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Title: The Man and the Moment

Author: Elinor Glyn

Release Date: November 11, 2005 [EBook #17048]

Language: English

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[Illustration: "It all looked very intimate and lover-like"
[Page 149]]




THE MAN AND THE MOMENT

BY

ELINOR GLYN

1914

AUTHOR OF "GUINEVERE'S LOVER," "HALCYONE,"
"THE REASON WHY," ETC.


[Illustration]


Illustrated by
R.F. James

NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1914

Copyright, 1914, by
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

       *       *       *       *       *

Copyright, 1914, by The Red Book Corporation




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

                                                         FACING PAGE

"It all looked very intimate and lover-like"
                                                         _Frontispiece_

"He bounded forward to meet her"                          48

"His solitary table was near theirs in the restaurant"    64

"'He is often in some scrape--something must have
   culminated to-night'"                                 224




THE MAN AND THE MOMENT


CHAPTER I


Michael Arranstoun folded a letter which he had been reading for the
seventh time, with a vicious intentness, and then jumping up from the
big leather chair in which he had been buried, he said aloud, "Damn!"

When a young, rich and good-looking man says that particular word aloud
with a fearful grind of the teeth, one may know that he is in the very
devil of a temper!

Michael Arranstoun was!

And, to be sure, he had ample reason, as you, my friend, who may happen
to have begun this tale, will presently see.

It is really most irritating to be suddenly confronted with the
consequences of one's follies at any age, but at twenty-four, when
otherwise the whole life is smiling for one, it seems quite too hard.

The frightful language this well-endowed young gentleman now indulged
in, half aloud and half in thought, would be quite impossible to put on
paper! It contained what almost amounted to curses for a certain lady
whose appearance, could she have been seen at this moment, suggested
that of a pious little saint.

"How the h---- can I keep from marrying her!" Mr. Arranstoun said more
than aloud this time, and then kicking an innocent footstool across the
room, he called his bulldog, put on his cap and stamped out on to the
old stone balcony which opened from this apartment, and was soon
stalking down the staircase and across the lawn to a little door in the
great fortified wall, which led into the park.

He had hardly left the room when, from the wide arched doorway of his
bed-chamber beyond, there entered Mr. Johnson, his superior valet,
carrying some riding-boots and a silk shirt over his arm. You could see
through the open door that it was a very big and comfortable bedroom,
which had evidently been adapted to its present use from some much more
stately beginning. A large, vaulted chamber it was, with three narrow
windows looking on to the grim courtyard beneath.

Michael Arranstoun had selected this particular suite for himself when
his father died ten years before, and his mother was left to spoil him,
until she, too, departed from this world when he was sixteen.

What a splendid inheritance he had come into! This old border castle up
in the north--and not a mortgage on the entire property! While, from his
mother, a number of solid golden sovereigns flowed into his coffers
every year--obtained by trade! That was a little disgusting for the
Arranstouns--but extremely useful.

It might have been from this same strain that the fortunate young man
had also inherited that common sense which made him fairly level-headed,
and not given as a rule to any over-mad taste.

The Arranstouns had been at Arranstoun since the time of those tiresome
Picts and Scots--and for generations they had raided their neighbors'
castles and lands, and carried off their cattle and wives and daughters
and what not! They had seized anything they fancied, and were a strong,
ruthless, brutal race, not much vitiated by civilization. These
instincts of seizing what they wanted had gone on in them throughout
eleven hundred years and more, and were there until this day, when
Michael, the sole representative of this branch of the family, said
"Damn!" and kicked a footstool across the room into the grate.

Mr. Johnson was quite aware of the peculiarity of the family. Indeed, he
was not surprised when Alexander Armstrong remarked upon it presently.
Alexander Armstrong was the old retainer, who now enjoyed the position
of guide to the Castle upon the two days a week when tourists were
allowed to walk through the state rooms, and look at the splendid
carvings and armor and pictures, and the collection of plate.

Johnson had had time to glance over his master's correspondence that
morning, which, with characteristic recklessness, that gentleman had
left upon his bed while he went to his bath, so his servant knew the
cause of his bad temper, and had been prudent and kept a good deal out
of the way. But the news was so interesting, he felt Alexander Armstrong
really ought to share the thrill.

"Mrs. Hatfield's husband is dying," he announced, as Armstrong, very
diffidently, peeped through the window from the balcony, and then,
seeing no one but his friend the valet, entered the room.

Alexander Armstrong spoke in broad Scotch, but I shall not attempt to
transcribe this barbaric language; sufficient to tell you that he made
the excuse for his intrusion by saying that he had wanted to get some
order from the master about the tourists.

"We shan't have any tourists when she's installed here as mistress!" Mr.
Johnson remarked sepulchrally.

Armstrong was heard to murmur that he did not know what Mr. Johnson
meant! This was too stupid!

"Why, I told you straight off Mrs. Hatfield's husband is dying," Johnson
exclaimed, contemptuously. "She wrote one of her mauve billy doos this
morning, telling the master so, and suggesting they'd soon be able to be
married and happy--pretty cold-blooded, I call it, considering the poor
man is not yet in his grave!"

Armstrong was almost knocked over by this statement; then he
laughed--and what he said meant in plain English that Mr. Johnson need
not worry himself, for no Arranstoun had ever been known to be coerced
into any course of conduct which he did not desire himself--not being
hampered by consideration for women, or by any consideration but his own
will. For the matter of that, a headstrong, ruthless race all of them
and, as Mr. Johnson must be very well aware, their own particular master
was a true chip of the old block.

"See his bonny blue eye--" (I think he pronounced it "ee"), "see his
mouth shut like a game spring. See his strong arms and his height! See
him smash the boughs off trees when they get in his way! and then tell
me a woman's going to get dominion over him. Go along, Mr. Johnson!"

But Johnson remained unconvinced and troubled; he had had several
unpleasant proofs of woman's infernal cunning in his own sphere of life,
and Mrs. Hatfield, he knew, was as well endowed with Eve's wit as any
French maid.

"We'll ha' a bet about it if you like," Armstrong remarked, as he got up
to go, the clock striking three. He knew the first batch of afternoon
tourists would be clamoring at the gate.

Mr. Johnson looked at the riding-boots in his hand.

"He went straight off for his ride without tasting a bite of breakfast
or seeing Mr. Fordyce, and he didn't return to lunch, and just now I
find every article of clothing strewn upon the floor--when he came in
and took another bath--he did not even ring for me--he must have
galloped all the time; his temper would frighten a fighting cock."

Meanwhile, Michael Arranstoun was tramping his park with giant strides,
and suddenly came upon his friend and guest, Henry Fordyce, whose very
presence in his house he had forgotten, so turbulent had his thoughts
been ever since the early post came in. Henry Fordyce was a leisurely
creature, and had come out for a stroll on the exquisite June day upon
his own account.

They exchanged a few remarks, and gradually got back to Michael's
sitting-room again, and rang for drinks.

Mr. Fordyce had, by this time, become quite aware that an active volcano
was going on in his friend, but had waited for the first indication of
the cause. It came in the course of a conversation, after the footman
had left the room and both men were reclining in big chairs with their
iced whiskey and soda.

"It is a shame to stay indoors on such a day," Henry said lazily,
looking out upon the balcony and the glittering sunshine.

"I never saw anyone enjoy a holiday like you do, Henry," Michael
retorted, petulantly. "I can't enjoy anything lately. 'Pon my soul, it
is worth going into Parliament to get such an amount of pleasure out of
a week's freedom."

But Henry did not agree that it was freedom, when even here at
Arranstoun he had been pestered to patronize the local bazaar.

"The penalty of greatness! I wonder when you will be prime minister.
Lord, what a grind!"

Mr. Fordyce stretched himself in his chair and lit a cigar.

"It may be a grind," he said, meditatively, "but it is for some definite
idea of good--even if I am a slave; whereas you!--you are tied and bound
to a woman--and such a woman! You have not been able to call your soul
your own since last October as it is--and before you know where you are,
you will be attending the husband's funeral and your own wedding in the
same week!"

Michael bounded from his chair with an oath. "I'll be shot if I do!" he
said, and sat down again. Then his voice grew a little uncertain, and he
went on:

"It is worrying me awfully, though, Henry. If poor old Maurice does puff
out--I suppose I ought to marry her--I----"

Mr. Fordyce stiffened, and the sleepy look in his gray eyes altered to a
flash of steel.

"Let us have a little plain speaking, Michael, old boy. It is not as
though I do not know the whole circumstance of your affair with Violet
Hatfield. I warned you about her in the beginning, when you met her at
my sister Rose's, but, as usual, you would take your own course----"

Michael began to speak, but checked himself--and Henry Fordyce went on.

"I have had a letter from Rose this morning--as you of course know,
Violet is staying for this Whitsuntide with them, having dragged her
wretched husband, dying of consumption as he is, to this merry party.
Well--Rose says poor Maurice is in a terrible state, caught a fresh cold
on Saturday--and she adds, 'So I suppose we shall soon see Violet
installed at Arranstoun as mistress.'"

"I know--I heard from Violet herself this morning," and Michael put his
head down dejectedly.

"Ebbsworth is only thirty-five miles from here," Mr. Fordyce announced
with meaning. "Violet can pop in on you at any moment, and she'll clinch
the matter and bind you with her cobwebs before you can escape."

"Oh, Lord!"

"You know you are dead sick of her, Michael--and you know that I am not
the sort of man who would ever speak of a woman thus without grave
reason; but she does not care for you any more than the half a dozen
others who occupied your proud position before your day--it is only for
money and the glory of having you tied to her apron strings. It was not
any good hammering on while the passion was upon you; but I have
watched you, and have seen that it is waning, so now's my time. With
this danger in front of you, you have got to pull yourself together, old
boy, and cut and run."

"That would be no use--" Then Michael stammered a little. "I say, Henry,
I won't hear a word against her. You can thunder at me--but leave her
out."

Mr. Fordyce smiled.

"Did she express deep grief at poor Maurice's condition in her letter?"
he asked.

"Er--no--not exactly----"

"I thought not--she probably suggested all sorts of joys with you when
she is free!"

There was an ominous silence.

Mr. Fordyce's voice now took on that crisp tone which his adversaries in
the House of Commons so well knew meant that they must look to their
guns.

"Delightful woman! A spider, I tell you, a roaring hypocrite, too,
bamboozling poor Rose into thinking her a virtuous, persecuted little
darling, with a noble passion for you, and my sister is a downright
person not easily fooled. At this moment, Violet is probably shedding
tears on her shoulder over poor Maurice, while she is plotting how soon
she can become mistress of Arranstoun. Good God! when I think of it--I
would rather get in a girl from the village and go through the ceremony
with her, and make myself safe, than have the prospect of Violet
Hatfield as a wife. Michael, I tell you seriously, dear boy--you won't
have the ghost of a chance if you are still unmarried when poor Maurice
dies!"

Michael bounded from his chair once more. He was perfectly
furious--furious with the situation--furious with the woman--furious
with himself.

"Confound it, Henry, I--know it--but it does not mend matters your
ranting there--and I am so sorry for the poor chap--Maurice, I mean--a
very decent fellow, poor Maurice! Can't you suggest any way out?"

Mr. Fordyce mused a moment, while he deliberately puffed smoke,
Michael's impatience increasing so that he ran his hands through his
dark, smooth hair, whose shiny, immaculate brushing was usually his
pride!

"Can't you suggest a way out?" he reiterated.

Mr. Fordyce did not reply--then after a moment: "You were always too
much occupied with women, Michael--from your first scrape when you left
Eton; and over this affair you have been a complete fool."

Michael was heard to swear again.

"You have been inconsistent, too, because you did not even employ your
usual ruthless methods of doing what you pleased with them. You have
simply drifted into allowing this vile creature's cobwebs to cling on to
your whole existence until you are almost paralyzed, and it seems to me
that an immediate marriage with someone else is your only way of escape.
Such a waste of your life! Just analyze the position. You have
everything in the world, this glorious place--an old
name--money--prestige--and if your inclinations do run to the material
side of things instead of the intellectual, they are still successful in
their demonstration. No one has a better eye for a horse, or is a finer
shot. The best at driven grouse for your age, my boy, I have ever seen.
You are full of force, Michael, and ought to do some decent
thing--instead of which you spoil the whole outlook by fooling after
this infernal woman--and you have not now the pluck to cut the Gordian
knot. She will drag you to the lowest depths----"

Then he laughed. "And only think of that voice in one's ears all day
long! I would rather marry old Bessie at the South Lodge. She is
eighty-four, she tells me, and would soon leave you a widower."

The first ray of hope shot into Michael's bright blue eyes--and he
exclaimed with a kind of joy, as he seized Binko, his bulldog, by his
fat, engaging throat:

"Bessie! Old Bessie--By Jove, what an idea!--the very thing. She'd do it
for me like a shot, dear old body!"

Binko gurgled and slobbered in sympathy.

"She would be kind to you, too, Binko. She would not say she found your
hairs on every chair, and that you dribbled on her dress! She would not
tell your master that he left his cigarette-ash about, and she hated the
smell of smoke! She would not want this room for her boudoir, she----"

Then he stopped his flow of words, suddenly catching sight of the
whimsical, sardonic smile upon his friend's face.

"Oh, Lord!" he mumbled, contritely. "I had forgotten you were here,
Henry. I am so jolly upset."

"This heartlessness about poor Maurice has finished you, eh?" Mr.
Fordyce suggested. He felt he might be gaining his end.

Michael covered his face with his hands.

"It seems so ghastly to think of marriage with the poor chap not yet
dead--I am fairly knocked over--it really is the last straw--but she
will cry and make a scene--and she has certainly arguments--and it will
make one feel such a cad to leave her."

"She wrote that--did she?--wrote of marriage and her husband's last
attack of hemorrhage in the same paragraph, I suppose. Michael, it is
revolting! My dear boy, you must break away from her--and then do try to
occupy yourself with more important things than women. Believe me, they
are all very well in their way and in their proper place--to be treated
with the greatest courtesy and respect as wives and mothers--even loved,
if you will, for a recreation--but as vital factors in a man's real
life! My dear fellow, the idea is ridiculous--that life should be for
his country and the development of his own soul----"

Michael Arranstoun laughed.

"Jolly old Mohammedan! You think women have none, I suppose!"

Henry Fordyce frowned, because it was rather true--but he denied the
charge.

"Nothing of the sort. Merely, I see things at their proper balance and
you cannot."

Michael leaned back in his chair; he was quieter for a moment.

"I only see what I want to see, Henry--and I am a savage--I cannot help
it--we have always been so. When I fancy a woman, I must obtain
her--when I want a horse, I must have it. It is always _must_--and we
have not done so badly. We still possess our shoulders and chins and
strength after eleven hundred years of it!" and he stretched out a
splendid arm, with a force which could have felled an ox.

An undoubtedly fine specimen of British manhood he looked, sitting there
in the June sunlight, which came in a shaft from the south mullioned
window in the corner beyond the great fireplace, the space between
occupied by a large picture of uncertain date, depicting the landing of
Mary, Queen of Scots, in her northern kingdom.

His eyes roamed to this.

"One of my ancestors was among that party," he said, pointing to a
figure. "He had just killed a Moreton and stolen his wife, that is why
he looks so perky--the fellow in the blue doublet."

Mr. Fordyce rose from his chair and fired his last shot.

"And now a female spider is going to paralyze the last Arranstoun, and
rule him for the rest of his days, sapping his vitality."

But Michael protested.

"By heaven, no!"

"Well, I'll leave you to think about it. I am going for another stroll
on this lovely day." He had got to the window by this time, which looked
into the courtyard on the opposite side to the balcony. "Goodness! what
a party of tourists! It is a bore for you to have them all over the
place like this! To own a castle with state rooms to be shown to the
public has its disadvantages."

Michael looked at them, too, a large party of Americans, mostly of that
class which compose the tourists of all countries, and which no nation
feels proud to own. He had seen hundreds of such, and turned away
indifferently.

"They only come here twice a week, and it has been allowed for such
ages--they are generally quiet, and fortunately their perambulations
close at the end of the gallery. They don't intrude upon my own suite.
They get to the chapel by the outside door."

Henry crossed the room and went on to the balcony.

"Mrs. Hatfield will alter all that," he laughed, as he disappeared from
view.

Michael flashed a rageful glance at his back, and then flung himself
into his great armchair again, and pulled the wrinkled mass, which
called itself a prize bulldog, on to his lap.

"I believe he's right and we are caught, Binko. If we fled to the Rocky
Mountains, she would track us. If we stay and face it, she'll make an
almighty scandal and force us to marry her. What in the devil's name are
we to do----!"

Binko licked his master's hands, and made noises, so full of gurgling,
slobbering sympathy, no heart could have remained uncomforted. Who
knows! His canine common sense may have telepathically transmitted a
thought, for Michael suddenly plopped him on the floor, and stalked
toward the fireplace to ring the bell, while he exclaimed, as though
answering a suggestion. "Yes, we'll send for old Bessie--that's the only
way."

But before he could reach his goal, the picture of Mary, Queen of Scots,
landing fell forward with a crash, and through the aperture of a secret
door which it concealed, there tumbled a very young and pretty girl
right into the room.




CHAPTER II


Mr. Arranstoun was extremely startled and annoyed, too, and before he
took in the situation, he had exclaimed, while Binko gave an ominous
growl of displeasure:

"Confound it--who is that! These are private rooms!" Then, seeing it was
a girl on the floor, he said in another voice: "Quiet, Binko--" and the
dog retired to his own basket under a distant table. "Oh, I beg your
pardon--but----"

The creature on the floor blinked at Michael with large, round, violet
eyes, but did not move, while she answered aggrievedly--with a very
faint accent, whether a little French or a little American, or a little
of both, he was not sure, only that it had something attractive about
it.

"You may well say 'but'! I did not mean to intrude upon your private
room--but I had to run away from Mr. Greenbank--he was so horrid--" here
she gasped a little for breath--"and I happened to see something like a
door ajar in the Gainsborough room, so I fled through it, and it
fastened after me with a snap--I could not open it again--and it was
pitch dark in that dreadful passage and not a scrap of air--I felt
suffocated, and I pushed on anywhere--and something gave way and I fell
in here--that's all----"

She rattled this out without a stop, and then stared at Michael with her
big, childish eyes, but did not attempt to rise from the floor.

He walked toward her and held out his hand, and with ceremonious and
ironical politeness, he began:

"May I not help you--I could offer you a chair----"

She interrupted him while she struggled up, refusing his proffered hand.

"I've knocked myself against your nasty table--why do you have it in
that place!"

Michael sat down upon the edge of it, and went on in his ironical tone:

"Had I known I was to have the honor of this visit, I should certainly
have had it moved."

"There is no use being sarcastic," the girl said, almost crying now. "It
hurts very much, and--and--I want to go home."

Mr. Arranstoun pushed a comfortable monster seat toward her, and said
more sympathetically:

"I am very sorry--but where is home?"

The girl sank into the chair, and smoothed out her pink cotton frock;
the skimpy skirt (not as narrow as in these days, but still short and
spare!) showed a perfect pair of feet and ankles.

"She's American, of course, then," Michael said to himself, observing
these, "and quite pretty if that smudge of grime was off her face."

She was looking at him now with her large, innocent eyes, which
contained no shadow of _gêne_ over the unusual situation, and then she
answered quite simply:

"I haven't a home, you know--I'm just staying at the Inn with Uncle
Mortimer and Aunt Jemima and--and--Mr. Greenbank--and we are tourists, I
suppose, and were looking at the pictures--when--when I had to run
away."

Michael felt a little piqued with curiosity; she was a diversion after
his perplexing, irritating meditations.

"It would be so interesting to hear why you ran away--the whole story?"
he suggested.

The girl turned her head and looked out of the window, showing a dear
little baby profile, and masses of light brown hair rolled up anyhow at
the back. She did not look older than seventeen at the outside, and was
peculiarly childish and slender for that.

"But I should have to tell you from the beginning, and it is so
long--and you are a stranger."

Michael drew another chair nearer to her, and sat down, while his manner
took on a note of grave, elderly concern, which rather belied the
twinkle of mischief in his eyes.

"Never mind that--I am sympathetic, and I am your host--and, by
Jove!--won't you have some tea! You look awfully tired and--dusty," and
he rang the bell, and then reseated himself. "See, to be quite orthodox,
we will make our own introduction--I am Michael Arranstoun--and you
are----?"

The girl rose and made him a polite bow. "I am Sabine Delburg," she
announced. He bowed also--and then she went into a peal of silvery
laughter that seemed to contain all the glad notes of spring and youth.
"Oh, this is fun! and I--I should like some tea!" She caught sight of
herself in an old mirror, which stood upon a commode. "Goodness, what a
guy I look! Why didn't you tell me that my hat was crooked!" She settled
it straight, and began searching for a handkerchief up her sleeve and in
her belt, but none was to be found.

So Mr. Arranstoun handed her a clean one he chanced to have in his
pocket. "I expect you want to wipe the smudge of dirt off your face," he
hazarded.

She took it laughing, and showing an even row of beautiful teeth between
red, full baby lips.

"You are the owner of this castle," she went on, as she gave firm rubs
at the velvet pink cheeks. "That must be nice. You can do what you like,
I suppose," and here a sigh of regret escaped and made her voice lower.

"I wish I _could_," Mr. Arranstoun answered feelingly.

"Well, if I were _a man_, I would!"

"What would you do?"

She turned and faced him, while she said, with extreme solemnity:

"I should never marry Mr. Greenbank."

Michael laughed.

"I don't suppose you would if you were a man!" At this moment, a footman
answered the bell. "Bring tea, please," his master ordered, inwardly
amused at the servant's astonished face, and then when they were alone
again, he continued his sympathetic questioning.

"Who is Mr. Greenbank? You had to flee from him--you said he was horrid,
I believe?"

Miss Delburg had removed her hat, and was trying to tidy her hair before
readjusting it; she had the hat-pin in her mouth, but took it out to
answer vehemently:

"So he is, a pig! And I went and got engaged to him this morning! You
see," turning to the glass again, quite unembarrassed, "I can't get my
money until I am married--and Uncle is so disagreeable, and Aunt Jemima
nags all day long, and it was left in Papa's will that I was to live
with them--and I don't come of age until I am twenty-one, but I can get
the money directly if I marry--I was seventeen in May, and of course no
one could stand it till twenty-one! Mr. Greenbank is the only person
who has asked me, and Aunt Jemima says no one else ever will! I have
been out of the Convent for a whole month, and I can't bear it."

Michael was beginning really to enjoy himself. She was something so
fresh, so entirely different to anything he had ever seen in his life
before. There was nothing of shyness or awkwardness in her manner, as
any English girl would have shown. She was absolutely at ease, with a
childish, confiding innocence which he saw plainly was real, and not put
on for his benefit. It was almost incredible in these up-to-date days. A
most engaging morsel of seventeen summers, he decided, as he answered
with over-grave concern:

"What a hard fate!--but you have not told me yet why you ran away!"

The girl had finished her toilet by now, and reseated herself with a
grown-up air in the big armchair.

"Oh! well, he was just--horrid--that was all," and then abruptly turning
the conversation, "It is a nice place you have here, and it does feel
lovely doing something wrong like this--having tea with you, I mean. You
know, I have never spoken to a young man before. The Nuns always told us
they were dreadful creatures--but you don't look so bad--" and she
examined her host critically.

Michael accepted the implied appreciation.

"What is Mr. Greenbank, then?"

The silver laugh rang out again, while she jumped up and peeped from
the window into the courtyard.

"Samuel--he's only a thing! Oh! Uncle and Aunt would be so angry if they
could see me here! And I expect they are all in a fine fuss now to know
what has happened to me! They never saw me go through the door, and I
hope they think that I've committed suicide out of one of the windows.
Look!" and she danced excitedly, "there is Uncle talking to the
commissionaire. Oh, what fun!"

Mr. Arranstoun peeped, too--and saw a spare, elderly American of grim
appearance in anxious confab with Alexander Armstrong.

The whole situation struck him as delightful, and he laughed gaily,
while he suggested: "You are perhaps rather a difficult charge?"

Miss Delburg resented this at once.

"What an idea! How would you like to marry Mr. Greenbank, or stay with
Aunt Jemima for four years!"

"Well, you see, I can't contemplate it, as I am not a girl!"

Again those white teeth showed, and the violet eyes were suffused with
laughter.

"No! Of course not. How silly I am--but I mean, how would you care to be
forced to do something you did not like?"

Michael thought of his own fate.

"By Jove! I should hate it!"

"Well--you can understand me!"

Then the door opened, and the butler and footman brought in the tea,
eyeing their master's guest furtively, while they maintained that
superbly aloof manner of well-bred English servants. The pause their
entrance caused gave Mr. Arranstoun time to think, and an idea gradually
began to unfold itself in his brain--and unconsciously he took out, and
then replaced in his breast pocket, a mauve, closely-written letter,
while a frown of deep cogitation crept over his face.

Miss Delburg, for her part, was only thrilled with the sight of the very
agreeable tea, and after waiting a moment to see what her preoccupied
host would do when the servants left the room, hunger forced her to fall
to the temptation of a particularly appetizing chocolate cake, which she
surreptitiously seized, and began munching with the frank joy of a
child.

"I do love them!" she sighed, "and we never were allowed them, only once
a month after Moravia Cloudwater got that awful toothache, and had to
have a big grinder pulled out."

Michael was paying no attention to her; he had walked rapidly up and
down the room once or twice, much to her astonishment.

At last he spoke.

"I have an idea--but first let me give you some tea--No--do help
yourself," then he paused awkwardly, and she at once proceeded to fill
her cup.

Binko had condescended to emerge from his basket under the table.
Tea-time was an hour when he allowed himself to take an interest in
human beings.

"Oh! you darling!" the girl cried, putting down her cup. "You fat,
lovely, wrinkly darling!"

"He is a nice dog," his master admitted; his voice was actually
nervous--and he pulled Binko to him by his solid, fleshy paws, while he
sat down in his chair again.

Miss Delburg had got back into her seat, where she munched a cake and
continued her tea. The chair was so deep and long that her little bits
of feet did not nearly reach the ground, but dangled there.

"Mayn't I pour you out some, too?" she asked, getting forward again. "I
do love to pour out--and do you take sugar--? I like lumps and lumps of
it."

"Oh--er--yes," Michael agreed absently, and then he went on with the
determined air of a person getting something off his chest. "I hardly
know how to say what I am thinking of, it sounds so strange. Listen--I
also must marry someone--anyone--to avert a fate I don't want--What do
you say to marrying _me_?"

The teapot came down into the tray with a bump, while the round,
childish eyes grew like saucers with astonishment.

"Oh!"

"I dare say it does surprise you--" Michael then hastened to add. "I
mean, we should only go through the ceremony, of course, and you could
get your money and I my freedom."

The girl clasped her hands round her knees.

"And I should never have to see you again?" in a glad voice of
comprehension.

Michael leaned forward nearer to her.

"Well--no--never, unless you wished."

Miss Delburg actually kicked her feet with delight.

"It is a perfectly splendid suggestion," she announced. "We could just
oblige one another in this way, and need never see or speak to each
other again. What made it come into your head? Do you really think we
could do that--Oh! how rude of me--I've forgotten to pour out your tea!"

"Never mind, talking about--our marriage--is more interesting," and Mr.
Arranstoun's blue eyes filled with mischievous appreciation of the
situation, even beyond the seriousness of the discussion he meant to
carry to an end. But this aspect did not so much concern Miss Delburg,
as that she had let slip a particular pleasure for the moment, that of
being allowed a teapot in her own hand, instead of being given a huge
bowl of milk with a drop of weak coffee mixed in it, and watching a like
fate fall upon her companions.

When this delightful business was accomplished to her satisfaction, her
sweet little round face a model of serious responsibility the while, she
handed Michael the cup and drew herself back once more into the depth
of the giant chair.

"I can't behave nicely in this great creature," she said, patting the
fat cushioned arms, "and the Mother Superior would be horribly shocked,
but don't let's mind. Now, do tell me something about this plan. You
see," gravely, "I really don't know the world very well yet--I have
always been at the Convent near Tours until a month ago--even in the
holidays, since I was seven--and the Sisters never told me anything
about outside, except that it was a place of pitfalls and that men were
dreadful creatures. I was very happy there, except I wanted to get out
all the time, and when I did and found Uncle and Aunt more tiresome than
the Sisters--there seemed no help for it--only Mr. Greenbank. So I
accepted him this morning. But--" and this awful thought caused her
whole countenance to change. "Now I come to think of it, the usual
getting married means you would have to stay with the man--wouldn't you?
And he wants--he wants to kiss--I mean," hurriedly, "you would be lovely
to marry because I would never have to see you again!"

Michael Arranstoun put his head back and laughed; she was perfectly
delicious--he began to dislike Mr. Greenbank.

His tea was quite forgotten.

"Er--of course not," he agreed. "Well, I could get a special license,
if you could tell me exactly how you stand, and your whole name and your
parents' names, and everything, and we could get their consent--but I
conclude your father, at least, is no longer alive."

Miss Delburg had a very grown-up air now.

"No, my parents are both dead," she told him. "Papa three years ago, and
Mamma for ages, and I never saw them much anyhow. They were always
travelling about, and Mamma was a Frenchwoman and a Catholic. Her family
did not speak to her because she married a Protestant and an American.
And the worry it was for me being brought up in a convent! because Papa
would have me a Protestant, so I do believe I have got a little religion
of my own that is not like either!"

"Yes?"

She continued her narrative in the intervals of the joy of munching
another cake.

"Papa was very rich, and it's all mine--Only it appears he did not
approve of the freedom of American women--and so tied it up so that I
can't get it until I am an old maid of twenty-one--or get married. Is it
not disgusting?"

Michael's thoughts were now concentrating upon the vital points.

"But have you not got a guardian or something?"

"Not exactly. Only an old lawyer person who is now in London. I have
seen Papa's will, and I know I can marry when and whom I like if I get
his consent--and he would give it in a minute, he is sick of me!"

"How fortunate!" Then restlessness seized him again, and he got up,
gulped down his tea, and began his pacing.

"I do think it would be a good plan, and we must do it if we can get
this person's leave--Yes, and do it quickly before we change our minds,
or something interferes. Everyone would think we were perfectly mad, but
as it suits us both, that is no one's business--Only--you are rather
young--and er--I don't know Greenbank. You are sure he is horrid?"

The girl clasped her hands together with force.

"Sure! I should think so--He wears glasses, and has nasty, scrabbly bits
of fur on his face, which he thinks is a beard, and he is pompous and he
talks like this," and she imitated a precise Boston voice. "'My dear
Sabine--have you considered,' and he is lanky--and Oh! I detest him, and
I can't imagine why I ever said I would marry him--but if I don't, what
_am_ I to do with Aunt Jemima for four years! I should die of it."

Michael sat on the edge of the table and looked at her long and deeply.
He took in the childish picture she made in the big chair. He had no
definite appreciation then of her charm, his mind was too fixed upon
what seemed a prospect of certain escape from Violet Hatfield and her
cunning thirty years of experience. This young thing could not interfere
with him, and divorces in Scotland were not impossible things--they
would both gain what they wanted for the time, and it was a fair
bargain. So he said, after a moment:

"I will go up to London to-morrow, and if it is as you say that you are
free to marry whom and when you will, I will try to get this old
lawyer's consent and a special license--But how about your Uncle? Has he
not any legal right over you?"

Miss Delburg laughed contentedly.

"Not in the least--only that I have to live with him until I am married.
Mr. Parsons--that's the lawyer's name--hates him, and he hates Mr.
Parsons. So I know Mr. Parsons will be delighted to spite him by giving
his consent, if you just say Uncle Mortimer is trying to force me into a
marriage against my will with his nephew--Samuel Greenbank is his
nephew, you know--no relation to me. It is Aunt Jemima who is Papa's
sister."

All this seemed quite convincing. Michael felt relieved.

"I see," he said. "Well, it appears simple enough. I believe I could be
back by Thursday, and I could have my chaplain and a friend of mine, and
we could get the affair over in the chapel--and then you can go back to
the Inn with your certificate--and I can go to Paris--free!" And his
thoughts added, "And even if poor Maurice does die soon, I need fear
nothing!"

Now that their two fates seemed settled, Miss Delburg got out of the
chair and stood up in a dignified way; her soft cheeks were the color of
a glowing pink rose, and her violet eyes shone with fun and excitement,
her little, irregular features and perfect teeth seemed to add to the
infantine aspect of the picture she made in her unfashionable pink
cotton frock. Dress had been strongly discouraged at the Convent, and
was looked upon by Aunt Jemima, a strict New Englander, as a snare of
the devil, but even the garment, in the selecting of which she had had
no hand, seemed to hang with grace upon the child's slim figure.

Not a doubt as to the future clouded her thoughts; it was all a glorious
piece of fun, and of all the daring tricks she had perpetrated at the
Convent to get chocolates, or climb a tree, or have a midnight orgy of
cake and sirop, none had been so exciting as this--to go through the
ceremony of marriage and be free for life!

Her education had been of the most elementary, and the whole aim of
those placed over her had been to keep her as innocent and ignorant as a
child of ten. Not a single problem of life had ever presented itself to
her naturally intelligent mind. She had read no books, conversed with no
grown-up people, played with no one but her companions, three American
girls and a few French ones, and the simple Nuns. And since her
emancipation, she had but wandered in the English lakes with her uncle
and aunt and Samuel Greenbank, and so had come to Arranstoun like any
other tourist to see this famous castle still inhabited after eleven
hundred years.

In these days of women giving daily proof of their capability for
irritating mischief, if not of their ability to rule nations, Sabine
Delburg was a very unique being, and could not have existed but for a
combination of rare circumstances, as she was half American and half
French and had inherited the quick understanding of both nations. But
from the age of seven, she had never seen the outside world. It is not
my place, in any case, to explain what she was or was not. The creature,
with all her faults and charms, is there to speak for herself--and if
you, my friend, who are reading this tale on a summer's day do not feel
you want to hear any more of what happened to these two young things, by
all means put down the book and go your way!

So let us get back to Mr. Arranstoun's sitting-room and the June
afternoon, and we shall hear Miss Delburg saying, in her childish voice
of joy:

"Nothing could be better--I always did like doing mad things. It will be
the greatest fun! Think of their faces when I prance in and say I am
married! Then I will snap my fingers at them and go off and see the
world."

Michael knelt upon a low old _prie dieu_ which was near, and looked into
her face--while he asked, whimsically:

"I do wonder where you will begin."

Miss Delburg now sat upon the edge of the table; this was a grave
question and must be answered at leisure, though without indecision.

"Oh, I know," she announced. "There was my great friend, Moravia
Cloudwater, at the Convent. She was older than me, and went to Paris
with her father and married an Italian prince last year. I have heard
from her since, and she has often wanted me to go and stay with her in
Rome--and I shall now. Morri and I are the dearest friends--and her
things did look lovely the day she came to see us at Tours--with the
prince's coronet on them--" and then the first shadow came to her
contentment. "That is the only pity about you--even with a castle, you
haven't a coronet, I suppose?" regretfully. "I should have liked one on
my handkerchiefs and note-paper."

Michael felt his shortcomings.

"The title was taken away when we followed Prince Charlie and we only
got back the land by the skin of our teeth after an awful business so I
am afraid I cannot do that for you--but perhaps," consolingly, "you will
have better luck next time."

This brought some comfort.

"Why, of course! we can get a divorce--as soon as we want. Moravia had
an aunt, who simply went to Sioux Falls and got one at once and married
someone else, so it's not the least trouble. Oh, I am glad you have
thought of this plan. It is clever of you!"

Mr. Arranstoun felt that he was becoming rather too interested in
his--_fiancée_ and time was passing. Her family might discover where she
was--or Henry might return; he must clinch matters finally.

"I think we must come to business details now," he said. "Had you not
better write a letter to Mr. Parsons that I could take, stating your
wishes; and will you also write down upon another piece of paper all the
details of your name, age--and so forth----"

He now showed her his writing-table and gave her paper and pens to
choose from.

She sat down gravely, and put her hands to her head as one thinking
hard. Then she began rapidly to write--while Mr. Arranstoun watched her
from the hearth-rug, to where he had retired.

She evidently wrote out the statistics required first, and then began
her letter. And at last she turned a rogue's face with a perplexed frown
on it, while she bit her pen.

"How do you spell indigenous, please?"

He started forward.

"'Indigenous'?--what a grand word!--i-n-d-i-g-e-n-o-u-s."

"One has to be grand when writing business letters," she told him,
condescendingly, and then finished her missive.

"There--that will do! Now listen!"

She got up and stood with the sheet in her hand, and read off the
remarkable document without worrying much about stops or commas.

     "Dear Mr. Parsons:

     "Papa said I could marry who I wanted to provided that he was
     decent, so please give your written consent to the _grand seigneur_
     who brings this. His name is Arranstoun, and he is indigenous to
     this Castle, and really an aristocrat who papa and mamma would have
     approved of, although he unfortunately has no title----"

"I had to put in that, you see," and she looked up explainingly,
"because it sounds so ordinary if he'd never heard of Arranstoun--we
wouldn't have, only Uncle Mortimer was looking out for old ruins to
visit--well," and she continued her recital, while Michael lowered his
head to hide the smile in his eyes.

     "We wish to get married on Thursday so please be quick about the
     consent, as Uncle Mortimer wants me to marry his nephew, Samuel
     Greenbank, who I hate. Agree, sir, the expression of my sentiments,
     the most distinguished

                                             "Sabine Delburg."

     "P.S. I will want all my money, 50,000 dollars a year I believe it
     is, on Friday morning."

Then she looked up with pride.

"Don't you think that will do?"

Michael was overcome--his voice shook with enchanted mirth.

"Admirably," he assured her, with what solemnity he could.

Sabine seemed thoroughly satisfied with herself.

"That's all right, then. Now I must be off, or they will be coming to
look for me, and that would be a bore."

"But we have not made all the arrangements for our wedding." The
prospective bridegroom thought it prudent to remind her. "When can you
come on Thursday? My train gets in about six."

"Thursday," and she contracted her dark eyebrows. "Let me see--Yes, we
are staying until Saturday to see the remains of Elbank Monastery--but I
don't know how I can slip away, unless--only it would be so late. I
could say I had a headache and go to bed early without dinner, and get
here about eight while they were having theirs. It is still quite
light--I often had to pretend things at the Convent to get a moment's
peace."

Michael reflected.

"Better not chance eight--as you say it is quite light then and they
might see you. Slip out of the hotel at nine. The park gate is, as you
know, right across the road. I will wait for you inside, and we can walk
here in a few minutes--and come up these balcony steps--and the chapel
is down that passage--through this door. See."

He went and opened the door, and she followed him--talking as she
walked.

"Nine! Oh! that is late--I have never been out so late before--but it
can't matter--just this once--can it? And here in the north it is so
funny; it is light at nine, too! Perhaps it would be safest." Then,
peering down the vaulted passage and drawing back, "It is a gloomy hole
to get married in!"

"You won't say so when you see the chapel itself," he reassured her. "It
is rather a beautiful place. Whenever any of my ancestors committed a
particularly atrocious raid, and wanted to be absolved for their sins,
they put in a window or a painting or carving. The family was Catholic
until my grandfather's time, and then High Church, so the glories have
remained untouched."

Sabine kept close to him as they walked, as a child afraid of the dark
would have done. It seemed to her too like her recent experience of the
secret passage, and then she exclaimed in a voice of frank awe and
admiration, when he opened the nail-studded, iron-bound door at the end:

"Oh! how divine!"

And it was indeed. A gem of the finest period of early Gothic
architecture, adorned with all trophies which love, fear and contrition
could compel from the art of the ages. Glorious colored lights swept
down in shafts from matchless stained glass, and the high altar was a
blaze of richness, while beautiful paintings and tapestries covered the
walls.

It was gorgeous and sumptuous, and unlike anything else in England or
Scotland. It might have been the private chapel of a proud, voluptuous
Cardinal in Rome's great days.

"Why is that one little window plain?" Sabine asked.

Then Michael answered with a cynical note in his voice:

"It is left for me--I, who am the last of them, to put up some expiatory
offering, I expect. Rapine and violence are in the blood," and then he
laughed lightly, and led her back through the gloom to his sitting-room.
There was a strange, fierce light in his bright blue eyes, which the
child-woman did not see, and which, if she had perceived, she would not
have understood any more than he understood it himself--for no concrete
thought had yet come to him about the future. Only, there underneath was
that mighty force, relentless, inexorable, of heredity, causing the
instinct which had dominated the Arranstouns for eleven hundred years.

He did not seek to detain his guest and promised bride--but, with great
courtesy, he showed her the way down the stairs of the lawn, and so
through the postern into the park, and he watched her slender form trip
off towards the gate which was opposite the Inn, her last words ringing
in his ears in answer to his final question.

"No, I shall not fail--I will leave the Crown at nine o'clock exactly on
Thursday."

Then turning, he retraced his steps to his sitting-room, and there found
Henry Fordyce returned.




CHAPTER III


"Well, old boy!" Mr. Fordyce greeted him with. "You should have been
with me and had a good round of golf--but perhaps, though, you have made
up your mind!"

Michael flung himself into his great chair.

"Yes--I have--and I have got a fiancée."

Mr. Fordyce was not disturbed; he did not even answer this absurd
remark, he just puffed his cigar--cigarettes were beneath his notice.

"You don't seem very interested," his host ejaculated, rather
aggrievedly.

"Tommyrot!"

"I tell you, it is true. I have got a fiancée."

"My dear fellow, you are mad!"

"No, I assure you I am quite sane--I have found a way out of the
difficulty--an angel has dropped from the clouds to save me from Violet
Hatfield."

Henry Fordyce was actually startled. Michael looked as though he were
talking seriously.

"But where did she come from? What the--Oh! I have no patience with you,
you old fool! You are playing some comedy upon me!"

"Henry, I give you my word, I'm not--I am going to marry a most
presentable young person at nine o'clock on Thursday night in the chapel
here--and you are going to stay and be best man." Then his excitement
began to rise again, and he got up from his chair and paced up and down
restlessly. "It is the very thing. She wants her money and I want my
freedom. She gets hers by marriage, and I get mine. I don't care a rush
for domestic bliss, it has never appealed to me; and the fellow in
Australia who'll come after me has got a boy who will do all right, no
doubt, for the old place by and by. I shall have a perfectly free time
and no responsibilities--and, thank the Lord! no more women for me for
the future. I have done with the snakes. I shall be happy and free for
the first time for a whole year!"

Mr. Fordyce actually let his cigar go out. This incredible story was
beginning to have an effect upon him.

"But where did she come from?" he asked blandly, as one speaks to a
harmless imbecile. "I leave you here in an abject state of despair,
ready almost to decide upon marrying old Bessie, and I return in an hour
and you inform me everything is settled, and you are the fiancé of
another lady! You know, you surprise me, Michael--'Pon my word, you do!"

Michael laughed, it was really a huge joke.

"Yes, it is quite true. Well, just as I was going to ring and send
James for Bessie to talk it over with her, there was no end of a
smash--as you see--and a girl--a tourist--fell through the secret door.
I haven't opened it for five years. She was running away from a horrid
fellow she was engaged to, it seems, and fled into the passage, and the
door shut after her and she could not get out, so she pushed on in
here."

"It adds dramatic color to the story, the girl being engaged to someone
else--pray go on."

Mr. Fordyce had now picked up his cigar again. This preposterous tale no
longer interested him. He thought it even rather bad taste on the part
of his friend.

"All right!" Michael explained. "You need not believe me if you don't
like. I don't care, since I have done what I wanted to. Bar chaff,
Henry, I am telling you the truth. The girl appears to be a young woman
of decision. She explained at once her circumstances, and it struck us
both that to go through the ceremony of marriage would smooth all our
difficulties. We can easily get the bond annulled later on."

Henry Fordyce put down his cigar again.

"I am off to town to-night. You won't mind, will you?" Michael went on.
"Just to see if everything is all right, and to get her guardian's
consent and a special license, and I shall be back by the six o'clock
train on Thursday in time to get the ceremony over that night; and then,
by the early morning express, if you'll wait till then, we'll go South
together, and so for Paris and freedom!"

Henry actually rose from his chair.

"And the bride?" he asked.

Michael laughed. "Oh, she may go to the moon, for all I care; she leaves
directly after the ceremony with her certificate of marriage, which she
means to brandish in the face of her relations, who are staying at the
Inn, and so exit out of my life! It is only an affair of expediency."

"It is the affair of a madman."

Michael frowned, and his firm chin looked aggressive.

"It is nothing of the kind. You told me yourself that you would rather
marry old Bessie--a woman of eighty-four--than Violet Hatfield; and now,
when I have found a much more suitable person--a pretty little lady--you
begin to talk. My mind is made up, and there is an end of it."

Mr. Fordyce interrupted.

"Bessie would have been much more suitable--a plain pretext; but you
have no idea what complications you may be storing up for yourself by
marrying a young girl--What is the sense in it?" he continued, a little
excited now. "The younger and prettier she is makes her all the more
unsuitable to be used merely as a tool in your game. Confound it,
Michael!"

"And her game, too," his host reminded him. His eyes were flashing now,
and that expression, which all his underlings knew meant he intended to
have his own will at any cost, grew upon his face.

"You forget that in Scotland divorce is not an impossibility and--_I am
going to do it, Henry_. Now, I had better write to old Fergusson, my
chaplain, and tell him to be in readiness, and I suppose I ought to see
my lawyers in Edinburgh, although, as there are no settlements and it is
just between ourselves, perhaps it does not matter about them."

"How old is the girl?" Mr. Fordyce felt it prudent to ask. "It is a
pretty serious thing you contemplate, you know."

"Oh! rot!--she is seventeen, I believe--and for that sort of a marriage
and mere business arrangement, her age is no consequence."

Henry turned to the window and looked out for a moment, then he said
gravely:

"Is it quite fair to her?"

Michael had gone to his writing-table, and was busily scribbling to his
chaplain, but he looked over his shoulder startled, and then a gleam of
blue fire came into his eyes, and his handsome mouth shut like a vise.

"Of course, it is quite fair. She wishes to be free as much as I do. She
gets what she wants and I get what I want--a mere ceremony can be
annulled at any time. She jumped at the idea, I tell you, Henry--I have
not got time to go into the pros and cons of that side of the question,
and I don't want to hear your views or any one else's on the matter. I
mean to marry the girl on Thursday night--and you can quite well put off
going South until Friday morning, and see me through it."

Mr. Fordyce prepared to go towards the door, and when there said, in a
voice of ice:

"I shall do no such thing. I cannot prevent your doing this, I
suppose--taking advantage of a young girl for your own ends, it seems to
me--so I shall go now."

Michael's temper began to blaze with this, his oldest friend.

"As you please," he flashed. "But it is perfect rot, all this high
palaver. The girl gains by it as well as I. I am not taking the least
advantage of her. I shall have to get her guardian's consent, and I
suppose he'll know what he is up to. I have never taken any one's
advice, and I am not going to begin now, old boy--so we had better say
good-bye if you won't stop."

He came over to the door, and then he smiled his radiant, irresistible
smile so like a mischievous jolly boy's.

"Give me joy, Henry, old friend," he said, and held out his hand.

But Henry Fordyce looked grave as a judge as he took it.

"I can't do that, Michael. I am very angry with you. I have known you
ever since you were born, and we have been real pals, although I am so
much older than you--but I'm damned if I'll stay and see you through
this folly. Good-bye." And without a word further he went out of the
room, closing the door softly behind him.

Michael gave a sort of whoop to Binko, who sprang at him in love and
excitement, while he cried:

"Very well! Get along, old saint!"

Then he rang the bell, and to the footman when he came he handed the
note he had written to be taken to Mr. Fergusson, and sent orders for
Johnson to pack for two nights, and for his motor to be ready to catch
the 10:40 express at the junction for London town. Then he seized his
cap and, calling Binko, he went off into the garden, and so on to the
park and to the golf house, where, securing his professional, he played
a vigorous round, and when he got back to the castle again, just before
dinner, he was informed that Mr. Fordyce had left in his own motor for
Edinburgh.




CHAPTER IV


An opalescence of soft light and peace and beauty was over the park of
Arranstoun on this June night of its master's wedding, and he walked
among the giant trees to the South Lodge gate, only a few hundred yards
from the postern, which he reached from his sitting-room. All had gone
well in London. Mr. Parsons had raised no objection, being indeed
greatly flattered at the proposed alliance--for who had not heard of the
famous border Castle of Arranstoun and envied its possessor?

They had talked a long time and settled everything.

"Tie up the whole of Miss Delburg's money entirely upon herself," Mr.
Arranstoun had said--"if it is not already done--then we need not bother
about settlements. I understand that she is well provided for."

"And how about your future children?" Mr. Parsons asked.

Michael stiffened suddenly as he looked out of the office window.

"Oh--er, they will naturally have all I possess," he returned quickly.

And now as he neared the Lodge gate, and nine o'clock struck, a
suppressed excitement was in his veins. For no matter how eventful your
life may be, or how accustomed you are to chances and vivid amusements,
to be facing a marriage ceremony with a practically unknown young woman
has aspects of originality in it calculated to set the pulses in motion.

He had almost forgotten that side of the affair which meant freedom and
safety for him from the claws of the Spider--although he had learned
upon his return home from London that she had, as Henry Fordyce had
predicted that she might, "popped in upon him," having motored over from
Ebbsworth, and had left him a letter of surprised, intense displeasure
at his unannounced absence.

When five minutes had passed, and there was as yet no sign of his
promised bride crossing the road from the Inn, Mr. Arranstoun began to
experience an unpleasant impatience. The quarter chimed--his temper
rose--had she been playing a trick upon him and never intended at any
time to come? He grew furious--and paced the fine turf behind the Lodge,
swearing hotly as was his wont when enraged.

Then he saw a little figure wrapped in a gray dust cloak much too big
for it advancing cautiously to the gate in the twilight, and he bounded
forward to meet her and to open the narrow side-entrance before the
Lodge-keeper, Old Bessie, could have time to see who was there.

"At last!" he cried, when they were safely inside and had gone a few
paces along the avenue. "I was beginning to think you did not mean to
keep your word! I am glad you have come!"

"Why, of course I meant to keep my word. I never break it," Sabine said
astonished. "I am longing to be free just like you are, but I had an
awful business to get away! I have never been so excited in my life!
Their train was late--some breakdown on the branch line--they did not
get in until half-past eight, and I dare not be all dressed, but had to
pretend to be in bed, covered up, still with the awful headache, when
Aunt Jemima bounced in." Then she laughed joyously at the recollection
of her escape. "The moment she had gone off to her supper, tucking me up
for the night, I jumped up and got on my dress and hat and her dust
cloak and then I had to watch my moment, creep down those funny little
stairs, and out of the side door--and so across here. You know it was
far harder to manage than the last feast Moravia Cloudwater and I gave
to the girls the night before she went to Paris! Isn't it fun! I do like
having these adventures, don't you?"

"Yes," said Michael, and looked down into her face.

She was extremely pretty, he thought, in the soft dusk of this Northern
evening. Her leghorn hat with its wreath of blue forget-me-nots was most
becoming and her brown hair was ruffled a little by the hat's hasty
donning.

[Illustration: "He bounded forward to meet her"]

"I needn't keep this old cloak on, need I?" she asked. "Nobody can see
us here and it is so hot."

He helped her off with it and carried it for her. She looked prettier
still now, the slender lines of her childish figure were so exquisite in
their promise of beautiful womanhood later on, and the Sunday frock of
white foulard was most sweet.

Michael was very silent; it almost made her nervous, but she prattled
on.

"This is my best frock," she laughed, "because even though it is only a
business arrangement, one couldn't get married in an old blouse, could
one?"

"Of course not!" and he strode nearer to her. "I am in evening dress,
you see--just like a French bridegroom for those wedding parties in the
Bois! so we are both festive--but here we are at the postern door!"

He opened it with his key and they stole across the short lawn and up
the balcony steps like two stealthy marauders. Then he turned and held
out his hand to her in the blaze of electric light.

"Welcome! Oh! it is good of you to have come!"

She shook hands frankly--it seemed the right thing to do, she felt,
since they were going to oblige one another and both gain their desires.
Then it struck her for the first time that he was a very handsome young
man--quite the Prince Charming of the girls' dreams. A thousand times
finer than Moravia's Italian prince with whom for her part she had been
horribly disappointed when she had seen his photograph. Only it was too
silly to consider this one in that light, since he wasn't really going
to be hers--only a means to an end. Oh! the pleasure to be free and rich
and to do exactly what she pleased! She had been planning all these days
what she would do. She would get back to the Inn not later than ten, and
creep quietly up to her room through that side door which was always
open into the yard. The weather was so beautiful it would be nothing,
even if the Inn people did see her entering--she might have been out for
a stroll in the twilight. Then at six in the morning she would creep out
again and go to the station; there was a train which left for Edinburgh
at half-past--and there she would get a fast express to London later on,
after a good breakfast; and once in London a cab would take her to Mr.
Parsons', and after that!--money and freedom!

She had planned it all. She would leave a letter for her Uncle and Aunt,
saying she was married and had gone and they need not trouble themselves
any more about her. Mr. Parsons would tell her where to stay and help
her to get a good maid like Moravia had, and then she would go to Paris
just as Moravia had done and buy all sorts of lovely clothes; it would
take her perhaps a whole month, and then when she was a very grand,
grown-up lady, she would write to her dear friend and say now she was
ready to accept her invitation to go and stay with her! And what
absolute joy to give Moravia such a surprise! to say she was married and
free! and had quite as nice things as even that Princess! It was all a
simply glorious picture--and but for this kind young man it could never
have been hers--but her fate would have been--Samuel Greenbank or Aunt
Jemima for four years! It was no wonder she felt grateful to him! and
that her handshake was full of cordiality.

Michael pulled himself together rather sharply, the blood was now
running very fast in his veins.

"Wait here," he said to her, "while I go into the chapel to see if Mr.
Fergusson and the two witnesses are ready."

They were--Johnson and Alexander Armstrong--and the old chaplain who had
been Michael's father's tutor and was now an almost doddering old
nonentity also stood waiting in his white surplice at the altar rails.

The candles were all lit and great bunches of white lilies gave forth a
heavy scent. A strange sense of intoxication rose to Michael's brain.
When he returned to his sitting-room he found his bride-to-be arranging
her hat at the old mirror which had reflected her before.

"Won't you take it off?" he suggested--"and see, I have got you some
flowers----" and he brought her a great bunch of stephanotis which lay
waiting upon a table near.

"There is no orange-blossom--because that is for real weddings--but
won't you just put this bit of stephanotis in your hair?" and he broke
off a few blooms.

She was delighted, she loved dressing up, and she fixed it most
becomingly with dexterous fingers above her left ear.

"You do look sweet," he told her. "Now we must come----" and he gave her
his arm. She took it with that grave look of a child acting in a very
serious grown-up play. She was perfectly delicious with her blooming
youth and freshness and dimples--her violet eyes shining like stars, and
her red full lips pouting like appetizing ripe cherries. Michael
trembled a little as he felt her small hand upon his arm.

They walked to the altar rails and the ceremony began.

But, with the first words of the old clergyman's voice, a new and
unknown excitement came over Sabine. The night and the gorgeous chapel
and the candles and the flowers all affected her deeply, just as the
grand feast days used to do at the convent. A sudden realization of the
mystery of things overcame her and frightened her, so that her voice was
hardly audible as she repeated the clergyman's words.

What were these vows she was making before God? She dared not
think--the whole thing was a maze, a dream. It was too late to run
away--but it was terrible--she wanted to scream.

At last she felt her bridegroom place the ring upon her finger, now ice
cold.

And then she was conscious that she was listening to these words:

"Those whom God hath joined together let no man put asunder."

After that she must have reeled a little, for she felt a strong arm
encircle her waist for a moment.

Then she knew she was kneeling and that words of no meaning whatever
were being buzzed over her head.

And lastly she was vividly awakened to burning consciousness by the
first man's kiss which had ever touched her innocent lips.

So she was married--and this was her husband, this splendid, beautiful
young man there beside her in his evening clothes--and it was over--and
she was going away and would never see him again--and what had she
done?--and would God be very angry?--since it was all really in a
church!

Her hand trembled as she wrote her name, Sabine Delburg, for the last
time, and she was shivering all over as she walked back with her
newly-made husband to his sitting-room through the gloomy corridor.
There it was all brilliant light again, the light of soft silk-shaded
lamps--and the center table was cleared and supper for two and opened
champagne awaited them. They were both very pale, and Sabine sat down in
a chair.

"Mr. Fergusson will bring a copy of the certificate in a minute,"
Michael said to her, "and then we can have some supper--but now, come,
we must drink each other's healths."

He poured out the wine into two glasses and handed her one. She had
never tasted champagne before--but sipped it as she was bid. It did not
seem to her a very nice drink--not to be compared to _sirop aux
fraises_--but she knew at weddings people always had champagne.

Michael gulped down a bumper, and it steadied his nerves and the fresh,
vigorously healthy color came back to his face. The whole situation had
excited his every sense.

"Let me wish you all joy--Mrs.--Arranstoun!" he said.

The little bride laughed her rippling laugh. This brought her back to
earth and the material, jolly side of things, it was so funny to hear
herself thus called.

"Oh! that does sound odd!" she cried. "I shall never call myself
that--why, people might know I must be something connected with this
castle, and they would be questioning, and I couldn't have a scrap of
fun! You have got another name--you said it just now, 'Michael Howard
Arranstoun'--that will do. I shall be Mrs. Howard! It is quite
ordinary--and shall I be a widow? I've never thought of all this yet.
Oh! it will be fun."

Every second of the time her charm was further affecting Michael--he was
not conscious of any definite intention--only to talk to her--to detain
her as long as possible. She was like a breath of exquisite spring air
after Violet Hatfield.

Mr. Fergusson here came in from the chapel with the certificate--and his
presence seemed a great bore, and after thanking him for his services,
Michael poured him out some wine to drink their healths, and then the
butler announced that the brougham was waiting at the door to take the
old gentleman home.

Sabine had stood up on his entrance and came forward to wish him
good-bye; now that the certificate was there she intended to go herself
by the balcony steps as soon as he should be safely off by the door.

"Good-bye, my dear young lady, I have known your husband since he was
born, and with all his faults he is a splendid fellow; let me wish you
every happiness and prosperity together and may you be blessed with many
children and peace."

Sabine stiffened--she felt she ought to enlighten the benevolent old
man, who evidently did not understand at all that she was going to trip
off--not as he, just to her own home, but out of Mr. Arranstoun's life
forever--but no suitable words would come, and Michael, afraid of what
she might say, hurried his chaplain off without more ado and then
returned to her and shut the door.

Now they were absolutely alone and the clock struck ten in the courtyard
with measured strokes.

"Let us begin supper," he said, with what calmness he could.

"But I ought to go back at once," his bride protested; "the Inn may be
shut and then what in the world should I do?"

"There is plenty of time, it certainly won't close its doors until
eleven--have some soup--or a cold quail and some salad--and see, I have
not forgotten the wedding-cake--you must cut that!"

Sabine was very hungry; she had had to pretend her head was aching too
much to go with her elders to the ruins of Elbank and had retired to her
room before they left, and had had no tea, and such dainties were not to
be resisted, especially the cake! After all, it could not be any harm
staying just this little while longer since no one would ever know, and
people who got married always did cut their own cakes. So she sat down
and began, he taking every care of her. They had the merriest supper,
and even the champagne, more of which he gave her, did not taste so
nasty after the first sip.

She had quail and salad and a wonderful ice--better than any, even on
the day of the holiday for Moravia's wedding far away in Rome; and
there were marrons glacés, too, and other divine bon-bons--and
strawberries and cream!

She had never enjoyed herself so much in her whole life. Her perfectly
innocent prattle enchanted Michael more and more with its touches of
shrewd common sense. He drank a good deal of champagne, too--and
finally, when it came to cutting the cake time, a wild thought began to
enter his head.

The icing was rather hard, and he had to help her--and stood beside her,
very near.

She looked up smilingly and saw something in his face. It caused her a
sudden wild emotion of she knew not what--and then she felt very nervous
and full of fear.

She moved abruptly away from him to the other side of the table, leaving
the cake--and stood looking at him with great, troubled, violet eyes.

He followed her.

"You little, sweet darling!" he whispered, his voice very deep. "Why
should you ever go away from me--I want to teach you to love me, Sabine.
You belong to me, you know--you are mine. I shall not let you leave me!
I shall keep you and hold you close!"

And he clasped her in his arms.

For he was a man, you see--and the moment had come!




CHAPTER V

FIVE YEARS AFTERWARDS


Mr. Elias Cloudwater came up the steps of the Savoy Hotel at Carlsbad,
and called to the Arab who was waiting about:

"Has the Princess come in from her drive yet?"

He was informed that she had not, and he sat down in the verandah to
wait. He was both an American gentleman and an American father,
therefore he was accustomed to waiting for his women folk and did not
fidget. He read the _New York Herald_, and when he had devoured the
share list, he glanced at the society news and read that, among others
who were expected at the Bohemian health resort that day, was Lord
Fordyce, motoring, for a stay of three weeks for the cure.

He did not know this gentleman personally, and the fact would not have
arrested his attention at all only that he chanced to be interested in
English politics. He wondered vaguely if he would be an agreeable
acquisition to the place, and then turned to more thrilling things.
Presently a slender young woman came down the path through the woods and
leisurely entered the gate. Mr. Cloudwater watched her, and a kindly
smile lit his face. He thought how pretty she was, and how glad he was
that she had joined Moravia and himself again this summer. The months
when she went off by herself to her house in Brittany always seemed very
long. He saw her coming from far enough to be able to take in every
detail about her. Extreme slenderness and extreme grace were her
distinctive marks. The face was childish and rounded in outline, but
when you looked into the violet eyes there was some shadow of a story
hidden there. She was about twenty-two years old, and was certainly not
at Carlsbad for any reasons of cure, for her glowing complexion told a
tale of radiant health.

Her white clothes were absolutely perfect in their simplicity, and so
was her air of unconcern and indifference. "The enigma" her friends
often called her. She seemed so frank and simple, and no one ever got
beyond the wall of what she was really thinking--what did she do with
her life? It seemed ridiculous that any one so rich and attractive and
young should care to pass long periods of time at a wild spot near
Finisterre, in an old château perched upon the rocks, completely alone
but for an elderly female companion.

There was, of course, some hidden tragedy about her husband--who was a
raging lunatic or an inebriate shut up somewhere--perhaps there! They
had had to part at once--he had gone mad on the wedding journey, some
believed, but others said this was not at all the case, and that she had
married an Indian chief and then parted from him immediately in
America--finding out the horror of being wedded to a savage. No one knew
anything for a fact, only that when she did come into the civilized
world, it was always with the Princess Torniloni and her father, who, if
they knew the truth of Mrs. Howard's story, never gave it away. Men
swarmed around her, but she appeared completely unconcerned and friendly
with them all, and not even the most envious of the other Americans who
were trying to climb into Princess Torniloni's exclusive society had
ever been able to make up any scandals about her.

"I have had such an enchanting walk, Clowdy, dear," the slim young woman
said as she sat down in a basket-chair near Mr. Cloudwater. "I am so
glad we came here, aren't you?--and I am sure it will do Moravia no end
of good. She passed me as I was coming from the Aberg on her way to Hans
Heiling, so she will not be in yet. Let us have tea."

The Arab called the waiter, who brought it to them. One or two other
little groups were having some, too, but Mr. Cloudwater's party were
singularly ungregarious, and avoided making acquaintances in hotels. He
and Mrs. Howard chatted alone together over theirs for about half an
hour. Presently there was the noise of a motor arriving. It whirled into
the gate and stopped where they usually do, a little at one side. It
was very dusty and travel-stained, and beside the chauffeur there got
out a tall, fair Englishman. The personnel of the hotel came forward to
meet him with empressement, and as he passed where Mr. Cloudwater and
Mrs. Howard were sitting, they heard him say:

"My servant brought the luggage by train this morning, so I suppose the
rooms are ready."

"They are a wonderful race," Mr. Cloudwater remarked, "aren't they,
Sabine. I never can understand why you should so persistently avoid
them--they really have much more in common with ourselves than Latins."

"That is why perhaps--one likes contrasts--and French and Russians, or
Germans, are far more intelligent. Every one to his taste!" and Mrs.
Howard smiled.

The Englishman came out again in a few minutes, and sitting down lazily,
as though he were alone upon the balcony terrace, he ordered some tea.
Not the remotest scrap of interest in his surroundings or companions lit
up his face. He might have been forty or forty-two, perhaps, but being
so fair he looked a good deal younger, and had a peculiar distinction of
his own.

"That is what I object to about them," Mrs. Howard remarked presently,
"their abominable arrogance. Look at that man. It is just as though
there was no one else on this balcony but himself--no one else exists
for him!"

"Why, Sabine, you are severe! He looks to me to be a pretty
considerably nice man--and he is only reading the paper as I have been
doing myself," Mr. Cloudwater rejoined. "Perhaps he is the English
nobleman who I read was expected to-day--Lord Fordyce, the paper
said--and wasn't that the name of rather a prominent English politician
who had to go into the Upper House last year when his father died--and
it was considered he would be a loss to the Commons?"

"I really don't know. I don't take the slightest interest in them or
their politics. Ah! here is Moravia----" and both rose to meet a very
charming lady who drove up in a victoria and got out.

She had all the perfection of detail which characterizes the very
best-dressed American woman--and she had every attraction except,
perhaps, a voice--but even that she knew how to modulate and disguise,
so that it was no wonder that the Princess Torniloni passed for one of
the most beautiful women in Rome or Paris, or Cairo or New York,
whenever she graced any of the cities with her presence. She was a
widow, too, and very rich. The Prince, her husband, had been dead for
nearly two years, and she was wearing grays and whites and mauves.

He had been a brute, too, but unlike her friend, Mrs. Howard's husband,
he had had the good taste to be killed riding in a steeplechase, and so
all went well, and the pretty Princess was free to wander the world over
with her indulgent father.

"It is just too lovely for words up in those woods, papa," she said,
"and I have had my tea in a dear little châlet restaurant. You did not
wait for me, I hope?"

They assured her they had not done so, and she sat down in a comfortable
chair. Her arrival caused a flutter among the other occupants of the
terrace, and even the Englishman glanced up. This group had at last made
some impression it would seem upon the retina of his eye, for he looked
deliberately at them and realized that the two women were quite worthy
of his scrutiny.

"But I hate Americans," he said to himself. "They are such actresses,
you never know where you are with them--these two, though, appear some
of the best."

Presently they went into the hotel, passing him very closely--and for a
second his eyes met the violet ones of Sabine Howard, and he was
conscious that he felt distinctly interested, much to his disgust.

But, after all, he was here for a cure and a rest, and he had always
believed in women as recreations.

His solitary table was near theirs in the restaurant, and later he wrote
to his friend, Michael Arranstoun, loitering at Ostende:

     The hotel is quite decent--and after your long sojourn in the
     wilds, you will have an overdose of polo and expensive ladies and
     baccarat. You had much better join me here at the end of the week.
     There are two pretty women who would be quite your affair. They
     have the next table, and neither of them can be taking the cure.

But Mr. Arranstoun, when he received this missive, had other things to
do. He had been out of England, and indeed Europe, for nearly five
years--having, in the summer of 1907, joined a friend to explore the
innermost borders of China and Tibet, and there the passion for this
kind of thing had overtaken him, and his own home knew him no more.

Now, however, he had announced that he had returned for good, and
intended to spend the rest of his days at Arranstoun as a model
landlord.

He started this by playing polo at Ostende, where he had run across
Henry Fordyce. They had cordially grasped each other's hands, their
estrangement forgotten when face to face; and the only mention there had
been of the circumstances which had caused their parting were in a few
sentences.

"By Jove, Henry, it is five whole years since you thundered morals at me
and shook the dust of Arranstoun from your feet!"

"You did behave abominably, Michael--but I am awfully glad to see
you--and the scene at Ebbsworth, when Violet Hatfield read the notice in
the Scotsman of your marriage, made me feel you had been almost
justified in taking any course you could to make yourself safe. But how
about your wife? Have you ever seen her again?"

"No. My lawyer tells me I can divorce her now for desertion. I should
have to make some pretence of asking her to return to me, he says, which
of course she would refuse to do--and then both can be free, but, for my
part, I am not hankering after freedom much--I do very well as I am--and
I always cherish a rather tender recollection of her."

[Illustration: "His solitary table was near theirs in the restaurant"]

Henry laughed.

"I have often pictured that wedding," he said, "and the little bride
going off with her certificate and your name all alone. No family turned
up awkwardly at the last moment to mar things; she left safely after the
ceremony, eh?"

Michael looked away suddenly, and then answered with overdone unconcern:

"Yes--soon after the ceremony."

"I do wonder you had no curiosity to investigate her character further!"

"I had--but she did not appreciate my interest--and--after she had
gone--I was rather in a bad temper, and I reasoned myself into believing
she was probably right--also just then I wanted to join Latimer
Berkeley's expedition to China. I remember, his letter about it came by
the next morning's post--so I went--but do you know, Henry, I believe
that little girl made some lasting impression upon me. I believe, if she
had stayed, I should have been frantically in love with her--but she
went, so there it is!"

"Why don't you try to find her?" Henry asked.

"Perhaps I mean to some day. I have thought of doing so often, but
first China, and then one thing and another have stopped me--besides,
she may have fancied some other fellow by this time--the whole thing was
one of those colossal mistakes. If we could only have met
ordinarily--and not married in a hurry and then parted--like that."

"Has it never struck you she was rather young to be left to drift by
herself?"

"Yes, often--" Then Michael grew a little constrained. "I believe I
behaved like the most impossible brute, Henry--in marrying her at all as
you said--but I would like to make it up to her some day--and I suppose
if, by chance, she has taken a fancy to someone else by this time and
wants to be free of me, I ought to divorce her--but, by Heaven, I
believe I should hate that!"

"You dog in the manger!"

"Yes, I am----"

And so the subject had ended.

And now Henry, third Lord Fordyce, was taking a mild cure at Carlsbad,
and had decided that in his leisure moments he would begin to write a
book--a project which had long simmered in his brain; but after two days
of sitting by the American party at each meal, a very strong desire to
converse with them--especially the one with the strange violet
eyes--overcame him; and with deliberate intention he scraped
acquaintance with Mr. Cloudwater in the exercise room of the Kaiserbad,
who, with polite ceremony, presented him that evening to his daughter
and her friend.

Sabine had been particularly silent and irritating, Moravia thought, and
as they went up to bed she scolded her about it.

"He is a perfect darling, Sabine," she declared, "and will do splendidly
to take walks with us and make the fourth. He is so lazy and English and
phlegmatic--I'd like to make him crazy with love--but he looked at you,
you little witch, not at me at all."

"You are welcome to him, Morri--I don't care for Englishmen. Good-night,
pet," and Mrs. Howard kissed her friend, and going in to her room, she
shut the door.




CHAPTER VI


More than a week went by, and it seemed quite natural now to Lord
Fordyce to shape his days according to the plans of the American party,
and when they met at the Schlossbrunn in the morning at half-past seven,
and he and Mr. Cloudwater and the Princess had drunk their tumblers of
water together, their custom was to go on down to the town and there
find Sabine, who had bought their slices of ham and their rolls, and
awaited them at the end of the Alte Weise with the pink paper bags, and
then the four proceeded to walk to the Kaiser Park to breakfast.

This meal was so merry, Mrs. Howard tantalizing the others by having
cream in her coffee and sugar upon her wild strawberries, while they
were only permitted to take theirs plain.

During the stroll there it was Sabine's custom persistently to adhere to
the side of Mr. Cloudwater, leaving the other two tête-à-tête--and,
delightful as Lord Fordyce found the Princess, this irritated him. He
discovered himself, as the days advanced, to be experiencing a distinct
longing to know what was passing in that little head, whose violet eyes
looked out with so much mystery and shadow in their depths. He could not
tell himself that she avoided him; she was always friendly and casual
and perfectly at her ease, but no extra look of pleasure or welcome for
him personally ever came into her face, and never once had he been able
to speak to her really alone. Mr. Cloudwater and the two ladies drove
back from breakfast each day, and he was left to take his exercises and
his bath. Now and then he had encountered the Princess in the near woods
just before luncheon, returning from the Kaiserbad, but Mrs. Howard
never--and when he inquired how she spent her time, she replied however
she happened to fancy, which gave him no clue as to where he might find
her--and with all her frank charm, she was not a person to whom it was
easy to put a direct question. Lord Fordyce began to grow too interested
for his peace of mind. When he realized this, he got very angry with
himself. He had never permitted a woman to be anything but a mild
recreation in his life, and at forty it was a little late to begin to
experience something serious about one.

They often motored in the afternoon to various resorts not too far
distant, and there took tea; and for two whole days it had been wet and,
except at meals, the ladies had lain _perdues_.

However fate was kind on a Saturday morning, and allowed Lord Fordyce
to chance upon Mrs. Howard, right up at the Belvedere in the far woods,
looking over the valley. She was quite alone, and her slender figure was
outlined against the bright sunlight as she leaned on the balustrade
gazing down at the exquisite scene.

Henry could have cried aloud in joy, "At last!" but he restrained
himself, and instead only said a casual "Hullo!" Mrs. Howard turned and
looked at him, and answered his greeting with frank cordiality.

"Have you never been here before? I think it is one of the most lovely
spots in the whole woods, and at this time there is never any one--what
made you penetrate so far?"

"Good fortune! The jade has been unkind until now."

They leant on the balustrade together.

"I always like being up on a high mountain and looking down at things,
don't you?" she said.

"No, not always--one feels lonely--but it is nice if one is with a
suitable companion. How have you, at your age, managed to become
self-sufficing?"

"Circumstance, I expect, has taught me the beauty of solitude. I spend
months alone in Brittany."

"And what do you do--read most of the time?"

He was so enchanted that she was not turning the conversation into banal
things, he determined not to say anything which would cause her again
to draw down the blind of bland politeness.

"Yes, I read a great deal. You see, Moravia and I were at a convent
together, and there, beyond teaching us to spell and to write and do a
few sums and learn a garbled version of French history, a little music,
and a great deal of embroidery, they left us totally ignorant--one must
try to supply the deficiencies oneself. It is appalling to remain
ignorant once one realizes that one is."

"Knowledge on any subject is interesting--did you begin generally--or
did you specialize?"

"I always wanted to be just--and to understand things. The whole of life
and existence seemed too difficult--I think I began trying to find some
key to that and this opened the door to general information, and so
eventually, perhaps, one specializes."

He was wise enough not to press the question into what her specializing
ran. He adored subtleties, and he noted with delight that she was not so
completely indifferent as usual. If he could keep her attention for a
little while, they might have a really interesting investigation of each
other's thoughts.

"I like thinking of things, too--and trying to discover their meanings
and what caused them. We are all, of course, the victims of heredity."

"That may be," she agreed, "but the will can control any heredity. It
can only manifest itself when we let ourselves drift. The tragedy of it
is that we have drifted too far sometimes before we learn that we could
have directed the course if we had willed. Ignorance is seemingly the
most cruel foe we have to encounter, because we are so defenseless, not
knowing he is there."

She sighed unconsciously and looked out over the beautiful tree-tops,
down to where the Kaiser Park appeared like a little doll's châlet set
among streams and pastures green.

Lord Fordyce was much moved. She was prettier and sweeter than he had
even fancied she would be could he ever contrive to find her all alone.
He watched her covertly; the exquisite peachy skin with its pure color,
and her soft brown hair dressed with a simplicity which he thought
perfection, all appealed to him, and those strange violet eyes rather
round and heavily lashed with brown-shaded lashes, darker at the tips.
The type was not intense or of a studious mould. Circumstance must
indeed have formed an exotic character to have grafted such deep meaning
in their innocent depths. She went on presently, not remarking his
silence.

"It is heredity which makes my country women so nervous and unstable as
a rule. You don't like them, as I know," and she smiled, "and I think,
from your point of view, you are right. You see, we are nearly all
mushroom growths, sprung up in a night--and we have not had time for
poise, or the acceptance with calmness of our good fortune. We are as
yet unbalanced by it, and don't know what we want."

"You are very charming," and he looked truthful, and at that moment felt
so.

"Yes, I know--we can be more charming than any other women because we
have learnt from all the other nations and play which ever part we wish
to select."

"Yes," he admitted, rather too quickly--and her rippling laugh rang out.
He had hardly ever heard her laugh, and it enchanted him, even though he
was nettled at her understanding of his thought.

"It remains for men to make us desire to play the same part always--if
they find it agreeable."

Again he said "Yes"--but this time slowly.

"Now you Englishmen have the heredity of absolute phlegm to fight. While
we ought to be trying to counteract jumping from one rôle to another,
you ought to try to teach yourselves that versatility is a good thing,
too, in its way."

"I am sure it is. I wish you would teach me to understand it--but you
yourself seem to be restful and stable. How have you achieved this?"

"By studying the meaning of things, I suppose, and checking myself every
time I began to want to do the restless things I saw my countrywomen
doing. We have wonderful wills, you know, and if we want a thing
sufficiently, we can get anything. That is why Moravia says we make such
successful great ladies in the different countries we marry into. Your
great ladies, if they are nice, are great naturally, and if they are
not, they often fail, even if they are born aristocrats. We do not often
fail, because we know very well we are taking on a part, and must play
it to the very best of our ability all the time--and gradually we play
it better than if it were natural."

"What a little cynic! 'Out of the mouths of babes'!" and he laughed.

"I am not at all a cynic! It is the truth I am telling you. I admire and
respect our methods far more than yours, which just 'growed' like
Topsy!"

"But cynicism and truth are, unfortunately, synonymous. Only you are too
young, and ought not to know anything about either!"

"I like to know and do things I ought not to!" Her eyes were merry.

"Tell me some more about your countrywomen. I'm awfully interested, and
have always been too frightened of their brilliancy to investigate
myself."

"We are not nearly so bothered with hearts as Europeans--heredity again.
Our mothers and fathers generally sprang from people working too hard to
have great emotions--then we arrive, and have every luxury poured upon
us from birth; and if we have hardy characters we weather the deluge and
remain very decent citizens."

"And if you have not?"

"Why, naturally the instincts for hard work, which made our parents
succeed, if they remain idle must make some explosion. So we grow
restless in our palaces, and get fads and nerves and quaint
diseases--and have to come to Carlsbad--and talk to sober Englishmen!"
The look of mischief which she vouchsafed him was perfectly adorable. He
was duly affected.

"You take us as a sort of cure!"

"Yes----!"

"How do you know so much about us and our faults? I gathered, from what
you said last night at dinner, that you have never been in England but
once, for a month, when you were almost a child."

"The rarest specimens come abroad," and a dimple showed in her left
cheek, "and I read about you in your best novels--even your authors
unconsciously give you away and show your selfishness and arrogance and
self-satisfaction."

"Shocking brutes, aren't we?"

"Perfectly."

Then they both laughed, and Sabine suggested it was time they returned
to luncheon.

"It is quite two miles from here, and Mr. Cloudwater, although the
kindest dear old gentleman, begins to get hungry at one o'clock."

So they turned and sauntered downwards through the lovely green woods,
with the warm hum of insects and the soft summer, glancing sunshine. And
all of you who know the beauties of Carlsbad, or indeed any other of
those Bohemian spas, can just picture how agreeable was their walk, and
how conducive to amiable discussion and the acceleration of friendship.
Henry tried to get her to tell him some more of the secrets of her
countrywomen, but she would not be serious. She was in a merry mood, and
turned the fire into the enemy's camp, making him disclose the ways of
Englishmen.

"I believe you like us as a rule because we are such casual creatures!"
he said at last, "rather indifferent about _petits soins_, and apt to
seize what we desire, or take it for granted."

A sudden shadow came into her face which puzzled him, and she did not
answer, but went on to talk of Brittany and the place which she had
bought. Héronac--just a weird castle perched right upon a rock above a
fishing village, with the sea dashing at its base and the spray rising
right to her sitting-room windows.

"I have to go across a causeway to my garden upon the main land--and
when it is very rough, I get soaking wet--it is the wildest place you
ever saw."

"What on earth made you select it?" Lord Fordyce asked. "You, who look
like a fresh rose, to choose a grim brigand's stronghold as a
residence!"

"It suited my mood on the day I first saw it--and I bought it the
following week. I make up my mind in a minute as to what I want."

"You must let me motor past and look at it," he pleaded, "and when my
twenty-one days of drinking this uninteresting water is up, I intend
going back in my car to Paris, and from there down to see Mont St.
Michel."

"You shall not only look at it--you may even come in--if you are nice
and do not bore me between now and then," and she glanced up at him
slyly. "I have an old companion, Madame Imogen Aubert--who lives with me
there--and she always hopes I shall one day have visitors!"

Lord Fordyce promised he would be a pure sage, and if she would put him
on probation, and really take pains to sample his capabilities of not
boring in a few more walks, he would come up for judgment at Héronac
when it was her good pleasure to name a date.

"I shall be there toward the middle of August. After we leave here, the
Princess and dear Cloudie go to Italy with her little son, the baby
Torniloni: he is such a darling, nearly three years old--he is at
Héronac now with his nurses."

"And you go back to Brittany alone?"

"Yes----"

"Then I shall come, too."

"If, at the end of your cure, you have not bored me!"

By this time they had got down to the Savoy gate--and there found
Moravia and Mr. Cloudwater waiting for them on the balcony--clamoring
for lunch.

Princess Torniloni gave a swift, keen glance at the two who had
entered, but she did not express the thought which came to her.

"It is rather hard that Sabine, who does not want him and is not free to
have him, should have drawn him instead of me."

That night in the restaurant there came in and joined their party one of
those American men who are always to be met with in Paris or Aix or
Carlsbad or Monte Carlo, at whatever in any of these places represents
the Ritz Hotel, one who knew everybody and everything, a person of no
particular sex, but who always would make a party go with his stories
and his gaiety, and help along any hostess. Cranley Beaton was this
one's name. The Cloudwater party were all quite glad to welcome him and
hear news of their friends. One or two decent people had arrived that
afternoon also, and Moravia felt she could be quite amused and wear her
pretty clothes. Sabine hated the avalanches of dinners and lunches and
what not this would mean. Her sense of humor was very highly developed,
and she often laughed in a fond way over her friend, who was, in her
search for pleasure, still as keen as she had been in convent days.

"You do remain so young, Morri!" she told her, as they linked arms going
up to bed. Their rooms were on the first floor, and they disdained the
lift. "Do you remember, you used to be the mother to all of us at St.
Anne's--and now I am the mother of us two!"

"You are an old, wise-headed Sibyl--that is what you are, darling!" the
Princess returned. "I wish I could ever know what has so utterly changed
you from our convent days," and she sighed impatiently. "Then you were
the merriest madcap, ready to tease any one and to have any lark, and
for nearly these four years since we have been together again you have
been another person--grave and self-possessed. What are you always
thinking of, Sabine?"

They had reached their sitting-room, and Mrs. Howard went to the window
and opened it wide.

"I grew up in one year, Moravia--I grew a hundred years old, and all the
studies which I indulge in at Héronac teach me that peace and poise are
the things to aim at. I cannot tell you any more."

"I did not mean to probe into your secrets, darling," the Princess
exclaimed hastily. "I promised you I never would when you came to me
that November in Rome--we were both miserable enough, goodness knows! We
made the bargain that there should be no retrospects. And your angelic
goodness to me all that time when my little Girolamo was born, have made
me your eternal debtor. Why, but for you, darling, he might have been
snatched from me by the hateful Torniloni family!"

"The sweet cherub!"

Then their conversation turned to this absorbing topic, the perfections
of Girolamo! and as it is hardly one which could interest you or me, my
friend, let us go back to the smoking-room and listen to a conversation
going on between Cranley Beaton and Lord Fordyce. The latter, with great
skill, had begun to elicit certain information he desired from this
society register!

"Yes, indeed," Mr. Beaton was saying. "She is a peach--The husband"--and
he looked extremely wise. "Oh! she made some frightful mésalliance out
West, and they say he's shut in a madhouse or home for inebriates. Her
entrance among us dates from when she first appeared in Paris, about
three years ago, with Princess Torniloni. She is awfully rich and
awfully good, and it is a real pity she does not divorce the ruffian and
begin again!"

"She is not free, then?" and Lord Fordyce felt his heart sink. "I
thought, probably, she had got rid of any encumbrance, as it is fairly
easy over with you."

"Why, she could in a moment if she wanted to, I expect," Mr. Beaton
assured his listener. "She hasn't fancied anyone else yet; when she
does, she will, no doubt."

"Her husband is an American, then?"

"Why, of course--didn't I tell you she came from the West? Why, I
remember crossing with her. She was in deep mourning--in the summer of
1908. She never spoke to anyone on board, and it was about eighteen
months after that I was presented to her in Paris. She gets prettier
every day."

Lord Fordyce felt this was true.

"So she could be free if she fancied anyone, you think?" he hazarded
casually, as though his interest in the subject had waned--and when Mr.
Beaton had answered, "Yes--rather," Lord Fordyce got up and sauntered
off toward bed.

"One has to be up so early in the morning, here," he remarked agreeably.
"See you to-morrow at the Schlossbrunn?--Good-night!"




CHAPTER VII


After this, for several days Mrs. Howard made it rather difficult for
Lord Fordyce to speak to her alone, although he saw her every day, and
at every meal, and each hour grew more enamored. She, for her part, was
certainly growing to like him. He soothed her; his intelligence was
highly trained, and he was courteous and gentle and sympathetic--but for
some reason which she could not explain, she had no wish to precipitate
matters. Her mind was quite without any definite desire or
determination, but, being a woman, she was perfectly aware that Henry
was falling in love with her. A number of other men had done so before,
and had then at once begun to be uninteresting in her eyes. It was as if
she were numb to the attraction of men--but this one had qualities which
appealed to her. Her own countrymen were never cultivated enough in
literature, and were too absorbed in stocks and shares to be able to
take flights of sentiment and imagination with her. Lord Fordyce
understood in a second--and they could discuss any subject with a
refined subtlety which enchanted her.

Henry had not spent his life maneuvring love affairs with women, and
was not very clever at manipulating circumstance. He fretted and fumed
at not getting his desired tête-à-tête, but with all the will was too
hedged in by conventionality and a sense of politeness to force matters,
as his friend, Michael Arranstoun, would have done with high-handed
unconcern. Thus, his cure at Carlsbad was drawing to a close before he
again spent an afternoon quite alone with Sabine Howard. They had gone
to the Aberg to tea, and the Princess had expressed herself too tired to
walk back, and had got into the waiting carriage, making Cranley Beaton
accompany her. She was not in a perfectly amiable temper. Lord Fordyce
attracted her strongly, and it was plain to be seen he had only eyes for
Sabine--who cared for him not at all. The Princess found Cranley Beaton
absolutely tiresome--no better than the _New York Herald_, she thought
pettishly, or the _Continental Daily Mail_--to be with! The waters were
getting on her nerves, too; she would be glad to leave and go to
Sorrento with that Cupid among infants, Girolamo. Sabine had better
divorce her horror of a husband, and marry the man and have done with
it!

Now the walk from the Aberg down through the woods is a peculiarly
delightful one and, even in the season at Carlsbad, not over-crowded by
people. Henry Fordyce felt duly elated at the prospect, and Mrs. Howard
had an air of pensive mischief in her violet eyes. Lord Fordyce, who had
been accustomed for years to making speeches for his party, and was
known as a ready orator, found himself rather silent, and even a little
nervous, for the first hundred yards or so. She looked so bewitching, he
thought, in her fresh white linen, showing up the round peachiness of
her young cheeks, and those curling, childish, brown lashes making their
shadow. He was overcome with a desire to kiss her. She was so supremely
healthy and delectable. He felt he had been altogether a fool in his
estimate of the serious necessities of life hitherto. Woman was now one
of them--and this woman supremely so. Why, if she could be freed from
bonds, should she not become his wife? But he felt it might be wiser not
to be too precipitate about suggesting the thing to her. She had
certainly given him no indication that she would receive the idea
favorably, and appeared to be of the type of character which could not
be coerced. He felt very glad Michael Arranstoun had not responded to
his pressing request to join him. It would be far better that that
irritatingly attractive specimen of manhood should not step upon the
scene, until he himself had some definite hope of affairs being
satisfactorily settled.

They began their talk upon the lightest subjects, and gradually drifted
into one of the discussions of emotions in the abstract which are so
fascinating--and so dangerous--and which require skill to direct and
continue.

Mrs. Howard held that pleasure could alone come from harmony of body and
spirit, while Lord Fordyce maintained that wild discords could also
produce it, and that it could not be defined as governed by any law.

"One is sometimes full of pleasure even against one's will," he said.
"Every spiritual principle and conviction may be outraged, and yet for
some unaccountable reason pleasure remains."

Mrs. Howard opened her eyes wide as if at a sudden thought.

"Yes," she said. "I wish it were not true what you say, but it is--and
it is a great injustice."

"What makes you say that?" Henry asked, quickly. "You were thinking of
some particular thing. Do tell me."

"I was thinking how some people can sin and err in every way, and yet
there is something about them which causes them to be forgiven, and
which even causes pleasure while they are sinning; and there are others
who might do the same things and would be anathematised at once--and no
joy felt with them at any time. Moravia and I call it having 'it'--some
people have it, and some people have not got it, and that is the end of
the matter!"

"It is a strange thing, but I know what you mean. I know one particular
case of it in a friend of mine. No matter what he does, one always
forgives him. It does not depend upon looks, either--although this
actual person is abominably good-looking--it does not depend upon
intelligence or character or--anything--as you say, it is just 'it.' Now
you have it, and the Princess, perfectly charming though she is, has
not."

Sabine did not contradict him; she never was conventional, denying
truths for the sake of diffidence or politeness. Moravia was beautiful
and charming, but it was true she had not 'it.'

"I think it applies more to men than to women," was all she said.

"You were thinking of a man, then, when you spoke?"

"Yes--I was thinking of a man--but it is not an interesting subject."

Lord Fordyce decided that it was, but he did not continue it.

"I want you to tell me all about Héronac," he requested, "and what
charmed you in it enough to make you buy it suddenly like that. How did
you come upon it?"

"I had just arrived from America, at the end of July of 1908--four years
ago--and I found, when I got to Cherbourg, that I could not join my
friend, the Princess, as I had intended, because her husband had taken
her off to his country place near Naples. So I hired a motor and
wandered down into Brittany alone. I wanted to be alone. I was motoring
along, when a violent storm came on, furious rain and wind, and just at
the worst and weirdest moment, I passed Héronac, which is a few hundred
yards from the edge of the present village. It stands out in the sea on
a great spur of rock, entirely separated from the main land by a deep
chasm about thirty feet wide, over which there was then a broken bridge
which had once been a drawbridge. It was a huge, grim ruin with only a
few roofed rooms, built in about the thirteenth century originally, and
of course added to and modernized. The house actually standing within
the great towers is of the date of Louis XIV. It stood there, a dark
mass, defying the storm, although the huge waves splashed right up to
the windows."

"It sounds repellent."

"It was--fierce and grim and repellent, and it suited my mood--so I
stopped at the Inn, my old maid Simone and I, and I got permission to go
and see it. The landlord of the Inn had the keys. The last of the
Héronacs drank himself to death with absinthe in Paris, so the place was
closed, and was no doubt for sale. '_Mais oui!_' he told us. Simone was
terrified to cross the wretched bridge, with the water swirling beneath,
and we left her to go back to the Inn, while the landlord's son came
with me. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon, and was a most
extraordinary day, for now it began to thunder and lighten."

"I wonder you were not afraid."

"I am never afraid--I tell you, it suited me. There was still some
furniture in the roofed part of the inner court, and in the two great
towers which flank the main building--but in that the roof was off, but
the view from the windows when we crept along to them across the broken
floor was too superb, straight out to the ocean, the waves thundering at
the base. I made up my mind that night I would buy it if I could--and,
as I told you before, I did so in the following week."

"How quaint of you!"

"It has been the greatest delight to me, and, as you will see, I have
done something with it. I restored the center, and have made its
arrangements modern and comfortable, but have left that one huge room on
the first floor as it was, only with the roof mended. I spend hours and
hours in the deep window embrasures looking right over the sea. It has
taught me more of the meaning of things than all my books."

"You speak as though you were an old woman," Lord Fordyce exclaimed,
"and you look only a mere child now--then, when you bought this
brigand's stronghold, you must have been in the nursery!"

"I was over eighteen!"

"A colossal age! it was simply ridiculous for you to be wanting dark
castles and solitude. What--?" and then he paused; he did not continue
his question.

"I was really very old--I had been old for almost a year."

"And do you mean to remain old always, or will you ever let anyone teach
you to be young?"

Sabine looked away into the somber fir trees. They had got to a part of
the path where the woods on either side are black as night in their
depths.

"I--don't--know," she said, very low.

Lord Fordyce moved nearer to her.

"I wish you would let me try to take away all those somber thoughts I
see sometimes in those sweet eyes."

"How would you begin?"

"By loving you very much--and then by trying to make you love me."

"Does love take away dark thoughts, then--or does it bring them?"

"That depends upon the love," he told her, eagerly. "When it is great
enough to be unselfish, it must bring peace and happiness, surely----"

"They are good things--they are harmony--but----"

"Yes--what are the buts?" his voice trembled a little.

"Love seems to me to be a wild thing, a raging, tearing passion--Can it
ever be just tender and kind?"

"I wish you would let me prove to you that it can."

She looked into his face gravely, and there was nothing but honest
question in her violet eyes.

"To what end?" she asked.

"I would like you to marry me." He had said it now when he had not
intended to yet, and he was pale as death.

She shrank from him a little.

"But surely you know that I am not free!"

"I hoped I--believed that you can make yourself so--if you knew how I
love you! I have never really loved any woman before in my life. I
always thought they should be only recreations--but the moment I saw
you, my whole opinions changed."

She grew troubled.

"I wish you had not said this to me," she faltered. "I--do not know that
I wish to change my life. I could, of course, be free, I suppose--if I
wanted to be--but--I am not sure. What would it mean if I listened to
you? Tell me! I am sometimes very lonely--and I like you so much."

"I want to make you feel more than that, but I will be content with
whatever you will give me. I do not care one atom what dark page is in
your past, I know it can have been nothing of your own fault, and if it
were, I should not care--I only care for you--Sabine--will you not tell
me that you will try to let me make you happy. It would mean that, that
I should devote my whole life to making you happy."

"A woman should be contented with that, surely," she said. And if Henry
Fordyce had had his usual critical wits about him unclouded by love, he
would have smiled his cynical smile and have said to himself:

"The spark is not lit, my friend; her voice lacks enthusiasm and her
brows are calm," but he was like all lovers--blind--and only saw and
heard what could comfort his heart, and so caught at the straw with
delight.

"Whatever you asked I would give you. Only say that you will let me set
about helping you to be free at once."

Mrs. Howard, however, had not gone this far in her imaginings--the idea
had started in her brain, no doubt, but it had not matured yet, and all
was hesitancy.

"I cannot promise anything. You must give me time to think, Lord
Fordyce."

"Dearest, of course I will--but you will take steps to make yourself
free--will you not? I have not asked, and I will not ask you a single
question, only that you will tell me when I really may hope."

His voice was deep with feeling, and his distinguished, clever face was
eager and full of devotion, as they turned an abrupt corner, and there
came face to face with two of their American acquaintances in the hotel.

"Isn't this a charming walk, Mrs. Howard," and "Yes, isn't it!" and bows
and passings on; but it broke the current, destroyed the spell, and
released some spirit of mischief in Sabine's heart, for she would not
be grave for another second. She made Henry promise he would just amuse
her and not refer again to those serious topics unless she gave him
leave. And he, accustomed to go his own way unhampered by the caprices
of the gentle sex, agreed!--so under the dominion of love had he become!
for a woman, too, who in herself combined three things he had always
disliked. She was an American, she was very young, and she had an
equivocal position. But the little god does not consult the individual
before he shoots his darts, and punishes the most severely those who
have denied his power.

By the time they had reached the Savoy, Sabine, with that aptitude,
though it was perfectly unconscious in her, which is the characteristic
of all her countrywomen, had reduced Lord Fordyce to complete
subjection, so that he was ready to do any mortal thing in the world for
her, and willing to grasp suggestions of hope upon any terms.

She gave him a friendly smile, and disappeared up the stairs to their
sitting-room--there to find Moravia indulging in nerves.

"I just want to scream, darling!" that lady said, and Sabine patted her
hands.

"Then don't, Morri, dearest," she implored her. "You only want to
because your mother, if she had been idle, would have wanted to scrub
the floors--just as my father's business capacity came out in me just
now, and I fenced with and sampled a very noble gentleman instead of
being simple with him. Let us get above our instincts--and be the real
aristocrats we appear to the world!"

But the Princess had to have some sal volatile.

That night after dinner waywardness was upon Sabine. She would read the
_New York Herald_, which she had absolutely not glanced at since their
arrival at Carlsbad, so absorbed and entranced had she been in her walks
in the green woods, and so little interested was she ever in the doings
of the world.

She glanced at the Trouville news, and the Homburg news with wandering
mind, and then her eye fell upon the polo at Ostende, and there she read
that the English team had been giving a delightful dance at the Casino,
where Mr. Michael Arranstoun had sumptuously entertained a party of his
friends--amongst them Miss Daisy Van der Horn. The paragraph was worded
with that masterly simplicity which distinguishes intelligent, modern
journalism; and left the reader's mind confused as to words, but clear
as to suggestion. Sabine Howard knew Miss Daisy Van der Horn. As she
read, the bright, soft color left her cheeks, and then returned with a
brilliant flush.

It was the first time for five years she had ever read the name of
Arranstoun in any paper. She held the sheet firmly, and perused all the
other information of the day--but when she put it down, and joined in
the general conversation, it could have been remarked that her eyes
were glittering like fixed stars.

And when, for a moment, they all went out on the balcony to breathe in
the warm, soft night, she whispered to Henry Fordyce:

"I have been thinking--I will, at all events, begin to take steps to be
free."

But to his rapturous, "My darling!" she replied, with lowered lids:

"It will take some time--and you may not like waiting--And when I am
free--I do not know--only--I am tired, and I want someone to help me to
forget and begin again. Good-night."

Then, after she got to her room, she opened the window wide, and looked
out upon the quiet firs. But nothing stilled the unrest in her heart.




CHAPTER VIII


Héronac was basking in the sun of an August morning, like some huge sea
monster which had clambered upon the wet rocks.

The sea was intensely blue without a ripple upon it, and only the
smallest white line marked where its waters caressed the shore.

Nature slumbered in the heat and was silent, and Sabine Howard, the
châtelaine of this quaint château, stood looking out of the deep windows
in her great sitting-room. It was a wonderful room. She had collected
dark panelling and tapestry to hide the grim stone walls, and had
managed to buy a splendidly carved and painted roof, while her sense of
color had run riot in beautiful silks for curtains. It was a remarkable
achievement for one so young, and who had begun so ignorantly. Her
mother's family had been decently enough bred, and her maternal
grandfather had been a fair artist, and that remarkable American
adaptability which she had inherited from her father had helped her in
many ways. Her sitting-room at Héronac was, of course, not perfect; and
to the trained eye of Henry Fordyce would present many anomalies; but
no one could deny that it was a charming apartment, or that it was a
glowing frame of rich tints for her youthful freshness.

She had really studied in these years of her residence there, and each
month put something worth having into the storehouse of her intelligent
mind. She was as immeasurably removed from the Sabine Delburg of convent
days as light from darkness, and her companion had often been Monsieur
le Curé, an enchanting Jesuit priest, who had the care of the souls of
Héronac village. A great cynic, a pure Christian and a man of parts--a
distant connection of the original family--Gaston d'Héronac had known
the world in his day; and after much sorrow had found a hermitage in his
own village--a consolation in the company of this half-French,
half-American heiress, who had incorporated herself with the soil. He
was now seventy years of age and always a gentleman, with few of the
tiresome habits of the old.

What joy he had found in opening the mind of his young Dame d'Héronac!

It was frankly admitted that there were to be no discussions upon
religion.

"I am a pagan, _cher père_," Sabine had said, almost immediately, "leave
me!--and let me enjoy your sweet church and your fisherfolks' faith. I
will come there every Sunday and say my prayers--_mes prières à
moi_--and then we can discuss philosophy afterwards or--what you will."

And the priest had replied:

"Religion is not of dogma. The paganism of Dame Sabine is as good in the
sight of le bon Dieu as the belief of Jean Rivée, who knows that his
boat was guided into the harbor on the night of the great storm by the
Holy Virgin, who posed Herself by the helm. Heavens! yes--it is God who
judges--not priests."

It can be easily understood that with two minds of this breadth, Père
Anselme and Sabine Howard became real friends.

The Curé, when he read with her the masters of the _dix-septième_ and
the _dix-huitième_ had a quaintly humorous expression in his old black
eye.

"Not for girls or for priests--but for _des gens du monde_," he said to
her one day, on putting down a volume of Voltaire.

"Of what matter," Sabine had answered. "Since I am not a girl, _cher
maître_, and you were once not a priest, and we are both _gens du
monde--hein_?"

His breeding had been of enormous advantage to him, enabling him to
refrain from asking Sabine a single question; but he knew from her
ejaculations as time went on that she had passed through some furnace
during her eighteenth year, and it had seared her deeply. He even knew
more than this; he knew almost as much as Simone, eventually, but it
was all locked in his breast and never even alluded to between them.

Sabine was waiting for him at this moment upon this glorious day in
August. Père Anselme was going to breakfast with her.

He was announced presently, courtly and spare and distinguished in his
thread-bare soutane, and they went in to the breakfast-room, a round
chamber in the adjoining tower which had kitchens beneath. The walls
were here so thick, that only the sky could be seen from any window
except the southeastern one, from which you reviewed the gray slate
roofs of the later building within the courtyard, the part which had
been always habitable and which contained the salons and the guest
chambers, with only an oblique view of the sea. Here, in Héronac's
mistress' own apartments, the waves eternally encircled the base, and on
rough days rose in great clouds of spray almost to the deep mullions.

"I am having visitors, Père Anselme," Sabine remarked, when Nicholas,
her fat butler, was handing the omelette. "Madame Imogen is enchanted,"
and she smiled at that lady who had been waiting for déjeuner in the
room before they had entered.

"_Tant mieux!_" responded the priest, with his mouth full of egg and
mushroom. In his youth, the Héronacs had not imported English nurses,
and he ate as his fathers had done before him.

"So much the better. Our lady is too given to solitude, and but for the
meteor-like descents of the Princess Torniloni and her tamed father--"
(he used the word _aprivoisé_--"_son père aprivoisé_"!) "we should here
see very little of the outside world. And of what sex, madame, are these
new acquaintances, if one may ask?"

"They are men, _cher père_--bold, bad Englishmen!--think of it! but I
can only tell you the name of one of them--the other is
problematical--he has merely been spoken of as, 'My friend'--but he is
young, I gather, so just the affaire of Mère Imogen!"

"Why, that's likely!" chirped Madame Imogen, with a strong American
accent, in her French English. "But I do pine for some gay things down
here, don't you, Father?"

Père Anselme was heard to murmur that he found youth enough in his
hostess, if you asked him.

"At the same time, we must welcome these Englishmen," he added, "should
they be people of cultivation." He had heard that, in their upper
classes, the Englishmen of to-day were still the greatest gentlemen
left, and he would be pleased to meet examples of them.

"They will arrive at about five o'clock, I suppose," Sabine announced.
"Have you seen about their rooms, Mère Imogen? Lord Fordyce is to have
the Louis XIV suite, and the friend the one beyond; and we will only let
them come into our house if they do not bore us. We shall dine in the
_salle-à-manger_ to-night and sit in the big salon."

These rooms were seldom opened, except when Princess Torniloni came to
stay and brought her son, Sabine's godchild, who had elaborate nurseries
prepared for him. No other visitor had ever crossed the causeway, and
Madame Imogen's cute mind was asking itself why clemency had been
accorded to these two Britons. The English, as she knew, were not a
favored race with her employer.

They had been together for about two years now, she and Sabine--and were
excellent friends.

Madame Imogen Aubert had been in great straits in Paris, when Sabine had
heard of her through one of her many American acquaintances. Stupid
speculation by an over-confident, silly French husband just before his
death in Nevada had been the reason. Madame Imogen had the kindest heart
and the hardest common sense, and did credit to a distant Scotch
descent. She adored Sabine, as indeed she had reason to do, and looked
after her house and her servants with a hawk's eye.

After déjeuner was over, the Dame d'Héronac and the Curé crossed the
causeway bridge, and beyond the great towered gate entered another at
the side, which conducted them into the garden, which sheltered itself
behind immensely big walls from the road which curled beyond it, and the
sea which bounded it on the northwest. Here, whatever horticultural
talent and money could procure had been lavished for four years, and
the results were beginning to show. It was a glorious mass of summer
flowers; and was the supreme pleasure of Père Anselme. He gardened with
the fervor of an enthusiast, and was the joy and terror of the
gardeners.

They spent two hours in delightful work, and then the Curé went his
way--but just before he left for the hundred yards down the road where
his cottage stood, Sabine said to him:

"Regard well Lord Fordyce to-night, _mon père_. It is possible I may
decide to know him very intimately