Part 25 (1/2)

Mr. Strobridge, however, was one of the chief pieces in her game, and him she would see often as long as she remained in Lady Garribardine's service, so there was no hurry--she could afford to wait.

But all the same she settled down to read ”The Seven Lamps of Architecture” without the buoyant feeling of self-confidence which usually gave her such a proud carriage of head.

CHAPTER XIV

A message came up to Katherine next morning--the morning of Christmas Day--from Lady Garribardine to say that she could walk across the park to church with the two elder children and that she was to take them into the front pew that faced the large carved family one behind the choir at right angles.

And from this well-placed outlook Miss Bush later on observed the house party enter by a door in the chancel. They filled the whole long seat and overflowed into the pew where she and the children sat, and it happened that Gerard Strobridge was next her and knelt to say his prayers.

Propinquity is a very curious thing, and when all possibility of conversation is nil, propinquity has sometimes been known to exert a very powerful influence. Gerard Strobridge was conscious with every throb of his pulse of the nearness of Katherine Bush; there was a magnetic disturbing emanation he felt coming from her, which excited him unaccountably. He kept glancing at her regular profile from time to time. Her very pale skin and large red mouth attracted him immensely.

She never once looked at him, and maintained an air of absolute unconsciousness.

”What is she thinking about, I wonder?” he mused. ”I have never seen a face more sphinxlike; she could be good or devilishly bad, she could love pa.s.sionately and hate coldly, she could be cruel as the grave and hard as adamant. She is a woman that a man were wiser not to know too well for his own safety.”

But reflections of this sort never yet made son of Adam avoid the object of them, so when they came out and Katherine was waiting for instructions from her employer as to the disposal of the children, Mr.

Strobridge came up to her.

”A happy Christmas, Miss Bush,” he said. ”Are you going to walk back through the Park? Here, Teddy, I will come with you.”

”We are going in the motor with Grandmamma,” both children cried at once as Katherine returned his greeting, and they ran off to Lady Garribardine. So Katherine started to walk on alone, while the rest of the party lingered about the porch and made up their minds as to whether or no they would drive.

She had gone some way and was on a path by a copse in the Park, when Mr.

Strobridge caught her up.

”Why did you race ahead, Miss Bush?” he asked. ”Did you not want any companion in your solitude?”

”I never thought about it,” she returned quite simply.

”I did--I wanted to walk with you, I have been watching you all the time in church. I believe that you were in dreamland again; now will be the very moment to finish our discussion upon it.”

”I don't think we had begun it.”

”Well, we will.”

”How are we to start?”

”You are going to tell me where yours is--in the heart or in the head?”

”Such a conversation would be altogether unprofitable.” There was mischief lurking in the corner of her eye and trembling in the curves of her full mouth.

”I must judge of that.”

”How so? Do I not count?”

”Enormously--that is why I want to hear of your dreamland.”

”It is a place where only I can go.”