“Oh no,” she said quickly. “Not repulsive — of course not. I’d never have such a — a thought.”
And what if he knew indeed what she was thinking? How could she save herself the shame if he knew that she dared not move lest she put out her hands to touch his?
“Irrelevant,” he was saying, “but I never saw such eyes as yours. They’re as deep as the sea, and darker.”
She was silent, motionless, half hypnotized, and was delivered by the sudden sharp ring of the telephone.
“Oh,” she gasped. “It’ll be your father.”
She slipped past him with profound relief, escaping the dangerous moment. How could I, she was thinking, how could I, when I’d never even seen him until yesterday!
“Yes,” she said aloud. “Yes, he’s here. Indeed yes, Mr. Blayne. … Louise? No, I’m not Louise. … Yes, yes, he’s been here this long while, waiting—”
She gave the receiver to him and tiptoed to the door, her heart suddenly cold. Louise? Who was Louise? Had he a sister? Or — she stopped, startled by a roar from the telephone.
“Johnny! Where in the devil are you? I’ve been trying to get you for the last six hours!”
The masterful voice bellowed its way under the Atlantic Ocean and shattered the peace of England. Wincing, he held the receiver as far from his ear as his arm could stretch.
“Yes, Father — yes. I’ve been waiting for hours, too.”
He caught Kate at the door and frowned to her to come back. She stood waiting, in obedience.
“Who was that girl who answered?” the big voice shouted.
“She’s somebody here at the castle,” he said mildly. “Nobody you know—”
“Well, just don’t forget Louise. I know a good merger when I see one. Holt called me that the old man doesn’t want the castle moved and the deal’s off. Crackpot idea from the first! Give my regards to Sir Richard and tell him I congratulate him on his good sense.”
John Blayne’s jaw set and his eyes flashed a pure steel. “The deal is not off. Holt has no business to say so! I don’t give up — you ought to know that by now! If I don’t get this castle I get another.”
“And what about Louise? When I was young I didn’t play ducks and drakes with a girl the way you are.”
“Tell her—”
“Monday of next week is the day I’ve set for the merger to go through! Her father is coming from Pittsburgh with his lawyers. It’s an occasion for the two firms as well as for the two families. I want you to be here, that’s all — just be here!”
John Blayne exploded. “Listen, Dad, I take my job seriously! You made me responsible for the Foundation. If you don’t like the way I’m running it, find someone else, but don’t act as if it wasn’t a job and as if you could send for me to come home any time you please — because you can’t! The Foundation isn’t a tax evasion scheme, so far as I’m concerned — it’s a commitment to my mother’s memory but even more than that, to the great works of art she left behind. You attend to your merger and I’ll attend to my Foundation.”
He was interrupted by an outburst of passion which, crossing the Atlantic Ocean, found vent in the crackling instrument in his hand. “Johnny, I’ve got a lot of money tied up in those”—the voice halted and went on—“in your mother’s paintings! By the time you get your castles and whatnots, I can have a modern building put up and safe as Fort Knox—”
John stopped the loud voice by hanging up. His handsome face was crimson with rage. “Damn the old—. I can always stay here in England, mind you! I swear I’ll bring all the paintings here — and I will, if—”
Then he remembered Kate. “Sorry — excuse me—”
She was gazing at him with admiration. “You’re as fine a man as your father,” she said softly. “It would be hard to choose which has the bigger voice and the hotter temper. It was a real show!”
He gave a snort of laughter, short and grim. “I mean what I said, I’m not giving up. I’ll go to France or Germany or anywhere, if it takes me years. … Monday in New York — to meet Louise and witness the merger! Merger — hah!”
Kate smoothed her skirt nicely over her knees.
“Who is Louise?” she asked in a voice so carefully casual that it was like the chance but piercing sting of a bee.
He was walking about the room and stopped by the chimney piece.
“Louise?” he repeated blankly.
“Yes, Louise,” she repeated firmly.
“Louise … well …” he said slowly. “Louise is the daughter of a Pittsburgh coal millionaire and my father’s best friend. For years they’ve planned to merge their companies. And our families have always wanted us to — merge, too. Coal, Louise; steel, me!”
He shrugged his shoulders elaborately and examined the painting above the chimney piece, a Romney duchess. “She’s a very wonderful girl and beautiful, et cetera — handsome is the word, I suppose — good clothes, always well turned out …”
He was thinking what to say, she could see that. And she could imagine Louise, one those thin smart American girls — and what, pray, was this sudden ache under her breastbone, why was it so hard to breathe while she waited for him to speak? Oh Kate — you’re a silly—
She spoke first, her voice small and strange. “You said you might stay in England — then why don’t you leave the castle here where it was meant to be? You could have the museum here, which is what we thought you meant in the first place. Then we wouldn’t all be torn to pieces.”
He strolled to the window again and stood there, his back to her, and gazed out over the rolling hills and shallow valleys. A ray of the setting sun caught the spire of the church in the village and flashed it into a silver cross against the darkening sky.
“Plenty of reasons against it,” he said impatiently. “Bring millions of dollars of paintings across the sea? Every crook in two continents would be on the alert… probably regulations between two countries about releasing works of art, besides. … There must be a solution, though, if I could only …”
He turned and sat down on a huge chest against the wall facing her and got up immediately.
“Handsome carving, but not to sit upon!”
She laughed suddenly at his rueful face. “King John’s chest. He kept his valuables in it — a crown given him by the Scots and a gem-encrusted scepter.”
He tried the lid. “It’s locked — are they still there?”
“I don’t know! The keys have been lost this long while. … What were you saying about a solution?”
He walked to the window once more and sat on the sill, his back to the landscape. “I was thinking aloud. … You know, I may be a silly idealist, but I really want the American people to see something beautiful and not in a building on Fifth Avenue that looks like a washing machine. I want the paintings to hang in their authentic setting — a castle. We don’t have a castle in New England — not a real one like this. It’s an art treasure in itself. We Americans need this sort of thing … we’ve no sense of history. … Can you understand me, Kate?”
“This sort of thing,” she knew meant the oak paneled walls, the huge chimney piece of stone built to burn eight-foot logs, the high, groined ceilings, the air of nobility, the atmosphere of ages.
“Please,” she said softly, and all the time she was thinking how sweet it was to hear him call her Kate, “please never do anything you do not wish to do.”
“That’s easy. What’s hard is to know what I do want to do.”
The telephone rang before she could answer. She took up the receiver, listened, and handed it to him.
“For you — from the inn.”
He heard a distant clamor of voices resolving into the voice of his lawyer.
“Yes, Holt,” he said in reply, “Yes, I’m here at the castle. Everyone is to stay at the inn until I … Yes, I have talked with my father. You should have waited for my instructions before — Yes, I know I must make up my mind. … I tell you, I don’t care if there are thirty-five more people coming tomorrow! They can just wait, too. … I know you only want to be helpful — you’re very efficient and I appreciate it, but efficiency must wait for something more important. … I don’t know, I tell you. I’ll have to think. … Yes, it’ll cost a lot of money to wait, but … All right, call it foolish, but foolishness in the beginning may lead to wisdom in the end — There is a solution, but I haven’t quite — No, I don’t know what we’ll do — not yet! When I know, I’ll tell you.”