The Dop Doctor Part 63

"Tell me about the snubbing."

"It was High Art. Three words--and I knew I'd behaved like a bounder of the worst--I had to go back and get the other cab, with a broken front window and a cabby...." He chuckled. "I've met red noses enough but you could have seen that chap's glowing through the thickest fog that ever blanketed Ludgate Hill and wrapped the Strand in greasy mystery. Don't move, please!... There's a ray of suns.h.i.+ne touching your head that makes your hair look the colour of a chestnut when the p.r.i.c.kly green hull first cracks to let it out. Or ... there's a rose grows on the pergola at home at Foltlebarre Royal, with a coppery sheen on the young leaves.... I wondered why I kept thinking of it as I looked at you. But I know now. And your skin is creamy white like the flower. Oh, if I could only gather the girl-rose and carry it home to the others!"

She was pink as the loveliest La France now.

"You ought not to talk to me in that way."

"Don't I know it?" Beauvayse groaned out. He turned over upon his face in the gra.s.s, and lay quite still. A shuddering sigh heaved the strong young shoulders from time to time, and his hands clenched and tore at the gra.s.ses, "Don't I know it? Lynette, Lynette!"

She longed to touch the close-cropped golden head. Unseen by him, she stretched out a hand timidly and drew it back again, unsatisfied.

"Lynette, Lynette! I'm paying at this moment for every rotten act of headlong folly I've ever committed in my life, and you're making me!" He caught at a fold of her skirt and drew it to him and hid his face in it, kissing it again and again. It was one of the caresses she had been used herself to offer where she most loved. To find yourself being wors.h.i.+pped instead of wors.h.i.+pping is an experience. She touched the golden head now, as the Mother had often touched her own. He caught the hand.

"No, no!" She grew deadly pale, and s.h.i.+vered. "Please let me go. I--I did not----"

She tried to release the hand. He raised himself, and she started at the warm, quivering pressure of his beautiful mouth, scarcely shaded by the young, wheat-golden moustache, upon her cool, sweet flesh. She s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand away with a faint cry, and sprang to her feet, and her cheeks blazed anew as she turned to go.

"You want to leave me? You would punish me like that--just for a kissed hand?"

He barred her way, taller than herself, though he stood upon the sloping lower level. She had learned always to be true in thought and speech.

"I--don't--like to be touched." She said it without looking at him.

"You put your hand upon my head. Why did you do it if you hate me so?"

"I--don't hate you!"

"I love you! My rose, my dove, my star, my joy! Queen of all the girls that ever I saw or dreamed of, say that you could love me back again!"

"I--must not."

Her bosom heaved. He could see the delicate white throat vibrating with the tumultuous beating of her heart.

"Why not? n.o.body has told you anything against me? n.o.body has said to you that I have no right to love you?" he demanded.

"No."

"Look at me."

The golden hazel, dark-lashed eyes she shyly turned to his were full of exquisite, melting tenderness. Her lips parted to speak, and closed again.

He leaned towards her--hung over her, his own lips irresistibly attracted to those sweetest ones....

"Lord Beauvayse----" she began, and stopped.

He begged:

"Please, not the duffing t.i.tle, but 'Beauvayse' only. Tell me you love me.

Tell me that you'll wait until I'm able to come to you and say: 'My beloved, the way's clear. Be my wife to-morrow!'"

His tone was masterful. His ardent eyes thrilled her. She murmured:

"Beauvayse ...!"

She swayed to him, as a young palm sways before a breeze, and he caught her in his strenuous, young embrace, and held her firmly against him. Her old terrors wakened, and dreadful, unforgettable things stirred in the darkness, where they had lain hidden, and lifted hydra-heads. She cried out wildly, and strove to thrust him from her, but he held her close.

There was a shaking among the tangled growths of bush and cactus high up on the opposite bank, and Lynette realised that Beauvayse's arms no longer held her. She leaned back against the boulder, panting and trembling, and saw Beauvayse's revolver glitter in his steady hand, as something came cras.h.i.+ng down through the tangled jungle upon the edge of the farther sh.o.r.e, and a heavily-built man in khaki pushed through the shoulder-high growth of reeds, and leaped upon a rock that had a swirl of water round it. It was Saxham.

"Miss Mildare!" called the strong, vibrating voice.

She faltered:

"It--it is Dr. Saxham."

"And what the devil does Dr. Saxham want?" was written in Beauvayse's angry face. But he called out as he lowered his revolver-hand:

"You've had rather an escape of getting shot, Saxham, do you know? You might have been a Boer or a buffalo. Better be more careful next time, if you're anxious to avert accidents."

Saxham was a little like the buffalo as he lowered his head and surveyed the alert, virile young figure and the insolent, high-bred face from under ominously scowling brows. He made no answer; only laid one finger upon the b.u.t.t of his own revolver, and the slight action fanned Beauvayse's annoyance and resentment to a white-heat, as perhaps Saxham had intended.

He sprang upon another boulder that was in the mid-swirl of the current, and spoke again.

"Miss Mildare, I was walking on one of the native paths that have been made in the bush there"--he indicated the bank behind him--"when I heard you cry out. I am here, at your service, to offer you any help or protection that is in my power to give."

Lynette looked at him vaguely. Beauvayse, crimson to the crisp waves upon his forehead and the white collar-line above the edge of his jacket, answered for her.

"Miss Mildare does not require any help or protection other than what I am privileged to place at her disposal. You had better go on with your walk, Doctor. You know the old adage about two being company?"

He laughed, but his voice had quivered with fury, and the hand that held the revolver shook too. And his eyes seemed colourless as water against the furious crimson of his face. Still ignoring him, Saxham said, his own square, pale face turned full upon Lynette, and his vivid blue eyes constraining her:

"Miss Mildare, I am at your commands. Tell me to cross the river and take you back to the ladies of the Convent, or order me to continue my walk. In which case I shall understand that the familiarities of Lord Beauvayse are not unwelcome to you."

"By G.o.d ...! You----"

Beauvayse choked, then suddenly remembered where and how to strike. But he waited, and Saxham waited, and still she did not speak.

"Am I to go or stay? Kindly answer, Miss Mildare!"

Beauvayse's eyes were on her. He said to her below his breath:

"Tell him to go!"

She stammered:

"Th--thank you. But--I--I--had rather you went on."

Beauvayse saw his opportunity, and added, with an intolerable smile:

"My 'familiarities,' as you are pleased to term them, being more acceptable to a lady than the attentions of the Dop Doctor."

Saxham started as though an adder had flashed its fangs through his boot.