The Way of an Eagle Part 36

She understood the precise meaning of Nick's laugh. She even for a moment wanted to laugh herself. "Thank you. I should like to," she said.

Nick nodded and turned aside. "Olga, stop capering," he ordered, "and drive me home."

Olga obeyed him promptly, with the gaiety of a squirrel. As Nick seated himself by her side, Muriel saw her turn impulsively and rub her cheek against his shoulder. It gave her a queer little tingling shock to see the child's perfect confidence in him. But then--but then--Olga had never looked on horror, had never seen the devil leap out in naked fury upon her hero's face.

They waited to let the car go first, Olga proudly grasping the wheel; then, trotting briskly, followed in its wake.

Muriel had an uneasy feeling that Blake wanted to apologise, and she determined that he should not have the opportunity. Each time that he gave any sign of wis.h.i.+ng to draw nearer to her, she touched her horse's flank. Something in the nature of a revelation had come to her during that brief halt by the roadside. For the first time she had caught a glimpse, plain and unvarnished, of the actual man that inhabited the giant's frame, and it had given her an odd, disturbing suspicion that the strength upon which she leaned was in simple fact scarcely equal to her own.

The way to Redlands lay through leafy woodlands through which here and there the summer sea gleamed blue. Turning in at the open gates, Muriel uttered an exclamation of delight. She seemed to have suddenly entered fairyland. The house, long, low, rambling, roofed with thatch, stood at the end of a winding drive that was bordered on both sides by a blaze of rhododendron flowers. Down below her on the left was a miniature glen from which arose the tinkle of running water. On her right the trees grew thickly, completely shutting out the road.

"Oh, Blake!" she exclaimed. "What a perfect paradise!"

"Like it?" said Nick; and with a start she saw him coolly step out from a shadowy path behind them and close the great iron gate.

Impulsively she pulled up and slipped to the ground. "Take my horse, Blake," she said. "I must run down to that stream."

He obeyed her, not very willingly, and Nick with a chuckle turned and plunged after her down the narrow path. "Go straight ahead!" he called back. "Olga is waiting for you at the house."

He came up with Muriel on the edge of the fairy stream. Her face was flushed and her eyes nervous, but she met him bravely. She had known in her heart that he would follow. As he stopped beside her, she turned with a little desperate laugh and held out her hand.

"Is it peace?" she said rather breathlessly.

She felt his fingers, tense as wire, close about her own. "Seems like it," he said. "What are you afraid of? Me?"

She could not meet his look. But the necessity for some species of understanding pressed upon her. She wanted unspeakably to conciliate him.

"I want to be friends with you, Nick," she said, "if you will let me."

"What for?" said Nick sharply.

She was silent. She could not tell him that her sure defence had crumbled at a touch. Somehow she was convinced that he knew it already.

"You never wanted such a thing before," he said. "You certainly weren't hankering after it the last time we met."

Her cheeks burned at the memory. Again she felt ashamed. With a great effort she forced herself to speak with a certain frankness.

"I am afraid," she said--"I have thought since--that I was rather heartless that day. The fact was, I was taken by surprise. But I am sorry now, Nick. I am very sorry."

Her tone was unconsciously piteous. Surely he must see that if they were to meet often, as inevitably they must, some sort of agreement between them was imperative. She must feel stable ground beneath her feet. Their intercourse could not be one perpetual pa.s.sage of arms.

Flesh and blood could never endure it.

But Nick did not apparently view the matter in the same light. "Pray don't be sorry," he airily begged her. "I quite understood. I never take offence where none is intended, and not always where it is. So dismiss the matter from your mind with all speed. There is not the smallest occasion for regret."

He meant to elude her, she saw, and she turned from him without another word. There was to be no understanding then, no friendly feeling, no peace of mind. She had trusted to his generosity, and it was quite clear that he had no intention of being generous.

As they walked by a mossy pathway towards the house, they talked upon indifferent things. But the girl's heart was very bitter within her. She would have given almost anything to have flung back his hospitality in his grinning, triumphant face, and have departed with her outraged pride to the farthest corner of the earth.

CHAPTER x.x.xI

THE EAGLE HOVERS

Luncheon in the low, old-fas.h.i.+oned dining-room at Redlands with its windows facing the open sea, with Olga beaming at the head of the table, would have been a peaceful and pleasant meal, had Muriel's state of mind allowed her to enjoy it. But Nick's treatment of her overture had completely banished all enjoyment for her. She forced herself to eat and to appear unconcerned, but she was quivering inwardly with a burning sense of resentment. She was firmly determined that she would never be alone with him again. He had managed by those few scoffing words of his to arouse in her all the bitterness of which she was capable. If she had feared him before, she hated him now with the whole force of her nature.

He seemed to be blissfully unconscious of her hostility and played the part of host with complete ease of manner. Long before the meal was over, Grange had put aside his sullenness, and they were conversing together as comrades.

Nick had plenty to say. He spoke quite openly of his illness, and declared himself to have completely recovered from it. "Even Jim has ceased his gruesome threats," he said cheerily. "There will be no more lopping of branches this season. Just as well, for I chance to have developed an affection for what is left."

"You're going back to the Regiment, I suppose?" Blake questioned.

"No, he isn't," thrust in Olga, and was instantly frowned upon by Nick.

"Speak when you're spoken to, little girl! That's a question you are not qualified to answer. I'm on half-pay at present, and I haven't made up my mind."

"I should quit in your place," Grange remarked, with his eyes on the dazzling sea.

"No doubt you would," Nick responded dryly. "And what should you advise, Muriel?"

The question was unexpected, but she had herself in hand, and answered it instantly. "I certainly shouldn't advise you to quit."

He raised his eyebrows. "Might one ask why?"

She was quite ready for him, inspired by an overmastering longing to hurt him if that were possible. "Because if you gave up your profession, you would be nothing but a vacuum. If the chance to destroy life were put out of your reach, you would simply cease to exist."

She spoke rapidly, her voice pitched very low. She was trembling all over, and her hands were clenched under the table to hide it.

The laugh with which Nick received her words jarred intolerably upon her. She heard nothing in it but deliberate cruelty.

"Great Lucifer!" he said. "You have got me under the microscope with a vengeance. But you can't see through me, you know. I have a reverse side. Hadn't you better turn me over and look at that? There may be sorcery and witchcraft there as well."

There might be. She could well have imagined it. But these were lesser things in which she had no concern. She turned his thrust aside with disdain.

"I am not sufficiently interested," she said. "The little I know is enough."

"Well hit!" chuckled Nick. "I retire from the fray, discomfited. Olga _mia_, I wish you would find the cigars. You know where they are."

Olga sprang to do his bidding. Having handed the box to Grange she came to Nick and stood beside him while she cut and lighted a cigar for him.

He put his arm round her for a moment, and she stooped a flushed face and kissed the top of his head.

"Run along," said Nick. "Take Muriel into the garden. She hasn't seen it all."

Muriel rose. "We mustn't be late in starting back," she remarked to Blake.