The Reef Part 18

The night brought no aid to the solving of this problem; but it gave him, at any rate, the clear conviction that no time was to be lost. His first step must be to obtain from Miss Viner the chance of another and calmer talk; and he resolved to seek it at the earliest hour.

He had gathered that Effie's lessons were preceded by an early scamper in the park, and conjecturing that her governess might be with her he betook himself the next morning to the terrace, whence he wandered on to the gardens and the walks beyond.

The atmosphere was still and pale. The m.u.f.fled sunlight gleamed like gold tissue through grey gauze, and the beech alleys tapered away to a blue haze blent of sky and forest. It was one of those elusive days when the familiar forms of things seem about to dissolve in a prismatic s.h.i.+mmer.

The stillness was presently broken by joyful barks, and Darrow, tracking the sound, overtook Effie flying down one of the long alleys at the head of her pack. Beyond her he saw Miss Viner seated near the stone-rimmed basin beside which he and Anna had paused on their first walk to the river.

The girl, coming forward at his approach, returned his greeting almost gaily. His first glance showed him that she had regained her composure, and the change in her appearance gave him the measure of her fears. For the first time he saw in her again the sidelong grace that had charmed his eyes in Paris; but he saw it now as in a painted picture.

"Shall we sit down a minute?" he asked, as Effie trotted off.

The girl looked away from him. "I'm afraid there's not much time; we must be back at lessons at half-past nine."

"But it's barely ten minutes past. Let's at least walk a little way toward the river."

She glanced down the long walk ahead of them and then back in the direction of the house. "If you like," she said in a low voice, with one of her quick fluctuations of colour; but instead of taking the way he proposed she turned toward a narrow path which branched off obliquely through the trees.

Darrow was struck, and vaguely troubled, by the change in her look and tone. There was in them an undefinable appeal, whether for help or forbearance he could not tell. Then it occurred to him that there might have been something misleading in his so pointedly seeking her, and he felt a momentary constraint. To ease it he made an abrupt dash at the truth.

"I came out to look for you because our talk of yesterday was so unsatisfactory. I want to hear more about you--about your plans and prospects. I've been wondering ever since why you've so completely given up the theatre."

Her face instantly sharpened to distrust. "I had to live," she said in an off-hand tone.

"I understand perfectly that you should like it here--for a time."

His glance strayed down the gold-roofed windings ahead of them. "It's delightful: you couldn't be better placed. Only I wonder a little at your having so completely given up any idea of a different future."

She waited for a moment before answering: "I suppose I'm less restless than I used to be."

"It's certainly natural that you should be less restless here than at Mrs. Murrett's; yet somehow I don't seem to see you permanently given up to forming the young."

"What--exactly--DO you seem to see me permanently given up to? You know you warned me rather emphatically against the theatre." She threw off the statement without impatience, as though they were discussing together the fate of a third person in whom both were benevolently interested. Darrow considered his reply. "If I did, it was because you so emphatically refused to let me help you to a start."

She stopped short and faced him "And you think I may let you now?"

Darrow felt the blood in his cheek. He could not understand her att.i.tude--if indeed she had consciously taken one, and her changes of tone did not merely reflect the involuntary alternations of her mood. It humbled him to perceive once more how little he had to guide him in his judgment of her. He said to himself: "If I'd ever cared a straw for her I should know how to avoid hurting her now"--and his insensibility struck him as no better than a vulgar obtuseness. But he had a fixed purpose ahead and could only push on to it.

"I hope, at any rate, you'll listen to my reasons. There's been time, on both sides, to think them over since----" He caught himself back and hung helpless on the "since": whatever words he chose, he seemed to stumble among reminders of their past.

She walked on beside him, her eyes on the ground. "Then I'm to understand--definitely--that you DO renew your offer?" she asked

"With all my heart! If you'll only let me----"

She raised a hand, as though to check him. "It's extremely friendly of you--I DO believe you mean it as a friend--but I don't quite understand why, finding me, as you say, so well placed here, you should show more anxiety about my future than at a time when I was actually, and rather desperately, adrift."

"Oh, no, not more!"

"If you show any at all, it must, at any rate, be for different reasons.--In fact, it can only be," she went on, with one of her disconcerting flashes of astuteness, "for one of two reasons; either because you feel you ought to help me, or because, for some reason, you think you owe it to Mrs. Leath to let her know what you know of me."

Darrow stood still in the path. Behind him he heard Effie's call, and at the child's voice he saw Sophy turn her head with the alertness of one who is obscurely on the watch. The look was so fugitive that he could not have said wherein it differed from her normal professional air of having her pupil on her mind.

Effie sprang past them, and Darrow took up the girl's challenge.

"What you suggest about Mrs. Leath is hardly worth answering. As to my reasons for wanting to help you, a good deal depends on the words one uses to define rather indefinite things. It's true enough that I want to help you; but the wish isn't due to...to any past kindness on your part, but simply to my own interest in you. Why not put it that our friends.h.i.+p gives me the right to intervene for what I believe to be your benefit?"

She took a few hesitating steps and then paused again. Darrow noticed that she had grown pale and that there were rings of shade about her eyes.

"You've known Mrs. Leath a long time?" she asked him suddenly.

He paused with a sense of approaching peril. "A long time--yes."

"She told me you were friends--great friends"

"Yes," he admitted, "we're great friends."

"Then you might naturally feel yourself justified in telling her that you don't think I'm the right person for Effie." He uttered a sound of protest, but she disregarded it. "I don't say you'd LIKE to do it. You wouldn't: you'd hate it. And the natural alternative would be to try to persuade me that I'd be better off somewhere else than here. But supposing that failed, and you saw I was determined to stay? THEN you might think it your duty to tell Mrs. Leath."

She laid the case before him with a cold lucidity. "I should, in your place, I believe," she ended with a little laugh.

"I shouldn't feel justified in telling her, behind your back, if I thought you unsuited for the place; but I should certainly feel justified," he rejoined after a pause, "in telling YOU if I thought the place unsuited to you."

"And that's what you're trying to tell me now?"

"Yes; but not for the reasons you imagine."

"What, then, are your reasons, if you please?"

"I've already implied them in advising you not to give up all idea of the theatre. You're too various, too gifted, too personal, to tie yourself down, at your age, to the dismal drudgery of teaching."

"And is THAT what you've told Mrs. Leath?"

She rushed the question out at him as if she expected to trip him up over it. He was moved by the simplicity of the stratagem.

"I've told her exactly nothing," he replied.

"And what--exactly--do you mean by 'nothing'? You and she were talking about me when I came into her sitting-room yesterday."

Darrow felt his blood rise at the thrust.

"I've told her, simply, that I'd seen you once or twice at Mrs.

Murrett's."

"And not that you've ever seen me since?"

"And not that I've ever seen you since..."

"And she believes you--she completely believes you?"

He uttered a protesting exclamation, and his flush reflected itself in the girl's cheek.