continued:
“Do you think the leaves are dry enough to sit on?”
He slipped off his shooting-coat and placed it at the base of the tree. She waited for a second, uncertain how to meet an attitude which seemed to take for granted matters which might, if discussed, give her at least the privilege of yielding. However, to discuss a triviality meant forcing emphasis where none was necessary. She seated herself; and, as he continued to remain standing, she stripped off her shooting-gloves and glanced up at him inquiringly: “Well, Mr. Siward, I am literally at your feet.”
“Which redresses the balance a little,” he said, finding a place near her.
“That is very nice of you. Can I always count on you for civil platitudes when I stir you out of your day-dreams?”
“You can always count on stirring me without effort.”
“No, I can’t. Nobody can. You are never to be counted on; you are too absent-minded. Like a veil you wrap yourself in a brown study, leaving everybody outside to consider the pointed flattery of your withdrawal. What happens to you when you are inside that magic veil? Do you change into anything interesting?”
He sat there, chin propped on his linked fingers, elbows on knees; and, though there was always the hint of a smile in his pleasant eyes, always the indefinable charm of breeding in voice and attitude, something now was lacking. And after a moment she concluded that it was his attention. Certainly his wits were wool-gathering again; his eyes, edged with the shadow of a smile, saw far beyond her, far beyond the sunlit shadows where they sat.
In his preoccupation she had found him negatively attractive. She glanced at him now from time to time, her eyes returning always to the beauty of the subdued light where all about them silver-stemmed birches clustered like slim shining pillars, crowned with their autumn canopy of crumpled gold.
“Enchantment!” she said under her breath. “Surely an enchanted sleeper lies here somewhere.”
“You,” he observed, “unawakened.”
“Asleep? I?” She looked around at him. “You are the dreamer here. Your eyes are full of dreaming even now. What is your desire?”
He leaned on one arm, watching her; she had dropped her ungloved hand, searching among the newly fallen gold of the birch leaves drifted into heaps. On the third finger a jewel glittered; he saw it, conscious of its meaning — but his eyes followed the hand idly heaping up autumn gold, a white slim hand, smoothly fascinating. Then the little, restless hand swept near to his, almost touching it; and then instinctively he took it in his own, curiously, lifting it a little to consider its nearer loveliness. Perhaps it was the unexpectedness of it, perhaps it was sheer amazement that left her hand lying idly relaxed like a white petalled blossom in his. His bearing, too, was so blankly impersonal that for a moment the whole thing appeared inconsequent. Then, as her hand lay there, scarcely imprisoned, their eyes encountered, — and hers, intensely blue now, considered him without emotion, studied him impersonally without purpose, incuriously acquiescent, indifferently expectant.
After a little while the consciousness of the contact disconcerted her; she withdrew her fingers with an involuntary shiver.
“Is there no chance?” he asked.
Perplexed with her own emotion, the meaning of his low-voiced question at first escaped her; then, like its own echo, came ringing back in her ears, re-echoed again as he repeated it:
“Is there no chance for me, Miss Landis?”
The very revulsion of self-possession returning chilled her; then anger came, quick and hot; then pride. She deliberated, choosing her words coolly enough: “What chance do you mean, Mr. Siward?”
“A fighting chance. Can you give it to me?”
“A fighting chance? For what?” — very low, very dangerous.
“For you.”
Then, in spite of her, her senses became unsteady; a sudden ringing confusion seemed to deafen her, through which his voice, as if very far away, sounded again:
“Men who are worth a fighting chance ask for it sometimes — but take it always. I take it.”
Her pallor faded under the flood of bright colour; the blue of her eyes darkened ominously to velvet.
“Mr. Siward,” she said, very distinctly and slowly, “I am not — even — sorry — for you.”
“Then my chance is desperate indeed,” he retorted coolly.
“Chance! Do you imagine—” Her anger choked her.
“Are you not a little hard?” he said, paling under his tan. “I supposed women dismissed men more gently — even such a man as I am.”
For a full minute she strove to comprehend.
“Such a man as you!” she repeated vaguely; “you mean—” a crimson wave dyed her skin to the temples and she leaned toward him in horror-stricken contrition; “I didn’t mean that, Mr. Siward! I — I never thought of that! It had no weight, it was not in my thoughts. I meant only that you had assumed what is unwarranted — that you — your question humiliated me, knowing that I am engaged — knowing me so little — so—”
“Yes, I knew everything. Ask yourself why I risk everything to say this to you? There can be only one answer.”
Then after a long silence: “Have I ever—” she began tremblingly— “ever by word or look—”
“No.”
“Have I even—”
“No. I’ve simply discovered how I feel. That’s what I was dreaming about when you asked me. I was afraid I might do this too soon; but I meant to do it anyway before it became too late.”
“It was too late from the very moment we met, Mr. Siward.” And, as he reddened painfully again, she added quickly: “I mean that I had already decided. Why will you take what I say so dreadfully different from the way I intend it? Listen to me. I — I believe I am not very experienced yet; I was a — astonished — quite stunned for a moment. Then it hurt me — and I said that I was not sorry for you... I am sorry, now.”
And, as he said nothing: “You were a little rough, a little sudden with me, Mr. Siward. Men have asked me that question — several times; but never so soon, so unreasonably soon — never without some preliminary of some sort, so that I could foresee, be more or less prepared.... But you gave me no warning. I — if you had, I would have known how to be gentle. I — I wish to be now. I like you — enough to say this to you, enough to be seriously sorry; if I could bring myself to really believe this — feeling—”
Still he said nothing; he sat there listlessly studying the sun spots glowing, waxing, waning on the carpet of dead leaves at his feet.
“As for — what you have said,” she added, a little smile curving the sensitive mouth, “it is impulsive, unconsidered, a trifle boyish, Mr. Siward. I pay myself the compliment of your sincerity; it is rather nice to be a girl who can awaken the romance in a man within a day or two’s acquaintance.... And that is all it is — a romantic impulse with a pretty girl. You see I am frank; I am really glad that you find me attractive. Tell me so, if you wish. We shall not misunderstand each other again. Shall we?”
He raised his
head, considering her, forcing the smile to meet her own.
“We shall be better friends than ever,” she asserted confidently.
“Yes, better than ever.”
“Because what you have done means the nicest sort of friendship, you see. You can’t escape its duties and responsibilities now, Mr. Siward. I shall expect you to spend the greater part of your life in devotedly doing things for me. Besides, I am now privileged to worry you with advice. Oh, you have invested me with all sorts of powers now!”
He nodded.
She sprang to her feet, flushed, smiling, a trifle excited.
“Is it all over, and are we the very ideals of friends?” she asked.
“The very ideals.”
“You are nice!” she said impulsively, holding out both gloveless hands. He held them, she looking at him very sweetly, very confidently.
“Allons! Without malice?” she asked.
“Without malice.”
“Without afterthoughts?”
“Without afterthoughts.”
“And — you are content?” persuasively.
“Of course not,” he said.
“Oh, but you must be.”
“I must be,” he repeated obediently.
“And you are! Say it!”
“But it does not make me unhappy not to be contented—”
“Say it, please; or — do you desire me to be unhappy?”
Her small, smooth hands lying between his, they stood confronting one another in the golden light. She might easily have brought the matter to an end; and why she did not, she knew no more than a kitten waking to consciousness under its first caress.
“Say it,” she repeated, laughing uncertainly back into his smiling eyes of a boy.
“Say what?”
“That you are contented.”
“I can’t.”
“Mr. Siward, it is unkind, it is shameless—”
“I know it; I am that sort.”
“Then I am sorry for you. Look at that!” turning her left hand in his so that the jewel on the third finger caught the light.
“I see it.”
“And yet—”
“And yet.”
“That,” she observed with composure, “is sheer obstinacy.... Isn’t it?”
“It is what I said it was: a hopeful discontent.”
“How can it be?” impatiently now, for the long, unaccustomed contact was unnerving her — yet she made no motion to withdraw her hands. “How can you really care for me? Do you actually believe that — devotion — comes like that?”
“Exactly like that.”
“So suddenly? It is impossible!” with a twist of her pretty shoulders.
“How did it come — to you?” he asked between his teeth.
Then her face grew scarlet and her eyes grew dark, and her hands contracted in his — tightened, twisted fingers entangled, until, with a little sob, she swayed toward him and he caught her. An instant, a minute — more, perhaps, she did not know — she half lay in his arms, her untaught lips cold against his. Lassitude, faint consciousness, then tiny shock on shock came the burning revulsion; and her voice came back, too, sounding strangely to her, a colourless, monotonous voice.
He had freed her; she remembered that somebody had asked him to — perhaps herself. That was well; she needed to breathe, to summon strength and common-sense, find out what had been done, what reasonless madness she had committed in the half-light of the silver-stemmed trees clustering in shameful witness on every hand.
Suddenly the hot humiliation of it overwhelmed her, and she covered her face with her hands, standing, almost swaying, as wave on wave of incredulous shame seemed to sweep her from knee to brow. That phase passed after a while; out of it she emerged, flushed, outwardly composed, into another phase, in full self-possession once more, able to understand what had happened without the disproportion of emotional exaggeration. After all, she had only been kissed. Besides she was a novice, which probably accounted, in a measure, for the unreasonable emotion coincident with a caress to which she was unaccustomed. Without looking up at him she found herself saying coolly enough to surprise herself: “I never supposed I was capable of that. It appears that I am. I haven’t anything to say for myself... except that I feel fearfully humiliated.... Don’t say anything now... I do not blame you, truly I do not. It was contemptible of me — to do it — wearing this—” she stretched out her slender left hand, not looking at him; “it was contemptible!”... She slowly raised her eyes, summoning all her courage to face him.
But he only saw in the pink confusion of her lovely face the dawning challenge of a coquette saluting her adversary in gay acknowledgment of his fleeting moment of success. And as his face fell, then hardened into brightness, instantly she divined how he rated her, and in a flash realized her weapons and her security, and that the control of the situation was hers, not in the control of this irresolute young man who stood so silently considering her. Strange that she should be ashamed of her own innocence, willing that he believe her accomplished in such arts, enchanted that he no longer perhaps suspected genuine emotion in the swift, confused sweetness of her first kiss. If only all that were truly hidden from him, if he dare not in his heart convict her of anything save perfection in a gay, imprudent rôle, what a weight lifted, what relief, what hot self-contempt cooled! What vengeance, too, she would take on him for the agony of her awakening — the dazed chagrin, the dread of his wise, amused eyes — eyes that she feared had often looked upon such scenes; eyes no doubt familiar with such unimportant details as the shamed demeanour of a novice.
“Why do you take it so seriously?” she said, laughing and studying him, certain now of herself in this new disguise.
“Do you take it lightly?” he asked, striving to smile.
“I? Ah, I must, you know. You don’t expect to marry me... do you, Mr. Siward?”
“I—” He choked up at that, grimly for a while.
Walking slowly forward together she fell into step frankly beside him, near him — too near. “Try to be sensible,” she was saying gaily; “I like you so much — and it would be horrid to have you mope, you know. And besides, even if I cared for you, there are reasons, you know — reasons for any girl to marry the man I am going to marry. Does my cynicism shock you? What am I to do?” with a shrug. “Such marriages are reasonable, and far likelier to be agreeable than when fancy is the sole motive — certainly far more agreeable than an ill-considered yielding to abstract emotion with nothing concrete in view.... So, you see, I could not marry you even if I—” her voice was inclined to tremble, but she controlled it. Would she never learn her rôle? “even if I loved you—”
Then her tongue stumbled and was silent; and they walked on, side by side, through the fading splendour of the year, exchanging no further speech.
Toward sunset their guide hailed them, standing high among the rocks, a silhouette against the sky. And beyond him they saw the poles crowned with the huge nests of the fish-hawks, marking the last rendezvous at Osprey Ledge.
She turned to him as they started up the last incline, thanking him in a sweet, natural voice for his care of her — quite innocently — until in the questioning, unconvinced gaze that met hers she found her own eyes softening and growing dim; and she looked away suddenly, lest he read her ere she had dared turn the first page in the book of self — ere she had studied, pried, probed among the pages of a new chapter whose familiar title, so long meaningless to her, had taken on a sudden troubling significance. And for the first time in her life she glanced uneasily at the new page in the book of self, numbered according to her years with the figures 23, and headed with the unconvincing chapter title, “Love.”
CHAPTER V A WINNING LOSER
The week passed swiftly, day after day echoing with the steady fusillade from marsh to covert, from valley to ridge. Guns flashed at dawn and dusk along the flat tidal reaches haunted of black mallard and teal; the smokeless powder cracked through alder swamp an
d tangled windfall where the brown grouse burst away into noisy blundering flight; where the woodcock, wilder now, shrilled skyward like feathered rockets, and the big northern hares, not yet flecked with snowy patches of fur, loped off into swamps to the sad undoing of several of the younger setters.
There was a pheasant drive at Black Fells to which the Ferralls’ guests were bidden by Beverly Plank — a curious scene, where ladies and gentlemen stood on a lawn, backed by an army of loaders and gun-bearers, while another improvised army of beaters drove some thousands of frightened, bewildered, homeless foreign pheasants at the guns. And the miserable aliens that escaped the guns were left to perish in the desolation of a coming winter which they were unfitted to withstand.
So the first week of the season sped gaily, ending on Saturday with a heavy flight of northern woodcock and an uproarious fusillade among the silver birches.
Once Ferrall loaded two motor cars with pioneers for a day beyond his own boundaries; and one day was spent ingloriously with the beagles; but otherwise the Shotover estate proved more than sufficient for good bags or target practice, as the skill of the sportsmen developed.
Lord Alderdene, good enough on snipe and cock, was driven almost frantic by the ruffed grouse; Voucher did better for a day or two, and then lost the knack; Marion Page attended to business in her cool and thorough style, and her average on the gun-room books was excellent, and was also adorned with clever pen-and-ink sketches by Siward.
Leroy Mortimer had given up shooting and established himself as a haunter of cushions in sunny corners. Tom O’Hara had gone back to Lenox; Mrs. Vendenning to Hot Springs. Beverly Plank, master of Black Fells, began to pervade the house after a tentative appearance; and he and Major Belwether pottered about the coverts, usually after luncheon — the latter doing little damage with his fowling-piece, and nobody knew how much with his gossiping tongue. Quarrier appeared in the field methodically, shot with judgment, taking no chances for a brilliant performance which might endanger his respectable average. As for the Page boys, they kept the river ducks stirring whenever Eileen Shannon and Rena Bonnesdel could be persuaded to share the canoes with them. Otherwise they haunted the vicinity of those bored maidens, suffering snubs sorrowfully, but persistently faithful. They were a great nuisance in the evening, especially as their sister did not permit them to lose more than ten dollars a day at cards.
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