Part 56 (1/2)
”Certainly,” she said.
He stood looking down at her intently. ”Are you all right today?” he asked abruptly.
A faint colour rose in her cheeks. ”I am--as usual,” she said.
”What does that mean?” Curtly he put the question. ”Why don't you go out more? Why don't you get old Lister to make you up a tonic?”
She smiled a little, but there was slight uneasiness behind her smile.
Her eyes had the remote look of one who watches the far horizon. ”My dear Eustace,” she said, ”_cui bono_?”
He stooped suddenly over her. ”It is because you won't make the effort,”
he said, speaking with grim emphasis. ”You're letting yourself go again, I know; I've been watching you for the past week. And by heaven, Isabel, you shan't do it! Scott may be fool enough to let you, but I'm not.
You've only been home a week, and you've been steadily losing ground ever since you got back. What is it? What's the matter with you? Tell me what is the matter!”
So insistent was his tone, so almost menacing his att.i.tude, that Isabel shrank from him with a gesture too swift to repress. The old pathetic furtive look was in her eyes as she made reply.
”I am very sorry. I don't see how I can help it. I--I am getting old, you know. That is the chief reason.”
”You're talking nonsense, my dear girl.” Impatiently Eustace broke in.
”You are just coming into your prime. I won't have you ruin your life like this. Do you hear me? I won't. If you don't rouse yourself I will find a means to rouse you. You are simply drifting now--simply drifting.”
”But into my desired haven,” whispered Isabel, with a piteous quiver of the lips.
He straightened himself with a gesture of exasperation. ”You are wasting yourself over a myth, an illusion. On my soul, Isabel, what a wicked waste it is! Have you forgotten the days when you and I roamed over the world together? Have you forgotten Egypt and all we did there? Life was worth having then.”
”Ah! I thought so.” She met his look with eyes that did not seem to see him. ”We were children then, Eustace,” she said, ”children playing on the sands. But the great tide caught us. You breasted the waves, but I was broken and thrown aside. I could never play on the sands again. I can only lie and wait for the tide to come again and float me away.”
He clenched his hands. ”Do you think I would let you go--like that?” he said.
”It is the only kindness you can do me,” she answered in her low voice of pleading.
He swung round to go. ”I curse the day,” he said very bitterly, ”that you ever met Basil Everard! I curse his memory!”
She flinched at the words as if they had been a blow. Her face turned suddenly grey. She clasped her hands very tightly together, saying no word.
He went to the door and paused, his back towards her. ”I came in,” he said then, ”to tell you that the de Vignes have offered to put us up at their place for the wedding. And I have accepted.”
He waited for some rejoinder but she made none. It was as if she had not heard. Her eyes had the impotent, stricken look of one who has searched dim distances for some beloved object--and searched in vain.
He did not glance round. His temper was on edge. With a fierce movement he pulled open the door and departed. And behind him like a veil there fell the silence of a great despair.
CHAPTER IV
THE NEW HOME
A small figure was already standing outside the station when the car Sir Eustace drove whirled round the corner of the station yard. He was greeted by the waving of a vigorous hand, as he dashed up, grinding on the brakes in the last moment as was his impetuous custom. Everyone knew him from afar by his driving, and the village children were wont to scatter like rabbits at his approach.