Everybody inspected the crimson-flecked fish while Barres senior stood twirling his monocle.
"Are we dining at home?" inquired his son.
"I believe so. There is a guest of honour, if I recollect--some fellow they"re lionising--I don"t remember.... And one or two others--the Gerhardts, I believe."
"Then we"d better dress, I think," said Thessalie, encircling Dulcie"s waist.
"Sorry," said Barres senior, "hoped to take you young ladies out on the second lake and let you try for a big fish this evening."
He walked across the lawn beside them, switching his rod as complacently as a pleased cat twitches its tail.
"We"ll try it to-morrow evening," he continued rea.s.suringly, as though all their most pa.s.sionate hopes had been bound up in the suggested sport; "it"s rather annoying--I can"t remember who"s dining with us--some celebrated Irishman--poet of sorts--literary chap--guest of the Gerhardts--neighbours, you know. It"s a nuisance to bother with dinner when the trout rise only after sunset."
"Don"t you ever dine willingly, Mr. Barres, while the trout are rising?" inquired Thessalie, laughing.
"Never willingly," he replied in a perfectly sincere voice. "I prefer to remain near the water and have a bit of supper when I return." He smiled at Thessalie indulgently. "No doubt it amuses you, but I wager that you and little Miss Soane here will feel exactly as I do after you"ve caught your first big trout."
They entered the house together, followed by Garry and Westmore.
A dim, ruddy glow still lingered in the quiet rooms; every window gla.s.s was still lighted by the sun"s smouldering ashes sinking in the west; no lamps had yet been lighted on the ground floor.
"It"s the magic hour on the water," Barres senior confided to Dulcie, "and here I am, doomed to a stiff shirt and table talk. In other words, nailed!" And he gave her a mysterious, melancholy, but significant look as though she alone were really fitted to understand the distressing dilemmas of an angler.
"Would it be too late to fish after dinner?" ventured Dulcie. "I"d love to go with you----"
"Would you, really!" he exclaimed, warmly grateful. "That is the spirit I admire in a girl! It"s human, it"s discriminating! And yet, do you know, n.o.body except myself in this household seems to care very much about angling? And, actually, I don"t believe there is another soul in this entire house who would care to miss dinner for the sake of landing the finest trout in the second lake!--unless you would?"
"I really would!" said Dulcie, smiling. "Please try me, Mr. Barres."
"Indeed, I shall! I"ll give you one of my pet rods, too! I"ll----"
The rich, metallic murmur of a temple gong broke out in the dim quiet of the house. It was the dressing bell.
"We"ll talk it over at dinner--if they"ll let me sit by you,"
whispered Barres senior. And with the smile and the cautionary gesture of the true conspirator, he went away in the demi-light.
Thessalie came from the bay window, where she had been with Westmore and Garry, and she and Dulcie walked away toward the staircase hall, leisurely followed by the two men who, however, turned again into the western wing.
Dulcie was the first to reappear and descend the stairs of the north wing--a willowy white shape in the early dusk, slim as a young spirit in the lamplit silence.
n.o.body else had come down; a maid was turning up a lamp here and there; the plebeian family cat came out of the shadows from somewhere and made advances as though divining that this quiet stranger was a friend to cats.
So Dulcie stooped to pet her, then wandered on through the place and finally into the music room, where she seated herself at the piano and touched the keys softly in the semi-dusk.
Among the songs--words and music--which her mother had left in ma.n.u.script, was one which she had learned recently,--"Blue Eyes"--and she played the air now, seated there all alone in the subdued lamp light.
Presently people began to appear from above--Mrs. Barres, who motioned her not to rise, and who seated herself near, watching the girl"s slender fingers moving on the keys; then Lee, who came and stood beside her, followed in a few moments by Thessalie and the two younger men.
"What is that lovely little air you are playing?" inquired Mrs.
Barres.
"It is called "Blue Eyes,"" said Dulcie, absently.
"I have never before heard it."
The girl looked up:
"No, my mother wrote it."
After a silence:
"It is really exquisite," said Mrs. Barres. "Are there words to it?"
Some people had come into the entrance hall beyond; there was the low whirring of an automobile outside.
"Yes, my mother made some verses for it," replied Dulcie.
"Will you sing them for me after dinner?"
"Yes, I shall be happy to."
Mrs. Barres turned to welcome her new guests, now entering the music room convoyed by Barres senior, who was arrayed in the dreaded "stiff shirt" and already indulging in "table talk."
"They took," he was explaining, "a midge-fly with no hackle--Claire, here are the Gerhardts and Mr. Skeel!" And while his wife welcomed them and introductions were effected, he continued explaining the construction of the midge to anybody who listened.
At the first mention of Murtagh Skeel"s name, the glances of Westmore, Garry and Thessalie crossed like lightning, then their attention became riveted on this tall, graceful, romantic looking man of early middle age, who was being lionised at Northbrook.
The next moment Garry stepped back beside Dulcie Soane, who had turned white as a flower and was gazing at Skeel as though she had seen a ghost.
"Do you suppose he can be the same man your mother knew?" he whispered, dropping his arm and taking her trembling hand in a firm clasp.
"I don"t know.... I seem to feel so.... I can"t explain to you how it pierced my heart--the sound of his name.... Oh, Garry!--suppose it is true--that he is the man my mother knew--and cared for!"
Before he could speak, c.o.c.ktails were served, and Adolf Gerhardt, a large, bearded, pompous man, engaged him in explosive conversation:
"Yes, this fellow Corot Mandel is producing a new spectacle-play on my lawn to-morrow evening. Your family and your guests are invited, of course. And for the dance, also----" He included Dulcie in a pompous bow, finished his c.o.c.ktail with another flourish:
"You will find my friend Skeel very attractive," he went on. "You know who he is?--_the_ Murtagh Skeel who writes those Irish poems of the West Coast--and is not, I believe, very well received in England just now--a matter of nationalism--patriotism, eh? Why should it surprise your Britisher, eh?--if a gentleman like Murtagh Skeel displays no sympathy for England?--if a gentleman like my friend, Sir Roger Cas.e.m.e.nt, prefers to live in Germany?"
Garry, under his own roof, said pleasantly:
"It wouldn"t do for us to discuss those things, I fear, Mr. Gerhardt.
And your Irish lion seems to be very gentle and charming. He must be fascinating to women."
Gerhardt threw up his hands: