Chapter VI

"Where beauty's veil doth cover every blot,
And all things turn to fair that eyes can see!...
Both grace and faults are loved of more and less:
Thou makest faults graces that to thee resort."
SHAKESPEARE.

Mark stepped back from his modelling pedestal and critically surveyed the result of his morning's work--a terra-cotta study of Contemplation, inspired by his vision of Bel under the birch-tree on that day of very mixed memories which seemed infinitely more than two weeks ago.

The small statue, classic in its serenity and simplicity of treatment, was a perfect thing of its kind; as unlike the bulk of Mark's rugged, individual studies as Bel's whole attitude to life was unlike his own. Every line of it rested the eye, even as the girl's cool deliberate nature rested his own ceaselessly questing brain.

So far he had found no trace in her of the hidden conflict between spirit and matter that was the keynote of his art. Already he recognised her spasmodic rebellions rather as a series of skilful evasions that implied no deep questioning of life or desire of knowledge. She was not a genuine rebel, like Miss O'Neill. Almost he suspected her of being an impressionist in life. But doubts and discoveries notwithstanding, the charm still held, and would probably continue to hold--irrespective of anything that she might be or do. Incidentally, she was proving herself an admirable model. This was the third morning he had victimised her, and she was still enduring it with the patience of a Griselda; still sitting, as she had sat for a good hour, on a long low stool at the far end of the room, in a blue wrapper with falling sleeves that revealed her arms. Elbows on knees, chin cradled in her hand--was she thinking, dreaming, or mildly bored? He would have asked her had they been alone. But Lenox was ensconced in the deep window-seat behind him, working at a post-impressionist pastel--a challenge to Mark's insistence on the classic note.

"Tired--are you?" he asked instead; and she gave him a sidelong glance with the slow lift of her lashes that still stirred him, though he knew it now for a conscious trick of manner. "Could you hang on for another fifteen minutes without a serious collapse?"

"I could--just; if I may have a cigarette directly it's over." Mark, as well she knew, held ridiculously old-fashioned opinions on that subject, and a cigarette just before lunch was the depth of demoralisation.

"I call that taking a mean advantage," he reproved her without severity. "But I admit you've earned it."

"A very sustaining admission! And the prospect of getting it is more sustaining still."

Her cool, provocative smile made him confound Lenox for being present, which was precisely what she intended. Then, with a sigh of resignation she, so to speak, absented herself, and her gaze reverted to a large and vigorous bas-relief that occupied the centre of a deep wall-shelf right before her.

It was a recent achievement; a thing of signal beauty and power, as magnificently impetuous as the figure on the table was gracious and controlled. It portrayed the death of a Viking self-immolated on the deck of his blazing barque in a storm off the coast of Norway. In the background, the savage peaks of the mainland were roughly indicated. The rest was a whirl of wind-battered clouds and waters, scrolls of smoke and twisted blades of fire that wreathed and devoured the doomed ship. Her prow, a Valkyrie with winged helmet and lifted spear, rode high on the crest of a wave, poised, as it were, for the flight to Valhalla when her hero on the sloping deck should have finished his last fight. And it was not finished yet. Raised on one elbow, his head flung upward, his long locks, beard, and eyebrows were blown abroad by the wind. He seemed less to be awaiting the stroke of death, than rejoicing in the majestic duel between the gods of fire and storm. Though dwarfed by his mighty surroundings, that dying fragment of flesh and bone and sinew dominated all--a serene and splendid figure of defiance; a symbol, finely conceived and wrought, of the unconquering yet unconquered spirit of man. That, for Mark, had been the inner significance of his theme, above and beyond his sheer joy in the swirl of the tempest, with one quenchless spark of human will and courage for the point of stillness in the midst.

For days, while working at it, he had scarcely been off his feet or sat down to a meal, and his final spurt of inspiration had kept him going from breakfast-time one day till four o'clock next morning. The thing was unquestionably his finest achievement yet. He had put more of himself into it than into any work of his hands; and he wondered, now, whether Bel was seeing it merely as a vigorous bit of drama, or feeling it, understanding it, as every artist craves that his work should be felt and understood.

She had made few comments when first he showed her his studio, his inner self, except that she had not realised she was going to marry a genius and she hoped he was not one of the too uncomfortable kind. He had promptly reassured her by waiving all claim to genius and promising not to be "uncomfortable" if he could possibly avoid it. A faint, very faint, twinge at his heart had been loyally ignored; and before long she had charmed him--almost--into forgetfulness that it had ever been there.

Still, it could not be said that they made swift progress in intimacy. One day she would seem exquisitely near him, and the next would slip distractingly out of reach. At first this had puzzled him. Then he suspected it of being deliberate; and suspicion was tinged with resentment. He neither understood nor appreciated the feline element inherent in certain women. Nor did he relish the suspicion that at times Bel could, and did, play upon him, as a skilled musician plays upon an instrument; that she could even exasperate him to the point of fury without losing an iota of her charm. That charm she was at small pains to exercise on the other members of the household, except in the case of Maurice and Ralph. With them it was instinctive, simply; with the rest it would have been something of an effort, which apparently was not worth making.

As regards Lady Forsyth--though Sheila had been better than her word--things did not, so far, look promising. Just at first, for Mark's sake, the two had made a genuine effort at friendliness; but on both sides the effort was so much more in evidence than the friendliness that they very soon found themselves tacitly avoiding any attempt at intimate talk... For this unhappy state of things Mark, not unnaturally, blamed his mother rather than Bel. She, after all, was the older woman. A convincing lead from her might have worked wonders; but the very sincerity he had always so loved in her had now become a stone of stumbling. That he could understand, being cast in the same mould. What he secretly resented was her blindness--wilful or otherwise--to Bel's charm; to the sweetness and goodness in her that would only, he fancied, blossom freely in an atmosphere of sympathetic appreciation, his mother's most notable gift. How deeply he had counted on this, he now began to realise; but for fear of hurting her and making matters worse, he bridled his tongue, with the result that he, too, found himself avoiding occasions for personal talk. His people, it seemed, could not, or would not, assimilate Bel; while Bel's whole attitude politely implied that she was marrying him, not his people. But they three--his mother, Keith, and Sheila--were so closely linked with his main interest in life that it was hard to see how matters would range themselves when it came to the point of marriage. And he intended to marry soon. An engagement was an unsatisfactory state of affairs, and there was nothing to wait for that he could see----

"There! The fifteen minutes is up," he said suddenly, consulting his watch and stepping back again for another critical survey. "I won't keep you a second longer. She shall have her finishing touches to-morrow."

Bel rose, yawned, stretched herself gracefully at some length, and then stood smiling at him, hands clasped behind her head.

Maurice--unnoticed by Mark, but not by Bel--took up a fresh piece of paper and began a lightning sketch of her pose.

"You're a model of a model!" Mark commended her warmly. Then his gaze moved from her to the bas-relief, as if contrasting the two things he loved almost equally with two different sides of his nature.

"Have you made friends with my Viking?" he asked, and she pursed her lips as if considering.

"Frankly--I've tried to; but I can't. The wind of him blows even one's thoughts about. He's magnificent, of course. But too stormy and uncomfortable for my taste; so uncomfortable that I was rather wondering how you could have enjoyed doing him?"

Mark raised his eyebrows. "That doesn't lend itself to explanation," he said lightly. "Some sort of natural affinity, perhaps. I'm a bit stormy and uncomfortable myself, in certain moods." He opened his cigarette-case and held it out to her. "I apologise for blowing your thoughts about. We'll change your view to-morrow."

"Now you're angry!" she said sweetly, taking a cigarette and tapping it on the back of her hand. As she did so a half hoop of diamonds flashed into view. "Honesty's not the best policy, let the copybooks never so virtuously rage!"

"I prefer it anyway," he said. "Have a light." He struck a match and held it for her. "I hope my Lady of Dreams is more to your taste. She's warranted not to stir the ghost of a breeze in any one's thought!"

Bel came forward now and contemplated herself with undisguised satisfaction. "Mark, you _have_ improved her. She's lovely!"

"Naturally. She can't help herself, bless her," he said under his breath, for the pure pleasure of calling up a blush. "Now then, Lenox," he added aloud, "have you the cheek to produce your caricature of my future wife?"

"Rather!" Maurice promptly held up for inspection a curious blur of blues and greens, of pale gold hair and flesh tints of doubtful fleshliness. After some looking, the suggestion of a woman emerged; and later still, a ghostly suggestion of Bel. It was unquestionably clever--and nothing more. Mark laughed aloud.

"Call that a portrait! By the yellow blob on the top one would just know which way to hang it!"

"Mark, you're very rude!" Bel waved him aside with her cigarette. "It's queer and perverse; but _I_ rather like it."

Maurice sprang to his feet and executed a low bow. "Miss Alison, it is yours----"

He broke off and straightened himself, for the door opened to admit Keith with the _Times_ in his hand. "Your mother wants lunch at once," he said. "I'm driving her into Ardmuir early on business. Would you care to come?"

"Thanks no. We've a private picnic on, across the loch."

Mark glanced at the open sheet. "Any fresh news?"

"A few more details about that Irish shooting affray; an ugly, ominous business. While our precious politicians are hurling epithets at each other, things over there are rapidly drifting towards bloodshed on a big scale."

Mark's eyes flashed and he thrust out his chin. "If fighting's imminent, the sooner you and I pack our things and cross over to Belfast the better. At least we can help to stiffen the ranks."

"Mark--you don't _mean_ that?" Bel broke in, a touch of sharpness in her startled tone.

"Every word of it," he answered quietly, and Macnair's long mouth twisted as he looked from one to the other. "I could name a dozen good fellows here who'd come with me like a shot."

"But--what do _you_ know about soldiering?"

He laughed. "More than you think for. I've been put through my paces in the O.T.C. I can ride; I can flag-wag; and I'm a marksman, which is very much to the point. You've not discovered all my talents yet by any means!"

But Bel was scarcely listening. Her eyes were on Keith, whom already she recognised as an authority on most things, including Mark himself.

"You're not really going, are you, Mr. Macnair?" she asked in a tone of faint dismay. "The Government would surely never let it get as far as civil war."

Keith, more charmed than he cared to own, reassured her with his kindliest smile. "I sincerely hope not, Miss Alison, for all our sakes. This Austrian ultimatum to Serbia may very well set Europe ablaze; and at such a moment we should be worse than fools to start cutting each other's throats at home."

Bel looked distinctly relieved. In spite of her American phase, she remained essentially an islander. For her, Europe was a vast vague region across the Channel, chiefly represented by Paris and the Riviera. But with Mark it was otherwise.

"I say, Keith," he asked sharply. "Is that Serbian business really going to make things buzz? I've done no more than squint at headlines lately. And we've had such a surfeit of 'Wolf, Wolf!' one gets a bit sceptical!"

Keith smiled. "When you can find time to 'squint' at two letters I've had from Vienna and Rome, you'll be sceptical no longer. If Austria wrings the last humiliation from little Serbia, Russia will be in it; which means France will be in it too----"

"In _what_, Mr. Macnair?" Bel's relief was swiftly evaporating.

"The conflagration of Europe," Keith said gravely; and the plain statement sent an odd, uncomfortable thrill through them all.

"But we're not Europe. It would not mean us?"

Keith gave her a direct look. "In my opinion, Miss Alison, we _are_ Europe and it would mean us. Unless we recognise that obvious fact in time, we shall simply be marched over. Whether our reigning politicians will take your view or mine, remains to be proved.--But there goes the gong. And we must feed, though dynasties fall!"

He hurried out and Maurice followed him.

As the door closed on them, Mark, in his silent, impetuous fashion, turned and took the girl in his arms. "Poor darling! Did I frighten her badly?"

"No. You made her very angry!" she answered, in her most seductive voice; and for all apology he kissed her passionately.

"It _will_ be all right, won't it?" she questioned, still in her childlike vein.

"God knows. I hope it will," he said. "Anyway, if we are sitting on a live crater, we'll take our fill of peace and sunshine this afternoon. Come along!"

But at lunch there was more disturbing talk about Ireland. Mark still spoke of going over if the tension snapped, though Bel had taken his caresses for a sign of grace. Ralph clamoured to accompany him. Sheila threatened to beg, borrow, or steal a uniform and go with them. As for Lady Forsyth she seemed as bad as any one. A spot of colour in each cheek heightened the blue of her eyes. She felt the whole tragic tangle of right and wrong keenly, vividly, as she felt everything, from a pin-prick to an earthquake in the antipodes; and, like all truly imaginative natures, she could sink the personal point of view when larger issues held the field. Bel, very wisely, kept silence. Anything she might have to say on the subject was for one ear alone. Meantime, she privately reiterated her opinion that Lady Forsyth was an odd, uncomfortable sort of person, quite unworthy to be the mother of Mark.

Lunch ended, the "uncomfortable person" retreated to her turret-room to write a couple of notes before starting, and thither Mark followed her--an event so rare these days that she started when the door opened and he came in.

"Mother," he plunged as usual, "the others were mostly joking at lunch. But I meant what I said. Did you?"

She looked up quickly, and her eyes caressed his fine, strong face. "Of course I did."

"Thought so. You _are_ a real sportswoman, Mums."

She sighed and smiled almost in one breath. "A fair imitation! I shall pray more fervently than ever for a peaceful solution. Besides--" a tentative pause--"How about Bel?"

"_She'd_ be all right. Why shouldn't she?"

But the touch of sharpness in his tone betrayed him--and Bel also. "You might credit her with a few good qualities. She's got as many as most people if you'd honestly look for them. But you won't."

"Dear, that's not true. You might try and be fair to me. I've done my best."

"So has she, no doubt, though you probably haven't noticed it. But it seems precious little use either way. So the less said the better." He swung round and took a step toward the door.

"Oh, Mark!" she murmured, and checked herself. He was right. Words only widened the breach. But the low sound brought him back to her side. "Mums," he said, a hand on her shoulder, "is this rotten state of things always going on between us?"

"Oh, I hope not." She laid her fingers over his. "'My faith is large in time.' We two impatient folk must manage to have patience with each other. The trouble is--forgive me, dear--I can find so little in her to take hold of. It's rather like trying to grasp a cloud. Later on I may arrive at the substance that must be there!"

"Yes, it's _there_ right enough." Mark's tone was curiously quiet, considering how she had dared. "Are you yet convinced, Mother, that she cares, or do you still believe she's marrying my title and possessions?"

Lady Forsyth started. "Have you any doubt yourself?"

"If I have, it's all your fault. What d'you really think? Tell me."

"I think she cares more now than she did at first, though not nearly so much as she ought to before she becomes your wife. You've won her, nominally, by the primitive process of snatching. But you've yet to win her actually. So don't be in a hurry to snatch at marriage. You're still comparative strangers. Give yourselves a year at least."

"Oh Lord!" he groaned, "I was thinking of Christmas. I'm blest if I could keep it up for a year."

"Keep up--what?" she asked, amused and amazed.

"Oh--you know!" he flung out an expressive hand. "This lovering business. I'm not much of a hand at the sentimental touch. Little compliments and attentions and all that. _Your_ fault again! You haven't reared me that way. Mind you, it's not that I don't care----"

"Of course not!" Her amusement was full of understanding. "It's only that you're even more of a Scot than I thought you were! Poor Bel!"

"Not a bit of it!" he retorted; but that first touch of sympathy pleased him. "I believe I'm improving. But--after marriage, she wouldn't expect so much--eh?"

"She might--and she might not. Women mostly do. And when they marry the non-lovering type of Scot--they suffer. A friend of mine--an Irishwoman and childless--was so completely withered by ten years of life with a dour and devoted Scottish husband that she simply had to leave him, and to this day he doesn't understand why."

"Hurry up, Helen! What's come to you?" Keith's voice rang out from the stairs; and Lady Forsyth leapt to her feet. "Bad boy to delay me like this! But do give yourself time to get your hand in. Promise."

He smiled at her characteristic urgency. She looked ridiculously, engagingly young, he thought, in her blue motor bonnet with its long veil floating over her shoulder, and the eyes that answered his smile were suspiciously bright. Obeying a rare impulse, he stooped and kissed them. "Well--just to please you," he said, "I'll try and hang on till Easter."

"Bless you!" she whispered. Then she waved to him from the threshold and was gone.

For several minutes he stood there looking round the familiar room--that still seemed alive with her presence--in a very mixed frame of mind. It was puzzling, and it hardly seemed right somehow; but the fact remained that, even now, this vivid, virile little mother of his was easily the biggest thing in his life. To please her he had promised to wait till Easter. Rather an unflattering discrepancy, when you came to think of it, between nine months' engagement and his original proposal to marry in a week. And, with a sudden twinge of compunction, he hurried out in search of Bel.