Part 18 (1/2)
In another moment Acton swung round, and stepped back through an open window. He generally moved abruptly, and was now and then painfully direct in conversation, but Nasmyth had been long enough in that country to understand and to like him. He was a man with a grip of essential things, but it was evident that he could bear good-humouredly with the views of others.
Nasmyth sat still after Acton left him. There were other guests in the house, and the row of windows behind him blazed with light. One or two of the big cas.e.m.e.nts were open, and music and odd bursts of laughter drifted out. Somebody, it seemed, was singing an amusing song, but the s.n.a.t.c.hes of it that reached Nasmyth struck him as pointless and inane.
He had been at Bonavista a week, but, after his simple, strenuous life in the Bush, he felt at times overwhelmed by the boisterous vivacity with which his new companions pursued their diversions. There are not many men without an occupation in the West, but Mrs. Acton knew where to lay her hands on them, and her husband sometimes said that it was the folks who had nothing worth while to do who always made the greatest fuss. But Nasmyth found it pleasant to pick up again the threads of the life which he had almost come to the conclusion that he had done with altogether. It was comforting to feel that he could sleep as long as he liked, and then rise and dress himself in whole, dry garments, while there was also a certain satisfaction in sitting down to a daintily laid and well-spread table when he remembered how often he had dragged himself back to his tent almost too worn out to cook his evening meal. On the whole, he was glad that Acton had urged him to remain another week or two.
Then he became interested as a girl stepped out of one of the lighted windows some little distance away, and, without noticing him, leaned upon the veranda bal.u.s.trade. The smile in her eyes, he fancied, suggested a certain satisfaction at the fact that what she had done had irritated somebody. Why it should do so he did not know, but it certainly conveyed that impression. In another minute a man appeared in the portico, and the manner in which he moved forward, after he had glanced along the veranda, was more suggestive still. The girl who leaned on the bal.u.s.trade no doubt saw him, and she walked towards Nasmyth, whom, apparently, she had now seen for the first time.
Nasmyth thought he understood the reason for this, and, though it was not exactly flattering to himself, he smiled as he rose and drew forward another chair. He believed most of Mrs. Acton's guests were acquainted with the fact that he was an impecunious dam-builder.
The girl, who sat down in the chair he offered, smiled when he flung his half-smoked cigar away, and Nasmyth laughed as he saw the twinkle in her eyes, for he had stopped smoking with a half-conscious reluctance.
”It really was a pity, especially as I wouldn't have minded in the least,” she observed.
Nasmyth glanced along the veranda, and saw that the man, who had discovered that there was not another chair available, was standing still, evidently irresolute. Probably he recognized that it would be difficult to preserve a becoming ease of manner in attempting to force his company upon two persons who were not anxious for it, and were sitting down. Nasmyth looked at the girl and prepared to undertake the part that he supposed she desired him to play. She was attired in what he would have described as modified evening dress, and her arms and neck gleamed with an ivory whiteness in the moonlight. She was slight in form, and curiously dainty as well as pretty. Her hair was black, and she had eyes that matched it, for they were dark and soft, with curious lights in them, but, as she settled herself beside him in the pale moonlight it seemed to him that ”dainty” did not describe her very well. She was rather elusively ethereal.
”I really don't think you could expect me to make any admission of that kind about my cigar, Miss Hamilton,” he said. ”Still, it would perhaps have been excusable. You see, I have just come out of the Bush.”
Violet Hamilton smiled. ”You are not accustomed to throw anything away up there?”
”No,” answered Nasmyth, with an air of reflection; ”I scarcely think we are. Certainly not when it's a cigar of the kind Mr. Acton supplies his guests with.”
He imagined that his companion satisfied herself that the man she evidently desired to avoid had not gone away yet, before she turned to him again.
”Aren't you risking Mrs. Acton's displeasure in sitting out here alone?” she inquired. ”You are probably aware that this is not what she expects from you?”
”I almost think the retort is obvious.” And Nasmyth wondered whether he had gone further than he intended, when he saw the momentary hardness in his companion's eyes. It suggested that the last thing her hostess had expected her to do was to keep out of the way of the man who had followed her on to the veranda. He accordingly endeavoured to divert her attention from that subject.
”Any way, I find all this rather bewildering now and then,” he said, and indicated the lights and laughter and music in the house behind him with a little movement of his hand. ”This is a very different world from the one I have been accustomed to, and it takes some time to adapt oneself to changed conditions.”
He broke off as he saw the other man slowly turn away. He looked at the girl with a smile. ”I can go on a little longer if it appears worth while.”
Violet Hamilton laughed. ”Ah,” she said, ”one should never put one's suspicions into words like that. Besides, I almost think one of your observations was a little misleading. There are reasons for believing that you are quite familiar with the kind of life you were referring to.”
It was clear to Nasmyth that she had been observing him, but he did not realize that she was then watching him with keen, half-covert curiosity. He was certainly a well-favoured man, and though his conversation and demeanour did not differ greatly from those of other young men she was accustomed to; there was also something about him which she vaguely recognized as setting him apart from the rest. He was a little more quiet than most of them, and there were a certain steadiness in his eyes, and a faint hardness in the lines of his face, which roused her interest. He had been up against it, as they say in that country, which is a thing that usually leaves its mark upon a man. It endues him with control, and, above all, with comprehension.
”Oh,” he said, ”a man not burdened with money is now and then forced to wander. He naturally picks up a few impressions here and there. I wonder if you find it chilly sitting here?”
The girl rose, with a little laugh. ”That,” she said, ”was evidently meant to afford me an opportunity. I think I should like to go down to the Inlet.”
Nasmyth, who understood this as an invitation, went with her, and, five minutes later, they strolled out upon the crown of the bluff, down the side of which a little path wound precipitously. Nasmyth held his hand out at the head of it, and they went down together cautiously, until they stood on the smooth white s.h.i.+ngle close by where the little steamer lay. The girl looked about her with a smile of appreciation.
A lane of dusky water, that heaved languidly upon the pebbles, ran inland past them under the dark rock's side, and it was very still in the shadow of the climbing firs. On the further sh.o.r.e a flood of silvery radiance, against which the dark branches cut black as ebony, streamed down into the rift, and beyond the rocky gateway there was brilliant moonlight on the smooth heave of sea. The girl glanced at it longingly, and then, though she said nothing, her eyes rested on a little beautifully modelled cedar canoe that lay close by. In another moment Nasmyth had laid his hands on it, and she noticed how easily he ran it down the beach, as she had noticed how steady of foot he was when she held fast to his hand as they came down the bluff. With a curious little smile that she remembered afterwards, he glanced towards the shadowy rocks which shut in the entrance to the Inlet.
”Shall we go and see what there is out yonder beyond those gates?” he asked.
”Ah,” replied the girl, ”what could there be? Aren't you taking an unfair advantage in appealing to our curiosity?”
Nasmyth made a whimsical gesture as he answered her, for he saw that she could be fanciful, too. ”Unsubstantial moonlight, glamour, mystery--perhaps other things as well,” he said. ”If you are curious, why shouldn't we go and see?”
She made no demur, and helping her into the canoe, he thrust the light craft off, and, with a st.u.r.dy stroke of the paddle, drove it out into the Inlet. It was a thing he was used to, for he had painfully driven ruder craft of that kind up wildly-frothing rivers, and the girl noticed the powerful swing of his shoulders and the rhythmic splash of his paddle, though there were other things that had their effect on her--the languid lapping of the brine on s.h.i.+ngle, and the gurgle round the canoe, that seemed to be sliding out towards the moonlight through a world of unsubstantial shadow. She admitted that the man interested her. He had a quick wit and a whimsical fancy that appealed to her, but he had also hard, workman's hands, and he managed the canoe as she imagined one who had undertaken such things professionally would have done.