She looked down on the terrace; as she looked the figure of George Emerson appeared, walking swiftly. And at the sight of him something seemed to tell her that she had found the key to her gloom.
There are many kinds of walk. George Emerson's was the walk of mental unrest. His hands were clasped behind his back, his eyes stared straight in front of him from beneath lowering brows, and between his teeth was an unlighted cigar. No man who is not a professional politician holds an unlighted cigar in his mouth unless he wishes to irritate and baffle a ticket chopper in the subway, or because unpleasant meditations have caused him to forget he has it there. Plainly, then, all was not well with George Emerson.
Aline had suspected as much at luncheon; and looking back she realized that it was at luncheon her depression had begun. The discovery startled her a little. She had not been aware, or she had refused to admit to herself, that George's troubles bulked so large on her horizon. She had always told herself that she liked George, that George was a dear old friend, that George amused and stimulated her; but she would have denied she was so wrapped up in George that the sight of him in trouble would be enough to spoil for her the finest day she had seen since she left America.
There was something not only startling but shocking in the thought; for she was honest enough with herself to recognize that Freddie, her official loved one, might have paced the grounds of the castle chewing an unlighted cigar by the hour without stirring any emotion in her at all.
And she was to marry Freddie next month! This was surely a matter that called for thought. She proceeded, gazing down the while at the perambulating George, to give it thought.
Aline's was not a deep nature. She had never pretended to herself that she loved the Honorable Freddie in the sense in which the word is used in books. She liked him and she liked the idea of being connected with the peerage; her father liked the idea and she liked her father. And the combination of these likings had caused her to reply "Yes" when, last Autumn, Freddie, swelling himself out like an embarrassed frog and gulping, had uttered that memorable speech beginning, "I say, you know, it's like this, don't you know!"—and ending, "What I mean is, will you marry me—what?"
She had looked forward to being placidly happy as the Honorable Mrs. Frederick Threepwood. And then George Emerson had reappeared in her life, a disturbing element.
Until to-day she would have resented the suggestion that she was in love with George. She liked to be with him, partly because he was so easy to talk to, and partly because it was exciting to be continually resisting the will power he made no secret of trying to exercise. But to-day there was a difference. She had suspected it at luncheon and she realized it now. As she looked down at him from behind the curtain, and marked his air of gloom, she could no longer disguise it from herself.
She felt maternal—horribly maternal. George was in trouble and she wanted to comfort him.
Freddie, too, was in trouble. But did she want to comfort Freddie? No. On the contrary, she was already regretting her promise, so lightly given before luncheon, to go and sit with him that afternoon. A well-marked feeling of annoyance that he should have been so silly as to tumble downstairs and sprain his ankle was her chief sentiment respecting Freddie.
George Emerson continued to perambulate and Aline continued to watch him. At last she could endure it no longer. She gathered up her letters, stacked them in a corner of the dressing-table and left the room. George had reached the end of the terrace and turned when she began to descend the stone steps outside the front door. He quickened his pace as he caught sight of her. He halted before her and surveyed her morosely.
"I have been looking for you," he said.
"And here I am. Cheer up, George! Whatever is the matter? I've been sitting in my room looking at you, and you have been simply prowling. What has gone wrong?"
"Everything!"
"How do you mean—everything?"
"Exactly what I say. I'm done for. Read this."
Aline took the yellow slip of paper. "A cable," added George. "I got it this morning—mailed on from my rooms in London. Read it."
"I'm trying to. It doesn't seem to make sense."
George laughed grimly.
"It makes sense all right."
"I don't see how you can say that. 'Meredith elephant kangaroo—?'"
"Office cipher; I was forgetting. 'Elephant' means 'Seriously ill and unable to attend to duty.' Meredith is one of the partners in my firm in New York."
"Oh, I'm so sorry! Do you think he is very sick? Are you very fond of Mr. Meredith?"
"Meredith is a good fellow and I like him; but if it was simply a matter of his being ill I'm afraid I could manage to bear up under the news. Unfortunately 'kangaroo' means 'Return, without fail, by the next boat.'"
"You must return by the next boat?" Aline looked at him, in her eyes a slow-growing comprehension of the situation. "Oh!" she said at length.
"I put it stronger than that," said George.
"But—the next boat—— That means on Wednesday."
"Wednesday morning, from Southampton. I shall have to leave here to-morrow."
Aline's eyes were fixed on the blue hills across the valley, but she did not see them. There was a mist between. She was feeling crushed and ill-treated and lonely. It was as though George was already gone and she left alone in an alien land.
"But, George!" she said; she could find no other words for her protest against the inevitable.
"It's bad luck," said Emerson quietly; "but I shouldn't wonder if it is not the best thing that really could have happened. It finishes me cleanly, instead of letting me drag on and make both of us miserable. If this cable hadn't come I suppose I should have gone on bothering you up to the day of your wedding. I should have fancied, to the last moment, that there was a chance for me; but this ends me with one punch.
"Even I haven't the nerve to imagine that I can work a miracle in the few hours before the train leaves to-morrow. I must just make the best of it. If we ever meet again—and I don't see why we should—you will be married. My particular brand of mental suggestion doesn't work at long range. I shan't hope to influence you by telepathy."
He leaned on the balustrade at her side and spoke in a low, level voice.
"This thing," he said, "coming as a shock, coming out of the blue sky without warning—Meredith is the last man in the world you would expect to crack up; he looked as fit as a dray horse the last time I saw him—somehow seems to have hammered a certain amount of sense into me. Odd it never struck me before; but I suppose I have been about the most bumptious, conceited fool that ever happened.
"Why I should have imagined that there was a sort of irresistible fascination in me, which was bound to make you break off your engagement and upset the whole universe simply to win the wonderful reward of marrying me, is more than I can understand. I suppose it takes a shock to make a fellow see exactly what he really amounts to. I couldn't think any more of you than I do; but, if I could, the way you have put up with my mouthing and swaggering and posing as a sort of superman, would make me do it. You have been wonderful!"
Aline could not speak. She felt as though her whole world had been turned upside down in the last quarter of an hour. This was a new George Emerson, a George at whom it was impossible to laugh, but an insidiously attractive George. Her heart beat quickly. Her mind was not clear; but dimly she realized that he had pulled down her chief barrier of defense and that she was more open to attack than she had ever been. Obstinacy, the automatic desire to resist the pressure of a will that attempted to overcome her own, had kept her cool and level-headed in the past. With masterfulness she had been able to cope. Humility was another thing altogether.