Part 69 (1/2)

CHAPTER X

LEX NON SCRIPTA

Selwyn had gone to New York with Gerald, ”for a few days,” as he expressed it; but it was now the first week in October, and he had not yet returned to Silverside.

A brief note to Nina thanking her for having had him at Silverside, and speaking vaguely of some business matters which might detain him indefinitely--a briefer note to Eileen regretting his inability to return for the present--were all the communication they had from him except news brought by Austin, who came down from town every Friday.

A long letter to him from Nina still remained unanswered; Austin had seen him only once in town; Lansing, now back in New York, wrote a postscript in a letter to Drina, asking for Selwyn's new address--the first intimation anybody had that he had given up his lodgings on Lexington Avenue.

”I was perfectly astonished to find he had gone, leaving no address,”

wrote Boots; ”and n.o.body knows anything about him at his clubs. I have an idea that he may have gone to Was.h.i.+ngton to see about the Chaosite affair; but if you have any address except his clubs, please send it to me.”

Eileen had not written him; his sudden leave-taking nearly a month ago had so astounded her that she could not believe he meant to be gone more than a day or two. Then came his note, written at the Patroons'

Club--very brief, curiously stilted and formal, with a strange tone of finality through it, as though he were taking perfunctory leave of people who had come temporarily into his life, and as though the chances were agreeably even of his ever seeing them again.

The girl was not hurt, as yet; she remained merely confused, incredulous, unreconciled. That there was to be some further explanation of his silence she never dreamed of doubting; and there seemed to be nothing to do in the interval but await it. As for writing him, some instinct forbade it, even when Nina suggested that she write, adding laughingly that nothing else seemed likely to stir her brother.

For the first few days the children clamoured intermittently for him; but children forget, and Billy continued to cast out his pack in undying hope of a fox or bunny, and the younger children brought their b.u.t.terfly-nets and sand-shovels to Austin and Nina for repairs; and Drina, when Boots deserted her for his Air Line Company, struck up a wholesome and lively friends.h.i.+p with a dozen subfreshmen and the younger Orchil girls, and began to play golf like a little fiend.

It was possible, now, to ride cross-country; and Nina, who was always in terror of an added ounce to her perfect figure, rode every day with Eileen; and Austin, on a big hunter, joined them two days in the week.

There were dances, too, and Nina went to some of them. So did Eileen, who had created a furor among the younger brothers and undergraduates; and the girl was busy enough with sailing and motoring and das.h.i.+ng through the Sound in all sorts of power boats.

Once, under Austin's and young Craig's supervision, she tried sh.o.r.e-bird shooting; but the first broken wing from the gun on her left settled the thing for ever for her, and the horror of the blood-sprinkled, kicking ma.s.s of feathers haunted her dreams for a week.

Youths, however, continued to hover numerously about her. They sat in soulful rows upon the veranda at Silverside; they played guitars at her in canoes, accompanying the stringy thrumming with the peculiarly exasperating vocal noises made only by very young undergraduates; they rode with her and Nina; they pervaded her vicinity with a tireless constancy amounting to obsession.

She liked it well enough; she was as interested in everything as usual; as active at the nets, playing superbly, and with all her heart in the game--while it lasted; she swung her slim bra.s.sy with all the old-time fire and satisfaction in the clean, sharp whack, as the ball flew through the suns.h.i.+ne, rising beautifully in a long, low trajectory against the velvet fair-green.

It was unalloyed happiness for her to sit her saddle, feeling under her the grand stride of her powerful hunter on a headlong cross-country gallop; it was purest pleasure for her to lean forward in her oilskins, her eyes almost blinded with salt spray, while the low motor-boat rushed on and on through cataracts of foam, and the heaving, green sea-miles fled away, away, in the hissing furrow of the wake.

Truly, for her, the world was still green, the sun bright, the high sky blue; but she had not forgotten that the earth had been greener, the sun brighter, the azure above her more splendid--once upon a time--like the first phrase of a tale that is told. And if she were at times listless, absent-eyed, subdued--a trifle graver, or unusually silent, seeking the still paths of the garden as though in need of youthful meditation and the quiet of the sunset hour, she never doubted that that tale would be retold for her again. Only--alas!--the fair days were pa.s.sing, and the russet rustle of October sounded already among the curling leaves in the garden; and he had been away a long time--a very long time. And she could not understand.

On one of Austin's week-end visits, the hour for conjugal confab having arrived and husband and wife locked in the seclusion of their bedroom--being old-fas.h.i.+oned enough to occupy the same--he said, with a trace of irritation in his voice:

”I don't know where Phil is, or what he's about. I'm wondering--he's got the Selwyn conscience, you know--what he's up to--and if it's any kind of dam-foolishness. Haven't you heard a word from him, Nina?”

Nina, in her pretty night attire, had emerged from her dressing-room, locked out Kit-Ki and her maid, and had curled up in a big, soft armchair, cradling her bare ankles in her hand.

”I haven't heard from him,” she said. ”Rosamund saw him in Was.h.i.+ngton--pa.s.sed him on the street. He was looking horridly thin and worn, she wrote. He did not see her.”

”Now what in the name of common sense is he doing in Was.h.i.+ngton!”

exclaimed Austin wrathfully. ”Probably breaking his heart because n.o.body cares to examine his Chaosite. I told him, as long as he insisted on bothering the Government with it instead of making a deal with the Lawn people, that I'd furnish him with a key to the lobby. I told him I knew the right people, could get him the right lawyers, and start the thing properly. Why didn't he come to me about it? There's only one way to push such things, and he's as ignorant of it as a boatswain in the marine cavalry.”

Nina said thoughtfully: ”You always were impatient of people, dear.

Perhaps Phil may get them to try his Chaosite without any wire-pulling.

... I do wish he'd write. I can't understand his continued silence.

Hasn't Boots heard from him? Hasn't Gerald?”