"Yes, yes. I ask so little, you see. But you despise me for it."
"G.o.d forbid. I promised you that you shouldn"t repent this trip. And you don"t, I hope?"
Her eyes were wide open and serious. "No, indeed. I never expected to be so happy as this. It never happened to me before." She had no compunctions at all--but he was in the fatuous stage, drugged by his own imaginings.
"That"s good. Shall we go down to the water?"
"I think we might," she said, not daring to look back into the room, lest he should think that she feared him.
They strolled leisurely through the wood, she in a soft rapture of delight at the still grey beauty of the night; Urquhart in a state of mind bordering upon frenzy. He gripped himself by both hands to make sure of the mastery. What gave him conviction was his constant sense of Lucy"s innocency. This beautiful woman had the heart of a child and the patience of the mother of a G.o.d. To shock the one or gibe at the other were a blasphemy he simply couldn"t contemplate. What then was to be the end of it? He didn"t know; he didn"t care. She loved him, he believed; she had kissed him, therefore she must love him. Such women don"t give their lips without their hearts. But then she had been scared, and had cried off? Well, that, too, he seemed to understand. That was where her sense of law came in. He could not but remember that it would have come in before, had she known who her lover was. As things fell out, she slipped into love without knowing it. The moment she had known it, she withdrew to the shadow of her hearth. That was his Lucy all over. _His_ Lucy? Yes, for that wasn"t the Solicitor"s Lucy--if, indeed, the solicitor had a Lucy. But had he? A little weakness of Urquhart"s was to pride himself on being a man of whims, and to suppose such twists of the mind his unique possession. All indeed that he had of unique was this, that he invariably yielded to his whims; whereas other people did not.
However, he set a watch upon himself on this night of witchery, and succeeded perfectly. They talked leisurely and quietly--of anything or nothing; the desultory, fragmentary interjections of comment which pa.s.s easily between intimates. Lucy"s share was replete with soft wonderings at the beauty of the world. Neither of them answered the other.
Under the birch-trees it was light, but very damp. He wouldn"t allow her to stop there, but bade her higher up the hillside. There were pines there which were always dry. "Wait you there," he said; "I"m going back to get you a wrap." She would have stopped him, but he had gone.
Urquhart, walking up sharply to the house, was not at all prepared for Macartney walking as sharply down from it. In fact, he was very much put out, and the more so because from the first James took the upper hand.
"Hulloa," said the lord of the eyegla.s.s.
"Hulloa, yourself," said Urquhart, and stopped, which he need not have done, seeing that Macartney with complete nonchalance continued his walk.
"Seen my wife anywhere?" came from over his shoulder. Urquhart turned on his heels. "Yes," he said, and walked on.
There was an end of one, two and three--as the rhyme goes. Urquhart was hot with rage. That bland, blundering fool, that gla.s.shouse, that d.a.m.ned supercilious a.s.s: all this and more he cried upon James. He scorned him for his jealousy; he cursed him for it; he vowed that he would carry her off before his very eyes. "Let her give the word, lift an eyebrow, and I take her across the world." And the lad too, bless him. What did the quill-driver want of them but credit? d.a.m.n him, he hung them up in his house, as tradesmen use the royal arms. He baited for his deans and chapters with them. He walked far into the night in a pa.s.sion of anger. It never once occurred to him that James was a rival. And there he was right.
He thought that Urquhart had certainly been with Lucy; he knew that he was in love with her; but oddly enough that stimulated instead of quelled him. It enhanced her. It made her love worth keeping. He had a great respect, in his heart of hearts, for Urquhart"s validity in a world of action which certainly comprehended the taking and keeping of hearts. Now he came to think of it, he must confess that he had never loved Lucy as he did now until he had observed that so redoubtable a champion was in the lists against him. Odd thing! He had been jealous of Francis Lingen, as he now was of Urquhart; but it was the latter jealousy which had made him desire Lucy. The former had simply disgusted him, the latter had spurred him to rivalry--and now to main desire. James was no philosopher; he had an idle mind except in the conduct of his business. He could not attempt, then, to explain his state of mind--but he was very much interested. Soon he saw her in the dusk under the pines: a slim white shape, standing with one hand upon the trunk of a tree. Her back was towards him; she did not turn.
She supposed that it was Urquhart come back, and was careful not to seem waiting for him. "How quick you have been!" she said lightly, and stood where she was. No answer was returned. Then came a shock indeed, and her head seemed to flood with fear. Two hands from behind her covered her eyes; her head was drawn gently back, and she was kissed ardently on the lips. She struggled wildly; she broke away. "Oh!" she said, half sobbing. "Oh, how cruel you are--how cruel! How could you dare to do it?" And then, free of the hands, she turned upon Urquhart--and saw James. "Oh, my love!" she said, and ran to him and broke into tears.
James had secured his eyegla.s.s, but now let it drop. He allowed her to cry her fill, and then made the best of a rather bad business. "If every man who kissed his wife," said he, "was answered like that, lips would go dry."
She said through her tears, "You see, I thought you were Mr. Urquhart with my wrap."
"Oh, the d.i.c.kens you did," said James. "And is that how Mr. Urquhart usually brings you a wrap?"
She clung to him. "Well, no. If he did, I suppose I shouldn"t have been so angry--by this time."
"That"s a very good answer," James allowed. "I"ll only make one comment upon it. You cried out upon the cruelty of the attack. Now if it had been--a.s.sume it for the moment--our--well, friend, let us say, why would it have been cruel of him? Shameful, flagrant, audacious, impudent, insolent, all that I can understand. But cruel, Lucy?"
Lucy"s cheek was upon his shoulder, and she let it stay there, even while she answered. The moment was serious. She must tell him as much as she dared. Certain things seemed out of the question; but something she must tell him.
"You see, James," she said, "I think Mr. Urquhart is fond of me--in fact, I"m sure of it--"
"Has he told you so?"
"Not in so many words--but--"
"But in so many other words, eh? Well, pursue."
"And I told him that I couldn"t possibly join the party--on that account."
"Did you tell him it was on that account?"
"No," said Lucy, "I didn"t; but he understood that. I know he understood it, because he immediately said that if I would come I shouldn"t repent it. And I haven"t. He has never made me feel uncomfortable. But just now--when I was expecting him--oh, it seemed to me quite horrible--and I was furious with him."
"You were indeed. It didn"t occur to you that it might have been--well, somebody with more right."
Her arm tightened, but she said nothing. The unconscious James went on. "I was wrong. A man has no right to kiss a woman unawares--in the dark. Even if it"s his wife. She"ll always want to know who it was, and she"s bound to find out. And he"ll get no thanks for it, either."
Then it became necessary for Lucy to thank him.
"Mind you, my dear," he told her. "I have no quarrel with Jimmy Urquhart up to now. You say he"s in love with you, and I think that he is. I"ve thought so for some time, and I confess that I didn"t relish the idea that he should be out here with us. But since we are in for confessions I"ll make one more. If he hadn"t been in love with you I don"t believe that I should be--as I am now."
Lucy laughed--the laugh of a woman rich. "Then I"m very much obliged to him," she said.
But Urquhart was harder to convince than James.
CHAPTER XX
FAIR WARNING
Vera Nugent, a brisk woman of the world, with a fondness for vivid clothing and a Spanish air which went oddly with it, took the trouble one fine day to tackle her brother. "Look here, Jimmy," she said as they breasted a mountain pa.s.s, "are you quite sure what you are up to with these people?"
Urquhart"s eyes took a chill tinge--a hard and pebbly stare. "I don"t know what you mean," he said.
"Men always say that, especially when they know very well. Of course I mean the Macartneys. You didn"t suppose I was thinking of the Poplolly?" The Poplolly, I regret to say, was Francis Lingen, whom Vera abhorred. The term was opprobrious, and inexact.
But Urquhart shrouded himself in ice. "Perhaps you might explain yourself," he said.
Vera was not at all sure that she would. "You make it almost impossible, you know."
They were all out in a party, and were to meet the luncheon and the boys, who had gone round in the boat. As parties will have it, they had soon scattered. Lingen had taken Margery Dacre to himself, Lucy was with her husband. Urquhart, now he came to think of it, began to understand that the sceptre was out of his hands. The pa.s.s, worn out of the shelving rock by centuries of foot-work, wound itself about the breasting cliffs like a scarf; below them lay the silver fiord, and upon that, a mere speck, they could see the motor-boat, with a wake widening out behind her like parallel lines of railway.
Urquhart saw in his mind that he would be a fool to quarrel with Vera.
She was not on his side, he could feel; but he didn"t despair of her.
One way of putting her off him forever was to allow her to think him a fool. That he could not afford.
"Don"t turn against me for a mannerism, my dear," he said.
"I turn against you, if at all, for a lack of mannerism," said Vera briskly. "It"s too bad of you. Here I am as so much ballast for your party, and when I begin to make myself useful, you pretend I"m not there. But I _am_ there, you know."
"I was cross," he said, "because I"m rather worried, and I thought you were going to worry me more."
"Well, maybe that I am,"--she admitted that. "But I don"t like to see a sharp-faced man make a donkey of himself. The credit of the family is at stake."