Part 34 (2/2)

It was a warm evening in late May. Everybody else was away, and s.h.i.+rley had settled herself for one of the rare hours of rest and solitude which she so much enjoyed when her work was done. But she answered Brant Hille cordially:

”Of course you may, if you will be nice and soothing. These first warm days make me feel a trifle lazy.”

”Not strange, when you spend them in a stuffy office.” Brant accepted the cus.h.i.+ons she tossed to him, and disposed himself comfortably upon them on the top step near her feet.

”The office is n't stuffy. I 've sat by a wide-open window all day.

Besides, the first thing Murray did when he went in with father was to overhaul our whole system of ventilation. So the office is never stuffy, even in winter.”

”Don't be belligerent, or I 'll not be responsible for the soothing effects of my society. What can I do to lull you to repose? You don't like banjo music, or I 'd have brought my banjo over. It's just the evening for that.”

”If you had, you'd have gone home again.”

”You _are_ in a sweet mood!” Brant spoke with the familiarity of old acquaintance. ”Would you object to telling me what's gone wrong with your ladys.h.i.+p?”

”I can't find out the French for certain phrases it's necessary to use in the correspondence we have on hand just now. There are no equivalents for the idioms that I can discover as yet, and it's most important that I get them right. I 've practically had to make a phrase-book for myself so far, because the dictionaries and hand-books don't give the terms I want. I got hold of some old correspondence last week that helped me immensely, but to-day I was completely baffled. I suppose it has got on my nerves, and made me fractious.”

Yet she did not look particularly nerve-worn, lying there in the low chair, in her thin white frock, her round arms resting upon the arms of the chair, her head thrown back, as she regarded her visitor from under low-sweeping lashes. Neither did she look in the least like the young woman of business she had become.

Brant was always trying to convince himself that her work was spoiling her--it would be a comforting realisation if he could think it. But as often as he had succeeded in making himself half believe that some other girl, whose ways of living were such as he approved, was nearly as attractive as s.h.i.+rley Townsend, just so often did the sight of s.h.i.+rley in some unbusinesslike surroundings upset his convictions. To-night she looked particularly feminine and alluring, in spite of her avowed fractiousness and her explanation of the cause.

”All baffling things wear on one,” he answered, with an air of being sympathetic. ”I know how it is, from experience. I 'd like a dictionary or a phrase-book myself--one that would tell me what to say to you when you want to be 'soothed.' Shall I go in and get a book of verse and read aloud to you?”

”Please don't.”

”Fiction, then?

”Worse and worse.”

”History? Philosophy? Science? Travel?--Or humour?”

”None of them. I don't like to be read to--as a duty.”

”Duty! I'd be delighted.”

”I should n't, then.”

”What _do_ you want?”

”Silence, I think,” said the girl in the chair, with a mischievous look at the back of her companion's head. Her face was demure again, however, when he turned. ”Don't you like just to sit and gaze off into s.p.a.ce on a languid night like this, and say nothing at all?”

”If you prefer to have me go home----”

”Not in the least. I 'd like to know you were there on call--if you would n't talk.”

A silence of some length ensued. Brant stared moodily off over the darkening lawn, watching distant electric lights twinkle into existence along the rows of tree-tops which outlined the streets. s.h.i.+rley closed her eyes. She really was more weary than she knew. It had been a busy winter in the office, and she had worked hard to be able to fill the place she held. Her achievements in the matter of the technical French correspondence had proved of considerable importance to the firm, and her satisfaction at becoming so useful had led her to spend much of her spare time in making herself proficient.

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