Part 36 (1/2)
”Then I've got my work cut out for me, to forage for fuel. I must get right at it.”
The girl rose quickly. ”Do you mind waiting a little? I mustn't neglect my dishes, and--if you don't mind--I'd rather not be left alone any longer than necessary. You know....”
She ended with a nervous laugh, depreciatory.
”Why, surely. And I'll help with the dish-cloth.”
”You'll do nothing of the sort. I'd rather do it all myself. Please.”
She waved him back to his chair with a commanding gesture. ”I mean it--really.”
”Well,” he consented, doubtful, ”if you insist....”
She worked rapidly above the steaming dish-pan, heedless of the effects upon her hands and bared arms: busy and intent upon her business, the fair head bowed, the cheeks faintly flushed.
Whitaker lounged, profoundly intrigued, watching her with sober and studious eyes, asking himself questions he found for the present unanswerable. What did she mean to him? Was what he had been at first disposed to consider a mere, light-hearted, fugitive infatuation, developing into something else, something stronger and more enduring?
And what did it mean, this impression that had come to him so suddenly, within the hour, and that persisted with so much force in the face of its manifest impossibility, that he had known her, or some one strangely like her, at some forgotten time--as in some previous existence?
It was her voice that had made him think that, her voice of marvellous allure, crystal-pure, as flexible as tempered steel, strong, tender, rich, compa.s.sionate, compelling.... Where had he heard it before, and when?
And who was she, this Miss Fiske? This self-reliant and self-sufficient woman who chose to spend her summer in seclusion, with none but servants for companions; who had comprehension of machinery and ran her motor-boat alone; who went for lonely swims in the surf at dawn; who treated men as her peers--neither more nor less; who was spied upon, shadowed, attacked, kidnapped by men of unparalleled desperation and daring; who had retained her self-possession under stress of circ.u.mstance that would have driven strong men into pseudo-hysteria; who now found herself in a position to the last degree ambiguous and anomalous, cooped up, for G.o.d only knew how long, upon a lonely hand's-breadth of land in company with a man of whom she knew little more than nothing; and who accepted it all without protest, with a serene and flawless courage, uncomplaining, displaying an implicit and unquestioning faith in her companion: what manner of woman was this?
At least one to marvel over and admire without reserve; to rejoice in and, if it could not be otherwise, to desire in silence and in pride that it should be given to one so unworthy the privileges of desiring and of service and mute adoration....
”It's almost dark,” her pleasant accents broke in upon his revery.
”Would you mind lighting the lamp? My hands are all wet and sticky.”
”a.s.suredly.”
Whitaker got up, found matches, and lighted a tin kerosene lamp in a bracket on the wall. The windows darkened and the walls took on a sombre yellow as the flame grew strong and steady.
”I'm quite finished.” The girl scrubbed her arms and hands briskly with a dry towel and turned down her sleeves, facing him with her fine, frank, friendly smile. ”If you're ready....”
”Whenever you are,” he said with an oddly ceremonious bow.
To his surprise she drew back, her brows and lips contracting to level lines, her eyes informed with the light of wonder shot through with the flas.h.i.+ngs of a resentful temper.
”Why do you look at me so?” she demanded sharply. ”What are you thinking...?” She checked, her frown relaxed, her smile flickered softly. ”Am I such a fright--?”
”I beg your pardon,” he said hastily. ”I was merely thinking, wondering....”
She seemed about to speak, but said nothing. He did not round out his apology. A little distance apart, they stood staring at one another in that weird, unnatural light, wherein the glow from the lamp contended garishly with the ebbing flush of day. And again he was mute in bewildered inquiry before that puzzling phenomenon of inscrutable emotion which once before, since his awakening, had been disclosed to him in her mantling colour, in the quickening of her breath, and the agitation of her bosom, in the timid, dumb questioning of eyes grown strangely shy and frightened.
And then, in a twinkling, an impatient gesture exorcised the inexplicable mood that had possessed her, and she regained her normal, self-reliant poise as if by witchcraft.
”What a quaint creature you are, Hugh,” she cried, her smile whimsical.
”You've a way of looking at one that gives me the creeps. I see things--things that aren't so, and never were. If you don't stop it, I swear I shall think you're the devil! Stop it--do you hear me, sir? And come build our bonfire.”
She swung lithely away and was out of the house before he could regain his wits and follow.