第107章 At Oak Dene Manor (5)

And as Leslie Cunningham was a good and very amusing talker, and Gladys the perfection of a hostess, the dinner proved very lively, an extraordinary contrast to the dreary, vapid table talk to which Erica had lately been accustomed.After the ladies had left the room, Donovan, rather to his amusement, found the talk veering round to Luke Raeburn.Presently, Leslie Cunningham hazarded a direct question about Erica in a would-be indifferent tone.In reply, Donovan told him briefly and without comment what he knew of her history, keeping on the surface of things and speaking always with a sort of careful restraint.He was never very fond of discussing people, and perhaps in this case the realization of the thousand objections to any serious outcome of Leslie's sudden admiration strengthened his reserve.However, fate was apparently kinder though perhaps really more cruel than the host, for Donovan was summoned into the library to interview an aggrieved constituent, and Leslie finding his way to the drawing room, was only too delighted to meet Gladys going upstairs to see her children.

The lamps were lighted in the drawing room, but the curtains were not drawn, and beside the open window he saw a slim, white-robed figure.Erica was looking out into the gathering darkness.He crossed the room, and stood beside her, his heart beating quickly, all the more because she did not move or take any notice of his presence.It was unconventional, but perhaps because he was so weary of the ordinary young ladies who invariably smiled and fluttered the moment he approached them, and were so perfectly ready to make much of him, this unconventionality attracted him.

He watched her for a minute in silence.She was very happy, and was looking her loveliest.Presently she turned.

"I think it is the stillness which is so wonderful!" she exclaimed.

It was spoken with the frankness of a child, with the spontaneous confidence of the pure child-nature, which instinctively recognizes all the lovable and trustable.The clear, golden eyes looked right into his for a moment.A strange reverence awoke within him.He had seen more beautiful eyes before, but none so entirely wanting in that unreality of expression arising from a wish to produce an effect, none so beautifully sincere.

"The country stillness, you mean?" he replied.

"Yes; it is rest in itself.I have never stayed in the country before.""Is it possible!" he exclaimed.

He had often languidly discussed the comparative advantages of Murren and Zermatt with girls who took a yearly tour abroad as naturally as their dinner, but to talk to one who had spent her whole life in towns, who could enjoy a country evening so absolutely and unaffectedly, was a strange and delightful novelty.

"You are one of those who can really enjoy," he said."You are not blasee you are one of the happy mortals who keep the faculty of enjoyment as strongly all through life as in childhood.""Yes, I think I can enjoy," said Erica."But I suppose we pay for our extra faculty of enjoyment.

"You mean by being more sensitive to pain?""Yes, though that sounds rather like Dickens's Mrs.Gummidge, when she thought she felt smoky chimneys more than other people."He laughed.

"How I wish you could turn over your work to me, and go to Switzerland tomorrow in my place! Only I should wish to be there, too, for the sake of seeing you enjoy it.""Do you go tomorrow?"

"Yes, with my father."

"Ah! How delightful! I confess I do envy you a little.I do long to see snow mountains.Always living in London makes me--"He interrupted her with a sort of exclamation of horror.

"Oh! Don't abuse London!" she said, laughing."If one must live all the year round in one place, I would rather be there than anywhere.When I hear people abusing it, I always think they don't know how to use their eyes.What can be more lovely, for instance, than the view from Greenwich Park by the observatory? Don't you know that beautiful clump of Scotch firs in the foreground, and then the glimpse of the river through the trees? And then there is that lovely part by Queen Elizabeth's oak.The view in Hyde Park, too, over the Serpentine, how exquisite that is on a summer afternoon, with the Westminster towers standing up in a golden haze.Or Kensington Gardens in the autumn, when the leaves are turning, and there is blue mist in the background against the dark tree trunks.I think I love every inch of London!"Leslie Cunningham would have listened to the praises of the Black Country, if only for the sake of hearing her voice.

"Well, as far as England goes, you are in the right place for scenery now; I know a few lovelier parts than this.""What are those lights on the lower terrace?" asked Erica, suddenly.