Part 26 (1/2)

”Which we have supposed--”

”Would make you my mother-in-law?”

”Well, your stepmother-in-law. That doesn't sound quite so oppressive, I hope?”

”They both sound to me considerably absurd.”

”I really can't see why they should.”

Their eyes met in confidence, mirthful and defiant. They fought their duel now, forgetful of everybody except themselves. His old spirit had seized on Harry; it carried him away. She gave herself up to the delight of her triumph and to the pleasure that his challenge gave her. Out of sight, out of mind, were Vivien and Andy.

”But relations.h.i.+p has its consolations, its privileges,” said Harry, leaning towards her, his face alight with mischievous merriment. He offered her his hand. ”At all events, accept my congratulations.”

She gave him her hand. ”You're premature, both with congratulations and with relations.h.i.+p.”

”Oh, I'm always in a hurry about things,” laughed Harry, holding her hand. He leant closer yet; his face was very near hers now--his comely face with its laughing luring eyes. She did not retreat. Harry saw in her eyes, in her flushed cheeks and quickened breath, in her motionlessness, the permission that he sought. Bending, he kissed her cheek.

She gave a little laugh, triumphant, yet deprecatory and nervous. Her face was all aflame. Harry's gaze was on her; slowly he released her hand. She stood an instant longer, then, with a shrug of her shoulders, walked across the room towards the windows. Harry stood watching her, exultant and merry still.

Suddenly she came to a stand. She spoke without looking round. ”Vivien's shawl was on that chair.”

The words hardly reached his preoccupied brain. ”What? Whose shawl?”

She turned round slowly. ”Vivien's shawl was on that chair, and it's gone,” she said.

Harry darted past her to the window, and looked out. He came back to her on tiptoe and whispered, ”Andy! He's about two-thirds of the way across the terrace with the thing now.”

”He must have come in just a moment ago,” she whispered in return.

Harry nodded. ”Yes--just a moment ago. I wonder--!” He pursed up his lips, but still there was a laughing devil in his eye. ”Lucky she didn't come for it herself!” he said. ”But--well, I wonder!”

She laid her finger on her lips. They heard steps approaching, and Vivien's merry voice. Harry made a queer, half-puzzled, half-amused grimace. Isobel walked quickly on to the terrace. Inside the light fell too mercilessly on her cheeks; she would meet them beneath the friendly cover of the night.

Chapter XII.

CONCERNING A STOLEN KISS.

A stolen kiss may mean very different things--almost nothing (not quite nothing, or why steal it?), something yet not too much, or well-nigh everything. The two parties need not give it the same value; a witness of it is not, of necessity, bound by the valuation of either of them. It may be merely a jest, of such taste as charity can allow in the circ.u.mstances; it may be the crown and end of a slight and pa.s.sing flirtation; it may be the first visible mark of a pa.s.sion destined to grow to fierce intensity. Or it may seem utterly evasive in its significance at the moment, as it were indecipherable and imponderable, waiting to receive from the future its meaning and its weight.

The last man to find his way through a maze of emotional a.n.a.lysis was Andy Hayes; his mind held no thread of experience whereby to track the path, his temperament no instinct to divine it. He could not a.s.sign a value--or values--to the incident of which chance had made him a witness; what Harry's impulse, Isobel's obvious acceptance of it, the intensity and absorption that marked the bearing of the two in the brief moment in which he saw them as he lifted Vivien's shawl, stood looking for a flash of time, and quickly turned away--what these things meant or amounted to he could not tell. But there was no uncertainty about his feelings; he was filled with deep distaste. He was not a man of impracticable ideals--his mind walked always in the mean--but he was naturally averse from intrigue, from underhand doings, from the playing of double parts. They were traitors in this thing; let it mean the least it could, even to mere levity or unbecoming jocularity (their faces rose in his mind to contradict this view even as he put it), still they were so far traitors. The first brunt of his censure fell on Isobel, but his allegiance to Harry was also so sorely shaken that it seemed as though it could never be the same again. The engagement had been to Andy a sacrosanct thing; it was now sacrilegiously defaced by the hands of the two most bound to guard it. ”Very low-down!” was Andy's humble phrase of condemnation--at least very low-down; how much more he knew not but that in the best view of the case. At the moment his heart had gone out to Vivien in a great pang of compa.s.sion; it seemed such a shame to tamper with, even if not actually to betray, a trust like hers. His face, like Isobel's, had been red--but red with anger--under the cover of the night. He was echoing the Nun's ”Poor girl!” which in loyalty to his friend he had before resented.

His first impulse had been to s.h.i.+eld Vivien from any suspicion; it taught him a new cunning, an hypocrisy not his own. If Isobel delayed their return to the brightly lighted room, he did not hurry it--let all the faces have time to recover! But his voice was calm and unmoved; for him he was even talkative and exuberant. When they went in, he met Harry with an unembarra.s.sed air. Relief rose in Isobel; yet Harry doubted. So far as Harry could reason, he must have all but seen, probably had actually seen. And in one thing there was significance. He went on devoting himself to Vivien; he did not efface himself in Harry's favour, as his wont was. He seemed to make his presence a fence round her, forbidding her lover's approach. Harry, now talking trifles to Isobel, watched him keenly, hardly doubting, hardly venturing to hope.

”Till lunch to-morrow, Harry,” said Vivien gaily, when the time for good-night came. ”You'll come too, won't you, Mr. Hayes?”

”Thanks awfully, but I'm off for a big tramp.”

”To dinner then?” asked Isobel very graciously.

”Thanks awfully, but I--I really must sup with old Jack.”

The quickest glance ran from Harry to Isobel.