Part 31 (1/2)

”I see,” he said again, lightly. It was not his policy to discourage confidences. ”So Mr. Channing writes songs, as well as novels?”

”Oh, wonderful ones, Phil! You'd love them. I do wish you could hear them.”

”I'd like to. Why not bring me the next time you come to practise?”

She looked down; then her eyes met his frankly. ”I'd rather not, Phil.

He wouldn't like it. Geniuses are peculiar. You see, we sing better when we're not disturbed. You know how that is, don't you?”

His heart contracted with sudden sympathy. He knew only too well ”how it was.” It seemed to him that lately his life was one long conspiracy against Fate to find Kate Kildare alone. Abroad, the eyes of the world seemed always turned upon them; at home she was surrounded by an impregnable barrier of daughters. On the rare occasions when he did manage to achieve the coveted _solitude a deux_, their talk was of farming, of the parish, of business, and in the end always of his father, his father. Her dependence upon him, her affection for him, was evident, but there was a curiously impersonal, almost absent-minded quality about it that sometimes chilled Philip and his budding hopes.

When she spoke out her inmost thoughts, even when she took his hand or laid her arm across his shoulders with the impulsive, caressing gestures that were as common to her as to Jacqueline, he had the feeling that she was thinking of another man.

Philip was well fitted to understand Jacqueline just then. ”My dear,” he said quietly, ”are you in love with Mr. Channing?”

The question took her by surprise. She paled, and then the lovely rose came over her face again in a hot flood. ”Oh, yes, _yes_, Phil!” she cried eagerly. ”Do come and ride beside me, and let me tell you all about it. I've been wanting dreadfully to tell somebody who would understand. You're _such_ a comfortable sort of person.”

Philip's greatest gift was the art of listening. He employed it now, turning to her a glance steady and encouraging, concealing the anxiety that gnawed at his mind, why he could not say. The natural priest is as intuitive perhaps as the natural woman.

She took him into her confidence fully, concealing nothing. He learned about their daily meetings, either at the Ruin, or if Farwell happened to be absent, at Holiday Hill. She told him of their long automobile rides together, while she was supposed to be off exercising some of the horses; of the book he was beginning to write with her a.s.sistance; (”I inspire it,” she explained gravely); of his belief in her own future career as a singer.

”He's going to help me, to introduce me to singers and teachers and--impresarios, I think they're called. He's going to make mother send me abroad to study, first. He says it's wicked to keep me shut up here away from life. All artists have got to see a great deal of life, you know, if they're to amount to anything. Oh, isn't it wonderful?” she broke off, ”that such a man as that should ever have noticed me at all?”

Philip, glancing at the radiant young face, did not find it altogether wonderful.

”I suppose he makes love to you?” he asked.

She dimpled. ”Of course! But in such a funny way, Phil. He doesn't seem to mean to, or to want to, exactly. We read a good deal, and talk about the world, and things like that, and sing--but all the time I know what he's thinking about, and--and I'm thinking about it, too! We don't read and sing and talk _all_ the time--” She clasped her hands ecstatically, lines and all. ”Oh, Phil darling, I wish you were in love, too! It's so perfect.--But you will be some day, and then I hope,” she added quaintly, ”that you'll have somebody as dear and comfortable as you are to confide in. A spiritual pastor and master is so safe, too. You may scold me, Reverend, and you may laugh at me--you're doing it now--but you can never tell on me.”

”No,” he admitted, ”I never can. But why not tell on yourself, dear? Why so much mystery? Are you ashamed of being in love?”

He looked at her keenly. But though she hesitated, she met his eyes without embarra.s.sment. ”I think I am, a little. Not ashamed, exactly, but--shy. It's such a queer feeling, being in love. I never had it before. It makes you want not to eat, or sleep, or play with the baby, or do anything but just think of him; how he looked the last time you saw him, what he said, and--did. If people knew, they'd tease me, and watch me, and I couldn't bear that. I just couldn't bear it! Then there's Jemmy. She's so odd. She doesn't like to see me kissing the baby, even, or loving it. She thinks it isn't quite nice. If she knew about Mr. Channing--! Besides, she's so much cleverer than I am, so much more his sort, really. If he'd known her first he would probably have liked her best. I'd rather--just for a while, I'd rather--”

”Keep him out of Jemima's reach?” murmured Philip, amused.

She nodded. ”You _do_ understand things, don't you? Jemmy's so much cleverer than I am. Just until I'm sure of him, Philip--”

He asked quietly, ”You're not sure of him, then?”

She gave him a demure glance under her infantile lashes. ”Oh, yes, I am!

But he's not quite sure of himself.” She chuckled. ”Mr. Channing _thinks_ he doesn't want to marry any one, you see!”

It was what Philip had been waiting for from the first. His voice changed a little, and became the voice of the priest. ”You need not tell your sister, Jacqueline; but your mother ought to know of this.”

”I don't want her to know.”

”Why not?”

”Oh, because,” was the purely feminine answer. She added, troubled by his grave silence, ”Mummy might not want me to see so much of him, if she knew. She can't realize that I'm grown up now. Old people forget how they felt when they were young.” She was vaguely trying to express love's dread of being brought to earth, of being hampered by the fetters of a fixed relation.