Part 10 (1/2)

Miss Lambourne laughed. ”You can lose your temper then? It's something, in fact. Yes, we have been fighting, sir, and you don't fight fair.”

”Who does with a woman?” Harry sneered. ”I cry you mercy, ma'am. You are vastly too strong for me. Let me alone and I ask no more of you.”

To which Miss Lambourne said, very innocently, ”Why?” Harry looked up and saw her beautiful face meek and appealing, with something of a demure smile in the eyes. ”Come, sir, what have I asked of you? You have done me something of a great service. There was a man handling me--do you know what that means? ”--she made a wry face and gave herself a shaking shudder--”You rid me of him, and with some risk to your precious skin.

Well, sir, I am grateful, and I want to show it. Odds life, I should be a beast did I not. I want to thank you and to sing your praises--to yourself also perhaps. And you are pleased to be a churl and a boor.”

”In effect,” said Harry coolly. ”Egad, ma'am, let me have the luxury of hating you. For I am the Wavertons' gentleman usher and you are the nonpareil Miss Lambourne, vastly rich and--” he ended with a shrug and a rueful grin.

”And--?” Miss Lambourne softly insisted.

”And d.a.m.nably lovely. Lord, you know that.”

”I thank G.o.d,” said Miss Lambourne devoutly.

”Is it true, Mr. Boyce--do the meek inherit the earth?” She held out her hands to him, one bare, one gloved, she swayed a little towards him, and her face was gentle and wistful. ”Nay, sir, I ask your pardon. Call friends if you please and will please me.”

Harry lost hold of himself at last. The blood surged in him, and he caught at her and kissed her fiercely.

It was he who was embarra.s.sed. As he stood away from her, eyeing her with a queer defiant shame, she smiled through a small matter of a blush, and breathing quickly said: ”What does it feel like, sir?”

”The world's a miracle,” Harry said unsteadily and would have caught her again.

She turned, she was away light of foot, and in a moment through the wind he heard her singing to a tune of her own the child's rhyme:

”Fly away, Jack, Fly away, Jill, Come again, Jack, Come again, Jill.”

CHAPTER VI

HARRY IS NOT GRATEFUL

Where the lane from Fortis Green crosses the high road there stood an ale-house. On the wettest days, and some others, the place was Harry's resort. Not that he had a liking for ale-house company--or indeed any company. But within the precincts of the Wavertons' house tobacco was forbidden and--all the more for that--tobacco he loved with a solid devotion. The alehouse of the cross roads offered a clean floor, a clean fire, air not too foul, a tolerable chair, a landlord who did not talk, and until evening, sufficient solitude. There Harry smoked many pipes in tranquillity until the day when on his entry he found Mr. Hadley's sardonic face waiting for him. He liked Charles Hadley less than many men whom he more despised. n.o.body in a position just better than menial can be expected to like the condescending mockery which was Mr. Hadley's _metier_. But Harry--it is one of his most n.o.ble qualities--bore being laughed at well enough. What most annoyed him was Mr. Hadley's parade of a surly, austere virtue. He did not doubt that it was sincere. He could more easily have forgiven it if it had been hypocritical. A man had no business to be so mighty honest.

Mr. Hadley nodded at Harry, who said it was a dirty day, and called for his pot of small ale and his pennyworth of Spanish tobacco. Mr. Hadley was civil enough to pa.s.s him a pipe from the box. Both gentlemen smoked in grave silence.

”So you are still with us,” said Mr. Hadley.

”By your good leave, sir.”

”I had an apprehension the Colonel was going to ravish you away.”

”I hope I am still of some use to Mr. Waverton.”

”Damme, you might be the old family retainer. 'Faithful service of the antique world,' egad. I suppose you will end your days with Geoffrey, and be buried at his feet like a trusty hound.”

”If you please, sir.”

They looked at each other. ”Well, Mr. Boyce, I beg your pardon,” Hadley said. ”But you'll allow you are irritating to a plain man.”

”I do not desire it, sir.”