Part 18 (2/2)
His face was gray and haggard, but there was a dogged spark of light in his eyes, as if he was amused at something.
”Thanks tremendously for coming in to cheer me up,” he said quickly.
”You see, I've dispensed with Ostrog for the evening, to prevent further comparison between us. D'you mind telling me why you didn't let me know this morning that, if I wrote a book, you'd work for me?”
Stella flushed, and let her jade comb sink beneath its level.
”If you didn't want to write the book,” she said, ”why should you want a secretary?”
”It didn't occur to you, I suppose,” Sir Julian asked, ”that if I wanted the secretary, I might wish to write the book?”
”What has Lady Verny said to you?” Stella demanded, lifting her head suddenly, and looking straight across at him.
”Nothing that need make you at all fierce,” Julian replied, with amus.e.m.e.nt. ”She said you were going back to the town hall next week, and I said I thought it was a pity. You don't seem to me in the least fitted for a town hall. I've no doubt you can do incredible things with drains, but I fear I have a selfish preference for your playing chess with me.
My mother added that it was my fault; you were prepared, if I wished to write a book, to see me through it.”
”Yes,” said Stella, defensively, ”I was prepared, if I thought you wanted it.”
”I suppose you and my mother thought it would be good for me, didn't you?” asked Julian, suavely. ”I have an idea that you had concocted a treacherous underground plot.”
”We--I--well, if you'd _liked_ it, it might have been good for you,”
Stella admitted.
”Most immoral,” said Julian, dryly, ”to try to do good to me behind my back, wasn't it? You see, I dislike being done good to; I happen very particularly to dislike it, and above all things I dislike it being done without my knowledge.”
”Yes,” said Stella, humbly. ”So do I; I see that now. It was silly and interfering. Only, if you _had_ been interested--”
”I wasn't in the least interested,” said Julian, implacably, ”but I'm glad you agree about your moral obliquity. My mother, of course, was worse; but there is no criminal so deep seated in her career as a woman under the sway of the maternal instinct. One allows for that. And now, Miss Waring, since neither of us likes being done good to, and since it's bad for you to go back to the town hall, and worse for me to remain unemployed, shall we pool this shocking state of things and write the book together?”
”Oh!” cried Stella with a little gasp. ”But are you sure you want to?”
Julian laughed.
”I may be politer than Ostrog,” he said, ”but I a.s.sure you that, like him, unless reduced by force, I never do what I don't want to.”
”And you haven't been reduced?” Stella asked a little doubtfully.
”Well,” said Julian, beginning to place his chessmen, ”I don't think so; do you? Where was the force?”
Stella could not answer this question, and Lady Verny, who might have been capable of answering it, was up-stairs.
CHAPTER XXI
Stella found that there were several Julians. The first one she knew quite well; he only wanted to be left alone. She dealt quite simply with him, as if he were Mr. Travers before Mr. Travers was human.
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