"You believe that, too, then?" said Ann quickly.
"I"m sure of it," he answered quietly. "Thought is the one great miracle-worker. Why"--with a laugh--"if you want immediate proof, it was a bad thought, some one thinking wrongly, that started all this present trouble. So that the right thought--the thought that it will all work out straight, held by you and by all of us who are your friends--is the obvious antidote. G.o.d never made a law that only works one-sidedly. If thought forces can work evil, they can a.s.suredly work infinite good."
"You"re an excellent "cheerer-up,"" said Ann, later on, when he was going.
"You _have_ cheered me, you know," she added gratefully.
"Have I? I"m glad. And now, I want you to cheer me."
"You?" Her voice held surprise.
"Yes, me." He hesitated a moment. "Ann, I"m going to throw myself on your mercy. I know--to my deep shame I know that my sister has been one of the people who have helped to circulate this unfounded story about you. I want you, if you can, to try and forgive her--and me."
"There"s nothing to forgive you for," protested Ann.
"She"s my sister. Part of her burden must be mine. Nor have I any excuse to offer for her. Some people look through a window and see G.o.d"s sunshine, while others see only the spots on the window-pane. We are as we"re made, they say--but some of us have got a deal of re-making to do before we"re perfected."
"Don"t worry." Unconsciously Ann sought to comfort him in the same familiar, everyday language which he himself had used to her. "Don"t worry one bit. I"ve no feeling of ill-will towards Miss Caroline. It"s just her way--one can"t help one"s way of looking at things, you know"--quaintly.
"And I"m quite, quite sure she never meant any harm."
"So that"s the way _you_ look at things?" He smiled down at her, his eyes very luminous and tender. "Thank you, Ann, for the way you look at things--the plucky, generous, splendid way."
And when he had gone Ann was conscious of a warm glow round about her heart--that gladdening glow of comfort and thanksgiving which the spontaneous, ardent loyalty of real friends can bring even to the heaviest heart.
CHAPTER XXVI
ENLIGHTENMENT
"I"ve turned up again like a bad penny, you see."
Brett, ushered into the living-room at the Cottage by a very depressed-looking Maria, made the announcement with his usual debonair a.s.surance.
"So I see," replied Ann, shaking hands without enthusiasm. "How are you?"
He looked at her critically--at her face, paler than its wont, her shadowed eyes, the slight lines of her figure--grown slighter even during the brief span of a week.
"_I"m_ all right," he returned pointedly. "But I can"t say as much for you.
What have you been doing in my absence? Pining?"--quizzically.
"Not exactly," she answered dryly. "I"ve had--oh, various worries. Nothing to do with you, though."
"I"m not so sure," replied Brett, with a flash of sardonic humour, the significance of which was lost on Ann.
"Then I"m afraid you"ll have to take my word for it," she responded indifferently.
"Are you worrying about this slur on your fair name?" he demanded next, as airily as though he were inquiring if she was worrying about the tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of a new hat. "My revered aunt has told me all the news, you see."
Ann winced.
"Brett, how can you speak like that?" Her voice trembled. "It--it isn"t anything to laugh at. It"s horrible!"
He regarded her in silence. Then:
"No. It isn"t anything to laugh at," he said suddenly. "It"s my chance."
He took a quick step towards her and she retreated involuntarily.
"Your chance?" she replied. "What do you mean?"
"My chance to prove that I"m a better lover than Coventry. I understand he"s so shocked that he"s bolted out of England"--sneeringly. "Well, I"m not. I"ve come back to ask you to marry me."
Ann quivered at his mention of Eliot"s name, but with an effort she forced herself to answer him composedly.
"I can only give you the same answer as before--no, Brett."
"Do explain why," he returned irrepressibly. "I don"t care tuppence what people say. In fact, if they dared to say anything after we were married I should jolly well break their heads for them. So that"s that. But surely I"m as good a fellow as Coventry--who"s apparently cried off at the first sign of storm. I suppose that"s what"s happened, isn"t it?"
She turned and faced him, a spark of anger in her eyes.
"Whatever it is that has happened between Eliot and me, it has nothing to do with you," she said haughtily.
His eyes flickered over her face.
"But I can guess!" he replied imperturbably.
"You?--Guess? How--" She broke off, shaken, as so often before, by his air of complete a.s.surance.
He looked at her with quizzical eyes.
"Shall I tell you?" he said tantalisingly. "Yes, I think I will." He paused, then finished quietly: "I happened to be in Switzerland last spring--when you were."
There was no misunderstanding the intentional significance with which he spoke--no evading the impression that some definitely evil menace lay behind the brief statement of commonplace fact. To Ann it seemed as though some horror, lurking in the shadows of the fire-lit room, had suddenly stirred and were creeping stealthily towards her--impalpable but deadly, nauseous as the poisonous miasma rising from some dark and fetid pool. She shrank back, instinctively putting out her hand as though to ward off whatever threatened.
"You--you?" she stammered.
"Even I"--blandly. His gaze fastened on her face. "I spent a couple of nights--at the Hotel de Loup." Then, as she shrank still further away from him, he added lightly: "d.i.c.kens of a lonely place, too!"
"Then--then--" Ann"s throat felt dry and constricted, but she struggled for utterance. "Then it was you who told--"
"Yes," he cut in quickly. "It was I who told Coventry about your little escapade up there with Tony Brabazon."
"Ah--!" A choked cry broke from her lips, and she leaned helplessly against the wall behind her.
"It was all quite simple," went on Brett coolly. "You see, I read the entry in the hotel register--and I happened to know that Brabazon had no sister."
He rattled glibly on, recounting the episode of the Hotel de Loup with much the same air of inward entertainment with which he had narrated it to Coventry himself. When he had finished he looked across at her with a kind of triumph, no whit ashamed of himself.