第27章 VILLA RUBEIN(25)

"Just so," he said drily, "but you see there's my niece to be thought of.Look here! We're not at the frontier yet, Mr.Harz, by forty miles; it's long odds we don't get there--so, don't spoil sport!" He pointed to the left.

Harz caught the glint of steel.They were already crossing the railway.The sigh of the telegraph wires fluttered above them.

"Hear 'em," said Mr.Treffry, "but if we get away up the mountains, we'll do yet!" They had begun to rise, the speed slackened.Mr.

Treffry rummaged out a flask.

"Not bad stuff, Mr.Harz--try it.You won't? Mother's milk! Fine night, eh?" Below them the valley was lit by webs of milky mist like the glimmer of dew on grass.

These two men sitting side by side--unlike in face, age, stature, thought, and life--began to feel drawn towards each other, as if, in the rolling of the wheels, the snorting of the horses, the huge dark space, the huge uncertainty, they had found something they could enjoy in common.The, steam from the horses' flanks and nostrils enveloped them with an odour as of glue.

"You smoke, Mr.Harz?"

Harz took the proffered weed, and lighted it from the glowing tip of Mr.Treffry's cigar, by light of which his head and hat looked like some giant mushroom.Suddenly the wheels jolted on a rubble of loose stones; the carriage was swung sideways.The scared horses, straining asunder, leaped forward, and sped downwards, in the darkness.

Past rocks, trees, dwellings, past a lighted house that gleamed and vanished.With a clink and clatter, a flirt of dust and pebbles, and the side lamps throwing out a frisky orange blink, the carriage dashed down, sinking and rising like a boat crossing billows.The world seemed to rock and sway; to dance up, and be flung flat again.

Only the stars stood still.

Mr.Treffry, putting on the brake, muttered apologetically: "A little out o'hand!"Suddenly with a headlong dive, the carriage swayed as if it would fly in pieces, slithered along, and with a jerk steadied itself.Harz lifted his voice in a shout of pure excitement.Mr.Treffry let out a short shaky howl, and from behind there rose a wail.But the hill was over and the startled horses were cantering with a free, smooth motion.Mr.Treffry and Harz looked at each other.

XVII

Mr.Treffry said with a sort of laugh: "Near go, eh? You drive? No?

That's a pity! Broken most of my bones at the game--nothing like it!" Each felt a kind of admiration for the other that he had not felt before.Presently Mr.Treffry began: "Look here, Mr.Harz, my niece is a slip of a thing, with all a young girl's notions! What have you got to give her, eh? Yourself? That's surely not enough;mind this--six months after marriage we all turn out much the same--a selfish lot! Not to mention this anarchist affair!

You're not of her blood, nor of her way of life, nor anything--it's taking chances--and--" his hand came down on the young man's knee, "I'm fond of her, you see.""If you were in my place," said Harz, "would you give her up?"Mr.Treffry groaned."Lord knows!"

"Men have made themselves before now.For those who don't believe in failure, there's no such thing.Suppose she does suffer a little?

Will it do her any harm? Fair weather love is no good."Mr.Treffry sighed.

"Brave words, sir! You'll pardon me if I'm too old to understand 'em when they're used about my niece."He pulled the horses up, and peered into the darkness."We're going through this bit quietly; if they lose track of us here so much the better.Dominique! put out the lamps.Soho, my beauties!" The horses paced forward at a walk the muffled beat of their hoofs in the dust hardly broke the hush.Mr.Treffry pointed to the left: "It'll be another thirty-five miles to the frontier."They passed the whitewashed houses, and village church with its sentinel cypress-trees.A frog was croaking in a runlet; there was a faint spicy scent of lemons.But nothing stirred.

It was wood now on either side, the high pines, breathing their fragrance out into the darkness, and, like ghosts amongst them, the silver stems of birch-trees.

Mr.Treffry said gruffly: "You won't give her up? Her happiness means a lot to me.""To you!" said Harz: "to him! And I am nothing! Do you think Idon't care for her happiness? Is it a crime for me to love her?""Almost, Mr.Harz--considering...."

"Considering that I've no money! Always money!"To this sneer Mr.Treffry made no answer, clucking to his horses.

"My niece was born and bred a lady," he said at last."I ask you plainly What position have you got to give her?""If she marries me," said Harz, "she comes into my world.You think that I'm a common...."Mr.Treffry shook his head: "Answer my question, young man."But the painter did not answer it, and silence fell.

A light breeze had sprung up; the whispering in the trees, the rolling of the wheels in this night progress, the pine-drugged air, sent Harz to sleep.When he woke it was to the same tune, varied by Mr.Treffry's uneasy snoring; the reins were hanging loose, and, peering out, he saw Dominique shuffling along at the horses' heads.

He joined him, and, one on each side, they plodded up and up.A haze had begun to bathe the trees, the stars burnt dim, the air was colder.Mr.Treffry woke coughing.It was like some long nightmare, this interminable experience of muffled sounds and shapes, of perpetual motion, conceived, and carried out in darkness.But suddenly the day broke.Heralded by the snuffle of the horses, light began glimmering over a chaos of lines and shadows, pale as mother-o'-pearl.The stars faded, and in a smouldering zigzag the dawn fled along the mountain tops, flinging out little isles of cloud.From a lake, curled in a hollow like a patch of smoke, came the cry of a water-bird.A cuckoo started a soft mocking; and close to the carriage a lark flew up.Beasts and men alike stood still, drinking in the air-sweet with snows and dew, and vibrating faintly with the running of the water and the rustling of the leaves.