December Love Part 81

They were walking slowly up and down the long terrace.

"One pa.s.ses away from things," she said, "as one goes on. It is rather a horrible feeling."

Suddenly, moved by an impulse that was almost girlish, she stopped on the path and said:

"What is the matter with you to-day? Why are you angry with me?"

Craven flushed.

"Angry! But I am not angry!"

"Yes, you are. Tell me why."

"How could I--I'm really not angry. As if I could be angry with you!"

"Then why are you so different?"

"In what way am I different?"

She did not answer, but said:

"Did you hear what the baron and I were talking about at lunch?"

"Just a few words."

"I hope you didn't think I wished to join in gossip about Beryl Van Tuyn?"

"Of course not."

"I hate all such talk. If that offended you--"

She was losing her dignity and knew it, but a great longing to overcome his rigidity drove her on.

"If you think--"

"It wasn't that!" he said. "I have no reason to mind what anyone says about Miss Van Tuyn."

"But she's your friend!"

"Is she? I think a friend is a very rare thing. You have taught me that."

"I? How?"

"You went abroad without letting me know."

"Is that it?" she said.

And there was a strange note, like a note of joy, in her voice.

"I think you might have told me. And you put me off. I was to have seen you--"

"Yes, I know."

She was silent. She could not explain. That was impossible. Yet she longed to tell him how much she had wished to see him, how much it had cost her to go without a word. But suddenly she remembered Camber.

He was angry with her, but he had very soon consoled himself for her departure.

"I went away quite unexpectedly," she said. "I had to go like that."

"I--I hope you weren't ill?"

He recalled Braybrooke's remarks about doctors. Perhaps she had really been ill. Perhaps something had happened abroad, and he had done her a wrong.

"No, I haven't been ill. It wasn't that," she said.

The thought of Camber persisted, and now persecuted her.

"I am quite sure you didn't miss me," she said, with a colder voice.

"But I did!" he said.

"For how long?"

The mocking look he knew so well had come into her eyes. How much did she know?

"Have you seen Miss Van Tuyn since you came back?" he asked.

"Oh, yes. She paid me a visit soon after I arrived."

Craven looked down. He realized that something had been said, that Miss Van Tuyn had perhaps talked injudiciously. But even if she had, why should Lady Sellingworth mind? His relation with her was so utterly different from his relation with the lovely American. It never occurred to him that this wonderful elderly woman, for whom he had such a peculiar feeling, could care for him at all as a girl might, could think of him as a woman thinks of a man with whom she might have an affair of the heart. She fascinated him. Yes! But she did not fascinate that part of him which instinctively responded to Beryl Van Tuyn. And that he fascinated her in any physical way simply did not enter his mind.

Nevertheless, at that moment he felt uncomfortable and, absurdly enough, almost guilty.

"Have you seen Beryl since her father's death?" said Lady Sellingworth.

"No," he said. "At least--yes, I suppose I have."

"You suppose?"

Her eyes had not lost their mocking expression.

"I happened to see her in Glebe Place with that fellow they are all chattering about, but I didn't speak to her. I believe her father was dead then. But I didn't know it at the time."

"Oh! Is he so very handsome, as they say?"

She could not help saying this, and watching him as she said it.

"I should say he was a good-looking chap," answered Craven frigidly.

"But he looks like a wrong 'un."