Part 44 (1/2)

”Just till I get sailings. It's time for me to be off. I'm really a working person, you know, not a playing one.”

”You make bridges--and dams--and things, don't you?” she questioned vaguely.

”Bridges--and dams--and things.”

”Why don't you wait here for your sailings?” she asked impersonally after another pause. ”It's so _much_ more attractive here than Cairo.”

”I'd like to.” He thought of next Friday--and Arlee's return--and the masked ball. For a moment temptation urged. Then he threw back his head with a gesture of decision. ”But I can't. It's impossible.”

Now Lady Claire did not know that he was thinking of next Friday--and Arlee's return--and the masked ball. She only knew that he spoke with a curious fierceness, and that his eyes were very bright. And something in the girl, something strange and acknowledged that had been so fitfully gay and light these three days, quickened in mysterious excitement.

”Nothing is impossible,” she gave back, ”to a _man_!”

Billy thought she was resenting the conventions of the restricted s.e.x. She could not make any open advance toward Falconer while he, as man, could make all the open advances to Arlee he was willing to--but in this case his hands were tied. A man cannot inflict himself upon a girl who may not feel herself free to reject him. He laughed, with sorry ruefulness.

”There's a whole lot,” he observed, ”that is impossible to a man who tries to be one,” and then, oblivious of any construction she might choose to put upon this cryptic utterance, he strolled moodily on, in brooding silence.

After a pause, ”Of course,” said Lady Claire in so gentle a little voice that it seemed to glide undisturbingly among his silent meditations, ”of course, a man has his--pride.”

”I hope so,” said the young man briefly. He understood her to be probing for his reason for abandoning the chase; he understood that for her own sake she would like to see him successful with Arlee, and he was queerly sorry to be failing to help her there. But he had done all that he could....

The girl spoke again, her face straight ahead, her shadowy eyes staring out into the moonlight. ”Is it--money?” she said in the same little breath of a voice.

”Money!” Billy threw back the words in surprise, half contemptuous, ”Oh, Lord, no, it's not _money_! I haven't much of it _now_, but I'm going to make a bunch of the stuff--if I want to.” He spoke with nave and amazing confidence which somehow struck astounded belief into the listener. ”There's enough of it there, waiting to be made--no, it's not money--though perhaps one might well think it ought to be. I suppose my work might strike a girl as hard for her,”

he went on, considering aloud these problems of existence, ”for it's here to-day and there to-morrow--now doing a building in a roaring city and now damming up some reservoir deep in the mountains--but it always seemed to me that the girl who would like me would like that, too. It's seeing so much of life--and such real life! Oh, no,” he said, and though a trace of doubt had struck into his voice, ”that in itself wouldn't be what I'd call impossible--not for the right girl.”

”But your work--would it always be in America?” said Lady Claire.

”Oh, always. It has to be, of course.”

”Oh.... And--and--you--have to have--that work?”

”Why, of course, I have to have it!” Billy was bewildered, but entirely positive. ”That's _my_ work--the thing I'm made to do. _I_ couldn't earn my salt selling apartment houses.”

”Oh, no, no,” the girl hurriedly agreed.

A long, long silence followed, a silence in which he was entirely oblivious to her imaginings. The moonlight lay heavy as dreams about them; her thoughts went darting to and fro like fluttering swallows.... She felt herself a stranger to herself.... She looked up at him with a sudden deer-like lift of her head, and then looked swiftly away.

”Don't go,” she said in a quick, low voice. ”Don't go--yet. Even things that look impossible--can be made to come right.”

He understood that she was pleading with him, partly for the sake of her own chance with Falconer, but the sympathy flicked him on the raw. He was sorry for her, sorry for the queer, strained look in her face, sorry for the voice so full of feeling, but he couldn't do anything to help her.

In silence he shook his head and was astounded at the look of sudden proud anger she darted at him.

”You're a mighty real friend to take such an interest in my luck,”

he said quickly, with warm liking in his voice, ”and I only wish you could play fairy G.o.dmother and give me my wish--but you can't, Lady Claire, and apparently _she_ won't, and that is the end of the matter. I have to take off my hat to the Better Man.”

Lady Claire did not gasp or stammer or question. She did none of the dismayedly enlightening things into which a lesser poise might have tottered. After an inconsiderable moment of silence she merely uttered her familiar, ”Oh!” and uttered it in a voice in which so many things were blended that their elements could hardly be perceived.

She added hurriedly, ”I'm sorry if I've seemed to--to intrude into your affairs.”