Part 31 (1/2)

Nick looked at her askance. ”You say things every now and then for which I could really kill you. 'The article of the month,' for instance: I could kill you for that.”

”Well, kill me!” Mrs. Dallow returned.

”Let me carry your book,” he went on irrelevantly. The hand in which she held it was on the side of her on which he was walking, and he put out his own hand to take it. But for a couple of minutes she forbore to give it up, so that they held it together, swinging it a little. Before she surrendered it he asked where she was going.

”To the island,” she answered.

”Well, I'll go with you--and I'll kill you there.”

”The things I say are the right things,” Julia declared.

”It's just the right things that are wrong. It's because you're so political,” Nick too lightly explained. ”It's your horrible ambition.

The woman who has a salon should have read the article of the month. See how one dreadful thing leads to another.”

”There are some things that lead to nothing,” said Mrs. Dallow.

”No doubt--no doubt. And how are you going to get over to your island?”

”I don't know.”

”Isn't there a boat?”

”I don't know.”

Nick had paused to look round for the boat, but his hostess walked on without turning her head. ”Can you row?” he then asked.

”Don't you know I can do everything?”

”Yes, to be sure. That's why I want to kill you. There's the boat.”

”Shall you drown me?” she asked.

”Oh let me perish with you!” Nick answered with a sigh. The boat had been hidden from them by the bole of a great tree which rose from the gra.s.s at the water's edge. It was moored to a small place of embarkation and was large enough to hold as many persons as were likely to wish to visit at once the little temple in the middle of the lake, which Nick liked because it was absurd and which Mrs. Dallow had never had a particular esteem for. The lake, fed by a natural spring, was a liberal sheet of water, measured by the scale of park scenery; and though its princ.i.p.al merit was that, taken at a distance, it gave a gleam of abstraction to the concrete verdure, doing the office of an open eye in a dull face, it could also be approached without derision on a sweet summer morning when it made a lapping sound and reflected candidly various things that were probably finer than itself--the sky, the great trees, the flight of birds. A man of taste, coming back from Rome a hundred years before, had caused a small ornamental structure to be raised, from artificial foundations, on its bosom, and had endeavoured to make this architectural pleasantry as nearly as possible a reminiscence of the small ruined rotunda which stands on the bank of the Tiber and is p.r.o.nounced by _ciceroni_ once sacred to Vesta. It was circular, roofed with old tiles, surrounded by white columns and considerably dilapidated. George Dallow had taken an interest in it--it reminded him not in the least of Rome, but of other things he liked--and had amused himself with restoring it. ”Give me your hand--sit there and I'll ferry you,” Nick said.

Julia complied, placing herself opposite him in the boat; but as he took up the paddles she declared that she preferred to remain on the water--there was too much malice prepense in the temple. He asked her what she meant by that, and she said it was ridiculous to withdraw to an island a few feet square on purpose to meditate. She had nothing to meditate about that required so much scenery and att.i.tude.

”On the contrary, it would be just to change the scene and the _pose_.

It's what we have been doing for a week that's att.i.tude; and to be for half an hour where n.o.body's looking and one hasn't to keep it up is just what I wanted to put in an idle irresponsible day for. I'm not keeping it up now--I suppose you've noticed,” Nick went on as they floated and he scarcely dipped the oars.

”I don't understand you”--and Julia leaned back in the boat.

He gave no further explanation than to ask in a minute: ”Have you people to dinner to-night?”

”I believe there are three or four, but I'll put them off if you like.”

”Must you _always_ live in public, Julia?” he continued.

She looked at him a moment and he could see how she coloured. ”We'll go home--I'll put them off.”