Lucy was now high-hearted on her quest—her quest and mission. It was to be this once, and for the last time. She followed the peony path from the lake to the thicket, entered among the trees and pushed her way forward. Long before she reached the scene of last night's wonder she was a prisoner, her lips a prize. There was very little disguise left now. For a full time they clung together and loved without words; but then he spoke. "So you came! I hoped, I waited, I thought that you might. Oh, my Lucy, what a fact for me!"

She answered simply and gently, "I came—I had to come—but—"

"Well, my love?"

"Ah," she said, "but this must be for the last time." This was not taken as she had meant it to be. Love began again. Then he said, "That's absurd."

"No, no," she protested, "it's right. It must be so. You would not have me do anything else."

"And I must go?"

"Yes, indeed, you must go now."

"Not yet, Lucy. Soon."

"No, at once," she told him. "The last time is come, and gone. You must not keep me."

"Let me talk to you, so, for a few minutes. There's everything to say."

"No," she said, "tell me nothing. I dare not know it. Please let me go now."

"A last time, then, Lucy." She yielded her lips, but unwillingly; for now her mind was made up. The thing had to be done, and the sooner the better.

"Ah," he said, "how can I let you go?"

"Easily," she answered, "when I ask you"; and was unanswerable. She forced herself free, and stood undecided.

"You needn't go back yet," he said, but she thought she must.

"I came out alone," she told him, "but Vera was in the room. So were the others. I don't know what they will think."

"Nothing at all," he said. "Well, everything shall be as you wish. You see that you have only to name your wish."

"I have one thing to ask you—I dare not ask any more," she said. Her voice had a wavering sound.

"Ask," he said, "and I'll tell you the truth."

"You don't think it wicked of me, to have come? Because I did come. I thought that I must, because—because I could never explain at any other time, in any other way. You don't think—lightly of me?"

"Oh, my dear, my dear," he said—and she felt him tremble, though he did not touch her. "I think more dearly of you than of anything in heaven. The world holds no other woman for me. So it will always be."

She said quietly, "It's very wonderful. I don't understand it at all. I thought perhaps—I wondered—if I had been angry—"

"I deserve that, and more."

"I know I ought to be angry. So I should be if—"

"Well, my love, well?"

But she couldn't tell him, and asked him to let her go. They parted at the entry of the wood with Good night, and Lucy flitted back with a pain in her heart like the sound of wailing. But women can wail at heart and show a fair face to the world. Her stretched smile had lost none of its sweetness, her eyes none of their brightness. Vera Nugent watched her narrowly, and led the conversation upstairs. She thought that she detected a pensive note, but assured herself that all was pretty well. "That's a remarkable woman," she said to herself, "who would rather have a heartache now than grin with misery next week. After this I'd trust her anywhere."

* * * * *

On Sunday morning Urquhart made an explicit return to Martley, arriving at the hour of eleven in his motor of battleship grey colour and formidable fore-extension. Behind it looked rather like a toy. Lucy had gone to church alone, for James never went, and Vera Nugent simply looked appealing and then laughed when she was invited. That was her way of announcing her religion, and a pleasant one. Lord Considine was out for the day, with sandwiches bulging his pockets. Nugent had been invisible since overnight. He was slugging, said his wife.

Returning staidly through the wood, she saw Urquhart waiting for her at the wicket, and saw him, be it owned, through a veil of mist. But it was soon evident, from his address, that the convention set up was to be maintained. The night was to take care of itself; the day was to know nothing of it, officially. His address was easy and light-hearted. "Am I to be forgiven? Can I expect it? Let me tell you that I do expect it. You know me better than to suppose that I didn't want to be here on your first visit."

She answered him with the same spirit. "I think you might have been, I must say."

"No, I couldn't. There was no doubt about it. I simply had to go."

"So Vera told me." Then she dared. "May I ask if you went far?"

He tipped his head sideways. "Too far for my peace of mind, anyhow."

"That tells me nothing. I am not to know any more?"

"You are to know what you please."

"Well," she said, "I please to forget it. Now I had better tell you how much I love Martley. James says that the house is perfect in its way; but I say that you have done justice to the site, and think it higher praise."

"It is. I'm much obliged to you. The problem was—not to enhance the site, for that was out of the question; rather to justify the impertinence of choosing to put any building there. Because of course you see that any house is an impertinence in a forest."

"Yes, of course—but not yours."

Urquhart shrugged. "I'm not afraid of your flatteries, because I know," he said. "The most that can be said for me is that I haven't choked it up with scarlet and orange flowers. There's not a geranium in the place, and I haven't even a pomegranate in a tub, though I might."

"Oh, no," she said warmly, "there's nothing finicky about your garden—any more than there is about you. There was never such a man of direction—at least I never met one." The moment she had said it she became embarrassed; but he took no notice. His manner was perfect. They returned by the lake, and stayed there a while to watch Nugent trying to catch trout. The rest of the day she spent in Urquhart's company, who contrived with a good deal of ingenuity to have her to himself while appearing to be generally available. After dinner, feeling sure of him, she braved the tale-bearing woods and nightingales vocal of her sweet unease. There was company on this occasion, but she felt certain it would not have been otherwise had they been retired with the night. She was thoughtful and quiet, and really her heart was full of complaining. He was steadily cheerful, and affected a blunt view of life at large.

She did not look forward to leaving him on the morrow, and as good as said so. "I have been enchanted here," she said, "and hate the thought of London. But James won't hear of Wycross in June. He loves the world."

Urquhart said, "What are you going to do in August? Wycross?"

"No, we never go there in August. It's too hot— And there's Lancelot. A boy must have excitement. I expect it will come to my taking him to the sea, unless James consents to Scotland. We used to do that, but now—well, he's bored there."

He was looking at her, she felt, though she couldn't see him. "Did you ever go to Norway?" She shook her head. He said no more on that head just then.

"I shall see you in London," he told her. "I am going to take my Certificate at Brooklands. Next week I hope. You might come and applaud."

"No, indeed," said she. "I couldn't bear to see you in those conditions. I have nerves, if you have none."

"I have plenty," he said, "but you ought to do it. Some day you will have to face it."

"Why shall I?" He wouldn't tell her.

That made her daring. "Why shall I?"

His first answer was a steady look; his second, "Nothing stops, you know. Things all swim to a point. Ebb and flow. They don't go back until they reach it."

"And then?"

"And then they may—or they may not blot it out and swim on."



CHAPTER XIV

THE GREAT SCHEME

The height of her esteem for Urquhart was the measure of her growing disrelish for James. It was hard to visit upon a man the sense that he was not what he had never dreamed of being; but that is what happened to him. By how much he had risen in her eyes when she made an Eros of him, by so much did he fall when she found out her mistake. Because he was obviously no Eros, was he so obviously but part of a man? It seemed so indeed. If he discerned it there's no wonder. He irritated her; she found herself instinctively combating his little preparations for completeness of effect—she was herself all for simplicity in these days. She could not conceal her scorn, for instance, when he refused to go with her to dine in a distant suburb because he would not have time to dress. "As if," she said, "you eat your shirt-front!" Trenchancy from James produced a silent disapproval. As he said, if she didn't sniff, she looked as if she felt a cold coming on. She knew it herself and took great pains; but it coloured her tone, if not her words. Too often she was merely silent when he was very much himself. Silence is contagious: they passed a whole dinner through without a word, sometimes.

Now James had his feelings, and was rather unhappy over what he called her moods. He thought she did not go out enough. She ought to see more people: a woman liked to be admired. It did not occur to him that she might have been very glad of it from him; but then he didn't know how highly she had been elated with what she called, thinking it really so, his love-in-the-darkness. No, Macartney, if ever he looked into himself, found nothing wrong there. He kept a wary eye through his masking-glass upon Urquhart's comings and goings. As far as he could ascertain he was rarely in London during June and early July. No doubt he wrote to Lucy; James was pretty sure of it; yet he could not stoop to examining envelopes, and had to leave that to Providence and herself. He mingled with his uneasiness a high sense of her integrity, which he could not imagine ever losing. It was, or might have been, curious to observe the difference he made between his two jealousies. He had been insolent to Francis Lingen, with his "Ha, Lingen, you here?" He was markedly polite to Jimmy Urquhart, much more so than his habit was. He used to accompany him to the door when he left, an unheard-of attention. But that may have been because Lucy went thither also.

As a matter of fact Urquhart saw very little of her. He was very much away, on his aerial and other affairs, and did not care to come to the house unless James was there, nor, naturally, very much when he was. They mostly met in the Park, rarely at other people's houses. Once she lunched at the Nugents' and had the afternoon alone with him; twice he drove her to Kew Gardens; once she asked him for a week-end to Wycross, and they had some talks and a walk. He wrote perhaps once a week, and she answered him perhaps once a fortnight. Not more. She had to put the screw on herself to outdo him in frugality. She respected him enormously for his mastery of himself, and could not have told how much it enhanced her love. It was really comical that precisely what she had condemned James for she found admirable in Jimmy. James had neglected her for his occupations, and Jimmy was much away about his. In the first case she resented, in the second she was not far from adoration of such a sign of serious strength.

They never alluded directly to what had happened, but sometimes hinted at it. These hints were always hers, for Urquhart was a random talker, said what came into his head and had no eye for implications. He made one odd remark, and made it abruptly, as if it did not affect anybody present. "It's a very funny thing," he said, "that last year I didn't know Macartney had a wife, and now, six months later, I don't realise that you have got a husband." It made her laugh inwardly, but she said gently, "Try to realise it. It's true."

"You wish me to make a point of it?" he asked her that with a shrewd look.

"I wish you, naturally, to realise me as I am."

"There doesn't seem much of you involved in it," he said; but she raised her eyebrows patiently.

"It is a fact, and the fact is a part of me. Besides, there's Lancelot."

"Oh," he said, "I don't forget him. You needn't think it. He is a symbol of you—and almost an emanation. Put it like this, that what you might have been, he is."

"Oh," said she, "do you want me to be different?"

He laughed. "Bless you, no. But I like to see what you gave up to be made woman. And I see it in your boy."

She was impelled to say what she said next by his words, which excited her. "I can't tell you—and perhaps I ought not—how happy you make me by loving Lancelot. I love him so very much—and James never has. I can't make out why; but it was so from the beginning. That was the first thing which made me unhappy in my life at home. It was the beginning of everything. He seemed to lose interest in me when he found me so devoted."

Urquhart said nothing immediately. Then he spoke slowly. "Macartney is uneasy with boys because he's uneasy with himself. He is only really interested in one thing, and he can see that they are obviously uninterested in it."

"You mean—?" she began, and did not finish.

"I do," said Urquhart. "Most men are like that at bottom—only some of us can impose ourselves upon our neighbours more easily than he can. Half the marriages of the world break on that rock, and the other half on idleness."

She then confessed. "Do you know what I believe in my heart? I believe that James's eyeglass stands in his way with Lancelot—as it certainly did with me."

"I think you are right there," he agreed. "But you must allow for it. He's very uncertain of his foothold, and that's his war armour."

She was more tolerant of James after that conversation, and less mutinous against her lot. She wondered, of course, what was to become of them, how long she could hold him at arms' length, how she could bring herself to unsay what had been said in the dark of Martley Thicket. But she had boundless faith in Urquhart, and knew, among other things, that any request she made him would be made easy for her.

But when, at the end of June, he broached to her his great scheme, she was brought face to face with the situation, and had to ask herself, could she be trusted? That he could she knew very well.

He had a project for a month or six weeks in Norway. He had hinted at it when she was at Martley, but now it was broached. He didn't disguise it that his interest lay wholly in her coming. He laid it before her: she, Lancelot and James were to be the nucleus. He should ask the Corbets and their boys, Vera and hers. Nugent would refuse, he knew. Meantime, what did she say? He watched her shining eyes perpending, saw the gleam of anticipated delight. What a plan! But then she looked down, hesitating. Something must now be said.

"Oh, of course Lancelot would go mad with joy, and I dare say I could persuade James—"

"Well? But you?"

"I should live every moment of the time, but—sometimes life seems to cost too much."

He held out his hand to her, and she took it very simply. "Promise to come, and you shan't repent it. Mind, you have my word on that." Then he let her go, and they discussed ways and means. She would speak to James; then he should come and dine, and talk it out. Meantime, let him make sure of Vera, and do his best with the Corbets. If they were fixed up, as she thought probable, he might get some other people. Considine might like it. "He's very much at your disposal, let me tell you. You have him at your feet."

So it was settled, and James was attacked in front. She told him as they were driving out to dinner that she had met Mr. Urquhart that afternoon. "I dare say you might," said James. But he had stiffened to attention.

"He blazed upon me a plan for August. I said I would ask you about it."

James said, "H'm. Does it rest with me?"

"Naturally it does. I should not think of any plans without talking to you."

"No, I suppose you wouldn't," said he. Then he asked, "And what does Urquhart want you to do?"

"He doesn't want me, particularly. He wants all three of us."

"I think," said James, "you'll find that he wants you most."

She felt that this must be fathomed. "And if he did," she said, "should you object to that?" He kept very dry.

"It isn't a case of objecting to that, or this. The question before me at present is whether I want to form one of a party which doesn't want me, and where I might be in the way."

"From what I know of Mr. Urquhart," she answered, "I don't think he would ever ask a person he didn't want."

"He might, if he couldn't get the person he did want in any other way," said James. "Who else is to come?"

"Vera Nugent and her boy, and perhaps Lord Considine. He is going to ask Laurence and Mabel and all the boys too."

"It will be a kind of school-treat," said James. "I own it doesn't sound very exciting. Where are we to go to?"

"To Norway. He knows of a house on the Hardanger Fiord, a house in a wood. He wants to hire a steamer to take us up from Bergen, and means to bring a motor-boat with him. There will be fishing of sorts if you want it."

"I don't," said James; then held up his chin. "Is my tie straight?"

She looked. "Perfectly. What am I to say to Mr. Urquhart?"

He said, "I'll talk about it; we'll discuss it in all its bearings. I don't think I'm so attracted as you are, but then—"

"It's very evident you aren't," Lucy said, and no more. She felt in a prickly heat, and thought that she had never wanted anything so much in her life as this which was about to be denied her. She dared not write to Lancelot about it; but to Urquhart she confessed her despair and hinted at her longing. He replied at once, "Ask me to dinner. I'll tackle him. Vera and child will come; not Considine. The Corbets can't—going to Scotland, yachting. We needn't have another woman, but Vera will be cross if there is no other man. Up to you to find one."

This again she carried to James, who said, "Let him come—any free night. Tell me which you settle, will you?"

James had been thinking it out. He knew he would have to go, and was prepared with what he called a spoke for Jimmy's wheel. Incidentally it would be a nasty one for Lucy, and none the worse for that. He considered that she was getting out of hand, and that Urquhart might be a nuisance because such a spiny customer to tackle. But he had a little plan, and chuckled over it a good deal when he was by himself.

He was, as usual, excessively urbane to Urquhart when they met, and himself opened the topic of the Norwegian jaunt. Urquhart took up the ball. "I think you might come. Your wife and boy will love it, and you'll kindle at their joy. 'They for life only, you for life in them,' to flout the bard. Besides, you are not a fogey, if I'm not. I believe our ages tally. You shall climb mountains with me, Macartney, and improve the muscles of your calves. You don't fish, I think. Nor do I. I thought I should catch your brother-in-law with that bait—but no. As for mine, he'll spend the month in bed somewhere."

"Is your sister coming?" James asked.

Urquhart nodded. "And her youngster. Osborne boy, and a good sort. Lancelot and he have met."

"They'll fight," said James, "and Mrs. Nugent and Lucy won't speak."

"Vera would speak, I'm sure," said Lucy, "and as for me, I seldom get a chance."

"A very true saying," said Urquhart. "I don't believe the Last Judgment would prevent Vera from talking. Well, Macartney, what says the Man of the World?"

"If you mean me," said James, "I gather that you all want to go. Lucy does, but that's of course. Lancelot will, equally of course. But I have a suggestion to make. Might not the party be a little bigger?"

"It might, and it should," said Urquhart; "in fact, I asked Considine to join us. He would love it, but he has to make a speech at a Congress, or read a paper, and he says he can't get out of it. The Corbets can't come. I'll ask anybody else you like."

James, who was now about to enjoy himself, said, "I leave the ladies to Lucy and Mrs. Nugent. Their choice would no doubt be mine. But I certainly think we want another man. Much as you and I esteem each other, my dear Urquhart, if there's walking to be done—serious walking, I think we shall be better three than two. I don't at all agree that three is no company. Where men are concerned I think it better than two or four. If only to give a knee, or hold the sponge! And with more than four you become a horde. We want a man now."

"I think so too," Urquhart said. "Well, who's your candidate?"

James meditated, or appeared to meditate. "Well," he said, looking up and fixing Urquhart with his eyeglass, "what do you say to Francis Lingen? Lucy likes him, I am used to him, and you will have to be some day."

Lucy was extremely annoyed. That was evident. She bit her lip, and crumbled her bread. She said shortly, "Francis couldn't walk to save his life."

"Let us put it another way," said James, enjoying his little coup. "Let us say that if he did walk, he might save his life."

Urquhart marked the breeze, and sailed into it. "I leave all that to you. All I know about Lingen is that I have done my best to oblige him in his private affairs. I confess that I find him mild, not to say insipid, but I dare say he's the life of a party when he's put to it."

"Oh," said James, not averse from disparaging an old rival, "Oh, poor chap, he hasn't many party tricks. I'd back him at cat's-cradle, and I dare say he plays a very fair game at noughts-and-crosses. Besides, he'll do what he's told, and fetch things for you. You'll find him a handy and obliging chap to have about."

"Sounds delightful," said Urquhart pleasantly. He turned to Lucy. "We'll give him Lingen, shall we?"

She said, "By all means. It doesn't matter in the least to me."

So James had his little whack, after all.



CHAPTER XV

JAMES

James, hardly knowing it, was bracing himself for a serious situation. He had a keen eye for a man, a feeling for style; in his judgment Urquhart was momentous, so much so that he could not afford to be irritated. Jealousy to him was a weakness, only pardonable when the cause was trivial. It had been trivial with poor Lingen. Fishing in heavy water, a skipjack snaps at your fly, and you jerk him out to bank with a Devil take you. But the swirling shoulder, the long ridge across the pool, and the steady strain: you are into a twelve-pounder, and the Devil is uninvoked.

He asked Jimmy to lunch at his club, and took the candid line about the Norwegian project. Lucy was desperately tired, he said, so he was pleased with the scheme. The poor dear girl was run down, the fact was. "You are very good for her, I believe. You exhilarate her; she forgets her troubles. She admires audacity—from the bank."

"I'll be as audacious as you please," said Jimmy.

"Oh, you won't take me in," James said. "I'm an old hand. I know my Urquhart. But Lucy will expect feats of strength. You are a champion."

"D—— your eyes!" said Urquhart to himself.

"The boy is one of your slaves, too. I can't tell you how contented I am that you approve of him."

"He's all right," said Urquhart, who didn't like all this. James, on the contrary, liked it awfully. He became a chatterbox.

"He's more than that in his mother's esteem. But Lucy's a wise mother. She moves with her finger on her lip. And that, mind you, without coddling. She'll risk him to the hair's-breadth—and never a word. But she won't risk herself. Not she! Why, she might be wanted! But there it is. Women can do these things, God knows how! It's men who make a fuss. Well, well—but I babble."

"My dear man," said Urquhart, "not at all. It's a thing you never do."

Thus encouraged, James plugged onwards. He talked more of himself and his affairs than he had ever done in his life before; expatiated upon his growing business, assumed his guest's contentment in his happiness, invited praise of his Lucy, and was not rebuffed at their denial. Urquhart, at first amused, ended by being annoyed. He felt as if James was a busy dwarf engaged in tying him up in lengths of black cotton. Round and round he went, coil after coil was added; before luncheon was over he could move neither hand nor foot. It was rather ludicrous, really; reduced to speechlessness, he sat and stared blankly at a voluble James, prattling away about things which didn't matter. He found himself even admiring things about him: the way he could bite pull-bread, for instance; the relish he had for his food. But all this chatter! He was too uncomfortable to see that James's present relish was chiefly for that. The Stilton and biscuits, the glass of port were but salt to the handling of Jimmy Urquhart; for James was a good fighter when he had a good man against him.

His parting words were these: "Now I shouldn't be surprised if she found herself out of conceit with this beano before we start. She's like that, you know. In such a case it's up to you to do something. You and Lancelot between you. That's an irresistible pair. I defy a gentlewoman, and a mother, to lose heart. Come in when you can. Tell us tales of far Cashmere. Sing us songs of Araby. I won't promise to join in the chorus—if you have choruses; but I shall revel in my quiet way. Now don't forget. I count upon you. By-bye."

"D—— your eyes, oh, d—— your eyes!" said Jimmy, shouldering the hill as he went his way.

Really, he began to lose nerve a little—and for such a sanguine man a little was much. It was as if he was on the downward slide of the wave, no longer cresting the flow, which surged on ahead of him, carrying him no longer. The fact was that he was now at the difficult part of an enterprise which had been so far too easy. At the moment it was not obvious to him what he was to do. James was aware, that was plain; and James had a strong hand—if he knew that too, he had an unassailable hand. But did he? Urquhart thought not. He chuckled grimly to himself as he saw his complacent host taken at his word. He looked at his wrist. "Half-past three? D—— him, I'll go and see her now."

But Lucy, as James had truly put it, held firmly to the bank. Glad of him she certainly was, amused by his audacities; but not tempted to plunge. He saw very soon that he must be careful with her. A reference to the Hardanger woods at night, to the absence of nightingales, absence of the dark—she veiled her eyes with blankness, and finally shut down the topic. "Don't let's talk of what is not in Norway. Tell me what is there. I have to keep Lancelot supplied you know." No man has so little self-esteem as to suppose that a woman can definitely put him away. Urquhart had plenty, and preferred to think that she thrust him more deeply within her heart. "Quite right," he said, and exerted himself on her amusement. James, coming home early, found him on the hearth-rug, talking really well about his flying. Nobody could have behaved better than James. He took his cup of tea, listened, was interested, smoked a cigarette; then touched Lucy's shoulder, saying, "I leave you to your escapades." He went to his own room, with nothing to do there, and sat it out. He fought his nervousness, refused to see his spectres, sat deep in his chair, grimly smoking. He heard the drawing-room door open, Urquhart's voice: "Yes, it will be all right. Leave all that to me." Lucy said something, he could not tell what. His heart beat faster to hear her tones. Urquhart let himself out: she had not gone with him to the front door. Was that a good sign? or a bad one? He frowned over that intricate question; but kept himself from her until dinner-time. She might have come in—he half expected her; but she did not. What was she doing in there by herself? Was she thinking where she stood? So pretty as she was, so innocent, such a gentle, sweet-natured creature! Alas, alas!

In short, James was growing sentimental about Lucy. Man of fashion as he was, with that keen eye for style and the mode, it may well be that Urquhart's interest in her was a kind of cachet. A hall-mark! However that may be, James looked at her more curiously during that July than he had done since he saw her first in the garden of Drem House. Yes, Lucy was pretty; more than that, she had charm. He saw it now. She moved her head about like a little bird—and yet she was not a little woman by any means; tall, rather, for a woman. But there was an absence of suspicion about Lucy—or rather of fundamental suspicion (for she was full of little superficial alarms), which was infinitely charming—but how pathetic! It was deeply pathetic; it made him vaguely unhappy, and for a long time he did not know why tears swam into his eyes as he watched her over the top of his evening paper, or was aware (at the tail of his eye) of her quick and graceful motions before her dressing-glass. Studying his feelings deeply, as never before, he found himself out. It was that he was to lose her, had perhaps lost her, just as he had found out how inexpressibly dear she was to be. And amazement came upon him, and dismay to realise that this sweetness of hers, this pliancy of temper, this strength within beauty were really there in her apart from him. As if he had believed that they lay in his esteem! No, indeed: they were her own; she could bestow them where she pleased.

But he couldn't touch her—now: he would die sooner than touch her. And he couldn't say anything to her: that would have been to throw up the game. She should never pity him, and give him for pity what would have become, in the very giving, negligible to herself. He knew himself well: he could never ask for a thing. No! but could he get her to ask for something? Ah, then she might find out whom she had married! A man, he judged, of spendthrift generosity, a prodigal of himself. Yes, that was how it must be, if to be at all. He kept his eyes wide, and followed her every movement, with a longing to help which was incessant, like toothache. At the same time he was careful to keep himself quiet. Not a tone of voice must vary, not a daily action betray him. That hand on the shoulder, now, when Urquhart was last here. Too much. There must be no more of it, though he could still feel the softness of her in the tips of his fingers. Thus he braced himself.

He held good cards: but he didn't know how good.



CHAPTER XVI

AMARI ALIQUID

Lingen was exceedingly gratified by Lucy's letter. James had thought the invitation should come from her, and, as the subject-matter was distasteful to her, sooner than discuss it she had acquiesced. Few pin-pricks had rankled as this one. She had never had any feeling but toleration for Lingen; James had erected him as a foible; and that he should use him now as a counter-irritant made her both sore and disgustful. She wished to throw up the whole scheme, but was helpless, because she could neither tell James, who would have chuckled, nor Urquhart either. To have told Urquhart, whether she told him her reason or left him to guess it, would have precipitated a confession that her present position was untenable. In her heart she knew it, for the heart knows what the mind stores; but she had not the courage to summon it up, to table it, and declare, "This robe is outworn, stretched at the seams, ragged at the edges. Away with it." Just now she could not do it; and because she could not do it she was trapped. James had her under his hand.

Therefore she wrote her, "Dear Francis," and had his grateful acceptance, and his solemn elation, visible upon his best calling face. "I can't tell you how happy you have made me. It is beautiful, even for you, to make people happy. That is why you do it: what else could you do? Life is made up of illusions, I think. Let me therefore add to the sum of mine that you have desired my happiness." This sort of thing, which once had stirred her to gentle amusement, now made her words fall dry. "You mustn't forget that James has desired it too." "Oh," said Francis Lingen, "that's very kind of him."

"Really, it is Mr. Urquhart's party. He invented it."

"Did he desire my happiness too?" asked Lingen, provoked into mockery of his own eloquence by these chills upon it.

"At least he provided for it," said Lucy, "and that you shouldn't be uncomfortable I have asked Margery Dacre to come."

Lingen felt this to be unkind. But he closed his eyes and said, "How splendid."

That was the fact. It had been an afterthought of hers, and partially countered on James. Margery Dacre also had accepted. She had said, "How too delicious!" James, when made aware that she was coming, ducked his head, it is true, but made a damaging defence.

"Is she?" he said. "Why?"

"She'll make our number a square one," she replied, "to begin with. And she might make it more pleasant for the others—Francis Lingen and Mr. Urquhart."

If she hadn't been self-conscious she would never have said such a thing as that. James's commentary, "I see," and the subsequent digestion of the remark by the eyeglass, made her burn with shame. She felt spotted, she felt reproach, she looked backward with compunction and longing to the beginning of things. There was now a tarnish on the day. Yet there was no going back.

Clearly she was not of the hardy stuff of which sinners must be made if they are to be cheerful sinners. She was qualmish and easily dismayed. Urquhart was away, or she would have dared the worst that could befall her, and dragged out of its coffer her poor tattered robe of romance. Between them they would have owned to the gaping seams and frayed edges. Then he might have kissed her—and Good-bye. But he was not at hand, and she could not write down what she could hardly contemplate saying.

Never, in fact, was a more distressful lady on the eve of a party of pleasure. Lancelot's serious enjoyment of the prospect, evident in every line of his letters, was her only relish; but even that could not sting her answers to vivacity. "I hope the Norwegians are very sensible. They will need all their sense, because we shall have none when the pirate is there." "There used to be vikings in Norway. They came to England and stole wives and animals. Now we bring them a man for wives. That is what for with the chill of." "I must have a new reel to my fishing-rod. The old one has never been the same since I made a windlass of it for the battleship when it was a canal-boat, and it fell into the water when we made a landslide and accident which was buried for three days and had a worm in the works. Also a v. sharp knife for reindeer, etc. They are tough, I hear, and my knife is sharpest at the back since opening sardines and other tins, all rather small." He drove a fevered pen, but retained presence of mind enough to provide for his occasions: "The excitement of Norway may lose me some marks in term's order. Not many I dare say." Again, "When you are excited reports go bad. I have been shouting rather, kicking up a shine. Once there was a small fight which was twigged. Norway is a serious matter." There was an undercurrent of nervousness, discernible only to her eyes. She could not account for it till she had him home, and they were on the edge of adventure. It was lest he should be seasick and disgrace himself in the esteem of young Nugent, who, as a naval officer, was of course sea-proof. "I expect Nugent likes it very rough," he said—and then, "I don't, you know, much. Not for weeks at a time. Rather a nuisance." However, it was solved in the event by Nugent being prostrate from the time they left the Tyne. Between his spasms he urged his mother to explain that Lord Nelson was always seasick. But Lancelot was very magnanimous about it.

There was diversion in much of this, and she used it to lighten her letters to Urquhart, which, without it, had been as flat as yesterday's soda-water. As the time came near when they should leave home she grew very heavy, had forebodings, wild desires to be done with it all. Then came a visitation from the clear-eyed Mabel and a cleansing of the conscience.

Mabel said that she was sorry to miss Norway. It would have amused her enormously. "To see you in the saddle, with two led horses!" She always talked as if she was an elder sister. "I almost threw Laurence over; but of course I couldn't do that. He's so dependent and silent and pathetic—but thank goodness, he hasn't found out, like James, the real use of wives. That is, to have somebody to grumble to who really minds. There's your James for you. He doesn't want to go a bit; he'd much rather be at Harrogate or somewhere of that sort. Perhaps he'd like Homburg. But he wouldn't go for the world. He's not pathetic at all, though he wants to be; but he wants to be sarcastic at the same time, and is cross because the two things won't go together. Of course he stuck in Francis Lingen. He would. As if he cared about Francis Lingen, a kind of poodle!"

"You oughtn't to abuse James to me," Lucy said, not very stoutly; "I don't abuse Laurence."

"Abuse him!" cried Mabel. "Good Heavens, child, I only say out loud what you are saying to yourself all day. We may as well know where we are." Then came a pause; and then, "I suppose you and Jimmy Urquhart are in a mess."

Lucy said nothing; whereupon Mabel showed her clear sight. "And I suppose you know now who turned the light off." At that terrible surmise Lucy got up and stood above her sister. "Mabel, I don't know what to do."

"I am sure you don't," said Mabel. "On the other hand, you know what you have to do."

"Yes," Lucy replied; "but it isn't so easy as you would think. You see, I have never spoken to him about it, nor he to me; and it seems almost impossible to begin—now."

Mabel was out of her depth. "Do you mean—? What do you really mean?"

"I mean exactly what I say. I found out the truth, by a kind of accident—one day. It wasn't possible to doubt. Well, then—it went on, you know—"

"Of course it did," said Mabel. "Well?"

—"And there was no disguise about it, after there couldn't be."

"Why should there be, if there couldn't be?" Mabel was at her wits' end.

"There was no disguise about it, while it was going on, you know. But in the daytime—well, we seemed to be ordinary people, and nothing was said. Now do you see?"

Mabel did. "It makes it very awkward for you. But feeling as you do now, you simply must have it out."

"I can't," Lucy said with conviction. "I know I can't do that. No, it must stop another way. I must—be hateful."

"Do you mean to make him dislike you? To put him off?"

Lucy nodded. "Something like that."

"Try it," said Mabel.

"You mean it won't answer?"

"I mean that you won't, my dear. You are not that sort. Much too kind. Now I could be perfectly beastly, if I felt it the only thing."

Lucy was in a hard stare. "I don't feel kind just now. James has given me a horror of things of the sort. I don't believe he meant it. I think he felt snappish and thought he would relieve his feelings that way. But there it is. He has made it all rather disgusting. It's become like a kind of intrigue of vulgar people, in a comedy."

"These things do when you take them out and look at them," Mabel said. "Like sham jewellery. They are all right in their cases. The velvet lining does so much. But although you may be disgusted with James's handling of your private affairs, you are not disgusted with—the other?"

"No, I suppose not. I really don't know. He is the most understanding man in the world, and I would trust him through everything. I don't think he could tell me an untruth. Not one that mattered, anyhow. I could see him go away from me for a year, for two, and not hear a word from him, and yet be sure that he would come back, and be the same, and know me to be the same. I feel so safe with him, so proud of his liking me, so settled in life—I never felt settled before—like being in a nest. He makes everything I love or like seem more beautiful and precious—Lancelot, oh, I am much prouder of Lancelot than I used to be. He has shown me things in Lancelot which I never saw. He has made the being Lancelot's mother seem a more important, a finer thing. I don't know how to say it, but he has simply enhanced everything—as you say, like a velvet lining to a jewel. All this is true—and something in me calls for him, and urges me to go to him. But now—but yet—all this hateful jealousy—this playing off one man against another—Francis Lingen! As if I ever had a minute's thought of Francis Lingen—oh, it's really disgusting. I didn't think any one in our world could be like that. It spots me—I want to be clean. I'd much rather be miserable than feel dirty."

Here she stopped, on the edge of tears, which a sudden access of anger dried up. She began again, more querulously. "It's his fault, of course. It was outrageous what he did. I'm angry with him because I can't be angry with myself—for not being angry. How could I be angry? Oh, Mabel, if it had been James after all! But of course it wasn't, and couldn't be; and I should be angry with him if I wasn't so awfully sorry for him."

Mabel stared. "Sorry for James!"

"Yes, naturally. He's awfully simple, you know, and really rather proud of me in his way. I see him looking at me sometimes, wondering what he's done. It's pathetic. But that's not the point. The point is that I can't get out."

"Do you want to get out?" Mabel asked.

"Yes, I do in a way. It has to be—and the sooner the better. And whether I do or not, I don't like to feel that I can't. Nobody likes to be tied."

"Then nobody should be married," said Mabel, who had listened to these outbursts of speech, and pauses which had been really to find words rather than breath, with staring and hard-rimmed eyes. She had a gift of logic, and could be pitiless. "What it comes to, you know," she said, "is that you want to have your fun in private. We all do, I suppose; but that can't come off in nine cases out of ten. Especially with a man like James, who is as sharp as a razor, and just as edgy. The moment anybody peers at you you show a tarnish, and get put off. It doesn't look to me as if you thought so highly of—the other as you think you do. After all, if you come to that, the paraphernalia of a wedding is pretty horrid; one feels awfully like a heifer at the Cattle Show. At least, I did. The complacency of the bridegroom is pretty repulsive. You feel like a really fine article. But one lives it down, if one means it."

Lucy told her to go, or as good as told her. Sisters may be plain with each other. She wasn't able to answer her, though she felt that an answer there was.

What she had said was partly true. Lucy was a romantic without knowing it. So had Psyche been, and the fatal lamp should have told her so. The god removed himself. Thus she felt it to be. He seemed just outside the door, and a word, a look, would recall him to his dark beauty of presence. That he was beautiful so she knew too well, that he was unbeautiful in the glare of day she felt rather than knew. The fault, she suspected, lay in her, who could not see him in the light without the blemish of circumstance—not his, but circumstance, in whose evil shade he must seem smirched. What could she do with her faulty vision, but send him away? Was that not less dishonourable than to bid him remain and dwindle as she looked at him? What a kink in her affairs, when she must be cruel to her love, not because she loved him less, but rather that she might love him more!

But the spirit of adventure grew upon her in spite of herself, the sense of something in the wind, of the morning bringing one nearer to a great day. It pervaded the house; Crewdson got in the way of saying, "When we are abroad, we shall find that useful, ma'am"; or "Mr. Macartney will be asking for that in Norway." As for James, it had changed his spots, if not his nature. James bought marvellous climbing boots, binoculars, compasses of dodgy contrivance, sandwich-cases, drinking-flasks, a knowing hat. He read about Norway, studied a dictionary, and ended by talking about it, and all to do with it, without any pragmatism. Lucy found out how he relied upon Urquhart and sometimes forgot that he was jealous of him. Jealous he was, but not without hope. For one thing, he liked a fight, with a good man. Lingen caught the epidemic, and ceased to think or talk about himself. He had heard of carpets to be had, of bold pattern and primary colouring; he had heard of bridal crowns of silver-gilt worthy of any collector's cabinet. He also bought boots and tried his elegant leg in a flame-coloured sock. And to crown the rocking edifice, Lancelot came home in a kind of still ecstasy which only uttered itself in convulsions of the limbs, and sudden and ear-piercing whistles through the fingers. From him above all she gained assurance. "Oh, Mr. Urquhart, he'll put all that straight, I bet you—in two ticks!..." and once it was, "I say, Mamma, I wonder where you and I would be without Mr. Urquhart." James heard him, and saw Lucy catch her breath. Not very pleasant.



CHAPTER XVII

THE SHIVERING FIT

They were to start on the 8th of August, and it was now the 5th. Packing had begun, and Crewdson, as usual, was troublesome. He had the habit of appearing before Lucy and presenting some small deficiency as a final cause of ruin and defeat. "I can't find any of the Brown Polish, ma'am. I don't know what Mr. Macartney will do without it." This, or something like it, had become a classic in the family. It had always been part of the fun of going away. But this year Lucy was fretted by it. She supposed herself run down and whipped herself to work. She found herself, too, lingering about the house, with an affection for the familiar aspect of corners, vistas, tricks of light and shadow, which she had never thought to possess. She felt extremely unwilling to leave it all. It was safety, it was friendliness; it asked no effort of her. To turn away from its lustrous and ordered elegance and face the unknown gave her a pain in the heart. It was odd to feel homesick before she had left home; but that was the sum of it. She was homesick. Urquhart was very much in her mind; a letter of his was in her writing-table drawer, under lock and key; but Urquhart seemed part of a vague menace now, while James, though he did his unconscious utmost to defeat himself, got his share of the sunset glow upon the house. Fanciful, nervous, weary of it all as she was, she devoted herself to her duties; and then, on this fifth of August, in the afternoon, she had a waking vision, perfectly distinct, and so vivid that, disembodied and apart, she could see herself enacting it. It was followed by a shivering fit and depression; but that must tell its own tale.

* * * * *

The vision occurred while she was on her knees, busied beside a trunk, turning over garments of lace and fine linen and pale blue ribbons which a maid, in the same fair attitude, was bestowing as she received them. Lancelot was out for the afternoon with Crewdson and a friend. They had gone to the Zoological Gardens, and would not be back till late. She had the house to herself; it was cool and shadowed from the sun. The Square, muffled in the heat, gave no disturbing sounds. Looking up suddenly, for no apparent reason, she saw herself with Jimmy Urquhart in a great empty, stony place, and felt the dry wind which blew upon them both. All but her own face was visible; of that she saw nothing but the sharp outline of her cheek, which was very white. She saw herself holding her hat, bending sideways to the gale; she saw her skirt cling about her legs, and flack to get free. She wondered why she didn't hold it down. The wind was a hot one; she felt that it was so. It made her head ache, and burned her cheek-bone. Urquhart was quite visible. He looked into the teeth of the wind, frowning and fretful. Why didn't she say something to him? She had a conviction that it was useless. "There's nothing to say, nothing to say." That rang in her head, like a church bell. "Nothing to say, nothing to say." A sense of desolation and total loss oppressed her. She had no hope. The vacancy, the silence, the enormous dry emptiness about her seemed to shut out all her landmarks. Why didn't she think of Lancelot? She wondered why, but realised that Lancelot meant nothing out there. She saw herself turn about. She cried out, "James! James!" started up with a sense of being caught, and saw the maid's face of scare. She was awake in a moment. "What is it, ma'am? What is it?"

Lucy had recovered her faculties: "Nothing, Emily; it's nothing. I was giddy." But she was shivering and couldn't go on. "I think I'll lie down for a minute," she said, and asked for the aspirin. She took two tabloids and a sip of water, was covered up and left to herself. Emily tiptoed away, full of interest in the affair.

The shivering fit lasted the better part of an hour. Lucy crouched and suffered, open-eyed but without any consciousness. Something had happened, was happening still; a storm was raging overhead; she lay quaking and waited for it to pass. She fell asleep, slept profoundly, and awoke slowly to a sense of things. She had no doubt of what lay immediately before her. Disrelish of the Norwegian expedition was now a reasonable thing. Either it must be given up, or the disaster reckoned with. Advienne que pourra. But in either case she must "have it out" with James. What did that mean? Jimmy Urquhart would be thrown over. He would go—and she would not. She lay, picturing rather than reasoning; saw him superbly capable, directing everything. She felt a pride in him, and in herself for discovering how fine he was. His fineness, indeed, was a thing shared. She felt a sinking of the heart to know that she could not be there. But the mere thought of that sickened her. Out of the question.

She must "have it out" with James. That might be rather dreadful; it might take her where she must refuse to go—but on the whole, she didn't think it need. The certainty that she couldn't go to Norway, that James must be made to see it, was a moral buttress. Timidity of James would not prevail against it. Besides that, deeply within herself, lay the conviction that James was kind if you took him the right way. He was irritable, and very annoying when he was sarcastic; but he was good at heart. And it was odd, she thought, that directly she got into an awkward place with a flirtation, her first impulse was to go to James to get her out. In her dream she had called to him, though Urquhart had been there. Why was that?

She was thinking now like a child, which indeed she was where such matters were concerned. She was not really contrite for what she had done, neither regretted that she had done it, nor that it was done with. She wanted to discharge her bosom of perilous stuff. James would forgive her. He must not know, of course, what he was forgiving; but—yes, he would forgive her.

* * * * *

At six or thereabouts, listening for it, she heard the motor bring James home; she heard his latch-key, and the shutting of the door behind him. Her heart beat high, but she did not falter. He was reading a letter in the hall when she came downstairs; he was very much aware of her, but pretended not to be. She stood on the bottom stair looking at him with wide and fixed eyes; but he would not look up. He was not just then in a mood either to make advances or to receive them. His grievance was heavy upon him.

"James," said Lucy, "I've been listening for you."

"Too good," said he, and went on with his letter.

"I wanted to tell you that I don't think—that I don't much want to go to Norway."

Then he did look up, keenly, with a drawn appearance about his mouth, showing his teeth. "Eh?" he said. "Oh, absurd." He occupied himself with his letter, folding it for its envelope, while she watched him with a pale intensity which ought to have told him, and perhaps did tell him, what she was suffering.

"I don't think you should call me absurd," she said. "I was never very certain of it."

"But, my dearest child, you made me certain, at any rate," he told her. "You made everybody certain. So much so that I have the tickets in my pocket at this moment."

"I'm very sorry. I could pay for mine, of course—and I'm sure Vera would look after Lancelot. I wouldn't disappoint him for the world."

"What are you going to tell Urquhart?" said James. Her eyes paled.

"I believe that he would take it very simply," she said. James plunged his hands into his pockets. He thought that they were on the edge of the gulf.

"Look here, Lucy," he said; "hadn't you better tell me something more about this? Perhaps you will come into the library for a few minutes." He led the way without waiting for her, and she stood quaking where she was.

She was making matters worse: she saw that now. Naturally she couldn't tell James the real state of the case, because that would involve her in history. James would have to understand that he had been believed to have wooed her when he had done nothing of the kind. That was a thing which nothing in the world would bring her to reveal to him. And if she left that out and confined herself to her own feelings for Urquhart—how was all that to be explained? Was it fair to herself, or to Urquhart, to isolate the flowering of an affair unless you could show the germinating of it? Certainly it wasn't fair to herself—as for Urquhart, it may be that he didn't deserve any generous treatment. She knew that there was no defence for him, though plenty of excuse—possibly. No—she must go through with the Norway business. Meantime James was waiting for her.

She stood by the library table while James, back to the fireplace, lifted his head and watched her through cigar-smoke. He had no mercy for her at this moment. Suspicions thronged his darkened mind. But nothing of her rueful beauty escaped him. The flush of sleep was upon her, and her eyes were full of trouble.

"It isn't that I have any reason which would appeal to you," she told him. She faltered her tale. "I think I have been foolish—I know that I'm very tired and worried; but—I have had presentiments."

James clicked his tongue, which he need not have done—as he knew very well. But he had not often been arbiter of late.

"My child," he said, "really—" and annoyed her.

"Of course you are impatient. I can't help it, all the same. I am telling you the truth. I don't know what is going to happen. I feel afraid of something—I don't know what—"

"Run down," said James, looking keenly at her, but kindly; "end of the season. Two days at sea will do the job for you. Anyhow, my dear, we go." He threw himself in his deep chair, stretched his legs out and looked at Lucy.

She was deeply disappointed; she had pictured it so differently. He would have understood her, she had thought. But he seemed to be in his worst mood. She stood, the picture of distressful uncertainty, hot and wavering; her head hung, her hand moving a book about on the table. To his surprise and great discomfort he now discerned that she was silently crying. Tears were falling, she made no effort to stop them, nor to conceal them. Her weakness and dismay were too much for her. She accepted the relief, and neither knew nor cared whether he saw it.

James was not hard-hearted unless his vanity was hurt. This was the way to touch him, as he was prepared to be touched. "My child," he said, "why, what's the matter with you?" She shook her head, tried to speak, failed, and went on crying.

"Lucy," said James, "come here to me." She obeyed him at once.

Something about her attitude moved him to something more than pity. Her pretty frock and her refusal to be comforted by it; her youthful act—for Lucy had never yet cried before him; her flushed cheeks, her tremulous lips—what? If I could answer the question I should resolve the problem of the flight of souls. He looked at her and knew that he desired her above all things. A Lucy in tears was a new Lucy; a James who could afford to let his want be seen was a new James. That which stirred him—pity, need, desire, kindness—vibrated in his tones. To hear was to obey.

He took her two hands and drew her down to his knee. He made her sit there, embraced her with his arm. "There, my girl, there," he said; "now let me know all about it. Upon my soul, you are a baffling young woman. You will, and you won't; and then you cry, and I become sentimental. I shall end by falling in love with you."

At these strange words she broke down altogether, and sobbed her soul out upon his shoulder. Again he assured himself that he had never seen her cry before. He was immensely touched by it, and immensely at his ease too. His moral status was restored to him. He knew now what he wanted. "You poor little darling, I can't bear to see you cry so. There then—cry away, if it does you good. What does me good is to have you here. Now what made you so meek as to come when I called you? And why weren't you afraid that I should eat you up? So I might, Lucy, you know; for you've made me madly in love with you."

It seemed to her beating heart that indeed he was. He held her very close, kissed her wet cheeks, her wet eyes and her lips. She struggled in his embrace, but not for long. She yielded, and returned his kisses. So they clung together, and in the silence, while time seemed to stand still, it really did nothing of the kind; for if he gained experience she lost it.

He must have grown more experienced, for he was able to return without embarrassment to the affairs so strangely interrupted. She must have grown less so, because she answered him simply, like a child. He asked her what had upset her, and she told him, a dream. A dream? Had she been asleep? No, it was a waking dream. She told him exactly what it was. She was with Mr. Urquhart in a horrible place—a dry, sandy place with great rocks in it. "And where did I come in?" "You didn't come in. That was why I called you." "You called for me, did you? But Urquhart was there?" "Yes, I suppose he was still there. I didn't look." "Why did you call for me, Lucy?" "Because I was frightened." "I'm grateful to you for that. That's good news to me," he said; and then when he kissed her again, she opened her eyes very wide, and said, "Oh, James, I thought you didn't care for me any more."

James, master of himself, smiled grimly. "I thought as much," he said; "and so you became interested in somebody else?"

Lucy sat up. "No," she said, "I became interested in you first."

That beat him. "You became interested in me? Why? Because I didn't care for you?"

"No," she said sharply; "no! Because I thought that you did."

James felt rather faint. "I can't follow you. You thought that I didn't, you said?" Lucy was now excited, and full of her wrongs.

"How extraordinary! Surely you see? I had reason to think that you cared for me very much—oh, very much indeed; and then I found out that you didn't care a bit more than usual; and then—well, then—" James, who was too apt to undervalue people, did not attempt to pursue the embroilment. But he valued her in this melting mood. He held her very close.

"Well," he said, "and now you find that I do care—and what then?"

She looked at him, divinely shy. "Oh, if you really care—"

This would have made any man care. "Well, if I really do—?"

"Ah!" She hid her face on his shoulder. "I shall love to be in Norway."

James felt very triumphant; but true to type, he sent her upstairs to dress with the needless injunction to make herself look pretty.

Presently, however, he stood up and stared hard at the ground. "Good Lord!" he said. "I wonder what the devil—" Then he raised his eyebrows to their height. "This is rather interesting."

* * * * *

The instinct was strong in him to make her confess—for clearly there was something to be known. But against that several things worked. One was his scorn of the world at large. He felt that it was beneath him to enquire what that might be endeavouring against his honour or peace. Another—and a very new feeling to him—was one of compassion. The poor girl had cried before him—hidden her face on his shoulder and cried. To use strength, male strength, upon that helplessness; to break a butterfly on a wheel—upon his soul, he thought he couldn't do it.

And after all—whether it was Lingen or Urquhart—he was safe. He knew he was safe because he wanted her. He knew that he could not want what was not for him. That was against Nature. True to type again, he laughed at himself, but owned it. She had been gone but five or ten minutes, but he wanted to see her again—now. He craved the sight of that charming diffidence of the woman who knows herself desired. He became embarrassed as he thought of it, but did not cease to desire. Should he yield to the whim—or hold himself...?

At that moment Lancelot was admitted. He heard him race upstairs calling, "Mamma, Mamma! frightfully important!" That decided the thing. He opened his door, listening to what followed. He heard Lucy's voice, "I'm here. You can come in...." and was amazed. Was that Lucy's voice? She was happy, then. He knew that by her tone. There was a lift in it, a timbre. Was it just possible, by some chance, that he had been a damned fool? He walked the room in some agitation, then went hastily upstairs to dress.

Whether to a new James or not, dinner had a new Lucy to reveal; a Lucy full of what he called "feminine charm"; a Lucy who appealed to him across the table for support against a positive Lancelot; who brought him in at all points; who was concerned for his opinion; who gave him shy glances, who could even afford to be pert. He, being essentially a fair-weather man, was able to meet her half-way—no more than that, because he was what he was, always his own detective. The discipline which he had taught himself to preserve was for himself first of all.

Lancelot noticed his father. "I say," he said, when he and Lucy were in the drawing-room, "Father's awfully on the spot, isn't he? It's Norway, I expect. Bucks him up."

"Norway is enough to excite anybody," Lucy said—"even me."

"Oh, you!" Lancelot was scornful. "Anything would excite you. Look at Mr. Urquhart."

Lucy flickered. "How do you mean?" Lancelot was warm for his absent friend.

"Why, you used to take a great interest in all his adventures—you know you did."

This must be faced. "Of course I did. Well—?"

"Well," said Lancelot, very acutely, "now they seem rather ordinary—rather chronic." Chronic was a word of Crewdson's, used as an augmentive. Lucy laughed, but faintly.

"Yes, I expect they are chronic. But I think Mr. Urquhart is very nice."

"He's ripping," said Lancelot, in a stare.

James in the drawing-room that evening was studiously himself, and Lucy fought with her restlessness, and prevailed against it. He was shy, and spun webs of talk to conceal his preoccupations. Lucy watched him guardedly, but with intense interest. It was when she went upstairs that the amazing thing happened.

She stood by him, her hand once more upon his shoulder. He had his book in his hand.

"I'm going," she said. "You have been very sweet to me. I don't deserve it, you know."

He looked up at her, quizzing her through the detested glass. "You darling," he said calmly, and she thrilled. Where had she heard that phrase? At the Walkuere!

"You darling," he said; "who could help it?"

"Oh, but—" she pouted now. "Oh, but you can help it often—if you like."

"But, you see, I don't like. I should hate myself if I thought that I could."

"Do let me take your glass away for one minute."

"You may do what you please with it, or me."

The glass in eclipse, she looked down at him, considering, hesitating, choosing, poised. "Oh, I was right. You look much nicer without it. Some day I'll tell you."

He took her hand and kept it. "Some day you shall tell me a number of things."

She did not cease to look at him, but he saw fear in her eyes. "Some day, perhaps, but not yet."

"No," said he, "not yet—perhaps."

"Will you trust me?"

"I always have."

She sighed. "Oh, you are good. I didn't know how good." Then she turned to go. "I told you I was going—and I am. Good night."

He put his book down. She let his eyeglass fall. He drew her to his knee, and looked at her.

"It's not good night," he said. "That's to come."

She gave him a startled, wide look, and then her lips, before she fled.



CHAPTER XVIII

THE HARDANGER

That enchanted land of sea and rock, of mountains rooted in the water, and water which pierces the secret valleys of the mountains, worked its spell upon our travellers, and freed them from themselves for a while. For awhile they were as singleminded as the boys, content to live and breathe that wine-tinctured air, and watch out those flawless days and serene grey nights. London had sophisticated some of them almost beyond redemption: Francis Lingen was less man than sensitive gelatine; James was the offspring of a tradition and a looking-glass. But the zest and high spirits of Urquhart were catching, and after a week Francis Lingen ceased to murmur to ladies in remote corners, and James to care whether his clothes were pressed. Everybody behaved well: Urquhart, who believed that he possessed Lucy's heart, James, who knew now what he possessed, Vera Nugent, who was content to sit and look on, and Lucy herself, who simply and honestly forgot everything except the beauty of the world, and the joy of physical exertion. She had been wofully ill on the passage from Newcastle and had been invisible from beginning to end. But from the moment of landing at Bergen she had been transformed. She was now the sister of her son, a wild, wilful, impetuous creature, a nymph of the heath, irresponsible and self-indulgent, taking what she could get of comfort and cherishing, and finding a boundless appetite for it. It was something, perhaps, to know in her heart that every man in the party was in love with her; it was much more—for the moment at least—to be without conscience in the matter. She had put her conscience to sleep for once, drugged it with poppy and drowsy syrups, and led the life of a healthy and vigorous animal.

Urquhart enjoyed that; he was content to wait and watch. For the time James did not perceive it. The beauty and freshness of this new world was upon him. Francis Lingen, born to cling, threw out tentative tendrils to Margery Dacre.

Margery Dacre was a very pretty girl; she had straw-coloured hair and a bright complexion. She wore green, especially in the water. Urquhart called her Undine, and she was mostly known as the Mermaid. She had very little mind, but excellent manners; and was expensive without seeming to spend anything. For instance, she brought no maid, because she thought that it might have looked ostentatious, and always made use of Lucy's, who didn't really want one. That was how Margery Dacre contrived to seem very simple.

For the moment Urquhart took natural command. He knew the country, he owned the motor-boat; he believed that he owned Lucy, and he believed that James was rather a fool. He thought that he had got the better of James. But this could not last, because James was no more of a fool than he was himself, though his intelligence worked in a different way. Things flashed upon Urquhart, who then studied them intensely and missed nothing. They dawned on James, who leisurely absorbed them, and allowed them to work out their own development.

It was very gradually now dawning upon James that Urquhart had assumed habits of guidance over Lucy and was not aware of any reason why he should relinquish them. He believed that he understood her thoroughly; he read her as a pliant, gentle nature, easily imposed upon, and really at the mercy of any unscrupulous man who was clever enough to see how she should be treated. He had never thought that before. It was the result of his cogitations over recent events. So while he kept his temper and native jealousy under easy control, he watched comfortably—as well he might—and gained amusement, as he could well afford to do, from Urquhart's marital assumptions. When he was tempted to interfere, or to try a fall with Urquhart, he studiously refrained. If Urquhart said, as he did sometimes, "I advise you to rest for a bit," James calmly embraced the idea. If Urquhart brought out a cloak or a wrap and without word handed it to her, James, watching, did not determine to forestall him on the next occasion. And Lucy, as he admitted, behaved beautifully, behaved perfectly. There were no grateful looks from her, such as he would expect to see pass between lovers. Keenly as he watched her, he saw no secret exchange. On the other hand, her eyes frequently sought his own, as if she wanted him to understand that she was happy, as if, indeed, she wanted him to be happy by such an understanding. This gave him great pleasure, and touched him too. If he had been capable of it, he would have told her; but he was not. It was part of his nature to treat those whom he loved de haut en bas. He found that it was so, and hated himself for it. The one thing he really grudged Urquhart was his simplicity and freedom from ulterior motive. Urquhart was certainly able to enjoy the moment for the moment's worth. But James must always be calculating exactly what it was worth, and whether to be enhanced by what might follow it.

He was kinder to her than he had ever been before. In fact, he was remarkably interesting. She told him of it in their solitary moments of greatest intimacy. "This is my honeymoon," she said, "and I never had one before."

"Goose," said he, "don't attempt to deceive me." But she reasserted it.

"It's true, James. You may have loved me in your extraordinary way, but I'm sure I didn't love you. I was much too frightened of you."

"Well," he laughed, "I don't discover any terrors now." She wouldn't say that there were none. So far as she dared she was honest.

"We aren't on an exact equality. We never shall be. But we are much nearer. Own it."

He held her closely and kissed her. "You are a little darling, if that's what you mean."

"Oh, but it isn't; it isn't at all what I mean. Why, you wouldn't call me 'little' if you didn't know you were superior. Because I'm rather tall for a woman."

He knew that she was right, and respected her for the discernment. "My love," he said, "I'm a self-centred, arrogant beast, and I don't like to think about it. But you'll make something of me if you think it worth while. But listen to me, Lucy. I'm going to talk to you seriously." Then he whispered in her ear: "Some day you must talk to me." He could feel her heart beat, he could feel her shiver as she clung.

"Yes," she said very low; "yes, I promise—but not now."

"No," he said, "not now. I want to be happy as long as I can." She started away, and he felt her look at him in the dark.

"You'll be happier when I've told you," she said.

"Why do you say that?"

"Because I shall be happier myself then," she said; and James hoped that she was right about him. One thing amazed him to discover—how women imputed their own virtues to the men they loved. It struck him a mortal blow to realise that his evident happiness would give Lucy joy, whereas hers would by no means necessarily add to his. "What does give me happiness, then?" he asked himself; "what could conceivably increase my zest for life? Evidence of power, exercise of faculty: so far as I know, nothing else whatever. A parlous state of affairs. But it is the difference, I presume, between a giving creature and a getting one which explains all. Is a man, then, never to give, and be happy? Has he ever tried? Is a woman not to get? Has she ever had a chance of it?" He puzzled over these things in his prosaic, methodical way. One thing was clear to everybody there but Urquhart in his present fatuity: Lucy was thriving. She had colour, light in her eyes, a bloom upon her, a dewiness, an auroral air. She sunned herself like a bird in the dust; she bathed her body, and tired herself with long mountain and woodland walks. When she was alone with her husband she grew as sentimental as a housemaid and as little heedful of the absurd. She grew young and amazingly pretty, the sister of her son. It would be untrue to say that, being in clover, she was unaware of it. For a woman of one-and-thirty to have her husband for a lover, and her lover for a foil, is a gift of the gods. So she took it—with the sun and green water, and wine-bright air. Let the moralists battle it out with the sophists: it did her a world of good.



CHAPTER XIX

THE MOON-SPELL

Macartney fell easily into habits, and was slow to renounce them. Having got into the way of making love to his wife, he by no means abandoned it; at the same time, and in as easy a fashion, it came to be a matter of routine with him to play piquet with Vera Nugent after dinner. It was she who had proposed it, despairing of a quartette, or even of a trio, for the Bridge which was a dram to her. Here also James would have been only too happy; but nobody else would touch it. Lucy never played cards; Urquhart, having better things to do, said that he never did. Margery Dacre and Lingen preferred retirement and their own company. Lingen, indeed, was exhibiting his heart to the pale-haired girl as if it was a specimen-piece. "I am really a very simple person," he told her, "one of those who, trusting once, trust for ever. I don't expect to be understood, I have no right to ask for sympathy. That would be too much to look for in a jostling, market-day world like ours. But I cherish one or two very fragrant memories of kindnesses done. I open, at need, a drawer; and, like the scent of dry rose-leaves, or lavender, a sweet hint steals out that there are good women in the world, that life is not made up of receipted bills. Don't you understand the value of such treasures? I am sure that you do. You always seem to me so comprehending in your outlook." Margery said that she hoped she was.

* * * * *

It was Lucy's business immediately after dinner to see that Lancelot was decently abed. The lad took the last ounce out of himself before that time came, and was to be brought by main force to the bath, crimson to the roots of his hair and dripping with sweat. Protesting to the uttermost, still panting with his final burst in the open, she saw to it that he was quiet before she could be so herself. Then she was free, and Urquhart found—or looked for—his chance. The woods called her, the wondrous silver-calm of the northern night. She longed to go; but now she dreaded Urquhart, and dared not trust herself. It had come to this, that, possessed as she was, and happy in possession, he and all that he stood for could blot the whole fair scene up in cold fog. That was how she looked at it in the first blush of her new life.

He didn't understand that; but he saw that she was nervous, and set himself to reassure her. He assumed his dryest tone, his most negligent manner. When she came downstairs from Lancelot, and after watching the card-players, fingering a book or magazine, drifted to the open window and stood or leaned there, absorbing the glory of the night—Urquhart left her, and pulled at his pipe. When she spoke to the room at large—"Oh, you stuffy people, will you never understand that all the world is just out here?" he was the first to laugh at her, though he would have walked her off into that world of magic and dream, straight from the window where she stood. He was a wild idealist himself, and was sure of her. But he must wait her good time.

Often, therefore, she drifted out by herself, and he suffered damnably. But she never went far—he comforted himself with that assurance. "She has the homing instinct. She won't go without me; and she knows that I can't come—but oh, to be kissing her under those birches by the water's edge!"

He was not the only one who was aware that she had flitted. Macartney was always intensely aware of it, and being by this time exceedingly fond, it tended to spoil his play. So long as Urquhart left her alone he was able to endure it.

Then came an evening when, tending to the open door, she found Urquhart there before her. He had behaved so admirably that her fears were asleep. He acted with the utmost caution, saying just enough, with just enough carelessness of tone, to keep her unsuspicious. The boreal lights were flashing and quivering in the sky: very soon he saw her absorbed in the wonder and beauty of them. "A night," she said, "when anything might happen!"

"Yes, it looks like that," he agreed. "But that is not what enraptures you."

"What do you think enraptures me?" she wished to know.

"The certainty," he replied, "that nothing will."

She waited a while, then said, "Yes, you are right. I don't want anything else to happen."

"You have everything you want, here in the house. Safe to hand! Your Lancelot in bed, your James at cards, and myself at the window. Wonderful! And you are contented?"

"Yes, yes. I ask so little, you see. But you despise me for it."

"God forbid. I promised you that you shouldn't repent this trip. And you don't, I hope?"

Her eyes were wide open and serious. "No, indeed. I never expected to be so happy as this. It never happened to me before." She had no compunctions at all—but he was in the fatuous stage, drugged by his own imaginings.

"That's good. Shall we go down to the water?"

"I think we might," she said, not daring to look back into the room, lest he should think that she feared him.

They strolled leisurely through the wood, she in a soft rapture of delight at the still grey beauty of the night; Urquhart in a state of mind bordering upon frenzy. He gripped himself by both hands to make sure of the mastery. What gave him conviction was his constant sense of Lucy's innocency. This beautiful woman had the heart of a child and the patience of the mother of a god. To shock the one or gibe at the other were a blasphemy he simply couldn't contemplate. What then was to be the end of it? He didn't know; he didn't care. She loved him, he believed; she had kissed him, therefore she must love him. Such women don't give their lips without their hearts. But then she had been scared, and had cried off? Well, that, too, he seemed to understand. That was where her sense of law came in. He could not but remember that it would have come in before, had she known who her lover was. As things fell out, she slipped into love without knowing it. The moment she had known it, she withdrew to the shadow of her hearth. That was his Lucy all over. His Lucy? Yes, for that wasn't the Solicitor's Lucy—if, indeed, the solicitor had a Lucy. But had he? A little weakness of Urquhart's was to pride himself on being a man of whims, and to suppose such twists of the mind his unique possession. All indeed that he had of unique was this, that he invariably yielded to his whims; whereas other people did not.

However, he set a watch upon himself on this night of witchery, and succeeded perfectly. They talked leisurely and quietly—of anything or nothing; the desultory, fragmentary interjections of comment which pass easily between intimates. Lucy's share was replete with soft wonderings at the beauty of the world. Neither of them answered the other.

Under the birch-trees it was light, but very damp. He wouldn't allow her to stop there, but bade her higher up the hillside. There were pines there which were always dry. "Wait you there," he said; "I'm going back to get you a wrap." She would have stopped him, but he had gone.

Urquhart, walking up sharply to the house, was not at all prepared for Macartney walking as sharply down from it. In fact, he was very much put out, and the more so because from the first James took the upper hand.

"Hulloa," said the lord of the eyeglass.

"Hulloa, yourself," said Urquhart, and stopped, which he need not have done, seeing that Macartney with complete nonchalance continued his walk.

"Seen my wife anywhere?" came from over his shoulder. Urquhart turned on his heels. "Yes," he said, and walked on.

There was an end of one, two and three—as the rhyme goes. Urquhart was hot with rage. That bland, blundering fool, that glasshouse, that damned supercilious ass: all this and more he cried upon James. He scorned him for his jealousy; he cursed him for it; he vowed that he would carry her off before his very eyes. "Let her give the word, lift an eyebrow, and I take her across the world." And the lad too, bless him. What did the quill-driver want of them but credit? Damn him, he hung them up in his house, as tradesmen use the royal arms. He baited for his deans and chapters with them. He walked far into the night in a passion of anger. It never once occurred to him that James was a rival. And there he was right.

He thought that Urquhart had certainly been with Lucy; he knew that he was in love with her; but oddly enough that stimulated instead of quelled him. It enhanced her. It made her love worth keeping. He had a great respect, in his heart of hearts, for Urquhart's validity in a world of action which certainly comprehended the taking and keeping of hearts. Now he came to think of it, he must confess that he had never loved Lucy as he did now until he had observed that so redoubtable a champion was in the lists against him. Odd thing! He had been jealous of Francis Lingen, as he now was of Urquhart; but it was the latter jealousy which had made him desire Lucy. The former had simply disgusted him, the latter had spurred him to rivalry—and now to main desire. James was no philosopher; he had an idle mind except in the conduct of his business. He could not attempt, then, to explain his state of mind—but he was very much interested. Soon he saw her in the dusk under the pines: a slim white shape, standing with one hand upon the trunk of a tree. Her back was towards him; she did not turn.

She supposed that it was Urquhart come back, and was careful not to seem waiting for him. "How quick you have been!" she said lightly, and stood where she was. No answer was returned. Then came a shock indeed, and her head seemed to flood with fear. Two hands from behind her covered her eyes; her head was drawn gently back, and she was kissed ardently on the lips. She struggled wildly; she broke away. "Oh!" she said, half sobbing. "Oh, how cruel you are—how cruel! How could you dare to do it?" And then, free of the hands, she turned upon Urquhart—and saw James. "Oh, my love!" she said, and ran to him and broke into tears.

James had secured his eyeglass, but now let it drop. He allowed her to cry her fill, and then made the best of a rather bad business. "If every man who kissed his wife," said he, "was answered like that, lips would go dry."

She said through her tears, "You see, I thought you were Mr. Urquhart with my wrap."

"Oh, the dickens you did," said James. "And is that how Mr. Urquhart usually brings you a wrap?"

She clung to him. "Well, no. If he did, I suppose I shouldn't have been so angry—by this time."

"That's a very good answer," James allowed. "I'll only make one comment upon it. You cried out upon the cruelty of the attack. Now if it had been—assume it for the moment—our—well, friend, let us say, why would it have been cruel of him? Shameful, flagrant, audacious, impudent, insolent, all that I can understand. But cruel, Lucy?"

Lucy's cheek was upon his shoulder, and she let it stay there, even while she answered. The moment was serious. She must tell him as much as she dared. Certain things seemed out of the question; but something she must tell him.

"You see, James," she said, "I think Mr. Urquhart is fond of me—in fact, I'm sure of it—"

"Has he told you so?"

"Not in so many words—but—"

"But in so many other words, eh? Well, pursue."

"And I told him that I couldn't possibly join the party—on that account."

"Did you tell him it was on that account?"

"No," said Lucy, "I didn't; but he understood that. I know he understood it, because he immediately said that if I would come I shouldn't repent it. And I haven't. He has never made me feel uncomfortable. But just now—when I was expecting him—oh, it seemed to me quite horrible—and I was furious with him."

"You were indeed. It didn't occur to you that it might have been—well, somebody with more right."

Her arm tightened, but she said nothing. The unconscious James went on. "I was wrong. A man has no right to kiss a woman unawares—in the dark. Even if it's his wife. She'll always want to know who it was, and she's bound to find out. And he'll get no thanks for it, either." Then it became necessary for Lucy to thank him.

"Mind you, my dear," he told her. "I have no quarrel with Jimmy Urquhart up to now. You say he's in love with you, and I think that he is. I've thought so for some time, and I confess that I didn't relish the idea that he should be out here with us. But since we are in for confessions I'll make one more. If he hadn't been in love with you I don't believe that I should be—as I am now."

Lucy laughed—the laugh of a woman rich. "Then I'm very much obliged to him," she said.

But Urquhart was harder to convince than James.



CHAPTER XX

FAIR WARNING

Vera Nugent, a brisk woman of the world, with a fondness for vivid clothing and a Spanish air which went oddly with it, took the trouble one fine day to tackle her brother. "Look here, Jimmy," she said as they breasted a mountain pass, "are you quite sure what you are up to with these people?"

Urquhart's eyes took a chill tinge—a hard and pebbly stare. "I don't know what you mean," he said.

"Men always say that, especially when they know very well. Of course I mean the Macartneys. You didn't suppose I was thinking of the Poplolly?" The Poplolly, I regret to say, was Francis Lingen, whom Vera abhorred. The term was opprobrious, and inexact.

But Urquhart shrouded himself in ice. "Perhaps you might explain yourself," he said.

Vera was not at all sure that she would. "You make it almost impossible, you know."

They were all out in a party, and were to meet the luncheon and the boys, who had gone round in the boat. As parties will have it, they had soon scattered. Lingen had taken Margery Dacre to himself, Lucy was with her husband. Urquhart, now he came to think of it, began to understand that the sceptre was out of his hands. The pass, worn out of the shelving rock by centuries of foot-work, wound itself about the breasting cliffs like a scarf; below them lay the silver fiord, and upon that, a mere speck, they could see the motor-boat, with a wake widening out behind her like parallel lines of railway.

Urquhart saw in his mind that he would be a fool to quarrel with Vera. She was not on his side, he could feel; but he didn't despair of her. One way of putting her off him forever was to allow her to think him a fool. That he could not afford.

"Don't turn against me for a mannerism, my dear," he said.

"I turn against you, if at all, for a lack of mannerism," said Vera briskly. "It's too bad of you. Here I am as so much ballast for your party, and when I begin to make myself useful, you pretend I'm not there. But I am there, you know."

"I was cross," he said, "because I'm rather worried, and I thought you were going to worry me more."

"Well, maybe that I am,"—she admitted that. "But I don't like to see a sharp-faced man make a donkey of himself. The credit of the family is at stake."

He laughed. "I wouldn't be the first of us—and this wouldn't be the first time. There's whimsy in the blood. Well—out with it. Let me know the worst."

Vera stopped. "I intend to do it sitting. We've heaps of time. None of the others want us."

Urquhart hit the rock with his staff. "That's the point, my child. Do they—or don't they?"

"You believe," Vera said, "that Lucy is in love with you."

Urquhart replied, "I know that she was."

"There you have the pull over me," she answered. "I haven't either your confidence or hers. All I can tell you is that now she isn't." Urquhart was all attention. "Do you mean, she has told you anything?"

"Good Heavens," Vera scoffed, "what do you take me for? Do you think I don't know by the looks of her? If you weren't infatuated you'd know better than I do."

"My dear girl," Urquhart said, with a straight look at her, "the fact is, I am infatuated."

"I'm sorry for you. You've made a mess of it. But I must say that I'm not at all sorry for her. Don't you suppose that she is the sort to find the world well lost for your beaux yeux. Far from that. She'd wilt like a rose in a window-box."

"I'd take her into fairy-land," said Urquhart. "She should walk in the dawn. She wouldn't feel her feet."

"She would if they were damp," said Vera, who could be as direct as you please. "If you think she's a wood nymph in a cage, you're very much mistaken. She's very domestic."

"I know," said the infatuate, "that I touched her." Vera tossed her head.

"I'll be bound you did. You aren't the first man to light a fire. That's what you did. You lit a fire for Macartney to warm his hand at. She's awfully in love with him."

Urquhart grew red. "That's not probable," he said.

Vera said, "It's certain. Perhaps you'll take the trouble to satisfy yourself before you take tickets for fairy-land. It's an expensive journey, I believe. Had you thought what you would be doing about Lancelot—a very nice boy?"

"No details had been arranged," said Urquhart, in his very annoying way.

"Not even that of the lady's inclinations, it appears. Well, I've warned you. I've done it with the best intentions. I suppose even you won't deny that I'm single-minded? I'm not on the side of your solicitor." That made Urquhart very angry.

"I'm much obliged to you, my dear. We'll leave my solicitor out of account for the moment." But that nettled Vera, who flamed.

"Upon my word, Jimmy, you are too sublime. You can't dispose of people quite like that. How are you to leave him out of account, when you brought his wife into it? If you ever supposed that Macartney was nothing but a solicitor, you were never more mistaken in your life—except when you thought that Lucy was a possible law-breaker."

At the moment, and from where they stood, the sea-scape and the coast-road stood revealed before and behind them for many a league. In front it descended by sharp spirals to a river-bed. Vera Nugent standing there, her chin upon her hands, her hands upon her staff, could see straight below her feet two absorbed couples, as it were on different grades of the scene. In the first the fair Margery Dacre leaned against a rock while Lingen, on his knees, tied her shoestring; at a lower level yet Macartney, having handed his Lucy over a torrent, stooped his head to receive his tribute. Vera, who had a grain of pity in her, hoped that Urquhart had been spared; but whether he was or not she never knew. No signs of disturbance were upon him at the ensuing picnic, unless his treatment of Macartney—with a kind of humorous savagery—betrayed him. They talked of the Folgefond, that mighty snow-field beyond the fiord which the three men intended to traverse in a day or two's time.

"Brace yourself, my friend," Urquhart said. "Hearts have been broken on that ground before now."

James said that he had made his peace with God—but Lucy looked full-eyed and serious.

"I never know when you are laughing at us," she said to Urquhart.

"Be sure that I have never laughed at you in my life," he said across the table-cloth.

"He laughs at me," said James behind his eyeglass; "but I defy him. The man who can laugh at himself is the man I envy. Now I never could do that."

"You've hit me in a vital spot," Urquhart said. "That's my little weakness; and that's why I've never succeeded in anything—even in breaking my neck."

Lancelot nudged his friend Patrick. "Do you twig that?"

Patrick blinked, having his mouth too full to nod conveniently.

"Can't drive a motor, I suppose! Can't fly—I don't think."

"As to breaking your neck," said James, "there's still a chance for you."

"I shall make a mess of it," Urquhart retorted.

"Is this going to be a neck-breaking expedition?" That was from Lingen, who now had an object in life.

"I never said so," Urquhart told him. "I said heart-breaking—a far simpler affair."

"What is going to break your heart in it, please?" Lucy asked him. She saw that there lay something behind his rattle.

"Well," said Urquhart, brazening it out, "it would break mine to get over the snow-field—some eight miles of it, there are—and to find that I couldn't get down. That might easily happen."

"And what would you do?"

James fixed her with his eyeglass. "That's where the neck-breaking might intervene," he said. "Jimmy would rather risk his neck any day."

"Than his heart!"

"Heart!" said Vera. "No such thing. Quite another organ. It's a case of dinner. He'd risk his neck for a dinner, and so would any man."

"I believe you are right," said James.

Lucy with very bright eyes looked from one to the other of her lovers. Each wore a mask. She determined to ask James to give up the Folgefond, discerning trouble in the air.

They went home by water, and Lancelot added his unconscious testimony. He was between Urquhart's knees, his hand upon the tiller, his mood confidential.

"I say—" he began, and Urquhart encouraged him to say on.

—"It's slightly important, but I suppose I couldn't do the Folgefond by any chance?"

"You are saying a good deal," said Urquhart. "I'll put it like this, that by some chance you might, but by no chance in the world could Patrick."

"Hoo!" said Lancelot, "and why not, pray?"

"His mother would put her foot on it. Splosh! it would go like a cockroach."

"I know," said dreamy Lancelot. "That's what would happen to me, I expect." Then he added, "That's what will happen to my father."

"Good cockroach," said Urquhart, looking ahead of him. "You think she won't want him to go."

Lancelot snorted. "Won't want him! Why, she doesn't already. And he'll do what she wants, I'll bet you."

"Does he always?"

"He always does now. It's the air, I fancy."



CHAPTER XXI

THE DEPARTURE

But pout as she might, she could not prevail with James, whose vanity had been scratched.

"My dear girl, I'd sooner perish," he said. "Give up a jolly walk because Jimmy Urquhart talks about my heart and his own neck—preposterous! Besides, there's nothing in it."

"But, James," she said, "if I ask you—"

He kissed the back of her neck. She was before the glass, busy with her hair. "You don't ask me. You wouldn't ask me. No woman wants to make a fool of a man. If she does, she's a vampire."

"Mr. Urquhart is very impulsive," she dared to say.

"I've known that for a long time," said James. "Longer than you have, I fancy. But it takes more than impulse to break another man's neck. Besides, I really have no reason to suppose that he wants to break my neck. Why should he?"

Here they were up against the wall again. If there were reasons, he could not know them. There was no getting over it yet. They were to start betimes in the morning, and sleep that night at Brattebo, which is the hithermost spur of the chain. Dinner and beds had been ordered at Odde, beyond the snow-field.

Dinner was a gay affair. They toasted the now declared lovers. True to his cornering instincts, Lingen had told Lucy all about it in the afternoon. "Your sympathy means so much to me—and Margery, whose mind is exquisitely sensitive, is only waiting your nod to be at your feet, with me."

"I should be very sorry to see either of you there," Lucy said. "I'm very fond of her and I shouldn't take it at all kindly if she demeaned herself. When do you think of marrying?"

He looked at her appealingly. "I must have time," he said; "time to build the nest."

"A flat, I suppose," she said, declining such poetical flights.

"A flat!" said Francis Lingen. "Really, it hadn't occurred to me."

From Lucy the news went abroad, and so the dinner was gay. Urquhart confined himself to the two boys, and told them about the Folgefond—of its unknown depth, of the crevasses, of the glacier on its western edge, of certain white snakes, bred by the snow, which might be found there. Their bite was death, he said.

"Frost-bite," said Patrick Nugent, who knew his uncle's way; but Lancelot favoured his mother.

"Hoo!" he said. "I expect that you'd give him what for. One blow of your sword and his head would lie at your feet."

"That's nasty, too," said Urquhart. "They have white blood, I believe." Lancelot blinked.

"Beastly," he said. "Did Mamma hear you? You'd better not tell her. She hates whiteness. Secretly—so do I, rather."

It was afterwards, when the boys had gone to bed, that a seriousness fell upon those of them who were given to seriousness. James and Vera Nugent settled down squarely to piquet. Francis Lingen murmured to his affianced bride.

"I don't disguise from myself—and from you I can have no secrets—that there is danger in the walk. The snow is very treacherous at this season. We take ropes, of course. Urquhart is said to know the place; but Urquhart is—"

"He's very fascinating," said Margery Dacre, and Francis lifted his eyebrows.

"You find that? Then I am distressed. I would share everything with you if I could. To me, I don't know why, there is something crude—some harsh note—a clangour of metal. I find him brazen—at times. But to you, my love, who could be strident? You are the very home of peace. When I think of you I think of doves in a nest."

"You must think of me to-morrow, then," said Margery. He rewarded her with a look.

Lucy, for her part, had another sort of danger in her mind. It seemed absolutely necessary to her now to speak to Urquhart, because she had a conviction that he and James had very nearly come to grips. Women are very sharp at these things. She was certain that Urquhart knew the state of her heart, just as certain as if she had told him of it. That being so, she dreaded his impulse. She suspected him of savagery, and as she had no pride where love was concerned she intended to appeal to him. Modesty she had, but no pride. She must leave great blanks in her discourse; but she trusted him to fill them up. Then there was another difficulty. She had no remains of tenderness left for him: not a filament. Unless she went warily he might find that out and be mortally offended. All this she battled with while the good-nights to Lancelot were saying upstairs. She kissed his forehead, and stood over him for a moment while he snuggled into his blankets. "Oh, my lamb, you are worth fighting for!" was her last thought, as she went downstairs full of her purpose.