Sally Bishop Part 34

She showed hesitation, was about to refuse, when he made it plain to her that he would not have it otherwise.

"I've taken it off before, you know," he said with a smile. "I'm by no means a novice at the art. You can't call me an amateur."

"When--?" she began; "oh, of course, I remember."

She did not consider her refusal now; she obeyed. He took the hat from her and her feather boa. Then he insisted on the removal of the little short-waisted coat. She demurred again, and again was obedient. He laid them all down on the settle, then sat for a moment and watched her while she poked her fingers into her hair and pulled it lightly out where the hat had rested.

"Now you look as if you'd come to see me." he said.

"What did I look like before?"

"I don't know. As if you had been and were going away. But what _did_ you come for? What have you got to tell me? I a.s.sure you, when I opened that door and found you standing there--"

"Yes, I'm sure you must have been surprised," she joined in.

"I was--considerably. What do you think of Dolly?"

"Your sister?"

"Yes."

"I know she doesn't like me," she answered evasively.

"What makes you think that? I don't think you're correct. She hasn't got you right--that's all."

"No, she hasn't got me right. I know she thought I was quite a different person to what I really am."

"But how do you know that? She didn't tell you so when I'd gone out to get that taxi, did she? What did she say to you then?"

"Oh no, she didn't tell me what she thought. Under the circ.u.mstances, I'm sure she really treated me very well."

"I don't know about that," said Traill. "You must admit she was a bit icy at first. That's her social way--the way of the whole set when they meet strangers. One ought to bring a blast furnace when one goes calling at their houses, instead of a visiting card. My G.o.d, I've been to them myself, and I'd sooner undertake a job as look-out on a s.h.i.+p bound for the north pole. They'd freeze the very marrow in your bones."

Sally smiled--pleased--at his violent antipathy. "Don't you think you'll ever become one of them, then?" she asked. "I expect you will."

"No, not in fifty lifetimes. Did she say I would?"

"She said she expected it."

"Did she? Well, I wouldn't give a bra.s.s farthing for her expectations.

Just like her to say that. I wonder what her game was. I wonder did she think you could persuade me to it."

He looked up at her; but Sally said nothing. She could have told him--told him to the letter what he wanted to know--but she said nothing. Then he asked her again why she had come that evening to see him.

"Is it anything to do with that parcel?" he asked suspiciously.

Her eyes turned to the little box in its wrapping of brown paper.

She reached out her hand and took it from the table.

"Yes," she replied.

"Oh, the bracelet?"

"Yes."

Her fingers attacked the knots on the string with half-hearted enthusiasm.

"Doesn't it fit?" he questioned.

"Oh yes; it isn't that."

"Then what is it? You don't like it. Here--" he was growing impatient of her fingers' futile attempts; "cut the string. You'll never untie those knots. Here's a knife." He handed her one from his pocket. "You don't like it, eh?" he repeated.

She looked straightly at him, eyes unmoved by the steady gaze in his.

"Do you really think that?" she asked. "That I'm bringing it back because I don't like it?"

"I don't know, I'm sure. But if not that, then why?"

There was irritation in his voice; he made little attempt to conceal it. It was his imagination that he had come to dealings with the type of feather-brained woman who knows least of all what she wants when she gets it. It may be seen from this that his knowledge of Sally was supremely slight. He had a broad judgment for all women, a pigeon-hole in his mind into which he threw them without discrimination. When, therefore, he came across the exception in Sally, he did not recognize her, flung her in with the rest, folded more carefully perhaps, tied even with a little distinguis.h.i.+ng piece of ribbon. But into that same receptacle in his mind she went, nevertheless. Yet Traill was not without shrewdness in his wide judgment of the s.e.x. He could read his sister as you read a book in which the pages only need cutting, and the glossary sometimes referred to.

On this evening, certainly, he had failed to see the point towards which she drove; but in her dealings with another of her s.e.x, a woman is most inexplicable of all to a man. For this edition de luxe, he needs reference, dictionary, and magnifying gla.s.s, with a steady finger always to keep his place on the line should his eyes for one moment lift or wander from the print.

Sally, as yet, he had cla.s.sified broadly. In the very next moment he was to learn more of her, to take her down from that indiscriminating file in his mind, and scrutinize her afresh.

She took the bangle out of its velvet case and clasped it--with pride even then--upon her wrist.

"You see it fits--perfectly," she said, looking up pathetically.

"Then--Good Lord! why do you bring it back?"

She unclasped it, letting it lie in the palm of her hand, half-stretched out towards him.

"Because I mustn't accept it--I can't. If, after the last time I was here, when you said good-bye, you'd said to me you were going to buy it, I should have told you that I would not take it."

He paid no attention to her outstretched hand. At her eyes he looked.

"Why not? Why particularly after I'd said good-bye?"

"Because you have no right to give it me, and I have less right to accept it."

He half-laughed. "Isn't that rather childish?"

"I don't think so."

"But do you like it? Isn't it a sort of thing you'd like?"

"A sort of thing? I think it's beautiful. I've never had a present like it in my life--never had anything that was so valuable."