Chapter III

"You know not the limit of this kingdom, still you are its queen." RABINDRANATH TAGORE.

Miss O'Neill, as might be supposed, proved no easy subject for diplomatic manipulation. Long before they had made an end of their picnic-lunch, in a glen of rocks and birches and purple cushions of heather, she had effectually given Mr. Lenox to understand that she was neither to be deceived nor coerced by his tactful attempts to detach her from the other two. Years of pushing and shouldering through obstacles in the Suffrage campaign, had so far blunted her finer sensibilities that she could smilingly hold her ground even among those who obviously wished her elsewhere: and she held it to-day, till Mark lost patience and frankly took the bull by the horns.

"I say, Miss O'Neill, you might take pity on Lenox and honour him with your company up the glen," he said; and beneath his engaging tone there lurked a faint note of command. "He's no fisherman, and he can't keep himself to himself for ten minutes on end. So you see, it would be a real act of charity to remove him."

"Yes, Sir Mark, I can see that without spectacles," answered the redoubtable Harry, challenging him with her greenish-brown eyes.

"Good business!" Sir Mark retorted unabashed. "When you reach the high moor you'll be rewarded by a view that's worth some climbing to see. Of course, if Miss Alison would prefer to go with you----"

"Miss Alison's far too comfortable where she is, thanks!" Bel interposed with her deliberate drawl. She had settled herself on a low rock and sat dreamily watching the river, elbows on knees, chin cradled in her hands. Without changing her attitude, she glanced up at Sir Mark and her smile seemed to link them in completest understanding. "If the necessity for silence becomes too overpowering I can always go to sleep. I'll be as good as gold, Harry dear--" She shifted her gaze to Miss O'Neill's resolute, rebellious face. "And I think Sir Mark can be trusted not to let me fall into the river!"

The upward jerk of Harry's head implied wholesale distrust of the species; but finding herself cornered she surrendered at discretion. "Well, Mr. Lenox," she said, "since it's a case of obeying orders, we must make the best of each other. This way, I suppose?" She strode on before him up the narrow, stony path; and Maurice, with an abortive grin at Mark followed in her wake.

Keeping well ahead of him, she toiled on indomitably till trees were dwarfed to bushes and the primeval splendour of the high moors came suddenly into view. Before them, and upon either hand, the heather and the heavens were all. It was as if they stood upon the shore of an amethystine sea, studded with islands of granite and juniper, and shadowed only by slow-moving continents of cloud. For Maurice, with the blood of Eldred and Quita Lenox in his veins, such a vision was among the rare things that could smite him to silence. He drew a great breath and stood very still, his young, expressive face glorified, passingly, by the artist's pure joy in colour, and the Scot's love of the land.

Miss O'Neill, a townswoman by taste and habit, would have preferred a throng of human faces, any day, to the sublime emptiness around them. Hot, breathless, and in a ferment of anxiety, she sank gratefully on to the nearest rock and looked up at her companion; but the light on his face checked her ever-ready tongue. She liked the boy. He was more than "a mere he-thing," and that streak of the woman in him appealed strongly to the masculine strain in herself. But protracted silence irked her; and very soon anxiety goaded her into speech.

"Mr. Lenox, how long have you known Sir Mark Forsyth? Are you acquaintances or friends?"

Maurice considered that point without removing his eyes from the heather. "Rather more than acquaintances, I should say, and on the way to becoming friends. I've known him two years on and off. But I've never yet been to Wynchcombe Friars, his Hampshire place. He's crazy about it. They say you never know the real Forsyth till you've seen him there. I'm going there this autumn, to be converted from Futurism and Experimental Art in general! At least that's his notion. He's a splendid chap. Chockful of ideas. A bit reactionary, some of them. He's dead against what we should call industrial progress, and what he calls sacrificing the man to the machine. They've got a great scheme on, he and his mother and Macnair, for joining up all the scattered attempts at reviving handicrafts and guilds----"

"Oh, bother their crafts and guilds!" Miss O'Neill broke in with scant ceremony. "Sheer fads! Result of riches and idleness. _I_ want to know is he the kind of man to take up a girl violently--you see how it's been--just to pass the time?"

"No!" Maurice rapped out the negative with unusual vehemence. "As a matter of fact, I believe he intends to offer her his heart and his title and all his worldly goods before we get back to them."

Miss O'Neill started visibly. "What--on a fortnight's acquaintance?"

"Yes. A trifle steep, isn't it? And, for a man in his position, a wife's a rather important item."

"Something more than an amiable housekeeper--is that your meaning?" Miss O'Neill rounded on him, a flash of temper in her eyes. "I thought better of you, Mr. Lenox. But you're all alike in the grain. A man in Sir Mark's position must have a beautiful figurehead for his dinner-table: a graceful, accommodating doll, that he can hang with jewels and silks and satins. But my Bel's no doll-woman, for all her soft manners and sweet temper. No doubt he flatters himself that, in a fortnight, he's read her from cover to cover: and he'll be telling her, sure as fate, that he's the one man on earth to make her happy, and think he's paying her the compliment of her life into the bargain!"

Good-natured Maurice began to feel that Forsyth had been a trifle inconsiderate saddling him with a virago whom he was quite at a loss how to appease.

"Well--compliment or no, she's free to refuse him," he remarked soothingly; "and after all, it's the natural thing."

Miss O'Neill pounced on the words almost before they were out. "_Of course_ it's the natural thing for a man like Sir Mark--spoilt by his mother, one can see with half an eye--to snatch at a beautiful woman. And where does a girl's freedom come in when a man dazzles her brain with extravagant lover's talk? Besides--he's rich. She's poor. It almost amounts to bribery. I hate the whole thing. I came away for her sake, to give her a chance of knowing him better, just in case-- But if it's true, what you say, I shall go straight down again----"

She sprang up from her rock and faced about; but Lenox, smilingly determined, stood astride across the narrow path.

"Excuse me, Miss O'Neill, not if I can prevent it," he said. "Forsyth's going to have his chance fair and square. Of course if you're game for a free fight--well, come on!"

For a second she looked him up and down, a sudden flicker of humour in her eyes. "I tackled a policeman once. A bigger fellow than you. And he was very glad to get rid of me."

"I can well believe it," Maurice answered with becoming gravity. "But look here, just consider, what earthly good would you do by deferring the inevitable--say, twenty-four hours--and probably annoying Miss Alison into the bargain?"

The last shot told. Harry let out her breath in a great sigh. "Life's a bewildering business," she mused aloud. But common sense told her he spoke truth; and she liked him none the less for backing up his friend. "Very well, Mr. Lenox, I give it up. You evidently have instructions from headquarters, and I'll stay here till you give the word. But scenery bores me stiff; so please make yourself as interesting as you know how."

"Right you are," said Maurice; and indicating her deserted rock he flung himself on the heather at her feet in such a position that her prosaic figure in its knitted coat and rough skirt should not intrude upon his vision of the landscape. Then he proceeded, in his fluent fashion, to enlarge on the subject uppermost in his mind--Sir Mark's queer conviction that a wide-spread revival of handicrafts and guilds would go far to solve the strike problem by restoring the creative sense in labour and renewing the broken link between art and life----

For Sir Mark himself, at that moment, life held only one purpose, one achievement worthy of serious consideration--the linking of his own destiny with that of the girl who seemed capable of maintaining indefinitely her graceful pose of contemplation. It was a pose that revealed to admirable advantage the long lines of her figure and the beauty of her small head with its close-fitting coils of hair. Her discarded hat lay on the heather at her feet. Close to her chosen rock sprang a young birch, its supple grace a reflection of her own; its drooping plumes, stirred by the breeze, dappling her blue dress with tiny restless shadows.

Was it some day-dream that so held her, Mark wondered, or pure consideration for the trout that he had presumably come out to catch? Either way, her silence and abstraction had the effect of so intensifying his own emotion that speech seemed desecration. Besides--he had spoken already. Could there really be any need to tell her again how swiftly and strangely she had swept him from his moorings, so that life held nothing, momentarily, but his glorified vision of herself? Last night the sound of her voice, echoing his own confession, had silenced, for good, the whispers of prudence that strove to curb his impetuous spirit, counselling delay. If only that confounded Miss O'Neill had given him a chance while the glamour was on them both, the whole thing might have seemed less egregiously precipitate. Now that he had schemed for half an hour's privacy; now that she sat there, only a few yards away, seemingly unaware of his existence, a shiver of uncertainty chilled him. A fortnight ago to-day, while he and Maurice were rambling in search of subjects, he had beheld her for the first time. For him that fortnight was an indefinable age. For her it might simply be fourteen days----

But this sort of havering would never do. He was a strong man, not unschooled in suffering, but little used to being thwarted in his desire. And he did not seriously expect to be thwarted now. Deliberately he laid aside his fishing tackle, and leaning on one elbow looked up at the girl, whose rock was set a little higher along the sloping bank of the stream. For a few seconds he took his fill of her, from the coronet of her hair to the seductive curves of her mouth and chin that made such tender atonement for the cool directness of her eyes.

Still she did not move; but her lips parted in a small sigh, and the spell was broken. Mark rose and planted himself before her.

"Miss Alison," he began--and could get no further.

"Well?" she asked with that distracting lift of her lashes. "Is the precious tackle out of gear?"

Her coolness almost angered him and gave him sudden command of his tongue. "_Tackle_? D'you really suppose I came out here to catch trout?"

"You said so last night. And you seemed to be making elaborate arrangements----"

"So I was--to get half an hour alone with you," he announced bluntly, and saw the ghost of a blush creep up under her skin. He wanted simply to take her in his arms without more ado. Instead, he sat down close to the rock, plunged his hands in the heather, and leaned towards her.

"I was trying to tell you last night. Didn't you understand?"

"N-no. I thought the music--and the sentiment had rather carried you away."

"It was _you_ who carried me away. The music was a kind of safety-valve, that's all." He leaned still nearer. "Bel--is there a ghost of a chance for me? Is it sheer conceit and impertinence on my part to ask--so soon?"

"No--oh no." And suddenly she covered her face as if the intensity of his gaze affected her like strong sunlight.

He was silent a moment, watching her and crushing the heather in his strong fingers. Then, very gently, he laid a hand on her knee.

"What is it? Tell me. I must know."

At that she dropped her hands. By chance or design, one of them fell on his own and rested there. The light contact sent electric thrills up his arm.

"That's just it," she said with her slow smile. "You must know. But we neither of us do--yet. It's been a wonderful fortnight. And if I haven't travelled quite so fast or so far as you, that doesn't mean----"

"Of course it doesn't. I'm not such a conceited ass as to suppose you could fall in love with me at sight. But now I've spoken--isn't there any response?"

"Haven't you felt any?" she asked lightly, and the hand that rested on his moved in a just perceptible caress.

"For God's sake don't play with me!" he broke out, half angry again. "I'm in deadly earnest."

"I know. That's just why one of us must try to keep a cool head."

"Nonsense! You're simply fencing. And you haven't answered my question."

"I'm trying to. But I'm half afraid ... to let myself go. No--don't!" She warded him off with a gesture, but deliberately replaced her hand over his. "It's too sudden altogether. Wouldn't it be wiser--for both of us--to wait a little? You don't really know me one bit."

He bowed his head and kissed the fingers that covered his own. "I know I love you," he said simply, his deep voice low and controlled. "And if you can say the same, that's enough for me. The rest will be an enchanted voyage of discovery."

"Voyages of discovery are rather risky things," she reminded him. "And sometimes--they end in smoke. You see, you're not just any one. I'm outside your world; and--your mother doesn't like me."

"Nonsense," he said again, with less conviction than before.

"It isn't. I'm sure she wants you to marry Miss Melrose. And I thought at first--you seem very intimate."

"Naturally. Our intimacy began when she was eight and I was twelve." He spoke looking out across the stream. Something in him winced at her allusion to Sheila in that connection. But it was only fair to her to explain things; and he forced himself to proceed. "Her people are our nearest neighbours in Hampshire. Her mother's the sort of person who subsists chiefly on fads and philanthropy--the kind of philanthropy that makes you abominate charity and all its works. When we lost... Ailsa, my little sister, Mother sort of annexed Sheila, unofficially. But that doesn't imply--that she expects me to do likewise. We're devoted to her--both of us. She's a splendid little person;" he turned now and spoke with greater naturalness and warmth. "Not very easy to know. But _real_, right through. You're bound to love her. There--are you satisfied?" Without warning he slipped an arm round her. "Will you give me my answer now?"

He felt her yield under pressure of his hand: then, with a sudden enchanting simplicity, she lifted her face to his----

Presently she sighed; pushed him from her a little and looked steadily into his eyes--blue, like her own, but a deeper, tenderer shade, shot through with fine radiations of orange. Hers seemed still to hold a question. His were purely exultant.

"Darling, we've done it now," he said under his breath.

"Yes. I suppose--we have," she answered in the same key.

"Suppose? You're not going back on things, after _that_. Next question is--when will you marry me? Next week?"

Her flush, that had died down, mounted again, clear carmine, beautiful to see. "Oh, Mark! Give me a few minutes to realise it all. You're so impatient. Such a boy. You make me feel ... ages old----"

"Look here, I can't have you talking that sort of rot," he protested; incorrigibly blunt, even in love. "It's morbid sentimentalism. You see, I'm the son of a mother who doesn't know how to feel old at fifty. 'Boy,' indeed! You're a mere child yourself--the dearest in creation."

"No--no. I'm _not_ a child." Her emphatic protest rang true. "Perhaps your mother has kept the bloom on life. Mine has never had any bloom on it, worth mentioning. I was reared in a groove; a very virtuous groove; and ... I didn't fit. I wanted to feel and know and live; to be something more than a vegetable in a Wiltshire village. I knew I had talents of sorts; and I felt, if I could only get away and have a fair chance, I might achieve something worth doing, or, at least ... meet a man worth marrying." She spoke looking away from him across the sun-splashed water. "The only brother I cared about went off to the ends of the earth before he was twenty. If I'd been old enough to go with him, I wouldn't be here now!"

"Poor darling!" He tightened his hold of her. "Dreadful calamity--isn't it?--to be here now! But didn't your mother understand you--help you?"

"Poor little mother. She did her best. My unconventional streak comes from her side. But she's a very tame edition; watered down by an early marriage with father, who's as conventional as a high-road, but unfortunately not as broad! Privately, I think she was half proud of me and half terrified of what I might do next, like the hen in Hans Andersen. It was father's pharisaical attitude towards my mild vagaries that made me worse, till at last I kicked clean over the traces, demanded a reasonable allowance (to my amazement, I got it), and went off to London, to take the world by storm."

"To Miss O'Neill?" Mark queried, a faint anxiety in his tone.

"Oh no. Harry's a fairly recent phase. I boarded with a friendly family in the second-rate theatrical line. That was my chosen road to achievement. But it didn't come off--worse luck!"

"Nor the man worth marrying?"

Her eyes lingered in his. "Not to any great extent! They were rather a mixed lot. And everything seemed in league against me. I made no headway anywhere. Still--it was experience. It was life. One was too busy, either hoping or despairing, to be dull. Each new phase seemed to be the discovery of a new kingdom, till you found--you hadn't the key. There was the writing phase, the acting phase, the American phase----"

"America? Why on earth----?"

"Oh, I don't know. The chance came. And the notion attracted me. A bigger, fresher world; experience----"

"You seem mighty keen on experience," Mark struck in. "D'you mean knowledge--or simply new sensations?"

She hesitated. "After all--new sensations are a form of knowledge. The most interesting on earth. I'd go almost anywhere to discover the feel of things----"

She stopped short, and Mark frowned into vacancy. For the first time he caught himself wondering how old was she.

"_I_ should say better be an ignoramus than a mere connoisseur in sensations," he remarked quietly. "But perhaps I missed your meaning."

"Perhaps there wasn't any meaning to miss! I was talking--rather at random." Then very lightly she leaned her head against his. "Mark--dearest, don't look like that."

"Well, you mustn't talk like that," he said with decision. "How long were you in America?"

"Eighteen months. Not very pleasant always. But it did me no end of good. I even went home for a time, full of fine resolves. But the poor things soon shrivelled up in father's atmosphere. Then--it was Harry to the rescue."

"And now it's Mark!" With sudden fervour he caught her to him. "No more 'phases' after this, my Bel. You shall have your freedom and your chance. I'll make up to you, all I can, for the bad years. Mother will love you----"

Bel shook her head. "She doesn't like me."

"Darling, she doesn't know you. Mother may have her cranks and prejudices. But if there's one woman on earth she can be trusted to love--it's my wife. I'll take you to her to-night."

"No--no. To-morrow. To-night--there's Harry. It'll be a blow. You see, when I first came to her, I was so sick with everything, I swore I'd never marry. She's jealous already----"

"Poor soul!" Mark said tenderly. "But I'm jealous too. I can't share you with Miss O'Neill. If it comes to a tug, you'll have to choose between us."

"I have chosen." She spoke with genuine fervour; and leaning against him, she closed her eyes. So seen, her face looked years younger and of a saint-like purity. Doubts and qualms seemed sacrilege. Without a word he kissed her lowered lids, and found, to his surprise, that her lashes were wet.