Part 42 (1/2)
The consequences of her own errors she refused to be burdened with; to escape somehow, was her paramount impulse, and she always tried to--had always attempted it even in school-days--and farther back when Nina first remembered her as a thin, eager, restless little girl scampering from one sc.r.a.pe into another at full speed. Even in those days there were moments when Nina believed her to be actually irrational, but there was every reason not to say so to the heedless scatterbrain whose father, in the prime of life, sat all day in his room, his faded eyes fixed wistfully on the childish toys which his attendant brought to him from his daughter's nursery.
All this Nina was remembering; and again she wondered bitterly at Alixe's treatment of her brother, and what explanation there could ever be for it--except one.
Lately, too, Alixe had scarcely been at pains to conceal her contempt for her husband, if what Rosamund related was true. It was only one more headlong sc.r.a.pe, this second marriage, and Nina knew Alixe well enough to expect the usual stampede toward that gay phantom which was always beckoning onward to promised happiness--that goal of heart's desire already lying so far behind her--and farther still for every step her little flying feet were taking in the oldest, the vainest, the most hopeless chase in the world--the headlong hunt for happiness.
And if that blind hunt should lead once more toward Selwyn? Suppose, freed from Ruthven, she turned in her tracks and threw herself and her youthful unhappiness straight at the man who had not yet destroyed the picture that Nina found when she visited her brother's rooms with the desire to be good to him with rocking-chairs!
Not that she really believed or feared that Philip would consider such an impossible reconciliation; pride, and a sense of the absurd, must always check any such weird caprice of her brother's conscience; and yet--and yet other amazing and mismated couples had done it--had been reunited.
And Nina was mightily troubled, for Alixe's capacity for mischief was boundless; and that she, in some manner, had already succeeded in stirring up Philip, was a rumour that persisted and would not be annihilated.
To inform a man frankly that a young girl is a little in love with him is one of the oldest, simplest, and easiest methods of interesting that man--unless he happen to be in love with somebody else. And Nina had taken her chances that the picture of Alixe was already too unimportant for the ceremony of incineration. Besides, what she had ventured to say to him was her belief; the child appeared to be utterly absorbed in her increasing intimacy with Selwyn. She talked of little else; her theme was Selwyn--his influence on Gerald, and her delight in his companions.h.i.+p. They had, at his suggestion, taken up together the study of Cretan antiquities--a sort of tender pilgrimage for her, because, with the aid of her father's and mother's letters, note-books, and papers, she and Selwyn were following on the map the journeys and discoveries of her father.
But this was not all; Nina's watchful eyes opened wider and wider as she witnessed in Eileen the naissance of an unconscious and delicate coquetry, quite unabashed, yet the more significant for that; and Nina, intent on the new phenomena, began to divine more about Eileen in a single second, than the girl could have suspected of herself in a month of introspection and of prayer.
Love was not there; Nina understood that; but its germ was--still dormant, but bedded deliciously in congenial soil--the living germ in all its latent promise, ready to swell with the first sudden heart-beat, quicken with the first quickening of the pulse, unfold into perfect symmetry if ever the warm, even current in the veins grew swift and hot under the first scorching whisper of Truth.
Eileen, sewing by the nursery window, looked up; her little Alsatian maid, cross-legged on the floor at her feet, sewing away diligently, also looked up, then scrambled to her feet as Selwyn halted on the threshold of the room.
”Why, how odd you look!” said Eileen, laughing: ”come in, please; Susanne and I are only mending some of my summer things. Were you in search of the children?--don't say so if you were, because I'm quite happy in believing that you knew I was here. Did you?”
”Where are the children?” he asked.
”In the Park, my very rude friend. You will find them on the Mall if you start at once.”
He hesitated, but finally seated himself, omitting the little formal hand-shake with which they always met, even after an hour's separation.
Of course she noticed this, and, bending low above her sewing, wondered why.
It seemed to him, for a moment, as though he were looking at a woman he had heard about and had just met for the first time. His observation of her now was leisurely, calm, and thorough--not so calm, however, when, impatient of his reticence, bending there over her work, she raised her dark-blue eyes to his, her head remaining lowered. The sweet, silent inspection lasted but a moment, then she resumed her st.i.tches, aware that something in him had changed since she last had seen him; but she merely smiled quietly to herself, confident of his unaltered devotion in spite of the strangely hard and unresponsive gaze that had uneasily evaded hers.
As her white fingers flew with the glimmering needle she reflected on conditions as she had left them a week ago. A week ago, between him and her the most perfect of understandings existed; and the consciousness of it she had carried with her every moment in the country--amid the icy tumble of the surf, on long vigorous walks over the greening hills where wild moorland winds whipped like a million fairy switches till the young blood fairly sang, pouring through her veins.
Since that--some time within the week, _something_ evidently had happened to him, here in the city while she had been away. What?
As she bent above the fine linen garment on her knee, needle flying, a sudden memory stirred coldly--the recollection of her ride with Rosamund; and instinctively her clear eyes flew open and she raised her head, turning directly toward him a disturbed gaze he did not this time evade.
In silence their regard lingered; then, satisfied, she smiled again, saying: ”Have I been away so long that we must begin all over, Captain Selwyn?”
”Begin what, Eileen?”
”To remember that the silence of selfish preoccupation is a privilege I have not accorded you?”
”I didn't mean to be preoccupied--”
”Oh, worse and worse!” She shook her head and began to thread the needle. ”I see that my week's absence has not been very good for you. I knew it the moment you came in with all that guilty absent-minded effrontery which I have forbidden. Now, I suppose I shall have to recommence your subjection. Ring for tea, please. And, Susanne”--speaking in French and gathering up a fluffy heap of mended summer waists--”these might as well be sent to the laundress--thank you, little one; your sewing is always beautiful.”
The small maid, blus.h.i.+ng with pleasure, left the room, both arms full of feminine apparel; Selwyn rang for tea, then strolled back to the window, where he stood with both hands thrust into his coat-pockets, staring out at the sunset.
A primrose light bathed the city. Below, through the new foliage of the Park, the little lake reflected it in tints of deeper gold and amber where children cl.u.s.tered together, sailing toy s.h.i.+ps. But there was no wind; the tiny sails and flags hung motionless, and out and in, among the craft becalmed, steered a family of wild ducks, the downy yellow fledglings darting hither and thither in chase of gnats, the mother bird following in leisurely solicitude.
And, as he stood there, absently intent on sky and roof and foliage, her soft bantering voice aroused him; and turning he found her beside him, her humorous eyes fixed on his face.