to find the key to a puzzle. "I--don't see."
"You couldn't. You can't. You're a man. You don't know. It's so
different for a man! He's brought up all his life with the idea of
leaving home. He goes away naturally."
"But, dear, you couldn't live at home all your life. Whoever you
married--"
"But this would be different. Father would never speak to me again.
I should never see him again. He would go right out of my life.
Jimmy, I couldn't. A girl can't cut away twenty years of her life,
and start fresh like that. I should be haunted. I should make you
miserable. Every day, a hundred little things would remind me of
him, and I shouldn't be strong enough to resist them. You don't know
how fond he is of me, how good he has always been. Ever since I can
remember, we've been such friends. You've only seen the outside of
him, and I know how different that is from what he really is. All
his life he has thought only of me. He has told me things about
himself which nobody else dreams of, and I know that all these years
he has been working just for me. Jimmy, you don't hate me for saying
this, do you?"
"Go on," he said, drawing her closer to him.
"I can't remember my mother. She died when I was quite little. So,
he and I have been the only ones--till you came."
Memories of those early days crowded her mind as she spoke, making
her voice tremble; half-forgotten trifles, many of them, fraught
with the glamour and fragrance of past happiness.
"We have always been together. He trusted me, and I trusted him, and
we saw things through together. When I was ill, he used to sit up
all night with me, night after night. Once--I'd only got a little
fever, really, but I thought I was terribly bad--I heard him come in
late, and called out to him, and he came straight in, and sat and
held my hand all through the night; and it was only by accident I
found out later that it had been raining and that he was soaked
through. It might have killed him. We were partners, Jimmy, dear. I
couldn't do anything to hurt him now, could I? It wouldn't be
square."
Jimmy had turned away his head, for fear his face might betray what
he was feeling. He was in a hell of unreasoning jealousy. He wanted
her, body and soul, and every word she said bit like a raw wound. A
moment before, and he had felt that she belonged to him. Now, in the
first shock of reaction, he saw himself a stranger, an intruder, a
trespasser on holy ground.
She saw the movement, and her intuition put her in touch with his
thoughts.
"No, no," she cried; "no, Jimmy, not that!"
Their eyes met, and he was satisfied.
They sat there, silent. The rain had lessened its force, and was
falling now in a gentle shower. A strip of blue sky, pale and
watery, showed through the gray over the hills. On the island close
behind them, a thrush had begun to sing.
"What are we to do?" she said, at last. "What can we do?"
"We must wait," he said. "It will all come right. It must. Nothing
can stop us now."
The rain had ceased. The blue had routed the gray, and driven it
from the sky. The sun, low down in the west, shone out bravely over
the lake. The air was cool and fresh.
Jimmy's spirits rose with a bound. He accepted the omen. This was
the world as it really was, smiling and friendly, not gray, as he
had fancied it. He had won. Nothing could alter that. What remained
to be done was trivial. He wondered how he could ever have allowed
it to weigh upon him.
After awhile, he pushed the boat out of its shelter on to the
glittering water, and seized the paddle.
"We must be getting back," he said. "I wonder what the time is. I
wish we could stay out forever. But it must be late. Molly!"
"Yes?"
"Whatever happens, you'll break off this engagement with Dreever?
Shall I tell him? I will if you like."
"No, I will. I'll write him a note, if I don't see him before
dinner."
Jimmy paddled on a few strokes.
"It's no good," he said suddenly, "I can't keep it in. Molly, do you
mind if I sing a bar or two? I've got a beastly voice, but I'm
feeling rather happy. I'll stop as soon as I can."
He raised his voice discordantly.
Covertly, from beneath the shade of her big hat, Molly watched him
with troubled eyes. The sun had gone down behind the hills, and the
water had ceased to glitter. There was a suggestion of chill in the
air. The great mass of the castle frowned down upon them, dark and
forbidding in the dim light.
She shivered.
CHAPTER XX
A LESSON IN PICQTUET
Lord Dreever, meanwhile, having left the waterside, lighted a
cigarette, and proceeded to make a reflective tour of the grounds.
He felt aggrieved with the world. Molly's desertion in the canoe
with Jimmy did not trouble him: he had other sorrows. One is never
at one's best and sunniest when one has been forced by a ruthless
uncle into abandoning the girl one loves and becoming engaged to
another, to whom one is indifferent. Something of a jaundiced tinge
stains one's outlook on life in such circumstances. Moreover, Lord
Dreever was not by nature an introspective young man, but, examining
his position as he walked along, he found himself wondering whether
it was not a little unheroic. He came to the conclusion that perhaps
it was. Of course, Uncle Thomas could make it deucedly unpleasant
for him if he kicked. That was the trouble. If only he had even--
say, a couple of thousands a year of his own--he might make a fight
for it. But, dash it, Uncle Tom could cut off supplies to such a
frightful extent, if there was trouble, that he would have to go on
living at Dreever indefinitely, without so much as a fearful quid to
call his own.
Imagination boggled at the prospect. In the summer and autumn, when
there was shooting, his lordship was not indisposed to a stay at the
home of his fathers. But all the year round! Better a broken heart
inside the radius than a sound one in the country in the winter.
"But, by gad!" mused his lordship; "if I had as much as a couple--
yes, dash it, even a couple of thousand a year, I'd chance it, and
ask Katie to marry me, dashed if I wouldn't!"
He walked on, drawing thoughtfully at his cigarette. The more he
reviewed the situation, the less he liked it. There was only one
bright spot in it, and this was the feeling that now money must
surely get a shade less tight. Extracting the precious ore from Sir
Thomas hitherto had been like pulling back-teeth out of a bull-dog.
But, now, on the strength of this infernal engagement, surely the
uncle might reasonably be expected to scatter largesse to some
extent.
His lordship was just wondering whether, if approached in a softened
mood, the other might not disgorge something quite big, when a
large, warm rain-drop fell on his hand. From the bushes round about
came an ever increasing patter. The sky was leaden.
He looked round him for shelter. He had reached the rose-garden in
the course of his perambulations. At the far end was a summerhouse.
He turned up his coat-collar, and ran.
As he drew near, he heard a slow and dirge-like whistling proceeding
from the interior. Plunging in out of breath, just as the deluge
began, he found Hargate seated at the little wooden table with an
earnest expression on his face. The table was covered with cards.
Hargate had not yet been compelled to sprain his wrist, having
adopted the alternative of merely refusing invitations to play
billiards.