Part 3 (2/2)

”And then our discontent vanished,” said he.

Cynthia shook her head.

”I don't remember very much of those days, but I remember enough to be sure that I gave you a good deal of trouble.” She spoke lightly to hide the emotion which the kindness of these friends had stirred in her.

Joan Daventry smiled.

”Yes, you gave us trouble, Cynthia,” she said. ”We are frightened by it still, at times. We are growing old and there is no other young spirit in the house, and it is possible that you might find your life rather dull, just as we did before you came to us.”

”Dull?” cried Cynthia. ”With you two dear people?” She held a hand lovingly to each, and now was hiding nothing of what she felt.

”Besides, I have my friends. I meet them in Buenos Ayres. They come here to visit me. You gave them to me, as you have given me everything. Look at the number of them!” and she proudly pointed to her letters. She read them through and she breakfasted, and at the end of the meal gathered them in her hands.

”I must send some telegrams,” she said. ”I will drive to the railway station.”

”Now?” Joan Daventry asked anxiously. ”Can't they be sent later, in the afternoon, Cynthia?”

”No, mother,” Cynthia replied. ”Some might wait, but there's one which must go off now.”

Joan Daventry looked at Richard Walton. The blinds were down and the window closed; so that the room was dark and cool. But a glance at her manager's face told her sufficiently what the heat was like outside.

He had been abroad since daybreak and he was the color of a ripe mulberry. Joan Daventry looked to him for a.s.sistance. But, though his eyes were fixed with a momentary intentness upon Cynthia, he did not give it. He spoke on another subject.

”If you go, Miss Cynthia, I hope you will leave at home the pearls you are wearing round your throat. We are cutting the corn to-day and there are a good many men about of whom I know nothing at all. More hands came in last night than we had use for. It's all right, of course, but I shouldn't wear those pearls.”

”Of course not,” said Cynthia. ”I will put them away.”

”And you will take a man with you,” said Robert Daventry. Neither he nor Joan had been brought up in cotton-wool; nor did they ever think to cloister Cynthia. She was left her liberty; and so half an hour afterward, with a big straw hat shading her face from the sun, she drove in her cart along the avenue to the railway station. She sent off the messages of thanks and then wrote out the important telegram which was to mark the day for her. She wrote it out without an alteration. For her thoughts had run fastidiously on the wording of it all through breakfast-time. She addressed it to:

Captain Rames, R. N., _S.S. Perhaps_, Tilbury Docks, London.

And she handed it to the operator with a certain trepidation like one who does some daring and irrevocable deed. The operator, however, was quite unmoved. The important message to which so much consideration had been given, wore to him quite a commonplace look. It amounted, indeed, to no more than this:

”Every heart-felt wish for a triumphant journey, from an unknown friend in South America.”

Thus, the very words were conventional and the sentiment no great matter to make a fuss about. But this was not Cynthia's point of view.

She had spoken the truth at the breakfast table when she had told Joan and Robert Daventry that she did not find her life dull. But they were old people, and, in spite of her many friends, she was, to be sure, much alone with them. She was reticent of her feelings in their presence, not through any habit of concealment, but from modesty and the disparity of years. On the other side it was Joan's theory that youth should be trusted rather than pried upon. Cynthia was thus thrown back a good deal upon herself, and if she did not find life dull, it was, perhaps, because with life she had very little to do.

She was seventeen, a girl of clear eyes and health and silver thoughts; and romance had its way with her. All that loving care could imagine for the clean and delicate training of mind and body had been lavished on her; and little by little she had fas.h.i.+oned for herself a wonderland of dreams and beautiful things. The only ugly thing about it was the iron turnstile in the wall by which you gained admittance.

But that could not be helped. Its ugliness was recognized. The turnstile had been there from the beginning--why, Cynthia could not have told you. It was indeed itself the beginning. It was there in her dreams and her fancies, offering admission to somewhere, before the somewhere was explored, and found to be the wonderland.

In this world, then, she moved amidst a very goodly company. She was careful about her company, choosing it from the world at large. She claimed the best of all the nations for her friends, yet with a pretty shyness which often enough set her blus.h.i.+ng and laughing at her own pretension. She had a test. Unless you answered to it, there was no admission, the turnstile did not revolve. Coronets went for nothing, even brave deeds did not suffice. He who entered--and, by the way, it must regretfully be admitted that ”he” does accurately represent the s.e.x of those who were allowed to enter. For it had never occurred to Cynthia at all to let another woman into her world. She was modest, but her modesty had its limits. He who entered, then, must have given proofs that he was possessed with a definite idea, that his life moved to the tune of it.

The population of Cynthia's private enclosure was consequently strictly limited; and, since she only knew her heroes through the newspaper and books, some even of those who were admitted came in under false pretences, and had summarily to be ejected. She was thus on the lookout for recruits. Captain Rames was the latest of them, and Cynthia knew less of him even than of the others. She had seen a blurred portrait of him in a daily paper; she knew that he was an officer in the navy, aged thirty-four, and it seemed to her that he had pa.s.sed her test. For, this very afternoon, in command of a Dundee whaler, he was off southward into seas where no s.h.i.+p yet had sailed.

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