Part 57 (1/2)
I did not trouble about any civilities. I stood up and asked point blank a question that came into my head.
”Whose horse is that?” I said.
She looked me in the eyes. ”Carnaby's,” she answered.
”How did you get here--this way?”
”The wall's down.”
”Down? Already?”
”A great bit of it between the plantations.”
”And you rode through, and got here by chance?”
”I saw you yesterday. And I rode over to see you.” I had now come close to her, and stood looking up into her face.
”I'm a mere vestige,” I said.
She made no answer, but remained regarding me steadfastly with a curious air of proprietors.h.i.+p.
”You know I'm the living survivor now of the great smash. I'm rolling and dropping down through all the scaffolding of the social system....
It's all a chance whether I roll out free at the bottom, or go down a crack into the darkness out of sight for a year or two.”
”The sun,” she remarked irrelevantly, ”has burnt you.... I'm getting down.”
She swung herself down into my arms, and stood beside me face to face.
”Where's Cothope?” she asked.
”Gone.”
Her eyes flitted to the pavilion and back to me. We stood close together, extraordinarily intimate, and extraordinarily apart.
”I've never seen this cottage of yours,” she said, ”and I want to.”
She flung the bridle of her horse round the veranda post, and I helped her tie it.
”Did you get what you went for to Africa?” she asked.
”No,” I said, ”I lost my s.h.i.+p.”
”And that lost everything?”
”Everything.”
She walked before me into the living-room of the chalet, and I saw that she gripped her riding-whip very tightly in her hand. She looked about her for a moment,--and then at me.
”It's comfortable,” she remarked.
Our eyes met in a conversation very different from the one upon our lips. A sombre glow surrounded us, drew us together; an unwonted shyness kept us apart. She roused herself, after an instant's pause, to examine my furniture.