"Because I haven"t anything to say to you."
"Dear child, that is the incentive to all conversation--lack of anything to say. You should practise the art of saying nothing politely."
"_You_ should have practised it enough to say good morning to me during these last five years," said Dulcie gravely.
"Oh, I say! You"re rather severe, you know! You were just a little thing running about underfoot!--I"m sorry you feel angry----"
"I do not. But how can I have anything to talk to you about, Mr.
Trenor, when you have never even noticed me all these years, although often I have handed you your keys and your letters."
"It was quite stupid of me. I"m sorry. But a man, you see, doesn"t notice children----"
"Some men do."
"You mean Mr. Barres! That _is_ unkind. Why rub it in, Dulcie? I"m rather an interesting fellow, after all."
"Are you?" she asked absently.
Her honest indifference to him was perfectly apparent to Esme Trenor.
This would never do. She must be subdued, made sane, disciplined!
"Do you know," he drawled, leaning lankly nearer, dropping both arms on the cloth, and fixing his heavy-lidded eyes intensely on her,"--do you know--do you guess, perhaps, why I never spoke to you in all these years?"
"You did not trouble yourself to speak to me, I imagine."
"You are wrong. I was _afraid_!" And he stared at her pallidly.
"Afraid?" she repeated, puzzled.
He leaned nearer, confidential, sad:
"Shall I tell you a precious secret, Dulcie? I am a coward. I am a slave of fear. I am afraid of beauty! Isn"t that a very strange thing to say? Can you understand the subtlety of that indefinable psychology? Fear is an emotion. Fear of the beautiful is still a subtler emotion. Fear, itself, is beautiful beyond words. Beauty is Fear. Fear is Beauty. Do you follow me, Dulcie?"
"No," said the girl, bewildered.
Esme sighed:
"Some day you will follow me. It is my destiny to be followed, pursued, haunted by loveliness impotently seeking to express itself to me, while I, fearing it, dare only to express my fear with brush and pencil!... _When_ shall I paint you?" he added with sad benevolence.
"What?"
"When shall I try to interpret upon canvas my subtle fear of you?"
And, as the girl remained mute: "When," he explained languidly, "shall I appoint an hour for you to sit to me?"
"I am Mr. Barres"s model," she said, flushing.
"I shall have to arrange it with him, then," he nodded, wearily.
"I don"t think you can."
"Fancy! Why not?"
"Because I do not wish to sit to anybody except Mr. Barres," she said candidly, "and what you paint does not interest me at all."
"Are you familiar with my work?" he asked incredulously.
She shook her head, shrugged, and turned to Barres, who had at last relinquished Thessalie to Westmore.
"Well, Sweetness," he said gaily, "do you get on with Esme Trenor?"
"He talked," she said in a voice perfectly audible to Esme.
Barres glanced toward Esme, secretly convulsed, but that young apostle of Fear had swung one thin leg over the other and was now presenting one shoulder and the back of his head to them both, apparently in delightful conversation with Elsena Helmund, who was fed up on him and his fears.
"You must always talk to your neighbours at dinner," insisted Barres, still immensely amused. "Esme is a very popular man with fashionable women, Dulcie,--a painter in much demand and much adored.... Why do you smile?"
Dulcie smiled again, deliciously.
"Anyway," continued Barres, "you must now give the signal for us to rise by standing up. I"m so proud of you, Dulcie, darling!" he added impulsively; "--and everybody is mad about you!"
"You made me--" she laughed mischievously, "--out of a rag and a bone and a hank of hair!"
"You made yourself out of nothing, child! And everybody thinks you delightful."
"Do _you_?"
"You dear girl!--of course I do. Does it make such a difference to you, Dulcie--my affection for you?"
"Is it--_affection_?"
"It certainly is. Didn"t you know it?"
"I didn"t--know--what it was."
"Of course it is affection. Who could be with you as I have been and not grow tremendously fond of you?"
"n.o.body ever did except you. Mr. Westmore was always nice. But--but you are so kind--I can"t express--I--c-can"t----" Her emotion checked her.
"Don"t try, dear!" he said hastily. "We"re going in to have a jolly dance now. You and I begin it together. Don"t you let any other fellow take you away!"
She looked up, laughed blissfully, gazing at him with brilliant eyes a little dimmed.
"They"ll all be at your heels," he said, beginning to comprehend the beauty he had let loose on the world, "--every man-jack of them, mark my prophecy! But ours is the first dance, Dulcie. Promise?"
"I do. And I promise you the next--please----"
"Well, I"m host," he said doubtfully, and a trifle taken aback. "We"ll have some other dances together, anyway. But I couldn"t monopolise you, Sweetness."
The girl looked at him silently, then her grey, intelligent eyes rested directly on Thessalie Dunois.