"Now," said Jeffrey, in a high degree of interest, "we"re getting somewhere. What did I say to them? What did I say through Madame Beattie?"
"We don"t know."
"Ask Moore."
"Mr. Moore doesn"t know."
"He can ask his interpreter, can"t he?"
"Andrea? He won"t tell."
Jeffrey released his knees and lay back against the bench. He gave a hoot of delighted laughter, and Lydia, watching them from the window, thought of Miss Amabel with a wistful envy and wondered how she did it.
"Weedie"s own henchman won"t go back on her," he exclaimed, in an incredulous pleasure. "Now what spell has that extraordinary old woman over the south of Europe?"
"South of Europe?"
"Why, yes, the population you"ve got here. It"s south of Europe chiefly, isn"t it? eastern Europe?--the part Weedie hasn"t turned into ward politicians yet. Who is Andrea? This is the first time I have heard his honourable name. Weedon"s interpreter."
"He has the fruit store on Mill Street."
"Ah! Amabel, do you know what this interview has done for me? It"s given me a perfectly overwhelming desire to speak the tongues."
"Foreign languages, Jeff?"
"Any language that will help me beat Weedie at his game, or give me a look at the cards old Madame Beattie holds. I feel a fool. Why can"t I know what they"re talking about when they can kick up row enough under my very nose to make you come and rag me like this?"
"Jeff," said Miss Amabel, "unless you are prepared to go into social work seriously and see things as Mr. Moore sees them--"
Jeff gave a little crow of derision and she coloured. "It wouldn"t hurt you, Jeff, to see some things as he does. The necessity of getting into touch with our foreign population--"
"I"ll do that all right," said Jeffrey. "That"s precisely what I mean.
I"m going to learn foreign tongues and talk to "em."
"They say Madame Beattie speaks a dozen or so and I don"t know how many dialects."
"Oh, I can"t compete with Madame Beattie. She"s got the devil on her side."
Miss Amabel rose to her feet and stood regarding him sorrowfully. He looked up at her with a glance full of affection, yet too merry for her heavy mood. Then he got on his feet and took her parasol.
"You haven"t noticed the corn," said he. "Don"t you know you must praise the work of a man"s hands?"
"I don"t know whether it"s a good thing for you or not," said she. "Yes, it must have been, so far. You"re tanned."
"I feel fit enough."
"You don"t look over twenty."
"Oh, I"m over twenty, thank you," said Jeff. A shadow settled on his face; it even touched his eyes, mysteriously, and dulled them. "I"m not tanned all through."
"But you"re only doing this for a time?"
"I don"t know, Amabel. I give you my word I don"t know the next step after to-day--or this hill of corn--or that."
"If you wanted capital, Jeff--"
He took up a fold of her little shoulder ruffle and put it to his lips, and Lydia saw and wondered.
"No, dear," said he. "I sha"n"t need your money. Only don"t you let Weedie have it, to muddle away in politics."
She was turning at the edge of the corn and looking at him perplexedly.
Her mission hadn"t succeeded, but she loved him and wanted to make that manifest.
"I can"t bear to have you doing irresponsible things with Madame Beattie. She"s not fit--"
"Not fit for me to play with? Madame Beattie won"t hurt me."
"She may hurt Lydia."
"Lydia!"
The word leaped out of some deep responsiveness she did not understand.
"Don"t you know how much they are together? They go driving."
"Well, what"s that? Madame Beattie"s a good old sport. She won"t harm Lydia."
But instead of keeping up his work, he went on to the house with her.
Miss Amabel would not go in and when he had said good-bye to her--affectionately, charmingly, as if to a.s.sure her that, after all, she needn"t fear him even with Weedie who wasn"t important enough to slay--he entered the house in definite search of Lydia. He went to the library, and there she was, in the window niche, where she sat to watch him. Day by day Lydia sat there when he was in the garden and she was not busy and he knew it was a favourite seat of hers for, glancing over his rows of corn, he could see the top of her head bent over a book. He did not know how long she pored over a page with eyes that saw him, a wraith of him hovering over the print, nor that when their pa.s.sionate depths grew hungrier for the actual sight of him, how she threw one glance at his working figure and bent to her book again. As he came suddenly in upon her she sprang up and faced him, the book closed upon a trembling finger.
"Lydia," said he, "you"re great chums with Madame Beattie, aren"t you?"
Lydia gave a little sigh of a relief she hardly understood. What she expected him to ask her she did not know, but there were strange warm feelings in her heart she would not have shown to Jeff. She could have shown them before that minute--when he had said the thing that ought not even to be remembered: "I only love you." Before that, she thought, she had been quite simply his sister. Now she was a watchful servitor of a more fervid sort. Jeffrey thought she was afraid of being scolded about her queer old crony.
"Sit down," he said. "There"s nothing to be ashamed of in liking Madame Beattie. You do like her, don"t you?"
"Oh, yes," said Lydia. "I like her very much."
She had sunk back in her chair and closed the book though she kept it in her lap. Jeffrey sat astride a chair and folded his arms on the top.
Some of the blinds had been closed to keep out the heat, and the dusk hid the deep, crisp lines of his face. Under his moist tossed hair it was a young face, as Miss Amabel had told him, and his att.i.tude became a boy.
"Lydia," said he, "what do you two talk about?"
"Madame Beattie and I?"
"Yes. In those long drives, for instance, what do you say?"
Lydia looked at him, her eyes narrowed slightly, and Jeffrey knew she did not want to tell. When Esther didn"t want to tell, a certain soft glaze came over her eyes. Jeffrey had seen the glaze for a number of years before he knew what it meant. And when he found out, though it had been a good deal of a shock, he hardly thought the worse of Esther. He generalised quite freely and concluded that you couldn"t expect the same standards of women as from men; and after that he was a little nervous and rather careful about the questions he asked. But Lydia"s eyes had no glaze. They were desperate rather, the eyes of a little wild thing that is going to be frightened and possibly caught. Jeffrey felt quite excited, he was so curious to know what form the lie would take.