She smiled quietly, a very wise and superior smile.
To this point the car had been steadily ascending; the noise of the motor, together with the frequent stutterings of the exhaust with the m.u.f.fler cut-out, had been sufficient to disguise the substance of their communication from the ears of the operator. Now, however, they surmounted the highest point and began the more gradual descent to the Tankerville estate. And with less noise there was consequently very little talking on the part of the two on the rear seat. For which Matthias wasn"t altogether sorry. He wanted time to think--to think about Venetia Tankerville in the new light cast upon her by his aunt"s concluding remark: as affected by her friendship with Vincent Marbridge.
In the natural swing of events, it would never have occurred to him to consider Marbridge"s attentions seriously. n.o.body ever took Marbridge seriously, he believed, aside from a few exceptionally foolish women....
Noiselessly the car slipped down a mile-long avenue to the brow of a promontory. On either hand Tanglewood"s long parked terraces fell away to the water: on the left the harbour of Port Madison, on the right, Long Island Sound.
Matthias was barely conscious of these things; his mood was haunted by an extraordinarily clear vision of Vincent Marbridge: not tall, but by no means short; a trifle stout, but none the less a well-knit figure of a man, and tremendously alive; dark, with a broad, blunt, good-humoured face and seal-brown eyes that were exceedingly handsome and expressive; keen-witted and accomplished, knowing almost everybody and every place and thing worth knowing; hedonist and egoist, selfish, unscrupulous, magnetic, fascinating.
Impressed, Matthias frowned. His aunt eyed him covertly, with a sly, semi-affectionate, semi-malicious smile shadowing her mouth.
Slackening its pace, the car took the wide semicircle of the drive and slid sedately to a dead stop by the carriage-block. Matthias pulled himself together, jumped out, and gave his hand to his aunt. They turned toward the house.
Tankerville"s pretentious marble palace crowned the brow of the headland with an effect as exquisite as a dream of an ancient French chateau realized in snow. For this its owner had his wife to thank. Helena, unable to curb her husband"s desire for the most expensive and ostentatious place obtainable, had at least guided his choice of design.
It was too magnificent, it was overpowering, but it was beautiful; and it was more than ever beautiful at this hour, with its walls in part bathed in a rose-pink light of sunset, in part shadowed as with a wash of violet, and with all its admirable proportions stark against the dusky sapphire of the Sound.
An unwonted stillness clung about the place. Matthias wondered.
"It might be the palace of the Sleeping Beauty," he said. "Why this deadly and benumbing silence? What--"
"Oh, simply that Tankerville decided this morning to take everybody down to Huntington for lunch. They got away quite early, in the Enchantress.
Come out on the terrace; we"ll look for them."
They pa.s.sed through a wide, cool, panelled hallway.
"Why didn"t you go?"
"You know I hate the water. Besides, I had a headache--at least, I had one until the Enchantress got under way; and furthermore I meant to stay at home and meet you and talk it out."
"Venetia went, of course?"
"Of course--_and_ Marbridge--and everybody!"
He grunted thoughtfully. They descended to a terrace which jutted airily out over the edge of a cliff, with a sheer drop of a hundred and fifty feet to the beach.
Helena, dropping languidly into a wicker chair, motioned Matthias to the broad marble bal.u.s.trade.
"Any sign of the Enchantress, O perturbed nephew?"
He lingered there for an instant, marvelling with an inexhaustible wonder at the magnificent sweep of the view, then remembering, raked the waters until he discovered Tankerville"s power-cruiser standing in toward the dock from the bottle-neck mouth of Port Madison harbour.
Returning, he reported, seated himself near his aunt, lighted a cigarette.
"Why did you ask him here anyway?" he demanded abruptly.
"Who?" she parried mischievously.
"Marbridge, of course," he admitted, sulking in the face of her manifest amus.e.m.e.nt.
"Jealous, Jackie?"
"Oh--if you insist."
She laughed. "The most encouraging symptom you"ve yet betrayed!... I didn"t ask him. Tankerville did. He likes him. The man"s amusing, after all."
"But you like him?"
"He amuses me."
"He"s not precisely a tame cat...."
"Dear boy!" she laughed again, "I didn"t fetch you out here to worry about me. I"m fire-proof. Venetia"s quite another pair of shoes. Fret about her as much as you like."
"When does he go--Marbridge, I mean?"
"Monday, I think. At least, I believe Tankerville asked him for a week only."
"And that"s why you asked me, this particular week?"
"I thought you"d be a good counter-irritant; and hoped you"d come to your senses and secure Venetia against all Marbridges for all time to come. You gave me to understand you would."
"Pardon," he corrected a trifle stiffly: "I admitted to you in strict confidence that I was in love with Venetia. I never promised to ask her to marry me."
"Well, that"s what I understood you to mean. And anyway, you"d better.
Neither Tankerville nor I can control the girl; she"s her own mistress and headstrong enough to be a good match for any Matthias that ever lived. If Marbridge ever convinces her that she likes him...."
She concluded with an eloquent ellipsis.
"Probably," mused Matthias after prolonged deliberation, "I"d have lost my head before this if it hadn"t been so full of that play."
Helena smiled indulgently. "It"s not too late ... I hope."
Troubled, he rose, walked to the bal.u.s.trade, jerked his cigarette into s.p.a.ce, and returned.
"As between one fortune-hunter and another," he said gloomily, "I"m conceited enough to think myself the safer bet."
His aunt smiled more openly: "See what Venetia thinks."
"I will!" said Matthias with a fine air of inalterable determination.
VIII
Since it was her whim and the winds indulged, Helena had ordered that the rite of the late dinner be celebrated by candlelight alone. Ten shaded candles graced the places. In the centre of the table an ancient candelabrum of gold added the mellow illumination of its seven alabaster arms, whose small flames yearned upward ardently, with scarce a perceptible flicker, though every window was wide to the whispering night.
One of these that faced Matthias framed a shimmering sky of stars and the still black shield of the Sound, on which the fixed and undeviating glare of a remote light-house was reflected darkly, a long unwavering way of light; he thought of a tall wax candle burning amid the sanctified shadows of some vast and dark and still cathedral....