Part 17 (2/2)

”Do you mean these old arctic sc.r.a.ps?” he said slowly. ”They might have mattered once, but they're all ancient history now. The flood and the fire have come on us since then. All that's as dead--as dead and useless as a crippled man. Besides, no one can write a book unless it interests him. I'm not even interested.”

Stella's eyes fell; her breath came quickly.

”But don't you think,” she said, ”you could be made a little interested again? You were interested, weren't you, when you were talking to me a few minutes ago?”

Sir Julian laughed good-naturedly.

”I dare say I was interested talking to you,” he said. ”You're such a changeling: you play chess like a wizard and know the North like a witch. I'm afraid, Miss Waring, that interest in your conversation isn't in itself sufficient to turn a man into an author.”

Stella rose slowly to her feet. She opened her lips as if to speak to Julian, but he was looking past her out of the window, with a little bitter smile that took away her hopefulness. Ostrog escorted her, growling less and less menacingly, to the door. Stella did not look back at Julian, and she forgot to hold her head up as she went out of the room. After she had gone Julian discovered that she had dropped two of her snowdrops on the floor. He picked them up carefully and laid them on his desk.

”A curious, interesting girl,” he said to himself; ”an incredible friend for Marian to have had. I wonder what made my mother take her up?”

CHAPTER XX

Lady Verny finished her weeding. It took her an hour and a half to do what she wanted to the bed; then she rose from her cramped position, and went into Julian's library by one of the French windows. She guessed that Stella had failed.

Julian was lying on a long couch, with his hands behind the back of his head and his eyes fixed on the ceiling. Lady Verny knew that, when he was alone, he was in the habit of lying like this for hours. He had told her that since his accident it amused him more than anything else.

She came in without speaking, and, drawing off her long gauntlets, folded them neatly together, and sat down, facing him.

Julian's eyes moved toward her as she entered; but he gave her no further greeting, and after a speculative glance his eyes returned to the ceiling.

”It's a pity,” said Lady Verny, thoughtfully, ”that poor child has to go back to the town hall next week, a dreadful, drafty place, and be made love to by a common little town clerk.”

Julian's eyes flickered for a moment, but did not change their position.

”Town clerks,” he observed, ”are, I feel sure, distinguished persons who confine their pa.s.sions to rates and taxes.”

”That must make it all the more trying,” said Lady Verny. ”But I don't mind the town clerk as much as I mind the drafts. Stella had pleurisy before she came here; and you know what girls who do that kind of work eat--ghastly little messes, slopped on to marble tables, and tasting like last week's wash.”

”Well, why the devil doesn't she look for another job?” Julian asked irritably. ”She has brains enough for twenty. That's what I dislike about women: they get stuck anywhere. No dash in 'em, no initiative, no judgment.” It was not what he disliked about women.

”She has tried,” said Lady Verny. ”The man she hoped to get a job from wouldn't have her. She tried this morning.”

Julian's eyes moved now; they shot like a hawk's on to his mother's, while his body lay as still as a stone figure on a tomb.

”Then it was a trap,” he said coldly. ”I wondered. I thought we'd settled you were going to leave me alone.”

”Yes,” said Lady Verny in a gentle, even voice, ”I know we had, Julian; but I can't bear it.”

Julian's eyes changed and softened. He put his hand on her knee and let it rest there for a moment.

”I can, if it's only you,” he said; ”but I can't stand a lot of sympathetic women. One's a lot.”

”You don't like her, then?” his mother asked. ”I'm sorry; I always did from the first day I saw her. I don't know why; she hasn't any behavior.”

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