The Golden Web Part 11

He looked at her curiously. She was certainly, for all her frankness, a new type. Her frankness was more the frankness of a child than the outspokenness of _gaucherie_.

"Some day," he said, "you may probably have your wish. There is your uncle, for instance."

She nodded. "It is my one hope," she said, "my one hope. I go to meet the postman every morning. It is three weeks since he wrote and said that he was going to send for me. You don't think that he would change his mind?" she asked, turning suddenly towards him with almost tragic intensity.

"Very unlikely, I should say," he answered. "Has he any other relatives?"

"None," she answered. "Even my uncle and aunt with whom I live here are not relatives of his. You see, he was my father's brother. Mr. Sarsby was my mother's brother."

"It is Mr. and Mrs. Sarsby with whom you live?" he remarked.

She nodded. "Yes! And my name is Sinclair," she said,--"Ruby Sinclair."

He stopped short for a minute in the middle of the d.y.k.e path. She was walking a little ahead, and missing him in a few moments, turned around.

He was standing like a man turned to stone.

"What is the matter?" she asked. "Are you tired, or aren't you well?"

He recovered himself with a little effort. "It is all right," he said.

"You know I told you I'd come down here to recoup a little. I get nervous attacks. I was suddenly giddy then."

She came back. Her face was once more softened in its expression of kindly concern. "Would you like to take my arm?" she asked, a little timidly. "We are close to the cottage now. Perhaps you would like to come in and sit down. My aunt would be glad to see you."

"No!" he said. "Let us rest here for a moment."

They sat down on the edge of the high, gra.s.sy bank. He tortured himself, gazing into her face, trying to find some likeness between her and the murdered man. There was none, he told himself,--none. The name was a common one--one of the commonest. It was ridiculous to connect this girl in any way with the tragedy under whose shadow he had pa.s.sed. Yet he felt his fingers nervously clutching the bank upon which they were sitting. The seagulls still wheeled their way across his head. The tide was flowing softly up into the creek below them. A fis.h.i.+ng-boat came gliding by. A lark rose almost from their feet, and was singing just above their heads. Everywhere around was peace and quiet. It was the same land in which he had found content only a few hours ago, yet it seemed to him that already the shadow had come.

It was she who rose first. She shook out her skirts a little reluctantly, and turned toward the village, saying: "I am sorry, but I must go. Meals at our house are the one thing more certain than the rising of the sun. We lunch at one, and it is ten minutes to. Do you feel well enough to get back, or will you come on with me?"

"I will go back," he said. "I wonder," he continued, "what are you going to do this afternoon?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "There is nothing," she answered. "Come out here, I suppose, and pray that I may have a letter to-morrow morning."

"Be unconventional," he begged. "Take pity upon an invalid, and come and have tea with me."

"I'd love to," she answered, "if I can get away. About half-past four?"

"Yes," said he. "I shall be waiting for you."

"Don't come to meet me," she begged,--"not that it matters, of course, only if uncle knew that you were staying there, and that you came from London, and that I had talked to you, he would want to come and call. He is one of those fussy people who like to hear themselves talk, and to make acquaintances. It's all very well for you to s.h.i.+ver," she added, with a little smile, "but I have to live with him."

With a laugh he said: "I'll hide, until I see you actually before the door. You will come, though?"

"I'll come," she promised, turning away with a little wave of the hand.

CHAPTER XIII

AN INFORMAL TEA-PARTY

After all, the element of unconventionality was absent from Deane's tea-party. About four o'clock, looking landwards from a little sandy knoll just in front of his strange abode, he saw two figures coming along the d.y.k.e path. A few minutes later, Ruby Sinclair and her companion came across the last little strip of s.h.i.+ngle, and approached the spot where Deane was waiting for them.

"My uncle would like to make your acquaintance, Mr. Deane," she said.

Deane held out his hand and welcomed his visitor--a small, fussy-looking little man with a gray moustache, and a somewhat awkward air of being at his ease. He wore a tweed knickerbocker suit,--very old-fas.h.i.+oned, and of local make,--a flannel collar, and an ill-chosen tie. He shook hands with his host in a perfunctory sort of manner.

"Thought I must just look you up," he explained, "living out here. Such a lonely spot, too! You are going to play golf, of course?"

Deane shook his head. "I never play," he answered. "I have come here to rest."

To rest! The word seemed a strange one to the fussy little man, who was already taking stock of his surroundings. Photographs in silver frames, a pile of books--all new, a gun and fis.h.i.+ng-rod, and other such belongings--all, naturally, the best of their sort!

"Well, but you must do something!" Mr. Sarsby remarked. "You cannot sit here all day and look at the sea,--like the fishermen," he continued, with a little laugh. "A very lazy lot--our fishermen," he went on.

"Never go out if there's a ripple on the sea."

Deane nodded. "The tides," he remarked, "are rather treacherous, I should think."

The servant brought in tea and a great dish of strawberries, at which Mr. Sarsby gazed in amazement.

"Strawberries!" he exclaimed. "Why, we don't begin to think about them for another six weeks!"

"Is that so?" answered Deane, carelessly. "I never know anything about seasons, and my man is doing the catering. Miss Sinclair, you must make the tea for us. I am afraid our methods are a little crude, but you see we are trying to get along without any women-servants."

Mr. Sarsby was a little abashed. He had seldom sat down to a table covered by a cloth of such fine linen, and he had certainly never been waited upon, of late years, by a man-servant. His little eyes roved inquisitively around. "You come from London, sir, my niece tells me," he remarked.

"From London," Deane replied.

"A wonderful place!" Mr. Sarsby said, with a sigh. "Since I retired, unfortunately, I have had to drop out of life altogether."

"Your health?" Deane suggested politely.

"My health, and my ridiculously small pension," Mr. Sarsby answered. "I can't make out what the country is coming to. Years ago, pensions were altogether on a different scale. To-day, it seems to me that every government is always trying to s.h.i.+rk its obligations to those who go out and help to build up the empire."

This was Mr. Sarsby's favorite little speech, which he made regularly several times a week in the village, and once a year at a club dinner.

Deane received it in sympathetic silence.

"Tell me how you spend your time, Miss Sinclair?" he asked. "You play golf, I think you told me."

"Oh! I do all the obvious things one has to do, living in such a place,"

she said. "I swim and I fish, I play golf and tennis when I can get any, and I sail a boat when I can borrow one. Those things are all sport to you, I suppose. When they become not a part of your life, but the whole of it, they are a dreary sort of pursuits."

"My niece is seldom satisfied," Mr. Sarsby said sharply.

"Why should I be?" she asked. "You, at least, have had your day. You have seen something of life, in however small a circle. I haven't! I dare say, after twenty years away, I might be content with these things.

Life for you is simply a satisfactory thing or not according to whether you have beaten Colonel Forsitt or whether he has beaten you, whether you are heeling your mas.h.i.+e shots or laying them dead, holing your putts or leaving them short. You see, I haven't quite come to the stage when I find these things sufficient."