Part 24 (2/2)

Harry said good-night. When he had gone fifty yards he looked back. She was still there, holding the gate half open with her hand, looking along the road. After him? As he went on, his thoughts were not all of Vivien.

Isobel Vintry was a puzzling girl!

The next evening he brought Vivien into the drawing-room punctually at ten.

”We're good children to-night!” he said gaily. ”We've even said good-night to one another already, and Vivien's ready to run up to bed.”

”There, Isobel, aren't we good?” cried Vivien, with her good-night kiss to Isobel.

”Any reward?” asked Harry, as the door closed behind his _fiancee_.

”What do you ask?”

”A walk to the gate. And--perhaps--an explanation.”

”Certainly no explanation. I don't mind five minutes' walk to the gate.”

This time very little was said on the way to the gate. A constraint seemed to fall on both of them. The night felt very silent, very still; the lake stretched silent and still too, mysteriously tranquil.

At last Harry spoke. ”You've forgiven me--quite?”

”Oh yes. Naturally you didn't think how--how it seemed to me. It isn't always easy to--” She paused for a moment, looking over the water. ”But it's my place in life--for the present, at all events.”

”It won't be for long. It can't be.” He laughed. ”But I must take care--compliments barred!”

”From you to me--yes.”

Again her words--or the way she said them--stirred him to an eager curiosity. She half said things, or said things with half-meanings. Was that art or accident? She did not say ”from an engaged man to his _fiancee's_ companion,” but ”from you to me.” Was the concrete--the personal--form significant?

No more pa.s.sed, save only, at the gate, ”Good-night.” But with the word she gave him her hand and smiled at him--and ever so slightly shook her head.

The next day, and the next, and the next, she left Vivien and him entirely to themselves, save when meals forced her to appear; and on none of the three nights would she walk with him to the gate, though he asked twice in words and the third time with his eyes. Was that what the little shake of her head had meant? But the two walks had left their mark. Harry chaffed and teased no more.

Vivien praised his forbearance, adding, ”I really think you hurt her feelings a little, Harry. But it was being rather absurdly touchy, wasn't it?”

”She seems to be sensitive about her position.”

Vivien made a little grimace. She was thinking that Isobel's position in the house had been at least as pleasant as her own--till Harry came to woo.

”Oh, confound this political business!” Harry suddenly broke out. ”But for that we could get married in the middle of August--as soon as your father and my people are back. I hate this waiting till October, don't you? Now you know you do, Vivien!”

She put her hand on his and pressed it gently. ”Yes, but it's pleasant as it is. I'm not so very impatient--so long as I see you every day.”

But Harry was impatient now, and rather restless. The days had ceased to glide by so easily, almost imperceptibly, in the company of his lover.

There was a feeling in him which did not make for peace--a recrudescence of those impulses of old days which his engagement was utterly to have banished. Marriage was invoked to banish them utterly now. The sooner marriage came, the better! Harry was ardent in his love-making that afternoon, and Vivien in a heaven of delight. If there was no chaff, there was no appeal to Isobel for a walk to the gate either.

”I wish she wasn't there,” he said to himself as he walked down, alone, to the gate at a punctual ten o'clock. Somehow his delight in his love for Vivien, and in hers for him, was being marred. Ever so little, ever so faintly, yet still a little, his romance was turning to duty. A delightful duty, of course, one in which his whole heart was engaged, but still no longer just the one thing--the spontaneous voluntary thing--which filled his life. It had now an opposite. Besides all else that it was, it had also--even now, even before that marriage so slow in coming--taken on the aspect of the right thing. In the remote corners of his mind--banished to those--hovered the shadowy image of its opposite.

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