Part 16 (1/2)

Lucy looked up at her brother.

”Did you attempt to give somebody money there?”

”I did. It's not worth discussing; and, anyway, she wouldn't listen to me.”

They strolled on, Vane frowning, while Carroll, noticing signs of suppressed interest in Lucy's face, smiled un.o.bserved. Neither he nor the others thought of Mabel, who was following them.

Some time after they joined the others, Carroll lay back in a deep chair, with his half-closed eyes turned in Lucy's direction.

”Are you asleep, or thinking hard?” Mrs. Chisholm asked him.

”Not more than half asleep,” he laughed. ”I was trying to remember _A Dream of Fair Women_. It's a suitable occupation for a drowsy summer afternoon in a place like this, but I must confess that it was Miss Vane who put it into my head. She reminded me of one or two of the heroines when she was championing the cause of the suffragist.”

”You mustn't imagine that Englishwomen in general sympathize with her, or that such ideas are popular at the Dene.”

Carroll smiled rea.s.suringly.

”I shouldn't have imagined the latter for a moment. But, as I said, on an afternoon of this kind one may be excused for indulging in romantic fancies. Don't you see what brought those old-time heroines into my mind?

I mean the elusive resemblance to their latter-day prototype?”

Mrs. Chisholm looked puzzled.

”No,” she declared. ”One of them was Greek, another early English, and the finest of all was the Hebrew maid. As they couldn't have been like one another, how could they, collectively, have borne a resemblance to anybody else?”

”That's logical, on the surface. To digress, why do you most admire Jephthah's daughter, the gentle Gileadite?”

His hostess affected surprise.

”Isn't it evident, when one remembers her patient sacrifice; her fine sense of family honor?”

Carroll felt that this was much the kind of sentiment one could have expected from her; and he did her the justice to believe that it was genuine and that she was capable of living up to her convictions. His glance rested on Vane for a moment, and the latter was startled as he guessed Carroll's thought.

Evelyn sat near him, reclining languidly in a wicker chair. She had been silent, and now that her face was in repose the signs of reserve and repression were plainer than ever. There was, however, pride in it, and Vane felt that she was endowed with a keener and finer sense of family honor than her thin-lipped mother. Her brother's career was threatened by the results of his own imprudence, and though her father could hardly be compared with the Gileadite warrior, there was, Vane fancied, a disturbing similarity between the two cases. It was unpleasant to contemplate the possibility of this girl's being called upon to bear the cost of her relatives' misfortunes or follies.

Carroll looked across at Lucy with a smile.

”You won't agree with Mrs. Chisholm?” he suggested.

”No,” answered Lucy firmly. ”Leaving out the instance in question, there are too many people who transgress and then expect somebody else--a woman, generally--to serve as a sacrifice.”

”I don't agree, either,” Mabel broke in. ”I'd sooner have been Cleopatra, or Joan of Arc--only she was burned, poor thing.”

”That was only what she might have expected. An unpleasant fate generally overtakes people who go about disturbing things,” Mrs.

Chisholm said severely.

The speech was characteristic, and the others smiled. It would have astonished them had Mrs. Chisholm sympathized with the rebel idealist whose beckoning visions led to the clash of arms.

”Aren't you getting off the track,” Vane asked Carroll. ”I don't see the drift of your previous remarks.”

”Well,” drawled Carroll, ”there must be, I think, a certain distinctive stamp upon those who belong to the leader type--I mean the people who are capable of doing striking and heroic things. Apart from this, I've been studying you English--I've been over here before--and it has struck me that there's occasionally something imperious, or rather imperial, in the faces of your women in the most northern counties. I can't define the thing, but it's there--in the line of nose, in the mouth, and, I think, most marked in the brows. It's not Saxon, nor Norse, nor Danish; I'd sooner call it Roman.”