It"s a purely selfish thing with me, and I"m blowed if I consider it an honour to be refused by any woman. I--"
"Mr. Wrandall!" she cried, fixing him with her flashing, indignant eyes. "You are forgetting yourself." She was standing very straight and slim and imperious before him.
He quailed. "I--I beg your pardon. I--I--"
"There is nothing more to be said," she went on icily. "Good-bye."
"Would you mind telling me whether there is any one else?" he asked, as he turned toward the door.
"Do you really feel that you have the right to ask that question, Mr. Wrandall?"
He wet his lips with his tongue. "Then, there IS some one!"
he cried, rapping the table with his knuckles. He didn"t realise till afterward how vigorously he rapped. "Some confounded English n.o.body, I suppose."
She smiled, not unkindly. "There is no English n.o.body, if that answers your question."
"Then, will you be kind enough to offer a reason for not giving me a fair chance in a clear field? I think it"s due--"
"Can"t you see how you are distressing me? Must I again go through that horrid scene in the garden? Can"t you take a plain no for an answer?"
"Good Lord!" he gasped, and in those two words he revealed the complete overturning of a life-long estimate of himself. It seemed to take more than his breath away.
"Good-bye," she said with finality.
He stared at the door through which she disappeared, his hopes, his conceit, his self-regard trailing after her with shameless disloyalty to the standards he had set for them, and then, with a rather ghastly smile of self-commiseration on his lips, he slipped out of the house, jumped into the motor car, and gave a brief but explicit command to the chauffeur, who lost no time in a.s.sisting his master to turn tail in ignominious flight.
Hetty was gloomily but resolutely employed in laying out certain of her personal belongings, preparatory to packing them for departure, when Sara entered her room.
They regarded each other steadily, questioningly for a short s.p.a.ce of time.
"Leslie has just called up to ask "what the devil" I meant by letting him make a fool of himself," said Sara, with a peculiar little twisted smile on her lips.
Hetty offered no comment, but after a moment gravely and rather wistfully called attention to her present occupation by a significant flaunt of her hand and a saddened smile.
"I see," said Sara, without emotion. "If you choose to go, Hetty, I shall not oppose you."
"My position here is a false one, Sara. I prefer to go."
"This morning I should have held a sword over your head."
"It is very difficult for me to realise all that has happened."
"You are free to depart. You are free in every sense of the word.
Your future rests with yourself, my dear."
"It hurts me more than I can tell to feel that you have been hating me all these months."
"It hurts me--now."
Hetty walked to the window and looked out.
"What are your plans?" Sara inquired, after an interval.
"I shall seek employment--and wait for you to act."
"I? You mean?"
"I shall not run away, Sara. Nor do I intend to reveal myself to the authorities. I am not morally guilty of crime. A year ago I feared the consequences of my deed, but I have learned much since then. I was a stranger in a new world. In England we have been led to believe that you lynch women here as readily as you lynch men.
I now know better than that. From you alone I learned my greatest lesson. You revealed to me the true meaning of human kindness.
You shielded me who should not. Even now I believe that your first impulse was a tender one. I shall not forget it, Sara. You will live to regret the baser thought that came later on. I have loved you--yes, almost as a good dog loves his master. It is not for me to tell the story of that night and all these months to the world.
I would not be betraying myself, but you. You would be called upon to explain, not I. And you would be the one to suffer. When you met me on the road that night I was on my way back to the inn to give myself into custody. You have made it impossible for me to do so now. My lips are sealed. It rests with you, Sara."
Sara joined her in the broad window. There was a strangely exalted look in her face. A gilded bird-cage hung suspended in the cas.e.m.e.nt.
Without a word, she threw open the window screen. The gay little canary in the gilded cage c.o.c.ked his head and watched her with alert eyes. Then she reached up and gently removed the cage from its fastenings. Putting it down upon the window sill, she opened the tiny door. The bird hopped about his prison in a state of great excitement.
Hetty looked on, fascinated.
At last a yellow streak shot out through the open door and an instant later resolved itself into the bobbing, fluttering d.i.c.ky-bird that had lived in a cage all its life without an hour of freedom. For a few seconds it circled over the tree-tops and then alighted on one of the branches. One might well have imagined that he could hear its tiny heart beating with terror. Its wings were half-raised and fluttering, its head jerking from side to side in wild perturbation. Taking courage, Master d.i.c.ky hopped timorously to a nearby twig, and then ventured a flight to a tree-top nearer the window cas.e.m.e.nt. Perched in its topmost branches he cheeped shrilly, as if there was fear in his little breast.
In silence the two women in the window watched the agitated movements of the bird. The same thought was in the mind of each, the same question, the same intense wish.
A brown thrush sped through the air, close by the timid canary. Like a flash it dropped to the twigs lower down, its wings palpitating in violent alarm.
"d.i.c.ky!" called Sara Wrandall, and then cheeped between her teeth.
A moment later d.i.c.ky was fluttering about the eaves; his circles grew smaller, his winging less rhythmic, till at last with a nervous little flutter he perched on the top of the window shutter, so near that they might have reached to him with their hands. He sat there with his head c.o.c.ked to one side.
"d.i.c.ky!" called Sara again. This time she held out her finger. For some time he regarded it with indifference, not to say disfavour.
Then he took one more flight, but much shorter than the first, bringing up again at the shutter-top. A second later he hopped down and his little talons gripped Sara"s finger with an earnestness that left no room for doubt.
She lowered her hand until it was even with the open door of the gilded cage. He shot inside with a whir that suggested a scramble.
With his wings folded, he sat on his little trapeze and cheeped.
She closed and fastened the door, and then turned to Hetty.
"My symbol," she said softly.
There were tears in Hetty"s eyes.
Leslie did not turn up at his father"s place in the High Street that night until Booth was safely out of the way. He spent a dismal evening at the boat club.
His father and mother were in the library when he came in at half-past ten. From a dark corner of the garden he had witnessed Booth"s early departure. Vivian had gone down to the gate in the low-lying hedge with her visitor. She came in a moment after Leslie"s entrance.
"h.e.l.lo, Les," she said, bending an inquiring eye upon him. "Isn"t this early for you?"
Her brother was standing near the fireplace.
"There"s a heavy dew falling, Mater," he said gruffly. "Shan"t I touch a match to the kindling?"
His mother came over to him quickly, and laid her hand on his arm.