"I can"t be philosophical, unluckily."
"My dear, we have no choice. It isn"t we who move the pieces in the game."
A silence followed. Then, as Kitty vaguely murmured something about tea, St. John helped her out of the hammock, and together they strolled towards the house. They found tea in progress on the square lawn facing the sea and every one foregathered there. Nan, apparently in wild spirits, was fooling inimitably, and she bestowed a small, malicious smile on Kitty as she and Lord St. John joined the group around the tea-table.
It was a glorious afternoon. The sea lay dappled with light and shade as the sun and vagrant breezes played with it, while for miles along the coast the great cliffs were wrapt in a soft, quivering haze so that the lines and curves of their vari-coloured strata, and the bleak, sheer menace of their height, as they overhung the blue water lapping on the sands below, were screened from view.
"There are some heavenly sandwiches here," announced Nan. "That is, if Sandy has left any. Have you, Sandy?"
Sandy McBain grinned responsively. He was the somewhat surprising offspring of the union between Nan"s Early Victorian aunt, Eliza, and a prosaic and entirely uninteresting Scotsman. Red-haired and freckled, with the high cheekbones of his Celtic forebears, he was a young man of undeniable ugliness, redeemed only by a pair of green eyes as kind and honest as a dog"s, and by a voice of surprising charm and sweetness.
"Not many," he replied easily. "I gave you all the largest, anyway."
"Sandy says he hasn"t left any," resumed Nan calmly.
"At least, only small ones. We mustn"t blame him. What are they made of, Kitty? They"d beguile a fasting saint--let alone a material person like Sandy."
"Salmon paste and cress," replied Mrs. Seymour mildly.
"I bet any money its salmon and shrimp paste," declared Sandy. "And it"s the vulgar shrimp which appeals."
He helped himself unostentatiously to another sandwich.
"Your eighth," commented Nan.
"It"s the shrimpness of them," he murmured plaintively. "I can"t help it."
"Well, draw the line somewhere," she returned. "If we"re going to play duets after tea and you continue to absorb sandwiches at your present rate of consumption, you"ll soon be incapable of detecting the inherent difference between a quaver and a semibreve."
"Then I shall count," said Sandy.
"No."
"Aloud," he added firmly.
"Sandy, you"re a beast!"
"Not a bit. I believe I could compose a symphonic poem under the influence of salmon and shrimp sandwiches--if I had enough of them."
"You"ve had enough," retorted Nan promptly. "So come along and begin."
She swept him away to the big music-room, where a polished floor and an absence of draperies offered no hindrance to the tones of the beautiful Bluthner piano. Some of the party drifted in from the terrace outside as Sandy"s long, boyish fingers began to move capably over the keys, extemporising delightfully.
"If he were only a little older," whispered Kitty to Lord St. John.
"Inveterate match-maker!" he whispered back.
Sandy pulled Nan down on to the music seat beside him.
"_The Shrimp Symphony_ in A flat minor, arranged for four hands," he announced. "Come on, Nan. Time, seven-four--"
"Sandy, don"t be ridiculous!"
"Why not seven-four?"--innocently. "You have five-four. Come along.
_One_, two, three, four, five, six, sev"n; _one_, two, three, four, five--"
And the next moment the two were improvising a farcical duet that in its way was a masterpiece of ingenious musicianship. Thence they pa.s.sed on to more serious music until finally Sandy was persuaded to produce his violin--he had two, one of which, as he was wont to remark, "lodged" at Mallow. With the help of Penelope and Ralph Fenton, the afternoon was whiled away until a low-toned gong, reverberating through the house was a warning that it was time to dress for dinner, brought the impromptu concert to an abrupt end.
CHAPTER IX
A SKIRMISH WITH DEATH
It was a soft, misty day when Trenby called to drive Nan over to the Trevithick Kennels--one of those veiled mornings which break about noon into a glory of blue sky and golden sunlight.
As she stepped into the waiting car, Roger stopped her abruptly.
"Go back and put on something thicker," he commanded. "It"ll be chilly driving in this mist."
"But it"s going to be hot later on," protested Nan.
"Yes, only it happens to be now that we"re driving--and it will be cool again, in the evening when I bring you back."
Nan laughed.
"Nonsense!" she said and put her foot on the step of the car. Trenby, standing by to help her in, closed his hand firmly round her arm and held her back. His hawk"s eyes flashed a little.
"I shan"t take you unless you do as I say," he observed.
She stared at him in astonishment. Then she turned away as though to re-enter the house.
"Oh, very well," she replied airily.
Roger bit his lip, then followed her rapidly. He did not in the least like yielding his point.
"Come back, then--and catch a cold if you like!" he said ungraciously.
Nan paused and looked up at him.
"Do you think I should catch cold?"
"It"s ten to one you would."
"Then I"ll do as I"m bid and get an extra coat."
She went into the house, leaving Trenby rather taken aback by her sudden submission. But it pleased him, nevertheless. He liked a woman to be malleable. It seemed, to him a truly womanly quality--certainly a wifely one! Moreover, almost any man experiences a pleasant feeling of complacency when he thinks he has dominated a woman, even over so small a matter as to whether she shall wear an extra coat or not--although he generally fails to guess the origin of that attractive surrender and comfortably regards it as a tribute to his strong, masculine will-power. Few women are foolish enough to undeceive him.