The Younger Set Part 64

"Truly. Nothing is altered; nothing of the bond between us is weakened.

On the contrary, it is strengthened. You cannot understand that now. But what you are to believe and always understand is that our friends.h.i.+p must endure. Will you believe it?"

"Y-yes--" She buried her face in her handkerchief and sat very still for a long time. He had risen and walked to the farther end of the veranda; and for a minute he stood there, his narrowed eyes following the sky flight of the white gulls off Wonder Head.

When at length he returned to her she was sitting low in the swing, both arms extended along the back of the seat. Evidently she had been waiting for him; and her face was very grave and sorrowful.

"I want to ask you something," she said--"merely to prove that you are a little bit illogical. May I?"

He nodded, smiling.

"Could you and I care for each other more than we now do, if we were married?"

"I think so," he said.

"Why?" she demanded, astonished. Evidently she had expected another answer.

He made no reply; and she lay back among the cus.h.i.+ons considering what he had said, the flush of surprise still lingering in her cheeks.

"How can I marry you," she asked, "when I would--would not care to endure a--a caress from any man--even from you? It--such things--would spoil it all. I _don't_ love you--that way... . Oh! _Don't_ look at me that way! Have I hurt you?--dear Captain Selwyn? ... I did not mean to... . Oh, what has become of our happiness! What has become of it!"

And she turned, full length in the swing, and hid her face in the silken pillows.

For a long while she lay there, the western sun turning her crown of hair to fire above the white nape of her slender neck; and he saw her hands clasping, unclasping, or crus.h.i.+ng the tiny handkerchief deep into one palm.

There was a chair near; he drew it toward her, and sat down, steadying the swing with one hand on the chain.

"Dearest," he said under his breath, "I am very selfish to have done this; but I--I thought--perhaps--you might have cared enough to--to venture--"

"I do care; you are very cruel to me." The voice was childishly broken and m.u.f.fled. He looked down at her, slowly realising that it was a child he still was dealing with--a child with a child's innocence, repelled by the graver phase of love, unresponsive to the deeper emotions, bewildered by the glimpse of the mature role his att.i.tude had compelled her to accept. That she already had reached that mile-stone and, for a moment, had turned involuntarily to look back and find her childhood already behind her, frightened her.

Thinking, perhaps, of his own years, and of what lay behind him, he sighed and looked out over the waste of moorland where the Atlantic was battering the sands of Surf Point. Then his patient gaze s.h.i.+fted to the east, and he saw the surface of Sky Pond, blue as the eyes of the girl who lay crouching in the cus.h.i.+oned corner of the swinging seat, small hands clinched over the handkerchief--a limp bit of stuff damp with her tears.

"There is one thing," he said, "that we mustn't do--cry about it--must we, Eileen?"

"No-o."

"Certainly not. Because there is nothing to make either of us unhappy; is there?"

"Oh-h, no."

"Exactly. So we're not going to be unhappy; not one bit. First because we love each other, anyway; don't we?"

"Y-yes."

"Of course we do. And now, just because I happen to love you in that way and also in a different sort of way, in addition to that way, why, it's nothing for anybody to cry about it; is it, Eileen?"

"No... . No, it is not... . But I c-can't help it."

"Oh, but you're going to help it, aren't you?"

"I--I hope so."

He was silent; and presently she said: "I--the reason of it--my crying--is b-b-because I don't wish you to be unhappy."

"But, dear, dear little girl, I am not!"

"Really?"

"No, indeed! Why should I be? You do love me; don't you?"

"You know I do."

"But not in _that_ way."

"N-no; not in _that_ way... . I w-wish I did."

A thrill pa.s.sed through him; after a moment he relaxed and leaned forward, his chin resting on his clinched hands: "Then let us go back to the old footing, Eileen."

"Can we?"

"Yes, we can; and we will--back to the old footing--when nothing of deeper sentiment disturbed us... . It was my fault, little girl. Some day you will understand that it was not a wholly selfish fault--because I believed--perhaps only dreamed--that I could make you happier by loving you in--both ways. That is all; it is your happiness--our happiness that we must consider; and if it is to last and endure, we must be very, very careful that nothing really disturbs it again. And that means that the love, which is sometimes called friends.h.i.+p, must be recognised as sufficient... . You know how it is; a man who is locked up in Paradise is never satisfied until he can climb the wall and look over! Now I have climbed and looked; and now I climb back into the garden of your dear friends.h.i.+p, very glad to be there again with you--very, very thankful, dear... . Will you welcome me back?"

She lay quite still a minute, then sat up straight, stretching out both hands to him, her beautiful, fearless eyes brilliant as rain-washed stars.

"Don't go away," she said--"don't ever go away from our garden again."

"No, Eileen."

"Is it a promise ... Philip?"

Her voice fell exquisitely low.

"Yes, a promise. Do you take me back, Eileen?"

"Yes; I take you... . Take me back, too, Philip." Her hands tightened in his; she looked up at him, faltered, waited; then in a fainter voice: "And--and be of g-good courage... . I--I am not very old yet."

She withdrew her hands and bent her head, sitting there, still as a white-browed novice, listlessly considering the lengthening shadows at her feet. But, as he rose and looked out across the waste with enchanted eyes that saw nothing, his heart suddenly leaped up quivering, as though his very soul had been drenched in immortal suns.h.i.+ne.

An hour later, when Nina discovered them there together, Eileen, curled up among the cus.h.i.+ons in the swinging seat, was reading aloud "Evidences of Asiatic Influence on the Symbolism of Ancient Yucatan"; and Selwyn, astride a chair, chin on his folded arms, was listening with evident rapture.

"Heavens!" exclaimed Nina, "the blue-stocking and the fogy!--and yours _are_ pale blue, Eileen!--you're about as self-conscious as Drina--slumping there with your hair tumbling _a la_ Merode! Oh, it's very picturesque, of course, but a straight spine and good grooming is better. Get up, little blue-stockings and we'll have our hair done--if you expect to appear at Hitherwood House with me!"

Eileen laughed, calmly smoothing out her skirt over her slim ankles; then she closed the book, sat up, and looked happily at Selwyn.

"Fogy and _Bas-bleu_," she repeated. "But it _is_ fascinating, isn't it?--even if my hair is across my ears and you sit that chair like a polo player! Nina, dearest, what is your mature opinion concerning the tomoya and the Buddhist cross?"

"I know more about a tomboy-a than a tomoya, my saucy friend," observed Nina, surveying her with disapproval--"and I can be as cross about it as any Buddhist, too. You are, to express it as pleasantly as possible, a sight! Child, what on earth have you been doing? There are two smears on your cheeks!"

"I've been crying," said the girl, with an amused sidelong flutter of her lids toward Selwyn.