"Thomas," he said, as the main bout was being staged, the chairs and water-pails and paraphernalia changed to fresh corners, "I"ll remember that turn. If you"re not Irish, it"s no fault of yours. I wish you knew something about coffee."
"I enjoy drinking it," Thomas replied, smiling humorously.
Ever after the merchant-prince treated Thomas like a son; the kind of a boy he had always wanted and could not have. And only once again did he doubt; and he longed to throttle the man who brought into light what appeared to be the most d.a.m.nable evidence of Thomas" perfidy.
CHAPTER XV
We chaps who write have magic carpets.
Whiz!
A marble balcony, overlooking the sea, which shimmered under the light of the summer moon. Lord Henry Monckton and Kitty leaned over the bal.u.s.ter and silently watched the rush of the rollers landward and the slink of them back to the sea.
For three days Kitty had wondered whether she liked or disliked Lord Monckton. The fact that he was the man who had b.u.mped into Thomas that night at the theater may have had something to do with her doddering.
He might at least have helped Thomas in recovering his hat. Dark, full-bearded, slender, with hands like a woman"s, quiet of manner yet affable, he was the most picturesque person at the cottage. But there was always something smoldering in those sleepy eyes of his that suggested to Kitty a mockery. It was not that recognizable mockery of all those visiting Englishmen who held themselves complacently superior to their generous American hosts. It was as though he were silently laughing at all he saw, at all which happened about him, as if he stood in the midst of some huge joke which he alone was capable of understanding: so Kitty weighed him.
He did not seem to care particularly for women; he never hovered about them, offering little favors and courtesies; rather, he let them come to him. Nor did he care for dancing. But he was always ready to make up a table at bridge; and a shrewd capable player he was, too.
The music in the ballroom stopped.
"Will you be so good, Miss Killigrew, as to tell me why you Americans call a palace like this--a cottage?" Lord Monckton"s voice was pleasing, with only a slight accent.
"I"m sure I do not know. If it were mine, I"d call it a villa."
"Quite properly."
"Do you like Americans?"
"I have no preference for any people. I prefer individuals. I had much rather talk to an enlightened Chinaman than to an unenlightened white man."
"I am afraid you are what they call blase."
"Perhaps I am not quite at ease yet. I was buffeted about a deal in the old days."
Lord Monckton dropped back into the wicker chair, in the deep shadow.
Kitty did not move. She wondered what Thomas was doing. (Thomas was rubbing ointment on his raw knuckles.)
"I am very fond of the sea," remarked Lord Monckton. "I have seen some odd parts of it. Every man has his Odyssey, his Aeneid."
Aeneid. It seemed to Kitty that her body had turned that instant into marble as cold as that under her palms.
The coal of the man"s cigar glowed intermittently. She could see nothing else.
Aeneid--Enid.
CHAPTER XVI
Thomas slammed the ball with a force which carried it far over the wire backstop.
"You must not drive them so hard, Mr. Webb; at least, not up. Drive them down. Try it again."
Tennis looked so easy from the sidelines that Thomas believed all he had to do was to hit the ball whenever he saw it within reach; but after a few experiments he accepted the fact that every game required a certain talent, quite as distinct as that needed to sell green neckties (old stock) when the prevailing fashion was polka-dot blue. How he loathed Thomas Webb. How he loathed the impulse which had catapulted him into this mad whirligig! Why had not fate left him in peace; if not satisfied with his lot, at least resigned? And now must come this confrontation, the inevitable! No poor rat in a trap could have felt more hara.s.sed. Mentally, he went round and round in circles, but he could find no exit. There is no file to saw the bars of circ.u.mstance.
That the lithe young figure on the other side of the net, here, there, backward and forward, alert, accurate, bubbling with energy . . .
Once, a mad rollicking impulse seized and urged him to vault the net and take her in his arms and hold her still for a moment. But he knew.
She was using him as an athlete uses a trainer before a real contest.
There was something more behind his stroke than mere awkwardness. It was downright savagery. Generally when a man is in anger or despair he longs to smash things; and these inoffensive tennis-b.a.l.l.s were to Thomas a gift of the G.o.ds. Each time one sailed away over the backstop, it was like the pop of a safety-valve; it averted an explosion.
"That will be enough!" cried Kitty, as the last of a dozen b.a.l.l.s sailed toward the distant stables.
The tennis-courts were sunken and round them ran a parapet of lawn, crisp and green, with marble benches opposite the posts, generally used as judges" stands. Upon one of these Kitty sat down and began to fan herself. Thomas walked over and sat down beside her. The slight gesture of her hand had been a command.
It was early morning, before breakfast; still and warm and breathless, a forerunner of a long hot summer day. A few hundred yards to the south lay the sea, shimmering as it sprawled lazily upon the tawny sands.
The propinquity of a pretty girl and a lonely young man has founded more than one story.
"You"ll be enjoying the game, once you learn it."
"Do you think I ever will?" asked Thomas. He bent forward and began tapping the clay with his racket. How to run away!
Kitty, as she looked down at his head, knew that there were a dozen absurd wishes in her heart, none of which could possibly ever become facts. He was so different from the self-a.s.sertive young men she knew, with their silly flirtations, their inane small-talk, their capacity for Scotch whisky and long hours. For days she had studied him as through microscopic lenses; his guilelessness was real. It just simply could not be; her ears had deceived her that memorable foggy night in London. And yet, always in the dark his voice was that of one of the two men who had talked near her cab. Who was he? Not a single corner of the veil had he yet lifted, and here it was, the middle of August; and except for the week at Bar Harbor she had been with him day by day, laid she knew not how many traps, over which he had stepped serenely, warily or unconsciously she could not tell which. It made her heart ache; for, manly and simple as he appeared, honest as he seemed, he was either a rogue or the dupe of one, which was almost as bad. But to-day she was determined to learn which he was.
"What have you done with the romance?"
"I have put it away in the bottom of my trunk. The seventh rejection convinces me that I am not a story-teller."
He had a desperate longing to tell her all, then and there. It was too late. He would be arrested as a smuggler, turned out of the house as an impostor.
"Don"t give up so easily. There are still ninety-three other editors waiting to read it."
"I have my doubts. Still, it was a pleasant pastime." He sat back and stared at the sea. He must go this day; he must invent some way of leaving.
Then came the Machiavellian way; only, he managed as usual to execute it in his blundering English style. Without warning he dropped his racket, caught Kitty in his arms tightly and roughly, kissed her cheek, rose, and strode swiftly across the courts, into the villa. It was done. He could go now; he knew very well he had to go.
His subsequent actions were methodical enough; a shower, a thorough rub-down, and then into his workaday clothes. He packed his trunk and hand-luggage, overlooked nothing that was his, and went down into the living-room where he knew he would find Killigrew with the morning papers. He felt oddly light-headed; but he had no time to a.n.a.lyze the cause.
"Good morning, Thomas," greeted the master of the house cordially.
"I am leaving, Mr. Killigrew. Will you be kind enough to let me have the use of the motor to the station?"
"Leaving! What"s happened? What"s the matter? Young man, what the devil"s this about?"