She nodded her direction. "Tulips. Just over there. I always pilgrimise them."
"All right. Let us pilgrimise them. Tulips are like a drug. A little is exquisite, and you are led on. Excess brings no more enchantment, only nausea. You buy a million and plant your woodland, and the result is horror. A hundred would have been heavenly. That"s what I find."
She had mockery in her look, gleams of it shot with happiness to be there. "Is that what you"ve done at Martley? I shan"t praise you when I see it. I hate too-muchness."
"So do I, but always too late. I ought to learn from you, whose frugality is part of your charm. One can"t imagine too much Lucy."
"Ah, don"t be sure," she cautioned him. "Ask James."
"I shall. I"m quite equal to that. I"ll ask him to-day. He"s to be at an idiotic luncheon, to which I"m fool enough to be going.
Marchionesses and all the rest of it."
"How can you go to such things when you might be--flying?"
"Earning your displeasure? Oh, I know, I know. I didn"t know how to refuse Mallet. He seemed to want me. I was flattered. As a matter of fact--I _have_ flown."
"Alone?"
"Good Lord, no. I had an expert there. He let me have the levers. I had an illusion. But I always do."
"Do tell me your illusion."
"I thought that I could sing."
"You did sing, I"m sure."
"I might have. One miracle the more. As for the machine--it wasn"t a machine, it was a living spirit."
"A male spirit or a female spirit?"
"Female, I think. Anyhow I addressed it as such."
"What did you say to her?"
"I said, "You darling.""
That startled her, if you like! She looked frightened, then coloured deeply. Urquhart seemed full of his own thoughts.
"How"s Lancelot?" he asked her.
That helped her. "Oh, he delights me. Another "living spirit." He never fails to ask after you."
"Stout chap."
"He harps on your story. The first you ever told us. This time he put in his postscript, "How is Wives and Co?""
He nodded. "Very good. I begat an immortal. That tale will never die.
He"ll tell it to his grandchildren."
They stood, or strolled at ease, by the railings, she within them, he holding his horse outside them. The tulips were adjudged, names taken, colours approved.
"You"ll see mine," he said, "in ten days. Do you realise that?"
She was radiant. "I should think so. That has simply got to happen.
Are you going to have other people there?"
"Vera," he said, "and her man, and I rather think Considine, her man"s brother. Fat and friendly, with a beard, and knows a good deal about machines, one way and another. I want his advice about hydroplanes, among other things. You"ll like him."
"Why shall I like him?"
"Because he"s himself. He has no manners at all, only feelings. Nice feelings. That"s much better than manners."
"Yes, I dare say they are." She thought about it. "There"s a difference between manner and manners."
"Oh, rather. The more manner you have the less manners."
"Yes, I meant that. But even manners don"t imply feelings, do they?"
"I was going to say, Never. But that wouldn"t be true. You have charming manners: your feelings" clothes and a jolly good fit."
"How kind you are." She was very pleased. "Now, _you_--what shall I say?"
"You might say that I have no manners, and not offend me. I have no use for them. But I have feelings, sometimes nice, sometimes horrid."
"I am sure that you couldn"t be horrid."
"Don"t be sure," he said gravely. "I had rather you weren"t. I have done amiss in my day, much amiss; and I shall do it again."
She looked gently at him; her mouth showed the Luini compa.s.sion, long-drawn and long-suffering, because it understood. "Don"t say that.
I don"t think you mean it."
He shook his head, but did not cease to watch her. "Oh, but I mean it.
When I want a thing, I try to get it. When I see my way, I follow it.
It seems like a law of Nature. And I suppose it is one. What else is instinct?"
"Yes," she said, "but I suppose we have feelings in us so that we may realise that other people have them too."
"Yes, yes--or that we may give them to those who haven"t got any of their own."
They had become grave, and he, at least, moody. Lucy dared not push enquiry. She had the ardent desire to help and the instinct to make things comfortable on the surface, which all women have, and which makes nurses of them. But she discerned trouble ahead. Urquhart"s startling frankness had alarmed her before, and she didn"t trust herself to pa.s.s it off if it flashed once too often. Flashes like that lit up the soul, and not of the lamp-holder only.
They parted, with unwillingness on both sides, at Prince"s Gate, and Lucy sped homewards with feet that flew as fast as her winged thoughts. That "You darling" was almost proof positive. And yet he had been at Peltry that night; and yet he couldn"t have dared! Now even as she uttered that last objection she faltered; for when daring came into question, what might he not dare? Remained the first. He had been at Peltry, she knew, because she had been asked to meet him there and had refused on the opera"s account. Besides, she had heard about his riding horses as if they were motors, and-- Here she stood still; and found herself shaking. That letter--in that letter of Mabel"s about his visit to Peltry, had there not been something of a call to London, and return late for dinner? And the opera began at half-past six. What was the date of his call to London? Could she find that letter? And should she hunt for it, or leave it vague? And then she thought of Martley. And then she blushed.
CHAPTER XII