第59章

When Mrs.Hosack rose from the dinner table and sailed Olympically into the drawing-room, surrounded by graceful light craft in the persons of Primrose and her girl friends, the men, as usual, followed immediately.The house was bridge mad, and the tables called every one except Joan, the nice boy, and Gilbert Palgrave.

During the preliminaries of an evening which would inevitably run into the small hours, Joan went over to the piano and, with what was a quite unconscious touch of irony, played one of Heller's inimitable "Sleepless Nights," with the soft pedal down.The large imposing room, a chaotic mixture of French and Italian furniture with Flemish tapestries and Persian rugs, which accurately typified the ubiquitous mind of the hostess, was discreetly lighted.The numerous screened windows were open and the soft warm air came in tinged with the salt of the sea.

Palgrave, refusing to cut in, stood about like a disembodied spirit, with his eyes on Joan, from whom, since his arrival, he had received only a few fleeting glances.He watched the cursed boy, as he had labelled him, slip over to her, lean across the piano and talk eagerly.He went nearer and caught, "the car in half an hour," and "not a word to a soul." After which, with jealousy gnawing at his vitals, he saw Harry Oldershaw moon about for a few minutes and then make a fishlike dart out of the room.He had been prepared to find Joan amorously surrounded by the men of the party but not on terms of sentimental intimacy with a smooth-faced lad.In town she had shown preference for sophistication.He went across to the piano and waited impatiently for Joan to finish the piece which somehow fitted into his mood."Come out," he said, then, "I want to speak to you."But Joan let her fingers wander into a waltz and raised her eyebrows."Do I look so much like Alice that you can order me about?" she asked.

He turned on his heel with the look of a dog at which a stone had been flung by a friend, and disappeared.

Two minutes later there was a light touch on his arm, and Joan stood at his side on the veranda."Well, Gilbert," she said, "it's good to see you again.""So good that I might be a man touting for an encyclopedia," he answered angrily.

She sat upon the rough stone wall and crossed her little feet.Her new frock was white and soft and very perfectly simple.It demanded the young body of a nymph,--and was satisfied.The magic of the moon was on her.She might have been Spring resting after a dancing day.

"If you were," she said, taking a delight in unspoiling this immaculate man, "I'm afraid you'd never get an order from me.Of all things the encyclopedia must be accompanied by a winning smile and irresistible manners.I suppose you've done lots of amusing things since I saw you last."He went nearer so that her knees almost touched him."No," he said.

"Only one, and that was far from amusing.It has marked me like a blow.I've been waiting for you.Where have you been, and why haven't you taken the trouble to write me a single letter?""I've been ill," she said."Yes, I have.Quite ill.I deliberately set out to hurt myself and succeeded.It was an experiment that Isha'n't repeat.I don't regret it.It taught me something that Ishall never forget.Never too young to learn, eh? Isn't it lovely here? Just smell the sea, and look at those lights bobbing up and down out there.I never feel any interest in ships in the daytime, but at night, when they lie at anchor, and I can see nothing but their lonely eyes, I would give anything to be able to fly round them like a gull and peep into their cabins.Do they affect you like that?"Palgrave wasn't listening to her.It was enough to look at her and refresh his memory.She had been more than ever in his blood all these weeks.She was like water in a desert or sunlight to a man who comes up from a mine.He had found her again and he thanked whatever god he recognized for that, but he was forced to realize from her imperturbable coolness and unaffected ease that she was farther away from him than ever.To one of his temperament and schooling this was hard to bear with any sort of self-control.The fact that he wanted her of all the creatures on earth, that she, alone among women, had touched the fuse of his desire, and that, knowing this, she could sit there a few inches from his lips and put a hundred miles between them, maddened him, from whom nothing hitherto had been impossible.

"Have I got to begin all over again?" he asked, with a sort of petulance.

"Begin what, Gilbert?" There was great satisfaction in playing with one who thought that he had only to touch a bell to bring the moon and the sun and the stars to his bidding.

"Good God," he cried out."You're like wet sand on which a man expects to find yesterday's footmarks.Hasn't anything of me and the things I've said to you remained in your memory?""Of course," she said."I shall never forget the night you took me to the Brevoort, for instance, and supplied the key to all the people with unkempt hair and comic ties."Some one on the beach below shot out a low whistle.