Part 19 (2/2)

”You would do well to beware.”

”Which means that I am beaten, I suppose,” she said, with a smile of resignation.

”You can save yourself if you like,” he said, with his eyes on the board, ”if you consider it worth while.”

”I don't think I do,” she answered. ”The end will be the same.”

His eyes flashed up at her. ”You surrender unconditionally?”

She continued to smile despite the sadness of her face. ”Absolutely. I am so accustomed to defeat that I am getting callous.”

”You seem to have great confidence in my chivalry,” he said, looking full at her.

”I have--every confidence, Mr. Errol,” she answered gravely. ”I think that you and your brother are the most chivalrous men I know.”

His laugh had a ring of harshness. ”Believe me, I am not accustomed to being ranked with the saints,” he said. ”How shall I get away from your halo? I warn you, it's a most awful misfit. You'll find it out presently, and make me suffer for your mistake.”

”You haven't a very high opinion of my sense of justice,” Anne said, with just a tinge of reproach in her gentle voice.

”No,” he said recklessly. ”None whatever. You are sure to forget who fas.h.i.+oned the halo. Women always do.”

Anne was silent.

He leaned suddenly towards her, careless of the chessmen that rolled in all directions. ”I haven't been living up to the halo to-day,” he said, and there was that in his voice that touched her to quick pity. ”I've been snapping and biting like a wild beast all day long. I've been in h.e.l.l myself, and I've made it h.e.l.l wherever I went.”

”Oh, but why?” Half involuntarily she held out her hand to him as one who would a.s.sist a friend in deep waters.

He took it, held it closely, bowed his forehead upon it, and so sat tensely silent.

”Something is wrong. I wish I could help you,” she said at last.

He lifted his head, met her eyes of grave compa.s.sion, and abruptly set her free.

”You have done what you could for me,” he said. ”You've made me hate my inferno. But you can't pull me out. You have”--she saw his teeth for a second though scarcely in a smile--”other fish to fry.”

”Whatever I am doing, I shall not forget my friends, Nap,” she said, with great earnestness.

”No,” he returned, ”you won't forget them. I shouldn't wonder if you prayed for them even. I am sure you are one of the faithful.” There was more of suppressed misery than irony in his voice. ”But is that likely to help when you don't so much as know what to pray for?”

He got up and moved away from her with that noiseless footfall that was so like the stealthy padding of a beast.

Anne lay and silently watched him. Her uncertainty regarding him had long since pa.s.sed away. Though she was far from understanding him, he had become an intimate friend, and she treated him as such. True, he was unlike any other man she had ever met, but that fact had ceased to embarra.s.s her. She accepted him as he was.

He came back at length and sat down, smiling at her, though somewhat grimly.

”You will pardon your poor jester,” he said, ”if he fails to make a joke on your last night. He could make jokes--plenty of them, but not of the sort that would please you.”

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