Читать книгу The Business of Life - Robert W. Chambers - Страница 6

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At eleven o'clock the next morning Miss Nevers had not arrived at Silverwood.

It was still raining hard, the brown Westchester fields, the leafless trees, hedges, paths, roads, were soaked; pools stood in hollows with the dead grass awash; ditches brimmed, river and brook ran amber riot, and alder swamps widened into lakes.

The chances were now that she would not come at all. Desboro had met both morning trains, but she was not visible, and all the passengers had departed leaving him wandering alone along the dripping platform.

For a while he stood moodily on the village bridge beyond, listening to the noisy racket of the swollen brook; and after a little it occurred to him that there was laughter in the noises of the water, like the mirth of the gods mocking him.

"Laugh on, high ones!" he said. "I begin to believe myself the ass that I appear to you."

Presently he wandered back to the station platform, where he idled about, playing with a stray and nondescript dog or two, and caressing the station-master's cat; then, when he had about decided to get into his car and go home, it suddenly occurred to him that he might telephone to New York for information. And he did so, and learned that Miss Nevers had departed that morning on business, for a destination unknown, and would not return before evening.

Also, the station-master informed him that the morning express now deposited passengers at Silverwood Station, on request—an innovation of which he had not before heard; and this put him into excellent spirits.

"Aha!" he said to himself, considerably elated. "Perhaps I'm not such an ass as I appear. Let the high gods laugh!"

So he lighted a cigarette, played with the wastrel dogs some more, flattered the cat till she nearly rubbed her head off against his legs, took a small and solemn child onto his knee and presented it with a silver dollar, while its overburdened German mother publicly nourished another.

"You are really a remarkable child," he gravely assured the infant on his knee. "You possess a most extraordinary mind!"—the child not having uttered a word or betrayed a vestige of human expression upon its slightly soiled features.

Presently the near whistle of the Connecticut Express brought him to his feet. He lifted the astonishingly gifted infant and walked out; and when the express rolled past and stopped, he set it on the day-coach platform beside its stolid parent, and waved to it an impressive adieu.

At the same moment, descending from the train, a tall young girl, in waterproofs, witnessed the proceedings, recognised Desboro, and smiled at the little ceremony taking place.

"Yours?" she inquired, as, hat off, hand extended, he came forward to welcome her—and the next moment blushed at her impulsive informality.

"Oh, all kids seem to be mine, somehow or other," he said. "I'm awfully glad you came. I was afraid you wouldn't."

"Why?"

"Because I didn't believe you really existed, for one thing. And then the weather——"

"Do you suppose mere weather could keep me from the Desboro collection? You have much to learn about me."

"I'll begin lessons at once," he said gaily, "if you don't mind giving them. Do you?"

She smiled non-committally, and looked around her at the departing vehicles.

"We have a limousine waiting for us behind the station," he said. "It's five muddy miles."

"I had been wondering all the way up in the train just how I was to get to Silverwood——"

"You didn't suppose I'd leave you to find your way, did you?"

"Business people don't expect limousines," she said, with an unmistakable accent that sounded priggish even to herself—so prim, indeed, that he laughed outright; and she finally laughed, too.

"This is very jolly, isn't it?" he remarked, as they sped away through the rain.

She conceded that it was.

"It's going to be a most delightful day," he predicted.

She thought it was likely to be a busy day.

"And delightful, too," he insisted politely.

"Why particularly delightful, Mr. Desboro?"

"I thought you were looking forward with keen pleasure to your work in the Desboro collection!"

She caught a latent glimmer of mischief in his eye, and remained silent, not yet quite certain that she liked this constant running fire of words that always seemed to conceal a hint of laughter at her expense.

Had they been longer acquainted, and on a different footing, she knew that whatever he said would have provoked a response in kind from her. But friendship is not usually born from a single business interview; nor is it born perfect, like a fairy ring, over night. And it was only last night, she made herself remember, that she first laid eyes on Desboro. Yet it seemed curious that whatever he said seemed to awaken in her its echo; and, though she knew it was an absurd idea, the idea persisted that she already began to understand this young man better than she had ever understood any other of his sex.

He was talking now at random, idly but agreeably, about nothing in particular. She, muffled in the fur robe, looked out through the limousine windows into the rain, and saw brown fields set with pools in every furrow, and squares of winter wheat, intensely green.

And now the silver birch woods, which had given the house its name, began to appear as outlying clumps across the hills; and in a few moments the car swung into a gateway under groves of solemnly-dripping Norway spruces, then up a wide avenue, lined with ranks of leafless, hardwood trees and thickets of laurel and rhododendron, and finally stopped before a house made of grayish-brown stone, in the rather inoffensive architecture of early eighteen hundred.

Mrs. Quant, in best bib and tucker, received them in the hallway, having been instructed by Desboro concerning her attitude toward the expected guest. But when she became aware of the slender youth of the girl, she forgot her sniffs and misgivings, and she waddled, and bobbed, and curtsied, overflowing with a desire to fondle, and cherish, and instruct, which only fear of Desboro choked off.

But as soon as Jacqueline had followed her to the room assigned, and had been divested of wet outer-clothing, and served with hot tea, Mrs. Quant became loquacious and confidential concerning her own personal ailments and sorrows, and the history and misfortunes of the Desboro family.

Jacqueline wished to decline the cup of tea, but Mrs. Quant insisted; and the girl yielded.

"Air you sure you feel well, Miss Nevers?" she asked anxiously.

"Why, of course."

"Don't be too sure," said Mrs. Quant ominously. "Sometimes them that feels bestest is sickest. I've seen a sight of sickness in my day, dearie—typod, mostly. You ain't never had typod, now, hev you?"

"Typhoid?"

"Yes'm, typod!"

"No, I never did."

"Then you take an old woman's advice, Miss Nevers, and don't you go and git it!"

Jacqueline promised gravely; but Mrs. Quant was now fairly launched on her favourite topic.

"I've been forty-two years in this place—and Quant—my man—he was head farmer here when he was took. Typod, it was, dearie—and you won't never git it if you'll listen to me—and Quant, a man that never quarreled with his vittles, but he was for going off without 'em that morning. Sez he, 'Cassie, I don't feel good this mornin'!'—and a piece of pie and a pork chop layin' there onto his plate. 'My vittles don't set right,' sez he; 'I ain't a mite peckish.' Sez I, 'Quant, you lay right down, and don't you stir a inch! You've gone and got a mild form of typod,' sez I, knowing about sickness as I allus had a gift, my father bein' a natural bone-setter. And those was my very words, dearie, 'a mild form of typod.' And I was right and he was took. And when folks ain't well, it's mostly that they've got a mild form of typod which some call malairy——"

There was no stopping her; Jacqueline tasted her hot tea and listened sympathetically to that woman of many sorrows. And, sipping her tea, she was obliged to assist at the obsequies of Quant, the nativity of young Desboro, the dissolution of his grandparents and parents, and many, many minor details, such as the freezing of water-pipes in 1907, the menace of the chestnut blight, mysterious maladies which had affected cattle and chickens on the farm—every variety of death, destruction, dissolution, and despondency that had been Mrs. Quant's portion to witness.

And how she gloried in detailing her dismal career; and presently pessimistic prophecies for the future became plainer as her undammed eloquence flowed on:

"And Mr. James, he ain't well, neither," she said in a hoarse whisper. "He don't know it, and he won't listen to me, dearie, but I know he's got a mild form of typod—he's that unwell the mornings when he's been out late in the city. Say what you're a mind to, typod is typod! And if you h'ain't got it you're likely to git it most any minute; but he won't swaller the teas and broths and suffusions I bring him, and he'll be took like everybody else one of these days, dearie—which he wouldn't if he'd listen to me——"

"Mrs. Quant," came Desboro's voice from the landing.

"Y—yes, sir," stammered that guilty and agitated Cassandra.

Jacqueline set aside her teacup and came to the stairs; their glances met in the suppressed amusement of mutual comprehension, and he conducted her to the hallway below, where a big log fire was blazing.

"What was it—death, destruction, and general woe, as usual?" he asked.

"And typod," she whispered. "It appears that you have it!"

"Poor old soul! She means all right; but imagine me here with her all day, dodging infusions and broths and red flannel! Warm your hands at the blaze, Miss Nevers, and I'll find the armoury keys. It will be a little colder in there."

She spread her hands to the flames, conscious of his subtle change of manner toward her, now that she was actually under his roof—and liked him for it—not in the least surprised that she was comprehending still another phase of this young man's most interesting personality.

For, without reasoning, her slight misgivings concerning him were vanishing; instinct told her she might even permit herself a friendlier manner, and she looked up smilingly when he came back swinging a bunch of keys.

"These belong to the Quant," he explained, "—honest old soul! Every gem and ivory and lump of jade in the collection is at her mercy, for here are the keys to every case. Now, Miss Nevers, what do you require? Pencil and pad?"

"I have my note-book, thanks—a new one in your honour."

He said he was flattered and led the way through a wide corridor to the eastern wing; unlocked a pair of massive doors, and swung them wide. And, beside him, she walked into the armoury of the famous Desboro collection.

Straight ahead of her, paved with black marble, lay a lane through a double rank of armed and mounted men in complete armour; and she could scarcely suppress a little cry of surprise and admiration.

"This is magnificent!" she exclaimed; and he saw her cheeks brighten, and her breath coming faster.

"It is fine," he said soberly.

"It is, indeed, Mr. Desboro! That is a noble array of armour. I feel like some legendary princess of long ago, passing her chivalry in review as I move between these double ranks. What a wonderful collection! All Spanish and Milanese mail, isn't it? Your grandfather specialised?"

"I believe he did. I don't know very much about the collection, technically."

"Don't you care for it?"

"Why, yes—more, perhaps, than I realised—now that you are actually here to take it away."

"But I'm not going to put it into a magic pocket and flee to New York with it!"

She spoke gaily, and his face, which had become a little grave, relaxed into its habitual expression of careless good humour.

They had slowly traversed the long lane, and now, turning, came back through groups of men-at-arms, pikemen, billmen, arquebussiers, crossbowmen, archers, halbardiers, slingers—all the multitudinous arms of a polyglot service, each apparently equipped with his proper weapon and properly accoutred for trouble.

Once or twice she glanced at the trophies aloft on the walls, every group bunched behind its shield and radiating from it under the drooping remnants of banners emblazoned with arms, crests, insignia, devices, and quarterings long since forgotten, except by such people as herself.

"Now and then she ... halted on tip-toe to lift some slitted visor"

She moved gracefully, leisurely, pausing now and then before some panoplied manikin, Desboro sauntering beside her. Now and then she stopped to inspect an ancient piece of ordnance, wonderfully wrought and chased, now and then halted on tip-toe to lift some slitted visor and peer into the dusky cavern of the helmet, where a painted face stared back at her out of painted eyes.

"Who scours all this mail?" she asked.

"Our old armourer. My grandfather trained him. But he's very old and rheumatic now, and I don't let him exert himself. I think he sleeps all winter, like a woodchuck, and fishes all summer."

"You ought to have another armourer."

"I can't turn Michael out to starve, can I?"

She swung around swiftly: "I didn't mean that!" and saw he was laughing at her.

"I know you didn't," he said. "But I can't afford two armourers. That's the reason I'm disposing of these tin-clothed tenants of mine—to economise and cut expenses."

She moved on, evidently desiring to obtain a general impression of the task before her, now and then examining the glass-encased labels at the feet of the figures, and occasionally shaking her head. Already the errant lock curled across her cheek.

"What's the trouble?" he inquired. "Aren't these gentlemen correctly ticketed?"

"Some are not. That suit of gilded mail is not Spanish; it's German. It is not very difficult to make such a mistake sometimes."

Steam heat had been put in, but the vast hall was chilly except close to the long ranks of oxidised pipes lining the walls. They stood a moment, leaning against them and looking out across the place, all glittering with the mail-clad figures.

"I've easily three weeks' work before me among these mounted figures alone, to say nothing of the men on foot and the trophies and artillery," she said. "Do you know it is going to be rather expensive for you, Mr. Desboro?"

This did not appear to disturb him.

"Because," she went on, "a great many mistakes have been made in labelling, and some mistakes in assembling the complete suits of mail and in assigning weapons. For example, that mounted man in front of you is wearing tilting armour and a helmet that doesn't belong to it. That's a childish mistake."

"We'll put the proper lid on him," said Desboro. "Show it to me and I'll put it all over him now."

"It's up there aloft with the trophies, I think—the fifth group."

"There's a ladder on wheels for a closer view of the weapons. Shall I trundle it in?"

He went out into the hallway and presently came back pushing a clanking extension ladder with a railed top to it. Then he affixed the crank and began to grind until it rose to the desired height.

"All I ask of you is not to tumble off it," he said. "Do you promise?"

She promised with mock seriousness: "Because I need all my brains, you see."

"You've a lot of 'em, haven't you, Miss Nevers?"

"No, not many."

He shrugged: "I wonder, then, what a quantitative analysis of mine might produce."

She said: "You are as clever as you take the trouble to be—" and stopped herself short, unwilling to drift into personalities.

"It's the interest that is lacking in me," he said, "—or perhaps the incentive."

She made no comment.

"Don't you think so?"

"I don't know."

"—And don't care," he added.

She flushed, half turned in protest, but remained silent.

"I beg your pardon," he said, "I didn't mean to force your interest in myself. Tell me, is there anything I can do for your comfort before I go? And shall I go and leave you to abstruse and intellectual meditation, or do I disturb you by tagging about at your heels?"

His easy, light tone relieved her. She looked around her at the armed figures:

"You don't disturb me. I was trying to think where to begin. To-morrow I'll bring up some reference books——"

"Perhaps you can find what you want in my grandfather's library. I'll show you where it is when you are ready."

"I wonder if he has Grenville's monograph on Spanish and Milanese mail?"

"I'll see."

He went away and remained for ten minutes. She was minutely examining the sword belonging to a rather battered suit of armour when he returned with the book.

"You see," she said, "you are useful. I did well to suggest that you remain here. Now, look, Mr. Desboro. This is German armour, and here is a Spanish sword of a different century along with it! That's all wrong, you know. Antonius was the sword-maker; here is his name on the hexagonal, gilded iron hilt—'Antonius Me Fecit'."

"You'll put that all right," he said confidently. "Won't you?"

"That's why you asked me here, isn't it?"

He may have been on the point of an indiscreet rejoinder, for he closed his lips suddenly and began to examine another sword. It belonged to the only female equestrian figure in the collection—a beautifully shaped suit of woman's armour, astride a painted war-horse, the cuirass of Milan plates.

"The Countess of Oroposa," he said. "It was her peculiar privilege, after the Count's death, to ride in full armour and carry a naked sword across her knees when the Spanish Court made a solemn entry into cities. Which will be about all from me," he added with a laugh. "Are you ready for luncheon?"

"Quite, thank you. But you said that you didn't know much about this collection. Let me see that sword, please."

"She took it ... then read aloud the device in verse"

He drew it from its scabbard and presented the hilt. She took it, studied it, then read aloud the device in verse:

"'Paz Comigo Nunca Veo Y Siempre Guera Dese.'" ("There is never peace with me; my desire is always war!")

Her clear young voice repeating the old sword's motto seemed to ring a little through the silence—as though it were the clean-cut voice of the blade itself.

"What a fine motto," he said guilelessly. "And you interpret it as though it were your own."

"I like the sound of it. There is no compromise in it."

"Why not assume it for your own? 'There is never peace with me; my desire is always war!' Why not adopt it?"

"Do you mean that such a militant motto suits me?" she asked, amused, and caught the half-laughing, half malicious glimmer in his eyes, and knew in an instant he had divined her attitude toward himself, and toward to her own self, too—war on them both, lest they succumb to the friendship that threatened. Silent, preoccupied, she went back with him through the armoury, through the hallway, into a rather commonplace dining-room, where a table had already been laid for two.

Desboro jingled a small silver bell, and presently luncheon was announced. She ate with the healthy appetite of the young, and he pretended to. Several cats and dogs of unaristocratic degree came purring and wagging about the table, and he indulged them with an impartiality that interested her, playing no favourites, but allotting to each its portion, and serenely chastising the greedy.

"What wonderful impartiality!" she ventured.

"I couldn't do it; I'd be sure to prefer one of them."

"Why entertain preference for anything or anybody?"

"That's nonsense."

"No; it's sense. Because, if anything happens to one, there are the others to console you. It's pleasanter to like impartially."

She was occupied with her fruit cup; presently she glanced up at him:

"Is that your policy?"

"Isn't it a safe one?"

"Yes. Is it yours?"

"Wisdom suggests it to me—has always urged it. I'm not sure that it always works. For example, I prefer champagne to milk, but I try not to."

"You always contrive to twist sense into nonsense."

"You don't mind, do you?"

"No; but don't you ever take anything seriously?"

"Myself."

"I'm afraid you don't."

"Indeed, I do! See how my financial mishaps sent me flying to you for help!"

She said: "You don't even take seriously what you call your financial mishaps."

"But I take the remedy for them most reverently and most thankfully."

"The remedy?"

"You."

A slight colour stained her cheeks; for she did not see just how to avoid the footing they had almost reached—the understanding which, somehow, had been impending from the moment they met. Intuition had warned her against it. And now here it was.

How could she have avoided it, when it was perfectly evident from the first that he found her interesting—that his voice and intonation and bearing were always subtly offering friendship, no matter what he said to her, whether in jest or earnest, in light-hearted idleness or in all the decorum of the perfunctory and commonplace.

To have made more out of it than was in it would have been no sillier than to priggishly discountenance his harmless good humour. To be prim would have been ridiculous. Besides, everything innocent in her found an instinctive pleasure, even in her own misgivings concerning this man and the unsettled problem of her personal relations with him—unsolved with her, at least; but he appeared to have settled it for himself.

As they walked back to the armoury together, she was trying to think it out; and she concluded that she might dare be toward him as unconcernedly friendly as he would ever think of being toward her. And it gave her a little thrill of pride to feel that she was equipped to carry through her part in a light, gay, ephemeral friendship with one belonging to a world about which she knew nothing at all.

That ought to be her attitude—friendly, spirited, pretending to a savoir faire only surmised by her own good taste—lest he find her stupid and narrow, ignorant and dull. And it occurred to her very forcibly that she would not like that.

So—let him admire her.

His motives, perhaps, were as innocent as hers. Let him say the unexpected and disconcerting things it amused him to say. She knew well enough how to parry them, once her mind was made up not to entirely ignore them; and that would be much better. That, no doubt, was the manner in which women of his own world met the easy badinage of men; and she determined to let him discover that she was interesting if she chose to be.

She had produced her note-book and pencil when they entered the armoury. He carried Grenville's celebrated monograph, and she consulted it from time to time, bending her dainty head beside his shoulder, and turning the pages of the volume with a smooth and narrow hand that fascinated him.

From time to time, too, she made entries in her note-book, such as: "Armet, Spanish, late XV century. Tilting harness probably made by Helmschmid; espaliers, manteau d'armes, coude, left cuisse and colleret missing. War armour, Milanese, XIV century; probably made by the Negrolis; rere-brace, gorget, rondel missing; sword made probably by Martinez, Toledo. Armour made in Germany, middle of XVI century, probably designed by Diego de Arroyo; cuisses laminated."

They stopped before a horseman, clad from head to spurs in superb mail. On a ground of blackened steel the pieces were embossed with gold grotesqueries; the cuirass was formed by overlapping horizontal plates, the three upper ones composing a gorget of solid gold. Nymphs, satyrs, gods, goddesses and cupids in exquisite design and composition framed the "lorica"; cuisses and tassettes carried out the lorica pattern; coudes, arm-guards, and genouillères were dolphin masks, gilded.

"Parade armour," she said under her breath, "not war armour, as it has been labelled. It is armour de luxe, and probably royal, too. Do you see the collar of the Golden Fleece on the gorget? And there hangs the fleece itself, borne by two cupids as a canopy for Venus rising from the sea. That is probably Sigman's XVI century work. Is it not royally magnificent!"

"Lord! What a lot of lore you seem to have acquired!" he said.

"But I was trained to this profession by the ablest teacher in America—" her voice fell charmingly, "—by my father. Do you wonder that I know a little about it?"

They moved on in silence to where a man-at-arms stood leaning both clasped hands over the gilded pommel of a sword.

She said quickly: "That sword belongs to parade armour! How stupid to give it to this pikeman! Don't you see? The blade is diamond sectioned; Horn of Solingen's mark is on the ricasse. And, oh, what a wonderful hilt! It is a miracle!"

The hilt was really a miracle; carved in gold relief, Italian renaissance style, the guard centre was decorated with black arabesques on a gold ground; quillons curved down, ending in cupid's heads of exquisite beauty.

The guard was engraved with a cartouche enclosing the Three Graces; and from it sprang a beautiful counter-guard formed out of two lovely Caryatids united. The grip was made of heliotrope amethyst inset with gold; the pommel constructed by two volutes which encompassed a tiny naked nymph with emeralds for her eyes.

"What a masterpiece!" she breathed. "It can be matched only in the Royal Armoury of Madrid."

"Have you been abroad, Miss Nevers?"

"Yes, several times with my father. It was part of my education in business."

He said: "Yours is a French name?"

"Father was French."

"He must have been a very cultivated man."

"Self-cultivated."

"Perhaps," he said, "there once was a de written before 'Nevers.'"

She laughed: "No. Father's family were always bourgeois shopkeepers—as I am."

He looked at the dainty girl beside him, with her features and slender limbs and bearing of an aristocrat.

"Too bad," he said, pretending disillusion. "I expected you'd tell me how your ancestors died on the scaffold, remarking in laudable chorus, 'Vive le Roi!'"

She laughed and sparkled deliciously: "Alas, no, monsieur. But, ma foi! Some among them may have worked the guillotine for Sanson or drummed for Santerre.

"You seem to me to symbolise all the grace and charm that perished on the Place de Grève."

She laughed: "Look again, and see if it is not their Nemesis I more closely resemble."

And as she said it so gaily, an odd idea struck him that she did embody something less obvious, something more vital, than the symbol of an aristocratic régime perishing en masse against the blood-red sky of Paris.

He did not know what it was about her that seemed to symbolise all that is forever young and fresh and imperishable. Perhaps it was only the evolution of the real world he saw in her opening into blossom and disclosing such as she to justify the darkness and woe of the long travail.

She had left him standing alone with Grenville's book open in his hands, and was now examining a figure wearing a coat of fine steel mail, with a black corselet protecting back and breast decorated with horizontal bands.

"Do you notice the difference?" she asked. "In German armour the bands are vertical. This is Milanese, and I think the Negrolis made it. See how exquisitely the morion is decorated with these lions' heads in gold for cheek pieces, and these bands of gold damascene over the skull-piece, that meet to form Minerva's face above the brow! I'm sure it's the Negrolis work. Wait! Ah, here is the inscription! 'P. Iacobi et Fratr Negroli Faciebant MDXXXIX.' Bring me Grenville's book, please."

She took it, ran over the pages rapidly, found what she wanted, and then stepped forward and laid her white hand on the shoulder of another grim, mailed figure.

"This is foot-armour," she said, "and does not belong with that morion. It's neither Milanese nor yet of Augsburg make; it's Italian, but who made it I don't know. You see it's a superb combination of parade armour and war mail, with all the gorgeous design of the former and the smoothness and toughness of the latter. Really, Mr. Desboro, this investigation is becoming exciting. I never before saw such a suit of foot-armour."

"Perhaps it belonged to the catcher of some ancient baseball club," he suggested.

She turned, laughing, but exasperated: "I'm not going to let you remain near me," she said. "You annihilate every atom of romance; you are an anachronism here, anyway."

"I know it; but you fit in delightfully with tournaments and pageants and things——"

"Go up on that ladder and sit!" resolutely pointing.

He went. Perched aloft, he lighted a cigarette and surveyed the prospect.

"Mark Twain killed all this sort of thing for me," he observed.

She said indignantly: "It's the only thing I never have forgiven him."

"He told the truth."

"I know it—I know it. But, oh, how could he write what he did about King Arthur's Court! And what is the use of truth, anyway, unless it leaves us ennobling illusions?"

Ennobling illusions! She did not know it; but except for them she never would have existed, nor others like her that are yet to come in myriads.

Desboro waved his cigarette gracefully and declaimed:

"The knights are dust,

Their good swords bust;

Their souls are up the spout we trust—"

"Mr. Desboro!"

"Mademoiselle?"

"That silly parody on a noble verse is not humorous."

"Truth seldom is. The men who wore those suits of mail were everything that nobody now admires—brutal, selfish, ruthless——"

"Mr. Desboro!"

"Mademoiselle?"

"Are there not a number of such gentlemen still existing on earth?"

"New York's full of them," he admitted cheerfully, "but they conceal what they really are on account of the police."

"Is that all that five hundred years has taught men—concealment?"

"Yes, and five thousand," he muttered; but said aloud: "It hasn't anything to do with admiring the iron hats and clothes they wore. If you'll let me come down I'll admire 'em——"

"No."

"I want to carry your book for you."

"No."

"—And listen to everything you say about the vertical stripes on their Dutch trousers——"

"Very well," she consented, laughing; "you may descend and examine these gold inlaid and checkered trousers. They were probably made for a fashionable dandy by Alonso Garcia, five hundred years ago; and you will observe that they are still beautifully creased."

So they passed on, side by side, while she sketched out her preliminary work. And sometimes he was idly flippant and irresponsible, and sometimes she thrilled unexpectedly at his quick, warm response to some impulsive appeal that he share her admiration.

Under the careless surface, she divined a sort of perverse intelligence; she was certain that what appealed to her he, also, understood when he chose to; because he understood so much—much that she had not even imagined—much of life, and of the world, and of the men and women in it. But, having lived a life so full, so different from her own, perhaps his interest was less easily aroused; perhaps it might be even a little fatigued by the endless pageant moving with him amid scenes of brightness and happiness which seemed to her as far away from herself and as unreal as scenes in the painted arras hanging on the walls.

They had been speaking of operas in which armour, incorrectly designed and worn, was tolerated by public ignorance; and, thinking of the "horseshoe," where all that is wealthy, and intelligent, and wonderful, and aristocratic in New York is supposed to congregate, she had mentally placed him there among those elegant and distant young men who are to be seen sauntering from one gilded box to another, or, gracefully posed, decorating and further embellishing boxes already replete with jeweled and feminine beauty; or in the curtained depths, mysterious silhouettes motionless against the dull red glow.

And, if those gold-encrusted boxes had been celestial balconies, full of blessed damosels leaning over heaven's edge, they would have seemed no farther away, no more accessible to her, than they seemed from where she sometimes sat or stood, all alone, to listen to Farrar and Caruso.

The light in the armoury was growing a little dim. She bent more closely over her note-book, the printed pages of Mr. Grenville, and the shimmering, inlaid, and embossed armour.

"Shall we have tea?" he suggested.

"Tea? Oh, thank you, Mr. Desboro; but when the light fails, I'll have to go."

It was failing fast. She used the delicate tips of her fingers more often in examining engraved, inlaid, and embossed surfaces.

"I never had electricity put into the armoury," he said. "I'm sorry now—for your sake."

"I'm sorry, too. I could have worked until six."

"There!" he said, laughing. "You have admitted it! What are you going to do for nearly two hours if you don't take tea? Your train doesn't leave until six. Did you propose to go to the station and sit there?"

Her confused laughter was very sweet, and she admitted that she had nothing to do after the light failed except to fold her hands and wait for the train.

"Then won't you have tea?"

"I'd—rather not!"

He said: "You could take it alone in your room if you liked—and rest a little. Mrs. Quant will call you."

She looked up at him after a moment, and her cheeks were very pink and her eyes brilliant.

"I'd rather take it with you, Mr. Desboro. Why shouldn't I say so?"

No words came to him, and not much breath, so totally unexpected was her reply.

Still looking at him, the faint smile fading into seriousness, she repeated:

"Why shouldn't I say so? Is there any reason? You know better than I what a girl alone may do. And I really would like to have some tea—and have it with you."

He didn't smile; he was too clever—perhaps too decent.

"It's quite all right," he said. "We'll have it served in the library where there's a fine fire."

So they slowly crossed the armoury and traversed the hallway, where she left him for a moment and ran up stairs to her room. When she rejoined him in the library, he noticed that the insurgent lock of hair had been deftly tucked in among its lustrous comrades; but the first shake of her head dislodged it again, and there it was, threatening him, as usual, from its soft, warm ambush against her cheek.

"Can't you do anything with it?" he asked, sympathetically, as she seated herself and poured the tea.

"Do anything with what?"

"That lock of hair. It's loose again, and it will do murder some day."

She laughed with scarcely a trace of confusion, and handed him his cup.

"That's the first thing I noticed about you," he added.

"That lock of hair? I can't do anything with it. Isn't it horribly messy?"

"It's dangerous."

"How absurd!"

"Are you ever known as 'Stray Lock' among your intimates?"

"I should think not," she said scornfully. "It sounds like a children's picture-book story."

"But you look like one."

"Mr. Desboro!" she protested. "Haven't you any common sense?"

"You look," he said reflectively, "as though you came from the same bookshelf as 'Gold Locks,' 'The Robber Kitten,' and 'A Princess Far Away,' and all those immortal volumes of the 'days that are no more.' Would you mind if I label you 'Stray Lock,' and put you on the shelf among the other immortals?"

Her frank laughter rang out sweetly:

"I very much object to being labeled and shelved—particularly shelved."

"I'll promise to read you every day——"

"No, thank you!"

"I'll promise to take you everywhere with me——"

"In your pocket? No, thank you. I object to being either shelved or pocketed—to be consulted at pleasure—or when you're bored."

They both had been laughing a good deal, and were slightly excited by their game of harmless double entendre. But now, perhaps it was becoming a trifle too obvious, and Jacqueline checked herself to glance back mentally and see how far she had gone along the path of friendship.

She could not determine; for the path has many twists and turnings, and she had sped forward lightly and swiftly, and was still conscious of the exhilaration of the pace in his gay and irresponsible company.

Her smile changed and died out; she leaned back in her leather chair, gazing absently at the fiery reflections crimsoning the andirons on the hearth, and hearing afar, on some distant roof, the steady downpour of the winter rain.

Subtly the quiet and warmth of the room invaded her with a sense of content, not due, perhaps, to them alone. And dreamily conscious that this might be so, she lifted her eyes and looked across the table at him.

"I wonder," she said, "if this is all right?"

"What?"

"Our—situation—here."

"Situations are what we make them."

"But," she asked candidly, "could you call this a business situation?"

He laughed unrestrainedly, and finally she ventured to smile, secretly reassured.