Chapter IV: Part 4

"Out of sight," he said lazily, stretching himself at her feet and glancing up at her. "Go ahead with your cat nap. I'll time you half an hour."

After a moment he laughed, and her eyebrows went up in a silent question.

He said: "I never noticed it before. It's odd."

"Noticed what?"

"How funny they are in outline--your eyes, I mean."

"Thank you, Jim."

"Oh, they're most engaging eyes, Diana."

"More thanks, thank you!"

"I mean that they tip up a trifle--just a trifle, Japonette."

"They don't!"

"They do. Like a pretty Japanese girl's. Only yours are blue.... They're very blue--unusually--like the sky--that sort of blue."

"Young man," she said with mock seriousness, "don't you know what comes of speculating in ladies' eyes?"

"Bankruptcy of the heart," he nodded.

"Then choose some safer and preferred stock, please."

He lay smiling up at her, watching the shades of expression varying in her youthful face--watching the delicate shape of her mouth, which had always fascinated him with its unspoiled purity.

"Do you know," he said, partly to himself, "that when I first set eyes on you, Japonette, I knew I had never seen anything half as beautiful."

"You didn't think so long," she returned, laughing. "Christine is goddess of beauty just now."

"I have always thought so," he repeated.

"Then--why don't you ever say it to me?"

His smile changed a little.

"What would be the use of my telling you that you are beautiful?"

"Use?"

"What good would it do for me to become sentimental over your beauty?"

"Lots of good--to me, Jim. You can't tell a girl too often that she is pretty--when you really think so.... And I almost believe you do think so." She glanced at him sideways, laughed a little, then her blue eyes wandered and she leaned back, pensive, twisting a green oak leaf between idle fingers.

"Do you know," he said after a moment, "that, just now, you are like Japonette again. I haven't seen you so like the real Japonette for a long while."

"How _can_ I be Japonette again? I lack the sandals and butterfly sash and the peonies over my ears, Jim. And--that was about all you saw in Japonette, wasn't it?"

"Almost all. Her face was only a shadowy flower against the sunshine, and its enchantment turned the world to fairyland."

"Alas! the spell was temporary. The victim of my spells fled to the roof, and told me stories about starlings and--and children.... But, somehow, I let him get away from me, and I don't know how to find him again."

Edgerton watched her. She had plaited a sash out of green oak leaves and fitted it around her slender waist; and now, absently, she was placing in her hair, above each little close-set ear, a scarlet wood lily.

Presently she caught his eye, and made him a pretty gesture.

"You see I am trying my best to return with you to yesterday.... It is a long path--back over the hours and minutes to yesterday, back to a land of dreamy suns and forgotten skies, and unremembered thoughts.... Shall I try to guide you?"

"Yes," he said, not smiling.

"We may lose our way among the phantoms," she warned him gayly; then became preternaturally solemn, resting her chin in one hand.

Her seriousness enchanted him--her youthful grace as she bent slightly above him, one warning finger uplifted as when a nurse speaks of mysteries to a child in the quiet of twilight.

"Join hands with me in spirit, and I'll try to lead you," she said.... "Now, follow me, while we make our way through the throng of strange faces, treading a path silently, discreetly, avoiding this pretty girl with her bright brown eyes."

"Christine," he thought, and started to speak.

"Hush!" she cautioned him; "for we mustn't speak yet--not until we're in the land of yesterday.... And we are passing over the minutes and hours and days and weeks--and it's like treading on formless mist; so hold tightly to my hand, and follow me--through a golden ballroom, around a great gilded piano, then out into the June rain, Jim.... Have you let go my hand?"

"No."

"Then we are very near the land of yesterday.... I thought I heard a starling whistle. Surely! and there is the sunset over the river--and now we are in the house, Jim. And it is not sunset, after all; it is sunrise--the sunburst of Japan! And there, against it----"

"You!" he said in a voice not very firm.

"Hush! Those two figures we see are only phantoms. Let us stand here by the door and listen to what they might have said."

"They _did_ say things!"

"Ah! but it is to what they might have said that we must try to listen. Be very silent, now. Look at that girl in her silk and sandals and the flowers in her hair! Look at that young fellow, rooted to the floor, amazed at the apparition! Can you hear what he _might_ have said to her in his astonishment?"

"He might have said: 'Your loveliness confounds me. You are the most beautiful vision I have ever dreamed.' ... What does _she_ say, Japonette?"

"She says: 'For a moment I was afraid you'd filled your suit cases with our silver; but you are so obviously nice that I am not alarmed any more. I'm merely ashamed to be caught here in this theatrical dress.' What might he have said to that, Jim?"

"He might have said: 'Is it a heavenly possibility that you are real, and not a vision? Allah is merciful to the believer in dreams. Your name is Youth and Beauty; I will call you Japonette, but the high white gods have named you Diana.' ... And what does _she_ say, Japonette?"

"She _might_ have answered: 'O youth with the engaging smile, out of my breast you have charmed the winged heart, and it is fluttering there above you, restless, uncertain--just beyond your reach.' ... And what does--_might_ he have answered, Jim?"

"He might have said: 'I love you, but my outward self does not know it yet--will not know it, even on the roof garden--even when the sun hangs low and the starlings pipe, and all the west is a glory of gold and rose; and I shall never know it until you lead me back from to-morrow, through the magic path of days and hours, to the true world of yesterday.' ... What answer does she make Diana?"

His voice had grown very unsteady; he lay there looking at her, the smile stamped on his lips. And her faint smile had become fixed, too.

"She made no answer," said Diana.

"She might have.... Remember, all this is what they _might_ have said."

"And did not.... I don't know what she might have said." ... Suddenly she flung the green sash of leaves from her body, tore the scarlet wood lilies from her hair, and flung them away with a gay, little laugh.

"What an idle, silly pair we are," she said. "I've had my nap. I'm awake, now."

"Was all that a dream?"

"You know it was.... It began with a fable--which sent me off to sleep."

"It ended in truth--and an awakening--for one of us."

"Jim, you're not pretending to be serious, are you? Goodness!" she added impatiently; "can't I pretend with you, and not be misunderstood?"

He sat up, sprang to his feet, and began to pace the moss.

She, resting against the silver birch, watched him, already a little frightened, her heart beginning to beat high and fast.

Suddenly he came back and, resting on one knee, bent over beside her.

"Did you mean nothing of that? _Nothing?_"

"Nothing; why should you be silly enough to suppose----"

"I did suppose for a moment."

"Jim, you are not pretending to court me, are you?"

"Not pretending.... No, I'm not doing it.... How can a beggar think of such a thing as courtship?"

"Beggars court most ardently--sometimes," she said, laughing tremulously. "But it's not hearts they usually court."

He knelt there, thinking a moment, head bent. Then he looked up at her.

"I have no reason to believe that you care for me," he said--"more than for any other man, I mean."

"You have no reason to believe so," she repeated, now thoroughly alarmed at what she'd done; and yet it was what she had deliberately set out to do. Her breath came unevenly. She strove to retain her composure, to recover the ground he seemed to have gained.

"Jim," she said, "you are too easily affected by your surroundings. A few trees, a summer sky, and a girl are destruction to you."

"You don't think that," he said quietly.

"I do, indeed. Witness my fate, and the plight of Christine."

He said, watching her: "Do you suppose that there is any sentimentality between Christine Rivett and me?"

"Oh, Jim! don't shuffle----"

"She is in love with another man," he said.

"Nonsense!" But a strange thrill shot through and through her, and, confused, she bent forward, looking him straight in the face.

"Diana! Diana!" he said under his breath, "did you care?"

"I?" she said, reddening. "Jim, I am not a baby.... I thought--as everybody thought--but it was of no consequence--except that she is a sweet girl, and you are my friend."

She recovered herself with a little laugh--or would have, had his hand not closed on hers. She gave it a friendly and vigorous pressure, and attempted to drop it; but he placed the other hand over it, inclosing her slender fingers, which frightened her into pretense of unconsciousness.

Now she stood on the threshold. Now she was on the eve of that daybreak from which she had prayed that the shadows might flee away; and she shrank from the coming light, afraid, while dawn threatened her with what, as yet, she had left undone. And even through the confused sense of expectancy and consternation ran a fierce flame of happiness.

Then, unable to endure it longer, she flung the mask from her, facing the tempest she had sown.

"Let me go, Jim," she said in a colorless voice.

But he held her hand closely imprisoned, and the next moment her body. The rapid racket of her heart seemed to stifle her; she tried to speak--lay inert, crushed against his shoulder, dumb, scarlet, under his kiss.

"I love you," he said; "I've always loved you.... I'm a blackguard to say it--penniless nobody that I am--without much chance to be anything else, apparently. But I say it for better or worse.... I love you. You like me, but you think lightly of me.... With sufficient reason, God knows.... And I have no right to touch you--no right in decency or law, Diana."

She forced herself away from him, but, somehow, held his hands clasped convulsively in hers.

"You--shouldn't have kissed me," she managed to say. "You mustn't do it again--ever."

He laid his face against their clasped hands; her own tightened.

"Nevertheless," he said, "I love you."

"You mustn't speak that way--" She dropped her flushed face; he lifted it, and kissed her again.

When he released her, she leaned back against the silver birch, head lowered, silent and did not move her hands from the moss as he bent and kissed them, too.

When at last she found her voice, she spoke so low that he bent his head closer to listen.

"That is the one imprudence I have never before committed--contact with any man. You must not do it to me again.... I don't know how to take it. I _can't_ love you. You know that." She looked up at him. "Don't you know it?"

"Yes," he said stubbornly.

"You _do_ know that I can't; don't you? And that you cannot really love me?"

"I suppose it ought to be that way; but it isn't."

And now the moment had come to make her desire a certainty--and finish what she had set herself to do--for this man's sake. She said:

"You _can't_ care for me, Jim! What am I anyway? A shallow, pleasure-loving nobody, who sells her frivolous social gifts because it is pleasanter and easier to make a living that way than to exercise a decent profession. How can such a man as you really fall in love with such a woman?"

She rose to her feet and stood leaning against the tree; and he rose, too, releasing her fingers.

She touched her hair, passed her hands slowly over her eyes, let them fall idly by her side; then, after a moment, looked up at him, faintly smiling.

"Melodrama is no use, is it?" she said. "You are not impressed by it; I can't act it. Life is less serious than the stage. Shall we come back together along the road to yesterday, and find our old, safe footing? ... And--shall I forgive you what you've done this summer day?"

"I want you to marry me," he said between compressed lips. "I'll make good, yet."

"What!" she exclaimed in apparent amazement. "_You!_"

"Will you marry me?"

How she forced the light laughter she never understood; and she saw her gayety bring the blood to his face like a whip lash.

"Marry! No, I won't marry you," she laughed. "Mercy on the man! Does he suppose I wish to marry a professional entertainer?--a generally useful gentleman--a big, strong, healthy, well-built, intelligent fellow, too indolent to rouse himself and make a respectable living?--too self-indulgent to start in a manly career and fight the world--take it by the throat and shake a decent living out of its sinful old pockets?"

A deeper flush of astonishment and mortification swept his face, settling to the roots of his hair.

She did not seem to notice it or his silence.

"Nonsense," she laughed; "a girl, with any humor, simply _couldn't_ love such a man, even if she wanted to, Jim. Because, how can she respect him? ... You're a dear, generous fellow--nice to everybody, perfectly sweet to Silvette and to me, and I _do_ like you--even _love_ you, in a certain sense--and I didn't really mind being kissed any more than as though Silvette had done it. But I'm simply not fashioned to lose my head over a man who is hired by the month to be socially pleasant." She laughed again, and laid her hand carelessly on his arm; and under her touch she felt it was rigid and hard as iron.

"You see, don't you?" she said sweetly. "You're not grown up yet, Jim. It takes more than you yet are to satisfy me."

He managed to force his voice out of his quivering throat.

"You're right," he said. "I didn't know what I was talking about. You are worth trying for."

They turned away together; she slipped one hand confidently through his arm, leaning on him lightly as they walked.

"You're not hopelessly offended, are you, Jim?"

"No--good God, no."

"I'd love you if I could," she said soothingly, "but the instincts of mating with anything resembling servitude are wanting in me. Besides, two slaves are enough for one family--Silvette and I.... You are not hurt or angry at my very horrid frankness?"

"No.... What you said is all right." He lifted his eyes and looked his punishment squarely in the face; and her heart failed her, so that she turned her head swiftly, the tears stinging her throat.

They walked soberly on through the meadow up to the house. She gave him her hand at parting; then went leisurely to her room to dress for dinner.

And Silvette found her there alone on her knees beside the window, partly undressed, her head buried in her arms, the brown locks clustering against her pale and tear-stained face.

"Diana!" she exclaimed softly. "What is the matter, child?"

The girl got up wearily, keeping her face out of the flood of light from the electric brackets.

"Nothing much," she said; "I've only been very horrid to Jim."

"I thought you were going to be kinder," said Silvette, astonished.

"I have been; but he doesn't know it."

Her sister stood silent, looking at her with sorrowful eyes.

"Don't sympathize with me; I--I can't bear it, Silvie."

"No--if you don't wish it, dear.... Shall I fix your bath? ... And--_who_ do you suppose is downstairs?"

Diana looked up inquiringly.

"The man you flirted with so outrageously at Keno!"

"Which?" asked Diana naively.

"Billy Inwood!"

Diana brightened a little.

"At least," she said with sad satisfaction, "I can occupy my mind with him for a while. He got away before he was thoroughly disciplined. _I_ believe there was another girl somewhere.... I think I'll obliterate her--unless I approve of her. There's the making of a man in that boy, Silvette."

But she decided otherwise a few moments before dinner was announced, when Inwood made his appearance in the drawing-room and greeted his hostess. Then, catching sight of her, he came hastily toward her with both hands outstretched.

"Diana!" he exclaimed; "_isn't_ this jolly! I'm terribly glad to see you again... And Silvette! Oh, this is simply too delightful! I----"

Speech stopped, perhaps froze on his lips; then he turned fiery red as he stepped forward to greet Mrs. Wemyss. A year ago she had been a comparatively slim and pretty divorcee; to-day even the embarrassing opulence and prodigality of her charms had not altered the doll-like perfection of her features. He knew her instantly, and, in his brain, chaos menaced him.

"How do you do," he said; "this is most delightful and surprising. Lilly----"

"Charming," murmured Mrs. Wemyss; and, under her smile, she lowered her voice: "I'm Lilly Wemyss; I've taken my maiden name. Don't forget, and call me Mrs. Atherstane."

He nodded, the fixed smile imprinted on his features; and it remained there as they stood in conversation until dinner was announced.

He took in Christine. The girl's arm rested lightly as a feather on his sleeve. During dinner she talked to him pleasantly, but without animation; and, somehow, all seemed to go wrong with him, for he found scarcely anything to say to Christine--anything that was not trite and banal. And his haunted eyes reverted again and again to Mrs. Wemyss.

"Oh, Lord!" he thought, "what a horrible mess; and is Lilly going to expect me to--to----"

But his scared wits could speculate no farther, and he sat beside Christine, worried, unhappy, penitent, too miserable to enjoy the moment to which he had looked forward so impetuously all day long--a moment which, two days ago, he dared not believe would ever again come into his life.

*CHAPTER VIII*

*MILLE MODI VENERIS*

A number of matters had been slightly disturbing Colonel Curmew's intellect and digestion. One thing, he had lost money at cards--a thing he hated as heartily as Judge Wicklow hated it. Another matter--Jack Rivett had fairly driven him out of Silvette's vicinity. True, an easily transferred devotion to her sister already consoled him; the one was as ornamental as the other, but he liked young Rivett no better.

He desired to ingratiate himself with Jack because the boy had never liked him, and he neither understood why nor became reconciled to it; and he was always making advances and assuming, under the jocular familiarity of an older man, that there existed between himself and Jack a delightful and cordial understanding, which Jack coolly ignored; and the colonel disliked him the more.

Then, there was another matter which occupied him--had occupied him, now, for several years. He meant to marry Christine Rivett some day. For the present he was satisfied to treat her with the same jovial familiarity with which he treated her brother; and now it seemed to him that Christine, whom he feared might become too much interested in Edgerton, was veering toward this young Inwood fellow who had just arrived.

Colonel Curmew was not actually alarmed; he was merely bored, and now and then a trifle uneasy, because he had to take this and other matters into his calculations in being attentive to Diana Tennant.

No, he was not worried. He Lad become cheerfully convinced that both these matters could be properly attended to. Let Christine have her fling and grow up. Her fortune kept pace with her, anyway.

But about Diana Tennant he had not yet entirely made up his mind--and yet he had made it up, too, after a fashion.

There were, including Diana's youth and beauty, several things about her which were likely to attract the attention of such a man as Follis Curmew. First of all, she was poor. Also, she was self-supporting and alone in the world except for a similarly situated sister who didn't count, and a very distant relative who didn't really count, either.

She was beautiful and clever; men appreciate such women. Such women, he also believed, deeply appreciated the kind of things they could not afford.... And, furthermore, he did not hesitate to believe that such women were perfectly capable of appreciating middle-aged military gentlemen of discretion, fortune, and liberality in reason.

So he contrived to get as close to Diana as he could on all occasions; and very often, to her surprise, she found him at her heels or seated unnaturally near her, pale eyes slightly protruding, his curling mustache and little side whiskers faintly redolent of brilliantine.

Amused, and not yet uneasy, she mentioned his assiduity to her sister, and thought nothing further of it; nor did Silvette, preoccupied with an episode of her own which threatened to become something approaching a problem.

Instinct told her that Jack Rivett preferred her to anybody at Adriutha; and she liked him well enough to find his attention agreeable. But little by little it became more marked--to her, if not to others--and she experienced a slight uneasiness concerning this very rich and idle only son, the ambition of whose father had now become plain to her.

So Silvette at first very pleasantly discouraged him, and kept out of tete-a-tetes as much as possible, in which maneuvers she was not very successful. For the girl found in this lazy, witty, good-humored, self-indulgent young fellow a cool and confident adversary--resistless because of his charming manner toward her and his unvarying cheerfulness under rebuffs which were becoming more frequent and more severe--and, alas, more useless.

About a week after Inwood's arrival, while writing a letter in the rose-garden pavilion, a shadow checkered the lattice work and fell across her note paper; and, glancing up, she beheld Jack Rivett, hands in his coat pockets, the breeze ruffling his blond hair.

"I'm writing," she said, annoyed.

"I'll sit down on the sundial," he rejoined with a bow and a smile as though accepting a delightful invitation.

"But I'll be writing about two hours," she observed coldly.

"Writing about two hours?" he repeated. "But why write about hours at all, dear lady. An hour is an arbitrary division of time, interesting only to the unhappy."

"Very witty," she said. "Go and scratch it on the sundial."

And she resumed her letter, trying not to be aware of the blond young man seated just outside the summer house, where the sun gilded his hair and the wind mussed it into a most becoming mop.

Several times she bit the pearl tip of her penholder, frowning; but he always seemed to catch her eye at such moments, and her deepening frown only produced on his face an expression which was so very humble that it became almost mischievous.

"Jack!"

He hurriedly rose, and looked all around him among the roses as though eagerly searching for the person who had called him.

"_Jack!_" she repeated emphatically.

He pretended to discover her for the first time, and hurried joyously to the lattice door.

"Jack--you perfect idiot! I want to write, and I simply can't, with you sitting around in that martyred manner."

"How far away shall I retire?" he inquired, so sad and crestfallen, that between amusement and annoyance she did not reply, but merely sat tapping with her pen and inspecting her letter.

As she did not speak again, very cautiously--and holding up one hand as an unwelcome dog holds up one beseeching paw to ward off calamity--he ventured to seat himself on a bench outside the summer house.

She was perfectly aware of the inimitable pantomime, and a violent desire to laugh seized her, but she only bit her lip and resolutely dipped her pen into the ink once more.

She wrote obstinately, knowing all the while that she'd have to rewrite it. His excessive stillness began to get on her nerves; and, after a quarter of an hour's preternatural silence, she could endure it no longer.

"Jack!"

"Dear lady?" he replied patiently.

"Why don't you say something?"

"I was forbidden the exquisite consolation of noise."

"It's horribly hot and still out here. Why don't the birds sing?"

"They're moulting, dear lady. All their little pin feathers have become unfastened, and their bills are probably full of pins while they make themselves tidy again."

"So that is why they don't sing in July?" she said.

"That is why," he explained seriously.

"Well, then, why don't _you_ sing? _You_ are not untidy."

"Nothing could suit my pensive and melancholy mood better," he said sadly.

A moment later, sitting outside her door, he began with deep emotion to sing one of Kirk's melting melodies:

"_With head bowed low a dentist stood_
_Before his office chair;_
_A handsome lady customer_
_Into his eyes did stare._
_He tried to fake a careless smile_
_And hide his drooping jaw,_
_But all in vain because his guilt_
_Was plainly to be saw._
_His voice was choked with shame and fear,_
_He said, 'Forgive me, miss!'_
_But when he begged her pardon there_
_The lady then did hiss:_

_Chorus._

"'_Take back them teeth you made me! I_
_Won't wear them in my face!_
_Go hang them in your parlor as_
_A badge of your disgrace._
_You swore them crowns was solid gold!_
_You're false--like teeth and men!_
_Take back them teeth, you lobster!_
_Never speak to me again!_
_Take back--take ba-ack--take ba-a-a----_'"

"Jack!" she exclaimed, "that is the most--most degraded thing I ever heard you utter!"

"I'm accustoming you, by degrees, to my repertoire. With infinite precautions you will, in time, be able to endure much worse than this," he explained kindly. "Now, what shall we try next, dear lady? I have a little song called: 'Only a pint of shoe strings!'"

"Don't you dare attempt it! ... Jack, _please_ go away. Won't you, when I ask it?"

"She mutters the unthinkable," he said, shaking his head. "My music has unseated her reason. By and by she will begin to moan and revive."

"It's perfectly outrageous," she said, tearing up what she had written, and moving aside a little so that sufficient space remained for--her sister, perhaps. So he entered the summer house and waited for an invitation, bland, cheerful, irresistible.

"I had no idea I was so pitiably weak-minded," she said.

He accepted the avowal as his invitation, and seated himself.

"Silvette," he said genially, "what are we going to do to-day?"

"Who?"

"Why, you and I. Who cares what the others do in this mad world, dear lady?"

"I don't know about the world," she said, "but there's one girl in it who is mad; and she's going to her room to write letters."

"When?"

"Now!"

"Don't."

"Indeed, I shall!"

"Shall, or will?" he inquired, guilelessly, "People mix up those two auxiliaries so persistently that there's no telling what anybody really means in these days."

She considered a moment, then turned and looked at him.

"Jack," she said sweetly, "don't follow me about?"

"I? Follow _you_! That's more madness, dear lady. Who on earth ever whispered to you that I could ever do such a----"

"Won't you be serious, please?"

Her pretty, dark eyes were serious enough, even appealing. He became solemn at once.

"You have forced me to say this," she ventured. "I didn't wish to; I thought you'd understand, but you don't seem to. So I am compelled to say to you that--it is--better taste for you to--not to----"

She hesitated, glanced up at him, colored brightly.

"You know perfectly well what I mean! And there you sit, letting me try to tell you as nicely as I can----"

"About what, dear lady?"

"About you and me!" she said, incensed. "You know perfectly well that I've been obliged to avoid being alone with you."

"Why?"

"Because," she said, intensely annoyed, "I am employed by your parents, and you are an only son of Mr. Jacob Rivett.... Is that unmistakable?"

He said nothing.

She went on: "You know I like you, Jack. You seem to like me. If you do, you'll understand that this--this continually seeking me out, separating me from the others, isn't fair to me.... I'm trying not to talk nonsense about it. I know you mean nothing but kindness; but it isn't wise, and it is not agreeable, either. So let us enjoy our very delightful friendship as freely among others as we do when alone together--" She stopped abruptly, blushed to her hair, furious at herself, astonished that her tongue could have blundered so. The next instant she understood that he was too decent to notice her blunder. Indeed, to look at him, she almost persuaded herself that he had not even heard her speak, so coolly remote were his eyes, so preoccupied his air as he sat facing the far hills, blue in the July haze.

Presently he looked up at her.

"What was it you were lecturing me about?" he asked cheerfully.

"About our twosing, Jack."

"Did you say you _did_ prefer it, or otherwise?"

"Otherwise--you monkey!" she said, laughing, free of the restraint and of the bright color that had made even her neck hot.

"Very well," he said briskly; "keep your distance! Don't start running after me the moment I come in sight across the landscape. Will you promise?"

"I promise," she said solemnly.

"Thank you. I shall have a little leisure now. I'll have so much I won't know what to do with it. Can you advise me?"

"I cannot."

"Then I'll have to think for myself.... I'll have to do something, of course.... Suppose you and I take a canoe----"

"Canoes hold only two, Jack."

"By Jove! What am I thinking of! Thank you for saving me from incredible suffering.... So suppose we don't take a canoe, you and I, but we take the red runabout?"

"Jack!"

"What?"

"The red runabout holds two, only."

"I must be demented!" he said with a shudder.... "Silvette, I'll tell you what we'll do--we'll take a walk, you and I. There's room all around us for millions of other people. They can come if they like; if they don't, why, it's up to them!"

"No, Jack."

"Won't it do?"

"No. Why won't you be a little bit serious about a matter that, after all, concerns me very nearly."

"I _am_ serious," he said. "It concerns me, too."

"No, it doesn't."

"Indeed, it does. Two people are not to go twosing any more; _I'm_ one of those people. Therefore, it concerns me, doesn't it?"

She looked at him, confused, half smiling, half reluctant.

"Don't you know," she said, "that your attention to me is worrying your father and mother?"

He thought a moment, then slowly turned toward her a sober and youthful face, from which all humor had departed; and she looked back at him out of grave young eyes that met his very sweetly, but inexorably.

"Do you mean it, Silvette?"

"About your parents?"

"Yes."

"Yes, I do, Jack."

He said, partly to himself: "I had not noticed it."

"I have. It's a woman's business to notice such things. Otherwise, she'll find herself in trouble.... Inclination is a silly guide, Jack."

"For me?"

"For--us both.... I will be frank with you all the way through. I do like you. I enjoy our tete-a-tetes. They are perfectly honest and harmless, and without significance--the significance, alas, that others will surely attach to them.... It isn't that there's anything wrong with you and me, Jack.... It's the World that is wrong.... But--it's the World; and you and I must conform to its prejudices as long as we inhabit it--at least _I_ must."

"I suppose you must," he said. Then, leaning a little nearer, he took her hand, held it lightly across his palm, looked at it a moment, then at her.

"Will you let me tell father and mother that I am in love with you, and wish to marry you?" he said.

"Jack!" she exclaimed in consternation.

"Will you let me?"

"No, I won't! ... Jack! Don't be foolish. I had no idea you had arrived as far as that. I had no reason to think so--to suppose for one moment--because it has always been the jolliest and most unsentimental--and--you never even touched me before."

Her color brightened, and her breath came irregularly. She tried to laugh, and failed.

"You know perfectly well that they have other ambitions for you."

"I know.... How is it with you, Silvette?"

"With me? What do you mean?"

"Could you care for me?"

"I--I haven't even thought about such a--I haven't really, Jack. You know that, don't you? You must try to look back on our very brief friendship--try to recollect how brief it has been--try to remember--remember how happy and amusing and confident that friendship has been--with no suspicion of sentiment to embarrass or vex----"

"I know.... Isn't there any hope for me?"

"Hope? No.... Don't put it that way, Jack.... I _don't_ love you.... I oughtn't to, and, thank Heaven, I don't. And you don't really love me--you dear, sweet fellow! It's just part of your niceness--your generous attitude toward a girl----"

"I'm in love with you.... But that mustn't worry you. It had to be. You need feel no self-reproach. You didn't do anything--you were just yourself--and I"--he laughed a little--"started in to love you as soon as I saw you.... I'm glad you know it, anyway. We won't say anything more about it----"

"Jack, we _will_! Do you understand that you have distressed me dreadfully? Do you realize what a girl's responsibilities are when a nice man loves her? Do you think she can merely shrug her shoulders and go about her daily frivolities without another thought?"

She rose to her feet, looking at him earnestly.

"Oh, Jack! Jack!" she said, nervously clasping and unclasping her hands; "why did you do this? Why _did_ you?"

He forced a laugh. "I won't do it again--ever," he said. "Promise you never to fall-in-love-again-hope-I-may-die'n-cross m'heart."

But there were no smiles left in her now.

"If you don't behave," he threatened, "I'll lock us both inside and sing songs to you!" ... But the smile died out on his face. "I was a gink to tell you. Don't feel unhappy about it," again the engaging humor glimmered in his eyes. "Cheer up, Silvette; you may fall in love with me yet!"

She looked up, the smile dawning, distressed, yet sweet.

"Don't let me, Jack.... Because I'm all right, so far.... And you know what your father wishes for you. I want to deal honorably by him."

"All right," he said quietly.

They walked slowly back to the house together, and the girl went directly to her room, where she found her sister mending stockings.

*CHAPTER IX*

*NON SEQUITUR*

Silvette dropped into an armchair, crossed her knees, and sat swinging her foot and gazing through the open window in silence until Diana's head, lifted from time to time in smiling interrogation, could be no longer ignored.

"Jack Rivett has asked me to marry him," she said in an expressionless voice.

Diana laughed in frank surprise:

"That infant!"

"Yes."

"What an absurdity!"

Her sister said nothing.

"How did it come--out of a clear sky?"

"Yes.... I knew he liked me. I had no idea he wanted to marry me."

"You're not going to, are you?"

"No."

"I should think not. It would be sheer cradle snatching."

"He's a year older than I am."

"In years, yes; but, intellectually, he ought to be playing marbles. Moreover, that sort of a boy _never_ grows up."

"I don't think he will.... God bestows that gift sometimes."

"What gift?"

"The gift of eternal youth.... I haven't it.... But I believe it can be shared." She gazed thoughtfully at the distant hills. "Years and years slip from me when that boy and I talk nonsense together."

"Better talk sense with him, and wake up, sweetness, or you'll relapse into your second childhood."

"I have just been talking sense to him.... I'm awake," she said dreamily.

"Do you mean to admit that the interview has seriously affected you?"

"Oh, I don't know yet."

"Better investigate," said Diana. "You know what his parents expect of their children. And if we are to remain here, I think, dear, that you had better see a little less of Jack Rivett than you have been seeing. Don't you?"

"I am sure of it."

"Otherwise," continued Diana calmly, "it would be playing the game fairer for you and me to seek another business engagement. These people have been very honorable toward us. We can scarcely permit them to outdo us."

Silvette looked up calmly, her cheek resting on her hand.

"How dishonorable would it be?" she asked.

"What?"

"To--let him fall in love with me?"

"Ask yourself. You know their social ambitions."

"I know; but, after all, you and I started out to make of life a successful business proposition. I thought a desirable marriage was to be part of the programme."

"Do you consider Jack Rivett desirable? He could take you nowhere. With all his wealth, where could you take him? And anyway, it's not playing the game, Silvie. It's kidnaping." She laughed. "Take a man of your size--and of the world, little sister; and if he isn't of the world, and is poor, defy him to take _you_!--give him battle--put up a good fight with foot, horse, and artillery. The best one of you will always win, and the other get what's coming."

Silvette went to the desk, supplied herself with pen and paper, and prepared to resume her interrupted correspondence. Presently she looked around, pen poised.

"Did the best man win between you and Jim Edgerton?" she asked.

Diana bent lower over her sewing.

"I'm afraid so, Silvie."

"Then _you_ won."

"I think so.... I have fought it over every day since--alone."

"You poor little thing," said Silvette softly.

Diana looked up with a slight smile. "Perhaps you misunderstood me, dear. I told you I was winning.... Which means, I think, that Jim Edgerton isn't going to remain very long at Adriutha."

"Where is he going?"

"I don't know that he is going at all; he doesn't know it, either.... But, somehow, I dare believe that he _is_ going."

"Where?"

"Into a man's world to engage in a man's business."

"It isn't in him, Diana.... You are taking a great responsibility on your shoulders. Do you realize that you are?"

"Yes."

"And that a man with no more force of character and real ability than he has may starve? That the world will probably break his heart, anyway."

"Let it, then.... Only a real man's heart breaks. I'll know he's one if it does; and so will he. And that's worth all the rest."

"That's a stern creed, little sister, considering the pleasure-loving lips that utter it."

"Out of the mouth of fools, wisdom. It doesn't matter what I am. The thing that is important is what he shall become."

"If he become what you desire, he may have little further interest in you."

"He will have none, if he becomes what he could become," said the girl steadily. "Did you suppose my--ambition for him was selfish?"

"Little breaker of images, are you going to shatter your own under his very eyes?"

"He will be the iconoclast some day.... Probably I'll be married before that--as soon, anyway, as it's best for him.... I've plenty of time." ... She smiled without a trace of mirth in her eyes. "Mr. Snaith has already indicated his noiseless entry into the lists. He and Colonel Curmew are at lance points. Materially speaking, a girl ought to consider both of them."

"But, child, we have many another business engagement before us yet, I trust.... You wouldn't think of taking the first--the first----"

"Million offered?" asked Diana, laughing. "No, of course not, silly. I'm merely observing the manners and customs of the creature man."

Silvette laughed, too. "How are you getting on with Billy Inwood?" she asked demurely--"speaking of more agreeable matters."

"Perfectly; after the initial shock at encountering me here, he behaved most reasonably. _I_ have an idea that he came here on Christine's account, and he seemed to be rather nervous as to his obligations to me, but I set that right at the first opportunity. I said: 'Billy, if I don't tell you, somebody else will, that Silvette and I are here practicing our profession, which is--to be amiable to the guests and help entertain them. So I'm going to be just as amiable to you as I know how, but it need not frighten you because I have no designs on you.'"

They both laughed. Diana, mending her stocking, continued:

"I think he was very much relieved, though he pretended not to be. I wonder if he _did_ come here to see Christine? The girl is cool enough with him, and he is inclined to follow her about in an aimless sort of way, as though he had something on his mind."

"He seems to be equally attentive to Christine and Mrs. Wemyss," observed Silvette. "It appears that he and that ample beauty are old friends."

"Who is Mrs. Wemyss, anyway?"

Silvette smiled. "I asked Mrs. Rivett, saying that there was something familiar about Mrs. Wemyss, and that I had an idea I had seen her somewhere; but Mrs. Rivett didn't know who she was. She had met her last winter at the Plaza, which is the kind of thing one might have expected--even of Mrs. Rivett, who is as dear a little woman as ever wore sapphires at breakfast.... What a horrid, cynical thing I'm turning into! ... And now I'm going to turn into an imitation of a young girl dressing for luncheon. Heigho! I wish other people were what they ought to be and I were what I'd like to be. The world would wag very well, then."

Luncheon was the usual animated, gossipy, and amusing function that Silvette and Diana and Jack Rivett always made it, and at which Colonel Curmew assiduously assisted according to his notions of jollity.

Edgerton for the last week or so had remained rather silent among the others, amiable and nice always and perfectly receptive when spoken to, but not volunteering very much, and not, according to Colonel Curmew's idea, earning his salary. However, as the colonel didn't like him, that fact may have colored his judgment when he spoke to Mr. Rivett about it after luncheon in the privacy of that silent man's study.

"He's turned into what I knew he was--a damned snob!" said the colonel, sitting with widened legs, a rich cigar tucked in under his military mustache, and furtively loosening the rear buckle of his white waistcoat.

"He doesn't pay for his keep," he went on. "What use to you is a man who sits around looking unapproachable?"

"I have no difficulty in approaching him," observed Mr. Rivett.

"You pay him. To look at him, one would think he paid you."

"He pays me his services."

"Ah, but he doesn't! He's off with that little Diana girl half the time."

"That's their affair."

"By gad! Is it? They're both here on a salary if it comes to that, Jake.... Say, did it ever strike you as funny--this cousin business he puts up?"

Mr. Rivett's burned-brown eyes fixed themselves on the jaunty colonel.

"How?"

"Oh, nothing.... They're rather distant relatives, that's all.... Not but what she seems to be straight--as far as I know."

"What does anybody else know about her?"

"Oh, nothing--nothing," said the colonel, waving his cigar and heavy seal ring. "But it's curious.... You can't really say a word against an Edgerton, rich or poor; but, as far as I can see the girl is only a little adventuress looking for trouble.... She'll probably get it some day," he added with a tenor laugh peculiarly ungrateful to the auditory mechanism of Mr. Rivett.

The colonel puffed his cigar in smiling silence for a while; then, expelling another laugh and a large volume of blue smoke, slapped his knee, straightened his tie and waistcoat and shot his cuffs.

"She'll be all right to take about town, eh, Jake?" he said.

Mr. Rivett said nothing.

"Now, there's old Parke Ellingford," continued the colonel; "he's never had as good looking a girl, and, b'gad! I've seen 'em all--known most of 'em," he added with a leer. "And take any of the men you and I know--Wallowby, Dankland, and that hatchet-faced Van Wyne! They've never had any better-looking girl than that little Diana."

Mr. Rivett said nothing.

"B'gad!" said the colonel, with a laugh that approached the falsetto, "if she doesn't cut a dash in town' this winter, I miss my guess."

"Oh--are you to be in town?" inquired Mr. Rivett.

"I? No; Palm Beach," said the colonel hastily, watching the other out of his pale and protruding eyes. "And then--_I_ don't go in for such capers," he explained with a pained expression. "What a man jokes about, he never bothers with."

"_I've_ joked many a man out of half a million," observed Rivett grimly.

"That's different.... I'm a settled citizen." He looked cautiously at Rivett, hesitated, then said carelessly: "I mean to marry, some day."

"Do you?"

"I do, certainly.... And I flatter myself that the woman I marry will receive her equivalent, sir."

"Her moral equivalent?"

"Certainly. Perhaps not her--ah--financial equivalent." He looked up at Rivett to see how he took it. Rivett neither took it nor rejected it, apparently, and the colonel probed further.

"I expect to wait a year or two----"

"Aren't you getting on, Follis?"

"No, sir, I am _not_ getting on!" said the colonel shortly. "I am forty-five. No man is fit to marry before he's forty-seven, in my opinion. At that age he's able to treat his wife intelligently. Intelligence is what a young girl most deeply appreciates in a man."

"A--_young_ girl?"

"I prefer a youthful wife. Youth is susceptible of being moulded. I propose to make a perfect specimen of womanhood out of whatever charming and adolescent material fortune bestows upon me." The colonel slightly lifted his eyes until they protruded toward the ceiling. "I shall consider my wife as a sacred trust, a soul for which I am responsible."

"Very good idea," said Rivett without the slightest trace of expression on his face. "Why not marry the little Diana--and mould her into the ideal?"

"_Marry_ her!" blurted out Curmew. "What! Marry a hired--a paid--employee!"

His countenance became crimson and congested, and his eyes popped and popped.

Rivett rose. "My wife worked in her uncle's kitchen when I married her," he said indifferently, and walked out.

On the stairway he joined Diana, also descending.

"Well," he said, looking at her through his round glasses, "you _look_ happy enough."

"I am, thank you," said the girl, smiling.

"Don't thank me for it," he said dryly.

"You're to be thanked, too," she laughed--"or ought to be. But you don't like it, I know, so I tell your wife how very pleasant you are making Adriutha for my sister and myself."

"Do you find it pleasant?"

"Yes, I do."

"Like the people?"

They had halted on the stairs.

She looked up at him.

"Some of them I like," she said frankly.

"Which?"

"That is bad manners! ... But I like you and your wife and Christine and Jack."

"All of us?"

"Unreservedly--except in your case."

"What's the matter with me?" he asked grimly.

"Why, I don't know you very well," she said, "so how can----"

"Come and talk it over," he said.

They resumed the descent of the stairway together, and, side by side, walked out to a seat on the terrace overlooking the river.

"Sit down, ma'am," he said, dusting the marble bench with his drab-colored soft hat. She seated herself with decorum, inwardly amused. He dusted a place for himself, and sat down beside her.

"Now," he said, "what's the matter with me, Miss Tennant?"

She laughed deliciously. "Nothing that I have ever discovered."

"You're not much of an explorer, are you?"

"A rather good one, Mr. Rivett. But--you know there are still certain peaks in the world that defy approach," she added audaciously.

"I'm a peak, am I?"

He came so near to smiling that the girl watched him with increasing interest.

"You know," she said, "that you _are_ not exactly talkative, Mr. Rivett. How is a girl to form any definite idea of a--a--sphinx?"

"That's two names you've called me already"--he looked at his watch--"in the last four minutes--a peak and a sphinx."

She was laughing so unrestrainedly now that the corners of his eyes began to wrinkle a trifle.

He said: "What do you think of a self-made man who was once schoolmaster, day laborer, donkey-engine tender, foreman--all kinds of things, and whose wife was washing out a wood shed when he first met her?"

"Is that you?"

"It is. What do you think of such a man's chances in New York?"

"Financial?"

"Social."

"I don't know New York."

"You're highly connected there?"

"It is a very distant connection.... Mr. Edgerton chooses to acknowledge it."

"He's a snob, isn't he?"

"Not in the slightest," she said pleasantly; but the blood mounted to her cheeks and betrayed her.

"You like him?"

"Naturally."

"Unnaturally, too?"

"Kinship has little to do with my liking him."

"He's rather easy-going, isn't he?"

She flushed up again, and turned her clear eyes on his little brown ones.

"Don't you like him?" she asked.

"Isn't he easy-going?"

"He has not yet found himself. He is an intelligent, warm-hearted, high-minded man, capable of taking an honorable position in the world.... And I do not doubt that he will one day take and keep it."

"He was in iron, was he not--Edgerton, Tennant & Co.?"

"Yes."

Mr. Rivett thought for a while. "By the way," he said, "I neglected to answer your question. I'll answer it now. I like Mr. Edgerton."

"Thank you," said Diana, not perfectly aware of what she said.

Mr. Rivett sat buried in meditation for fully five minutes; at the end of that period he turned his glasses on her.

"I want to gossip with you," he said abruptly.

She began to laugh again.

"How did you discover that I am such a dreadful gossip? Begin at once, please. I adore picking to pieces my absent acquaintances."

"Yes--tearing 'em to tatters, the way you demolished Mr. Edgerton just now," he said grimly. "Well, I'll begin the scandal bee. Where did you know Mr. Inwood?"

"In Keno, Nevada," she said coolly, wondering what was impending.

"Know him long?"

"One winter."

"In Keno?"

"In Keno."

"Like him?"

"Immensely."

"Oh! So you're going to tear him to tatters, too?"

"Just as I demolished Mr. Edgerton. They're the two nicest men I ever knew. It's odd, isn't it, that I didn't know they were such intimate friends before Mr. Inwood came here?"

"Are they?"

"I understand so."

"And you didn't know it?"

"How should I? I never saw Mr. Inwood except that winter in Keno; and I don't know my cousin intimately."

"How well _do_ you know your cousin?"

The girl sat thinking for a moment, then looked up frankly.

"Perhaps you can judge," she said, and told him the history of her friendship with Edgerton from their meeting in his studio to their arrival at Adriutha. And Mr. Rivett listened without a shade of expression on his face, but his little dark eyes seemed to bore her through and through.

"That," she said, "is the situation." She hesitated, then meeting his gaze candidly, but with a slight increase of color in her cheeks:

"I told you this because I wanted to be fair to Mr. Edgerton--in case--in the event of you--your family--people here not considering us of much importance. Mr. Edgerton is not responsible for us.... I think he came from some boyish impulse--some chivalrous notion that my sister and I, being alone, might receive perhaps more consideration if a man of our family accompanied us."

"I see."

"I wanted you to see. I'm glad I've had an opportunity to make the matter plain that Mr. Edgerton is in no way responsible for any shortcomings on our part."

"Nobody complains of you."

"Oh, no; everybody is nice to us. But--we--do things--which--women of his family--perhaps would not do."

"Smoke?"

"Yes. Cocktails, too. Also we gamble, dreadfully."

"Wouldn't his people?"

"I don't know," said the girl. "I don't know New York. One reads about these rather harmless vices being universal there. But Silvette and I are really provincial. Provincials usually go too far in either direction. It was only that I did not wish people to judge Mr. Edgerton from us."

Mr. Rivett scraped the gravel with his cane for a moment, then:

"So you like Inwood?"

"Very much."

"Wasn't he mixed up in some mess or other?"

"I never heard so," she said, surprised.

"Oh! What was he doing in Keno?"

She laughed. "Visiting, as we were, I suppose. You know we weren't being divorced."

"Glad to hear it."

"You didn't _think_ so!" she exclaimed.

His eyes twinkled.