"Yes. But I should like to paint you as "Melody in Flower Land.""
"I"m afraid I can"t grasp it," Gladys said.
"Can"t you!" Shiel exclaimed, "I can. The idea came to me when I heard you singing just now, and saw you sitting here, in the midst of flowers, and dressed like a rose. I should paint you clad as you are now--all in pink--seated in the garden singing; and all the flowers leaning towards you listening. I would give anything to paint it," and he spoke with such enthusiasm that Gladys, remembering her dream, flushed.
"I think," she said, "we might go into the garden and see how the work is progressing."
"I fear I can"t do any more digging," Shiel put in hastily, "I willingly would if I could, but I really can"t use my hands."
"And you"ve not had any vaseline," Gladys cried. "I"ll get you some,"
and before he could prevent her she had gone.
She was back again, however, in a few moments with a tiny white jar and some linen bandages. "I couldn"t find my aunt," she began, "or she would bandage your hands for you."
"Won"t you?" Shiel asked. "Do!"
He thrust his hands towards her as he spoke, and Gladys uttered an exclamation of horror--the palms and fingers were raw and swollen.
"I feel heartily ashamed of myself for being so thin-skinned," Shiel said. But Gladys had disappeared. She returned almost immediately with a bowl of water.
"I"m sure they must hurt you dreadfully," she exclaimed, as she gently bathed the hands. "It makes me feel quite ill to see them."
For the next few moments Shiel was in Paradise. The touch of her cool, white fingers on his hot and burning skin was far nicer than anything he had ever imagined. Her sweet-scented breath stealing gently up his nostrils soothed away all his care--even the remembrance of his recent loss.
With his whole heart and soul concentrated in his gaze, he watched her every movement--watched the waving and tossing of the stray wisps of hair over her temples and ears, as the breeze rustled through the open windows; and the gentle tightening and relaxation of her delicately moulded lips each time she breathed.
Shiel had always led a very solitary existence. Apart from his uncle he had no near relatives, and with the exception of the five or six weeks in the year he had spent at d.i.c.k Davenport"s house at Sydenham, he had always been in rooms. He had often felt lonely, but never quite so lonely as now--now that the only person he had known intimately and for whom he had entertained any real affection, was suddenly taken away. He was now absolutely alone in the world, and the poignancy of his position came home to him acutely.
It is a terrible thing to be lonely. Lonely men do all sorts of dreadful things--things they would certainly never dream of doing if they had companionship. And Shiel was doing a dreadful thing now.
Every moment he was falling more and more desperately in love, despite the fact that he had no money, and worse still--no prospects of ever making any. And loneliness was in the main responsible for it.
Had he not been so lonely--had he not spent days and days, alone in lodgings, with no one to talk to--no one to care whether he were ill or dying; had this not been his experience--the experience he was even then undergoing, reason would have outweighed folly, and even though he might have realized that in Gladys Martin he had found his ideal of beauty--of womanliness, he would have been content only to admire.
As it was, he was in that very dangerous mood when the heart yearns for sympathy; when a plain woman"s sympathy means much--and a pretty woman"s more than much. It is no exaggeration to say that Shiel would have lain down and died for Gladys ten times over. For her sake--if only to see her smile, no mere physical pain would have been too excruciating for him to bear. And when she put the finishing touches to the bandages, and quite by chance, of course, their eyes met, he looked at her as if he never meant to leave off looking at her, as if he never meant to do anything else but look at her for all eternity.
Whether she understood as much or not, is impossible to say. Shiel asked himself the question over and over again before the day was out, and in his sleep, and during the next day, and for many days afterwards. Could she tell how much he admired her? How much he worshipped her? All that he was prepared to do for her sweet sake? All this he asked himself repeatedly, and went on thinking of her when he knew he ought never to have thought of her at all.
"I"m sure your hands are more comfortable now. Won"t you go into the garden and see how the work is progressing?" she said. "Or if you are afraid Father will want you to dig again, perhaps you would like to go into his study and read the papers."
"I should like to stay here and listen to you singing," he said.
"Mayn"t I do that?"
"You might," she said, "but I have to go out."
"Then I"ll stay here till you return," he said, "I"ve never been in such a delightful room."
"What do you think of Shiel Davenport?" Gladys remarked to her aunt a few minutes later. "I don"t think I"ve ever met such an extraordinary young man. He does nothing but stare at me, and when I ask him to do one thing he suggests doing another. He"s the most difficult person to manage. In fact, I can"t manage him at all."
"Never mind about managing him, my dear," Miss Templeton replied, "so long as you don"t let him manage you. Young men who do nothing but stare are not merely difficult--they are dangerous."
CHAPTER XII
THE GREAT CHALLENGE
When John Martin came into tea that afternoon, he gave Gladys a shock.
Despite the fact that he had been in the sun all day and was much tanned in consequence he had never looked--so Gladys thought--so old and haggard.
"You dear old Daddie!" she said, hastening to pour him out some tea, "you shouldn"t work so hard--this silly digging has quite knocked you up! Haven"t you finished?"
"Yes, I"ve finished!" John Martin said, catching his breath. "I"ve found water!"
"Nonsense!"
"It"s true all the same. We struck it at exactly the distance he said--twenty feet."
"Then of course he knew."
"How? How the deuce could he have known?"
"I can"t say," Gladys replied. "All I know is, that he"s not straight, and that there"s some underhand trickery going on. But do have your tea now, and dismiss it from your mind. Anyhow, he can do you no harm."
"Here"s a letter for you, John," Mrs. Templeton exclaimed, entering the room at that moment.
John Martin took it from her, and tore open the envelope curiously. It was a handwriting he did not know, and did not like--its characteristics were sinister.
"I knew it!" he cried; "I knew the fellow was a scoundrel. What the deuce do you think he has the impertinence to do now?"
"He!" Gladys said, looking anxiously at her father. "Whoever do you mean?"
"Why, that confounded young bounder who came here last night--Leon Hamar he signs himself. In this letter he declares that he can perform any of our tricks, and will accept the wager I offered for their solution some little time ago. He also says that unless I consent to see him, and to listen courteously to what he has to say, he will publicly announce his intention of taking up the wager, at our Hall, in Kingsway, to-night."
"Do you think there is any possibility of his having discovered the secrets of your tricks?" Gladys asked. "Could he have bribed any one to tell him?"
"I don"t think so," John Martin said. "The only people who have any clue as to how they are done are my two attendants--both as you know natives of Cashmere, and men who, I feel pretty certain, could not be "got at.""
"In that case," Gladys remarked, "I fail to see what there is to worry about. Your course is perfectly clear--take no notice of it."
John Martin was silent--dazed. He did not know what to think or do!
There was something painfully ominous to him in the discovery of the money and the water--something that accentuated the impression Hamar"s sinister appearance had made on him. The man did not look ordinary--his manner, gestures, walk and expression were decidedly abnormal--in fact they put him in mind of the superphysical. The superphysical! Might not that account for his knowledge? Bah! There was no such thing as the superphysical. The man was extraordinary--but, after all, only a man--his knowledge only that of a man. And it must be as the shrewd Gladys conjectured--he had put the money in the tree himself and had learned of the presence of water through some subtle artifice--perhaps only guessed at it. He would defy him--let him do what he would!
This was John Martin"s decision as he finished tea. An hour later he had changed his mind, and was speaking to Hamar on the telephone, expressing his willingness to grant him a brief interview if he came at once.
In rather less than an hour a motor drew up at the Martins" door and Hamar stepped out of it.