Chapter II: Part 2

“It would be only this.” She held up a small Russia leather affair legibly marked with Mrs. Inness’ initials.

“I will take it,” said Geoffrey. His faith was sorely tried.

She moved about collecting things and packing, and presently remarked:

“But if Billy is all right, why didn’t he come for me himself?”

“Oh, because—” Geoffrey hesitated an instant, and her fears interpreted the pause.

“He’s hurt. You are keeping it from me. You are deceiving me.”

“I would scorn to deceive you,” said Geoffrey with passion, and looked at her to find some answer to the reverse question which he did not put into words.

She did not appear to understand. “Then why didn’t he come?” she asked.

“He had been out in the storm already. I thought it was my turn.”

“I think you must be stronger than Billy.” She cast a reflective glance at his shoulders, and he was ashamed to find himself inordinately flattered.

“He is really safe at your house?”

“I hope so, I did my best,” he returned grimly.

She looked at him gravely. “You have been very kind to a stranger,” she said.

And at this point Geoffrey made the fatal mistake of his dealing with her. It did not occur to him that he was going to shield McVay, but he thought a more advantageous time could be found for telling her the truth, in case of course she did not know it already. He felt that he himself would be better able to deal a cold blow when she was warm and sheltered. No man, he said to himself, could be disagreeable to a girl who had no one to depend on but himself. So he said:

“He was not exactly a stranger to me. We were at school together.”

“Oh, another of Billy’s friends. I never knew such a person for discovering friends at the most opportune times. He never wants anything but what a friend turns up. Did you find him wandering about, or did he come and demand admittance?”

“Why, neither exactly. I was not in the house at the time. He felt he knew me well enough to walk in.”

“He never told me he had a friend in the neighbourhood.”

“We have not met since we were at school.”

“He had not seen you since he was at school, and yet he felt he knew you well enough to walk in on you!”

“Yes, he just walked in, and then I would not let him go.”

“Men are so queer!” she exclaimed with a little laugh that had a spice of admiration in it, under which Geoffrey writhed. He was sailing under such false colours as her brother’s benefactor.

“We ought to be starting,” he said.

She looked round the room. “I hate to leave all these nice things,” she said. “Billy is so fond of them. There is some wine that some one gave him that he says is really priceless.”

“Leave it,” said Geoffrey shortly.

“One would think you were a teetotaller from that tone. I wonder if I could not take one bottle as a surprise to Billy. He would like to contribute something to your hospitality, I am sure. Besides, if I leave it, it may be stolen.”

“Yes, it may be stolen.” He looked down into her face.

“Then—”

“I ask you as a favour to leave it behind.”

Nothing could have been more charming than her manner of yielding, sweet and quick like a caress. It made him feel how pitiful sordid it all was.

They started immediately, started with a certain gaiety. Geoffrey chose to remember only that they were together through a hard adventure, and that it was his part to smooth her way. The bond of difficulties to overcome united them. They felt the intimacy of a single absorbing interest. They had nothing to think of but accomplishing their task,—of that and of each other. As far as they could see were snow and black trunks of trees. They scarcely remembered that any one but themselves existed.

Now justly he could admire something besides her beauty. Her courage warmed his heart. Yet with all her spirit she made no attempt to assert her independence. She turned to him at every point. He guided her past the scenes of his own disasters and saved her from the mistakes he had already made.

But only for a little while did they move forward in this delightful exhilaration. Before they had gone far she grew silent, and when she did answer him spoke less spontaneously. She asked for neither help nor encouragement, but plunged along as steadily as she was able. Her skirts, however, wet and heavy, hampered her desperately, and the exertion of walking through the thick snow began to tell. Geoffrey made her stop every now and then for a breathing spell, but at length she stopped of herself.

“Have we done half yet?” she asked.

“Just about,” he answered, stretching truth in order to encourage her. But he saw at once that he had failed,—that she had had a hope that they were nearer their destination—that she began to doubt her own powers. Presently she moved forward again in silence.

He began to be alarmed lest they should never reach his house, yet took comfort in the thought, as he looked at her, that whatever strength she had, she would use to the end. No hysterical despair would exhaust her beforehand. She would not fail through lack of determination. Whether or not she were the confederate of a thief she was a brave woman, yes, and a beautiful one, he thought, looking down upon her in the glare of the snow.

Presently he held out his hand in silence, and she as silently took it. This was to Geoffrey the explanation of his whole life. This was what men were made for.

Once as they stood resting the wind, which fortunately had been at their backs the entire trip, hurled her against him, where she remained an instant, too weak to move. It was he who set her gently on her feet again.

The latter part of the journey she made almost wholly by his help, and when they stood before the piazza, she could not have managed the little step had he not virtually lifted her up. He took her directly to the library and laid her on the sofa. The fire, owing to the absence of McVay, had gone out. It took Geoffrey some time with his benumbed hands to build a blaze. When he turned toward her again she was sleeping like a child.

The sight was too much for his own weariness, and reflecting that McVay was either gone or still safe, he stretched himself on the hearth-rug and was soon asleep also.

IV

It was after two o’clock in the afternoon when he awoke. He must have slept three hours. He looked at the sofa and saw the girl still sleeping peacefully. He almost wished that she would never awake to all the dreadful surprises that the house held for her. Her eye-lashes curved long and dark on her cheek. Geoffrey turned away quickly.

He had awakened with a sudden disagreeable conviction that people have been known to smother to death in closets. He stole quietly from the library and ran up stairs with not a little anxiety. Indeed so great was his dread that he would have been really relieved to see the closet door standing open as an immediate proof that it did not hide a corpse. It was, however, locked as he had left it. But as he hastened to undo it, a voice from within reassured him:

“Well, where have you been all this time?”

“You may be thankful I’m back at all. It did not look like it, at one time.”

“Where is Cecilia?”

“Down stairs asleep.”

McVay gave a little giggle. “Ah,” he said, “I bet you have had the devil of a time. I bet you wished once or twice that you had let me be the one to go.”

“It wasn’t child’s play.”

“Child’s play! I rather think not. These things are all well enough among men, but women!” he waved his hand; “so sensitive, so cloistered!”

“Your sister behaved nobly,” said Geoffrey severely.

“Bound to, Holland, bound to. Still it must have been a shock.”

“It was a hard trip for any woman.”

McVay looked up. “Oh,” he said, “I wasn’t speaking of the trip. I meant about me. What did she say?”

“She did not say anything. She went to sleep.”

“She did not say anything when you told her I was booked for the penitentiary?”

“Oh,” said Geoffrey, and there was a slight pause. Then he added: “Why should I tell her what she must know.”

“I tell you she knows nothing about my—profession.”

“Your _profession_!”

“Hasn’t a notion of it.”

“What, with my sister’s coat on her back, and the Innes’ bag in her hand?”

“No!” McVay drew a step nearer. “You see I told her that I had found a second-hand store where I could get things for nothing.” He chuckled, and Geoffrey withdrew with a look of repulsion that evidently disappointed the other.

“That was a good idea, wasn’t it?” he asked with a faint appeal in his voice. “She thought it was likely, anyhow.”

“She must be very gullable,” said Geoffrey brutally.

“Or else,” said McVay with a conscious smile, “I must be a pretty good dissembler.”

At this acute instance of fatuity Geoffrey, if he had followed his impulse, would have flung McVay back in the closet and locked the door. Instead, he said:

“Come down stairs. I want to look up something to eat.”

“Thank you,” said the burglar, “it would be a good idea.”

“You need not thank me,” said Geoffrey. “I don’t take you with me for the pleasure of your company, but because I don’t dare let you out of my sight.”

McVay, as was his habit when anything unpleasant was said, chose to ignore this speech.

“You know,” he said, as they went down stairs, “I suppose that most men shut up in a closet for all those hours would take it as a hardship, but, to me it was a positive rest. I really in a way enjoyed it. It is one of my theories that every one ought to have resources within. Now I dare say you were quite anxious about me.”

“I never thought of you at all,” said Geoffrey. “After I got in I went to sleep for three hours.”

McVay looked at him once or twice, in surprise. Then he said with dignity: “Asleep? Well, really, Holland, I don’t think that was very considerate.”

“Don’t talk so loud,” said Geoffrey, “you’ll wake your sister.”

Geoffrey had always been in the habit of going on shooting trips at short notice, and so it was his rule to keep a supply of canned eatables in the house to be ready whenever the whim took him. On these he now depended, and was not a little annoyed to find the kitchen store room where they were kept securely locked.

This difficulty, however, McVay made light of. He asked for his tools and on being given them set to work on the door.

“Have you ever noticed,” he said, “the heavy handed way in which some men use tools? Look at my touch,—so light, yet so accurate. I take no credit to myself. I was born so. It’s a very fortunate thing to be naturally dexterous.”

“It would have been more fortunate for you if you had been a little less so.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that, Holland. I might have starved to death years ago.”

“I wish to God you had,” said Geoffrey.

McVay shook his head faintly in deprecation of such violence, but otherwise preferred to pass the remark by, and they soon set to work heating soup and smoked beef. When all was ready and spread in the dining-room—this was McVay’s suggestion; he said food was unappetising unless it were nicely served—Geoffrey said:

“Go and see if your sister is awake, and if she is,” he added firmly, “I’ll give you a few minutes alone with her, so that you can explain the situation fully.”

McVay nodded and slipped into the library. Geoffrey shut the door behind him, and sat down on a bench in the hall from which he could command both doors.

If he entertained the doubts of her innocence which he continually told himself no sane man could help entertaining, he found himself strangely nervous. He felt as if he were waiting outside an operating room. He thought of her as he had seen her asleep, of the curve of her eye-lashes on her cheek, of her raising those lashes, awaking to be met with McVay’s revelations. Even if she were guilty, Geoffrey found it in his heart to pity her waking to learn that her brother was a prisoner. How unfortunate, too, would be her own position,—the guest, if only for a few hours, of a man who was concerned only to lodge her brother in jail.

His heart gave a distinct thump when the library door opened and they came out together. His eyes turned to her face at once, and found it unperturbed. Didn’t she care, or had she always known?

McVay caught his arm when she had passed them by, and whispered glibly:

“Thought it was better to wait until she had had something to eat—shock on an empty stomach, so bad—so hard to bear.”

Geoffrey shook his arm free. “You infernal coward,” he whispered back.

“Well, I like that,” retorted McVay, “you didn’t tell her yourself when you had the chance.”

“It wasn’t my affair. I did not tell her because—”

“Oh, I know,” McVay interrupted with a chuckle. “I’ve been knowing why for the last ten minutes.”

They followed her into the dining-room.

It was not a sumptuous repast to which they sat down, but Geoffrey asked nothing better. He was sitting opposite to her,—a position evidently decreed him by Fate from the beginning of time. He could look at her, and now and then, in spite of her delicious reluctance, could force her to meet his eyes. When this happened, nothing was ever more apparent than that, for both of them, a momentous event had occurred.

She was almost completely silent, and as for him, his responses to the general conversation which McVay kept attempting to set up, were so entirely mechanical that he was scarcely aware of them himself.

It was she who suddenly remembered that it was Christmas day.

“And _this_ is our Christmas dinner,” observed McVay regretfully.

“Oh, no,” returned the girl, “this is luncheon. I’ll cook your dinner. You’ll see.”

There was a pause. Geoffrey looked at McVay. The moment for disillusioning her had manifestly come. Wherever they might next meet it would not be at his dinner table. A hateful vision of a criminal court rose before him.

“Miss McVay,” he said gravely, indifferent to the signals of warning which the other man was directing toward him; “we shall not be here at dinner. Your brother will tell you my reasons for wishing to start down the mountain.”

“Now?”

“At once.”

She coloured slowly and deeply,—the only evidence of anger. “I do not need any other reason than your wish that we should go,” she said, rising. “I should thank you for having borne with us so long.”

“Upon my word, Holland, it is madness to start as late as this,” said McVay. “It will be dark in an hour.”

She turned on her brother quickly: “Please say no more about the matter, Billy,” she said. “We will start at once.”

“You won’t start if it means certainly freezing to death,” he remonstrated.

She flashed a glance at Geoffrey, who had also risen and was trying to compel the truth from McVay by a stern, steady glance.

“I _would_,” she answered and shut the door behind her.

McVay sprang up and was about to follow her when Geoffrey stopped him. “One moment,” he said, “you are quite right. It is too late to start to-night. We must stay here until to-morrow. But if we are to spend a night here without your sister’s being told—”

“My dear Holland, think of her position, if we did tell her!”

“I grant that the information had better be withheld until just as we are starting, but in that case I must—”

“I know what you are going to ask,—my word of honour not to escape. I give it, I give it willingly.”

“I’m not going to ask for anything at all,” said Geoffrey. “I’m going to tell you one or two things, and I advise you to pay attention. We won’t have any nonsense at all. Remember I am armed, and I am a quick man with a gun. There may be some quicker, but not in the East, and it wasn’t in the East I got my training. You will always keep in front of me where I can see you plainly, and you will never, under any circumstances come nearer than six feet to me. If you should ever come nearer than that or take a sudden step in my direction, I’d shoot you just as sure as I stand here.”

McVay looked distinctly crestfallen. “Oh, come, Holland,” he said, “isn’t that the least little bit exaggerated? You would not shoot me before my own sister?”

“I would not like to, but there are things I should dislike even more, and having you escape is one of them.”

The other thought it over. “The trouble is,” he explained, “that I am impulsive. You must have noticed it. I get carried away. You know how I am. I’m not at all sure that I shall remember.”

“I advise you to try, for this is the only warning you will get.”

“I cannot believe, Holland, that you would really shoot me in cold blood in the presence of my own sister.”

“You had better behave as if you believed it.”

“I don’t like this arrangement,” McVay broke out peevishly. “Suppose, for the sake of argument, that I did forget,—that I put my hand on your shoulder—a very natural gesture.”

“I should shoot instantly.”

“But fancy the shock to Cecilia.”

“Not more of a shock, perhaps, than discovering that you are a thief. And another thing, it may be very gay and amusing to be forever fooling about the subject, but I advise you against it. It does not amuse me.”

“Oh, be honest, Holland, it does, it must amuse you. It is essentially amusing.”

“It won’t amuse her, or you either when she finds out that you are not only a thief but that you have been able to find amusement in deceiving her.”

Again McVay’s gaiety seemed momentarily dashed. “Very true,” he said, “I had not thought of that. But then,” he added more brightly, “who can tell if it will actually fall to my lot to tell her. Things happen so strangely. It may turn out that that is _your_ part.”

“It may,” said Geoffrey, “but only because I have had to shoot after all.” With which he opened the door and they returned to the library.

V

Cecilia was not in the library, and McVay, without comment on her absence, turned at once to his book.

“If you won’t think me impolite, Holland, I’ll go on with my Sterne. Conversation is always a great temptation to me, but I have so little opportunity to read that I feel I ought not to neglect it,—especially as your books are so unusual.”

He settled himself to Tristram Shandy with appreciation, but Geoffrey could not read. He sat, indeed, with a book open on his knee, but his eyes were fixed on the carpet. The knowledge of the girl’s presence in his house distracted him like a lantern swung before his eyes. He gave himself up to steeping himself in his emotion, which, in some situations, is the nearest thing possible to thinking.

Geoffrey’s success with women had been conspicuous, as was natural for he was good looking, rich and apparently susceptible. As a matter of fact, however, his susceptibility was purely superficial, and for this very reason he was not afraid to give it full sway. The deeply susceptible man learns to be cautious, to distrust his feelings, but Geoffrey had always too truly recognised his fundamental indifference to have any reason to distrust himself. He had never been in love. Like Ferdinand he, “for different virtues had liked many women,” although in his case it had not always been necessarily virtues that had attracted him. But there were certain women who had always appealed to him for some conspicuous quality, or characteristic, who for one reason or another pleased him, to which one side or another of his nature responded. He had often thought that if he could make up a composite woman of all of them he might be in great danger of falling in love. But now he was aware that his whole nature responded to the attraction of the girl upstairs, as a dog answers instinctively to the call of its master. He could say to himself that she was this or that,—brave and beautiful, but he knew that such qualities were but an insignificant part of the total effect. His reason could find causes enough to approve her, but something more important had gone ahead, and made straight the paths of his reason, something which transcended it, and which in case of a divergence between the two, his reason could never overcome.

For, of course, the realisation of McVay and all his presence implied fell coolly upon his exaltation. By no means had Geoffrey said to himself in so many words that he was in love,—far less had anything so definite as marriage crossed his mind. He was too much in love to be so practical. He only knew that McVay’s mere existence was a contamination and a tragedy.

He had been sitting thus for some time, when he heard her step on the stairs. He rose and met her in the hall, whence he could still keep his eye on McVay’s studious figure in the library.

She was dressed in her sables ready for departure.

They looked at each other a moment in silence, he appealingly, she, with a cold blankness that seemed to say that not even a look could make her take further notice of him as a living being.

“Have you really been thinking that I wanted to turn you out?” he said, with directness.

“I have not been thinking about the matter at all,” she answered, turning her head a little aside from his direct gaze. “But I do think so of course. After all why should you not wish it?”

“You think me likely to want anything that would part us—that is the way my manner strikes you?” He was surprised to find his voice not absolutely steady.

She favoured him with a short stare from under her lids. “You seem to forget that I have your own word that you insisted on our going. Possibly you have changed your mind, but I have made mine up.” She made a motion as if to pass in, and go on toward the library.

“I have changed so completely since I saw you,” said Geoffrey, “that I scarcely recognise life in this—this ecstasy. That is the only change. Am I likely to turn you out when I have been waiting all my life for you to come?”

It had been with her own dream, her own credulity with which she had been fighting quite as much as with Holland, and the charm began to work once again. She said very coolly:

“You are very kind, but as you said, we ought to be starting,—or have you forgotten saying that?”

“Be just. You knew I was going too. You knew I urged our going because—”

“Well, why?” Her look was still from half-shut lids, but the lines of her mouth had softened by not a little.

“There is a danger of being snowed up here. Now I appreciate that there would be greater danger in starting out so late. And,—and equally desperate for me, whatever we do.”

“Desperate?”

“If you only want an opportunity to think so meanly of me,—to hate me, as your look said.”

“I do not hate you.”

“You are very eager to be rid of my company.”

“I did not understand.”

“You are going to stay?”

“Until we can go safely.”

“Not longer?”

As this was a question obviously impossible to answer directly she said, “We are under sufficiently large obligations to you already.”

And Geoffrey, about to answer, looked up and saw McVay was observing them with satisfaction, so that words froze on his lips.

Here was the whole bitterness of the situation concentrated. To be observed at all in a moment of genuine emotion was bad enough, but to be observed by one who so plainly hoped to profit, was unbearable. Never, said Geoffrey to himself, at that glance of triumph from McVay’s clear little eyes, never should any influence lead him to let a thief slip through his fingers.

He realised too, for the first time, that he could not hope for another word alone with Cecilia. McVay must always be present. It was a hideous sort of revenge that every waking minute must be spent in the man’s company. Geoffrey had not appreciated the full meaning of his instructions to McVay to keep always in sight. Not a word or a look could be exchanged without McVay’s seeing and rejoicing.

Yet, in spite of his irritation, he could not but admire the sort of affectionate swagger with which McVay rose to greet her, as if the brother of so tender a creature must remember his responsibility.

“Well, my dear,” he said sitting down beside her on the sofa, “feel better? Really a terrible experience. Holland has just been telling me about it—saying how well you behaved,” (Geoffrey favoured him with a scowl behind her back), “a perfect heroine,—so he says.”

“Mr. Holland is very kind,” said the girl.

“Kind!” cried McVay enthusiastically. “Kind! I should rather think he was. Why, I could give you instances of his kindness—”

“You need not trouble,” said Geoffrey.

McVay smiled at his sister as much as to say: What did I tell you?... so modest, so unassuming.

To Geoffrey this sort of thing was unspeakably painful. He was willing enough to meet McVay in a grim interchange over his strange combination of facility and crime, of doom and triviality. But when it became any question of playing upon Cecilia’s unconsciousness of the situation, he writhed. Yet, a little discernment would have shown him how natural, how encouraging from his own point of view her unconsciousness was. To fall in love thoroughly is sufficiently disconcerting. Which of us needs to be told that it is an absorbing process, that life looks different, and that all past experiences must be reviewed in the light of this unexpected illumination. And if this is true of the more usual forms of the great passion, what is to be said of a girl who, in a single day, sees and loves a rescuer, a handsome powerful young creature, who comes to her with all the attributes of a soldier and a prince, who comes not only to save and protect, but as host and dispenser of all comfort and beauty.

It was not to be wondered at that she was dazzled and aware of one fact, one personality, that far from being able to draw shrewd conclusions from the little happenings going on before her, she was but dimly aware of the existence of her brother, of the world, of anything but Geoffrey.

Presently she said, as if trying to call up the picture:

“And this is where you sat all night?” And if the thought was interesting to her, it was not on account of her brother’s share in it.

“Yes,” returned McVay, springing lightly to his feet. “Here we sat discussing plans for your safety.” He took a step toward the pair at the fire, and then remembering, stopped. “Please move a little back, Holland,” he said, “I want to get nearer the fire. I’m cold.”

“You can go to the fire,” said Geoffrey, with a gesture of permission.

“Of course you can,” said the girl, “Mr. Holland is not in your way, Billy.”

But Billy continued to eye his host. “Oh, no, you don’t,” he said warily. “Not unless you move back. Do move, there’s a good fellow.” And Geoffrey laughed and moved, somewhat to the girl’s mystification. She forgot to wonder, however, in pursuing the more wonderful train of thought which had already been occupying her. Suppose that their plans for her relief had been decided differently, suppose her brother had come for her instead of the magnificent stranger, with what different eyes she might now be looking on life—this ecstasy as Holland had defined it. Curious to know by what accident she had been so blessed, she asked:

“Why was it, Billy, that you did not come after me yourself?”

“Just what I said to him,” replied McVay eagerly. “If I said once, I said a dozen times: ‘Holland, it is my duty and pleasure, it is my _right_ to go,’ but ...” McVay shrugged his shoulders, “when he once gets an idea into his head, it takes a gimlet to get it out.”

“Upon my word, Billy,” the girl said indignantly, “I don’t think you ought to talk like that even in fun. You know perfectly well that Mr. Holland only insisted on going because he thought he was better able to bear the physical strain.”

“Physical strain!” exclaimed McVay colouring to the roots of his sandy hair, from pure annoyance; “I don’t know what you mean,... Holland is, of course, a larger man than I, but not stronger.... Oh, well, as far as mere brute force goes, perhaps, but in the matter of bearing physical strain, you betray the most absurd ignorance. It is well known scientifically that medium-sized men like myself, when their muscles are at all developed (and you know my muscles), are better fitted for endurance than any of these over-grown giants.”

“Then,” said she calmly, “if you knew you were better fitted I can’t see why you did not go.”

“You are not quite fair to your brother,” said Geoffrey interrupting, for McVay looked as if he would explode in another moment under the sense of injustice. “He did propose going himself, but I would not let him; I—I made it a personal matter.”

“Very personal,” replied McVay with feeling. “I’ll just explain how it was. Last night, as soon as I realised how bad the storm was, I made up my mind that I had better attempt to enter the house. I succeeded after some trouble, came to this room, turned on the light—a spooky thing; an empty house, picked up a book, had quite forgotten my position, the world, everything, when a voice at my elbow said: ‘Fond of reading?’ I was never more surprised in my life. I felt distinctly caught,—an interloper. And to make matters worse, I saw that Holland did not at once recognise me. I made every effort to leave, but he would not hear of such a thing. He made it perfectly plain in fact that it was his wish to keep me. I yielded. That, I think, Holland, is a pretty accurate account of the night’s proceeding, isn’t it?”

Geoffrey did not answer. His soul rebelled at the farce, and at McVay’s irrepressible enjoyment of his own abilities. As Holland met the twinkling joy of those small blue eyes, he wondered if he would not be doing mankind a favour by putting a bullet into McVay before the dawn of another day. Unconscious of this possibility, McVay continued to his sister:

“Well, it has all been a painful experience for you, my dear ... a long and dangerous adventure for a woman, but you were at least warmly clad. A handsome coat, is it not, Holland?”

“Very,” said Geoffrey chillingly.

“Now that coat,” McVay went on unchilled, “was a real bargain. I may say I paid nothing for it,—little more than the trouble of taking it home. Although from another point of view, its price was pretty high....”

“Really, Billy, I don’t think Mr. Holland is interested in our bargains.”

“In _some_, he is.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Geoffrey, eyeing McVay with a warning glance, “I think I know of just about a dozen people who will want a circumstantial account of all of them.”

“Now there, Holland, there is one of your philistine words,—circumstantial! It takes all poetry, all imagination out of a subject. Do you know, the only connotation—(are you familiar with that word?)—the only suggestion it has for me is a _jury_?”

He scored distinctly. Geoffrey had nothing to say in reply.

It was McVay himself, who, disliking a pause, observed that it was almost time to begin on the preparation of the Christmas dinner. They all rose as if glad of a break. As they passed out of the door, Geoffrey laid his hand on McVay’s arm.

“Why do you deliberately try to exasperate me?” he said.

McVay smiled. “Why do little boys lay their tongues to lamp-posts in freezing weather? Don’t I amuse you? Be candid.”

“No.”

McVay looked regretful. “As I remembered you, Holland, as a boy, you had more sense of humour,” he said gently.

VI

In the kitchen McVay made it evident that his talents were for organisation rather than for hard labour. He drew a chair near the wall, and tilting back at his ease, watched Geoffrey and Cecilia at work. Geoffrey, engaged in lighting the range-fire, looked up at her as she moved about filling the kettle and washing out pots and pans, and thought that he and she presented the aspect of a young couple of the labouring class with no further ambition than to keep a roof over their heads. He almost had it in his heart to wish that they were.

She proved herself infinitely more capable than the two men had been, discovering tins of butter and soup and sardines, a package of hominy, apples and potatoes in the cellar, and an old box of wedding cake, which, with a burning brandy sauce, she declared would serve very well for plum-pudding.

Manual labour was such a novelty to Geoffrey that he soon forgot even his irritation against McVay and the triangular intercourse was more friendly than before, until marred by an unfortunate incident.

He was standing in the middle of the kitchen with a steaming pot in each hand, when McVay, without warning, advanced toward him, handkerchief in hand, exclaiming:

“My dear fellow, such a smut on your forehead, pray allow me—”

“Look out,” roared Geoffrey, realising how easily in another second his revolver might be taken from him. The tone was alarming, and McVay sprang back ten feet. “I was afraid of burning you with the soup,” Geoffrey explained politely.

“I own you made me jump,” said McVay.

The girl said nothing, and Geoffrey feared the incident had made an unfortunate impression on her.

It appeared to be completely forgotten, however, when they presently sat down to their Christmas dinner, of which they all expressed themselves as inordinately proud. There was canned soup, and sardines and toasted biscuits, canned corned beef, potatoes and fried hominy, bacon and a potato salad, a bottle of champagne, and finally the wedding cake.

Now to say that by the time dessert was put on table McVay was drunk would be to do him a gross injustice. All the more genial side of this nature, however, was distinctly emphasised. The better part of a quart of champagne had not produced any signs of intoxication; his eye was clear, his speech perfect, and he was more than usually aware of his own powers, confident of appreciation.

As he finished his share of cake, he rose to his feet, and leaning the tips of his fingers on the table, addressed Geoffrey.

“My dear Holland,” he said, “I will not wish you a Merry Christmas, for it has already been as merry as it has lain within my poor capacity to make it. Let me, however, express my own gratitude to you for this delightful occasion. You have referred to the fare as meagre, to our position as constrained, but believe me, I am not exaggerating when I say that I so little agree with you that I am confident that, during many of the remaining years of my life I shall look back to this Christmas as one of unusual luxury and freedom. It is, perhaps, the warm glow of friendship that gilds all small discomforts, for in situations like ours characters are tested, and yours, Holland,” he paused impressively, “has stood the test.”

Geoffrey bowed gratefully, and McVay continued:

“I have here a slight token in honour of the day. It is of little pecuniary value, but between us, Holland, pecuniary value is no longer mentioned. I feel that it will be recommended to you more than mere worth could recommend it by the fact that it is peculiarly my own,—my own as few human possessions can be said to be. I offer it,” he said, drawing from his pocket a square flat little package, “with best wishes for a happy New Year.”

The idea that McVay was going to give him a present had never crossed Geoffrey’s mind, and now it struck him as so characteristic, so perfectly in keeping with McVay’s consuming desire to triumph in minor matters, that he was able to smile pleasantly and receive it appropriately. He exchanged a glance of real appreciation with the donor, and received a grave bow in return.

Cecilia smiled, too, “I don’t know exactly why you should think Mr. Holland wants your picture, Billy,” she said.

“It may be of the greatest service to him,” said McVay.

The girl turned to Geoffrey. “I can’t make a speech like Billy’s,” she said, “but I have a small present for you which I hope you won’t despise because it is not new. I mean I have worn it myself for some time, and I hope _you_ will now, in remembrance of the time when you sheltered the houseless.” She held out on her pink palm a flat gold pencil with a single topaz set in the top.

The thing was of some value and Geoffrey, looking up, caught McVay’s eye in which danced such a delicious merriment that Geoffrey’s half-formed question was answered. McVay was undergoing such paroxysms of delight at the idea that Geoffrey was about to become a receiver of stolen goods that he could not well conceal it. And instinctively Geoffrey drew back his hand. The next moment he realised that he must at once accept the gift with decent gratitude, whatever he might choose to do with it afterward, but unfortunately the girl had noticed his hesitation.

She said nothing whatsoever, but she closed her hand on the pencil, rose from the table, and left them to dispose of the remains of the feast as best they could.

McVay, as if he had observed nothing, threw himself at once into the part of a waiter, tucked a napkin round his waist, flung another over his arm and began to clear the table.

“Wait a moment,” said Geoffrey, who had not followed his example; “I have something to say to you. I see you are in possession of my sentiments in regard to your sister.... I think her a wonder,—that’s all it is necessary for you to know.”

“Quite naturally, Holland. She is, she is.”

“I won’t discuss that with you. The point is that you seem to be under the impression that this will do you some good. Well, it won’t. You stand just where you did before. You go to jail when the snow melts. Then I settle my affairs.”

McVay’s face fell. “Really, Holland,” he said, “I don’t see how, if you are fond of a woman you can want ...”

“... to spare her such a brother as you. Think it over.”

“There are worse brothers than I,” replied McVay, “how many men would have sacrificed what I have sacrificed in order to keep her comfortably.”

“Not many, I hope.”

“She is extraordinarily fond of me.”

“Perhaps. You see she has not any one else to be fond of.”

“We can scarcely say that _now_,” returned McVay encouragingly.

“I won’t discuss it with you.”

“You can’t mean to tell me that you are in love with my sister and mean to send me to state’s prison?”

“I mean exactly that.”

“Why, she’d never forgive you.”

Geoffrey thought this so probable that he had no answer to give and presently McVay, who had been grumbling over the matter to himself, asked: “Are you serious, Holland?”

“What do you suppose I am?” Geoffrey roared, and McVay, shaking his head went on with the work of clearing the table. He was very silent and abstracted and for the first time seemed to realise his position. When they had put away the last plate, Geoffrey said:

“Now come to the library. I am going to give you a pipe, confound you.”

“A pipe! Why?”

“Because I want to give your sister something, and I think she would be more apt to take it.”

“I’m afraid she is rather offended by the way you treated her little gift. As a matter of fact I was the person to be offended, for I had given her the pencil. A pretty little thing, singularly like one which you may have seen Mrs.—”

“Don’t tell me where you took it from. I don’t want to know. Come and get your pipe and mind you are grateful.”

“A pipe,” observed McVay thoughtfully. “I think I’ll take that large meerschaum on the mantelpiece.”

Geoffrey laughed. “I think you won’t,” he answered. “The best pipe I own! No, indeed, you’ll take a horrid little one that won’t draw. It will be just the thing for you.”

“No,” said McVay, “no. You must give me the big one. Otherwise I shall make it appear that you promised the other to me, and turned mean at the last moment. And I can do it, Holland.” His little eyes gleamed at the thought. “I shall say, ‘My dear fellow, I’m glad you changed your mind about the meerschaum; it was as you say, too handsome for a man in my position.’ That will make her mad if anything will. You know she is not quite satisfied with the way you treat me, as it is.”

This was quite true, and Geoffrey, remembering that the object of the gift was to please the girl, reluctantly agreed to part with his favourite pipe. The affair went off well. McVay affected to hesitate over accepting so handsome an offering, and Geoffrey pressed it upon him with a good grace.

As far as his present to the girl was concerned, he found himself less and less willing to make it in McVay’s presence, and more and more unable to think of any way of getting rid of him except murder or the cedar-closet. His anxiety was rendered more acute by the fact that once or twice he could not help suspecting that Cecilia, in spite of her anger, would have been glad of a few words alone with him, also.

Before very long she suggested that McVay should take her hat and coat upstairs for her.

“Certainly I will,” cried Billy, springing up with alacrity, and was at the door before Holland’s warning shout “_McVay_” stopped him.

“Let me take it up for your sister,” he said warningly.

“Oh, not at all. Let _me_,” replied McVay courteously.

“Couldn’t hear of it,” returned Geoffrey.

By this time they were both outside of the door, and Geoffrey closed it with a snap.

“You would, would you?” he said angrily.

“Now, Holland,” said McVay as one who intends to introduce reason into an irrational confusion, “this is exactly a case in point. I am by nature a gallant man. I forgot all about your instructions.”

“I wonder?” said Geoffrey.

“It was instinctive to do my sister the little favour she asked. Yes, and I doubt if I should have acted differently if your pistol had been at my head. She asked me. That was enough.”

“I’ve warned you once.”

“Holland, I think,—you’ll excuse my telling you,—that you have a very unfortunate manner at times.”

They went upstairs together and were descending when Geoffrey stopped, with his eyes on the grand piano which stood in the hall below them.

“Can you play?” he said.

McVay brightened at once. He had been looking a little glum since his last speech. “Yes,” he answered, “I can. Well, I’m not a professional, you understand, but for an amateur I am supposed to have as much technique and a good deal more sentiment than most.”

“I don’t care _how_ you play,” said Holland. “There is a piano. Sit down and play, and _don’t stop_.”

“No, Holland, no,” said the other with unusual firmness; “that I will not do. No artist would. Ask any one. It is impossible to play in public without practice. I have not touched the instrument for over a year.”

“You can do all the practising you like here and now. You can play finger exercises for all I care. All I insist is that you should make a noise so that I’ll know you are there.”

“Well,” said McVay yielding, “you must remember to make allowances. Not the best musician could sit down after a year ... however, I dare say it will come back to me quicker than to most people. You must make allowances for my lack of practice.”

“There is only one thing I won’t make allowances for, and that is your moving from that music stool.”

He opened the piano, and McVay sat down waving his fingers to loosen the joints. He sat with his head on one side, as if waiting to discover which of the great composers was about to inspire him. Then he dropped lightly upon the notes, lifting his chin, as if surprised to find that an air of Schubert’s was growing under his fingers. Geoffrey was astonished to find that he really was, as he said, something of an artist. He waited until he was fairly started and then returned to the library.

“Is that Billy?” said the girl. “It must be a great pleasure to him to have a piano again. He is so fond of music.”

“He was not as eager to play as I to have him,” said Geoffrey.

He came back quietly, and stood looking down at her for a moment. Then he said, stretching out his hand:

“I want my Christmas present.”

“I have none to give you.”

“You had.”

“I’ve changed my mind.”

“Why?”

For the first time she looked at him. “Mr. Holland,” she said, “you must think me singularly unobservant. Do you suppose I don’t see that you dislike my brother. You refused the pencil—you did refuse it plainly enough—because Billy had given it to me. I will not offer it to you again. I know that Billy sometimes does rub people up the wrong way, but I should think any one of any discernment could see that his faults are only faults of manner.”

She said this almost appealingly, and Geoffrey unable to agree, turned with something like a groan, and resting his elbows on the mantelpiece, covered his face with his hands.

“Do you suppose that he does not see how you feel toward him? Are you by any chance assuming that he bears with your manner on account of his own comfort? You might at least be generous or acute enough to see that it is only for my sake that he exercises so much self-control. He does not want to make my position here more unendurable by quarrelling with you. It makes me furious to see what you force him to put up with, the way you speak to him, and look at him, as if he were your slave, or a disobedient dog. His self-control is wonderful. I admire him more than I can say.”

“And is my self-control nothing?” he asked, without moving his hands from his face.

“Yours? I don’t see any exercise of yours. Circumstances have put us at your mercy, you are rich and fortunate, and as insolent as you choose to be. Self-control? I don’t see any evidence of it.”

“No?” he said, and turning, looked at her with a violence that might have set her on the right track. Under his eyes she looked down and probably in the instant forgot all that she had been saying and feeling, for when he added: “I love you,” her hands moved toward his, and she made no resistance when he took her in his arms.

VII

McVay was left so long at the piano that he finally resorted to a series of discords in order to recall himself to Holland’s mind. His existence, if he had only realised the fact, was so completely forgotten that he might have made his escape with a good half hour to spare before either of the others appreciated that the music had ceased. Not knowing this, however, he did not dare stop his playing for an instant, until sheer physical fatigue interfered. It was at this point that the discords began, and brought Geoffrey into the hall.

The disposal of McVay for the night was a question to which Geoffrey had given a great deal of thought. The cedar closet presented itself as a safe prison, but in the face of McVay’s repeated assertions that the air had barely sufficed to support him during his former occupancy, it looked like murder to insist. Geoffrey finally, when bed-time came, locked him in a dressing-room off his own room. The window—the room was on the third floor—gave on empty space, and against the only door he placed his own bed, so that escape seemed tolerably difficult.

And to all other precautions, Geoffrey added his own wakefulness, although toward morning weariness triumphed over excitement and he fell asleep.

He was waked by an insistent knocking at his door, and he heard his name called by Cecilia. He sprang up and found her standing in the hall. She was wrapped in her sable coat, but shivering from cold or fear.

“There is some one getting into the house. I heard a window open and steps on the piazza, below my room. What can it be?”

Geoffrey flung himself past her. The instinct of the hunter joined to the obstinacy of his nature maddened him at the notion of McVay’s escape. On the opposite side of the house there was a piazza and on the roof of this a neighbouring window opened. He threw it back and climbed out.

The snow had stopped, and the moon was shining, paling a little before the approaching dawn. Geoffrey could see a figure stealing quickly across the snow. There was no question of its identity. His revolver, which he had snatched from under his pillow and brought with him, he at once levelled on the vanishing form; his finger was on the trigger, when he felt a hand on his arm.

Leaning out of the window behind him the girl caught his arm. “Don’t fire,” she said. “Don’t you see it is Billy?”

There was a pause—the fraction of a second, but momentous, for Geoffrey realised that all his threats to McVay had been idle, that with that touch on his arm he could not shoot.

Nevertheless he raised his voice and shouted thunderously: “McVay!”

The figure turned, hesitated, saw, perhaps, the gleam of the moon on steel and began to retrace his steps.

Steadily with the revolver still upon him he moved back to the house. Under the piazza he stopped and waved his hand.

“I’m afraid they got away from us, Holland. I did my best.”

“There _was_ a burglar then!” said the girl in the little whisper of recent fright.

“By Heaven, he shall not trouble you,” returned Holland with more earnestness than seemed to be required. Then he left her and went down to meet McVay.

“You were just about half a second ahead of a bullet,” he remarked, ushering him into the hall. To be caught and brought back is so ignominious a position that Geoffrey looked to see even McVay at a disadvantage, but looked in vain. The aspect worn was a particularly self-satisfied one.

“I was aware I took a risk,” he answered; “I took it gladly for my sister’s sake.”

“For your sister’s sake?”

“Yes, and yours. Be honest, Holland, what could be so great a relief to you as to find I had disappeared. You are too narrow-minded, too honourable, you would say, to connive at it, but you would be delighted to know that you need not prosecute me.”

“If I shot you, I should be saved the trouble of prosecuting.”

“But at what a cost! I refer to my sister’s regard. No, no, the thing, if you had only been quick enough to see it, was for me to escape. It was a risk, of course, but a risk I gladly took for my sister’s sake. I would take longer ones for her.”

“Do you mean that?”

“Of course.”