Cynthia's Chauffeur Part 28

"Yes."

"What is her husband?"

"She married rather well, as the saying is. Her husband is a man named Scarland, and he is chiefly interested in pedigree cattle."

"Let me see," she mused. "I seem to remember the name; it had something to do with fat cattle, too.... Scarland? Does he exhibit?"

Medenham wished then that he had not been so glib with the Marquis of Scarland's pet occupation.

"I have been in England so little during the past few years----" he began.

"I hope you haven't quarreled with your sister?" she put in promptly.

"What, quarrel with Betty? I?" And he laughed at the conceit, though he wondered what Cynthia would say if, on Monday, he deviated a few miles from the Hereford and Shrewsbury main road and showed her Scarland Towers and the park in which the marquis's prize stock were fattening.

"Oh, is she so nice? And pretty, too, I suppose?"

"People generally speak of her as good-looking. It is a recognized fact, I believe, that pretty girls usually have brothers not so favored----"

"What, fis.h.i.+ng now as well as rowing? Didn't I say you had a Norman aspect?"

"Consisting largely of a scowl, I understand."

"But a man is bound to look fierce sometimes. At least, my father does, though he is celebrated for his unchanging aspect, no matter what happens. Perhaps he may look like a Sphinx when he is carrying through what he calls 'a deal,' but I remember very well seeing lightning in his eye when an Italian prince was rude to me one day. We were at Pompeii, and this Prince Monte-something induced me to look at a horrid fresco under the pretense that it was very artistic. Without thinking what I was doing, I ran to father and complained about it. My goodness! I wonder the lava didn't melt again before he got through with his highness, who, after all, was a bit of a virtuoso, and may have really admired nasty subjects so long as they conformed to certain standards of art."

"Some ideals call for correction by the toe of a strong boot--I share Mr. Vanrenen's views on that point most emphatically."

Medenham's character was one that trans.m.u.ted words to deeds. He drove the skiff onward with a powerful sweep that discovered an unexpected shoal. There might have been some danger of an upset if the oars were in less skillful hands. As it was, they were back in deep water within a few seconds.

Cynthia laughed without the least tremor.

"You were kicking my Italian acquaintance in imagination then; I hope you see now that you might have been mistaken," she cried.

"Even in this instance I only touched mud."

"Well, well, let us forget the Signor Principe. Tell me about yourself. How did you come to enlist? In my country, men of your stamp do not join the army unless some national crisis arises. But, perhaps, that applies to your case. The Boers nearly beat you, didn't they?"

He took advantage of the opening thus presented, and was able to interest her in stories of the campaign without committing himself to details. Nevertheless, a man who had served on the headquarters staff during the protracted second phase of the South African war could hardly fail to exhibit an intimate knowledge of that history which is never written. Though Cynthia had met many leaders of thought and action, she had never before encountered one who had taken part in a struggle of such peculiar significance as the Boer revolt. She was not an English girl, eager only to hear tales of derring-do in which her fellow-countrymen figure heroically, but a citizen of that wider world that refuses to look at events exclusively through British spectacles; therein lay the germ of real peril to Medenham. He had not only to narrate but to convince. He was called on to answer questions of policy and method that few if any of the women in his own circle would think of putting. Obviously, this appeal to his intellect weakened the self-imposed guard on his lips. There is excellent authority for the belief that Desdemona loved Oth.e.l.lo for the dangers he had pa.s.sed, and did with greedy ear devour his discourse, yet it may well be conceded that an explanatory piquancy would have been added to the Moor's account

Of most disastrous chances, Of moving accidents by flood and field,

if the lady were not a maid of Venice but hailed from some kindred city that refused to range all the virtues on the side of the Mistress of the Adriatic.

More than once it chanced that Medenham had to exercise his wits very quickly to trip his tongue when on the verge of some indiscretion that would betray him. Perhaps he was unduly cautious. Perhaps his listener's heart had mastered her brain for the time. Perhaps she would not have woke up in a maze from a dream that was not less a dream because she was not sleeping even if some unwary utterance caused her to ask what manner of man this could be.

But that can never be known, since Cynthia herself never knew. The one sharp and clear fact that remained in her mind as a memory of a summer's evening pa.s.sed in a boat on a river flowing through fairyland, was provided by a set of circ.u.mstances far removed from tales of stormy night-riding after De Wet or the warp and weft of European politics as they fas.h.i.+oned the cere-cloths of the two Dutch republics.

Neither the one nor the other should be blamed if they found a boat on the Wye a most pleasant exchange for an eager automobile on roads that tempted to high speed. At any rate, they gave no heed to the time until Cynthia happened to glance at the horizon and saw that the sun was represented by a thin seam of silver hemming the westerly fringe of a deep blue sky. If there was a moon, it was hidden by the hills.

"Whatever o'clock is it?" she cried in a voice that held almost a sound of scare.

Medenham looked at his watch, and had to hold it close to his eyes before he could make out the hour.

"Time you were back at the hotel," he said, swinging the boat round quickly. "I am afraid I have kept you out too long, Miss Vanrenen. It is a perfect night, but you must not risk catching a chill----"

"I'm not worrying about that sort of chill--there are others: what will Mrs. Devar think?"

"The worst," he could not help saying.

"What time is it, really?"

"Won't you be happier not to know? We have the stream with us now----"

"Mr. Fitzroy--what time is it?"

"Nearly half-past ten o'clock. You did not leave the hotel till after half-past eight."

"Oh, blame me, of course. 'The woman tempted me and I did eat.'"

"No, no. Apples are not the only forbidden fruit. May I vary an unworthy defense? The woman came with me and I didn't care."

"But I do care. Please hurry. Mrs. Devar will be real mad, and I shan't have a word to say for myself."

Medenham bent to it, and the outrigger traveled downstream at a rare pace. Cynthia steered with fair accuracy by the track they had followed against the current, but the oarsman glanced over his shoulder occasionally, and advised her as to the probable trend of the channel.

"Keep a bit wide here," he said when they were approaching a sharp bend. "I believe we almost touched ground in midstream as we came up."

She obeyed, and a wide expanse of low-lying land opened before her eyes.

"I don't see the lights of the hotel yet," she said, with a note of anxiety.

"You are not making enough allowance for the way in which this river turns and twists. There are sections in which you box the compa.s.s during the course of a short----"

A sharp tearing noise in the bottom of the boat amids.h.i.+ps was followed by an inrush of water. Medenham sprang upright, leaped overboard, and caught the port outrigger with his left hand. He was then immersed to the waist, but he flung his right arm around Cynthia and lifted her clear of the sinking craft.

"Sit on my shoulder. Steady yourself with your hands on my head," he said, and his voice was so unemotional that the girl could almost have laughed. Beyond one startled "Oh!" when the plank was ripped out she had uttered no sound, and she followed his instructions now implicitly. She was perched comfortably well above the river when she felt that he was moving, not to either bank, but down the center of the stream. Suddenly he let go the boat, which had swung broadside on.

"It is sinking, and the weight was pulling me over," he explained, still in the same quiet way, as though he were stating the merest commonplace. Some thrill that she could not account for vibrated through her body. She was not frightened in the least. She had the most complete confidence in this man, whose head was braced against her left thigh, and whose arm was clasping her skirts closely round her ankles.

"Which side do you mean to make for?" she asked.

"I hardly know. You are higher up than me. Perhaps you can decide best as to the set of the current. The boat seems to have been carried to the right."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Pity I'm not a circus lady, to balance myself on your head," said Cynthia. _Page 209_]

"Yes. I think the river shoals to the left."

"Suppose we try the other way first. The hotel is on that side."