Moor Fires Part 27

"You needn't have done," he said.

"Are you sorry I did?" she challenged him.

"Oh, I don't know," he muttered almost to himself. "That's it. I never know."

She choked down the lilt of triumph in her voice. "I'll leave you to think, about it," she said and, looking at the high fir-wood, she added, "But I thought we were going to be such friends, after all."

Halkett stood up, and he said nothing, for his feelings were not to be put into words he could say to her. In her presence he suffered a mingling of pain and pleasure, anger and delight; cruelty strove in him with gentleness, coa.r.s.eness with courtesy; he wanted to kiss her roughly and cast her off, yet he would have been grateful for the chance of serving her.

"George," she said quietly.

"Yes?"

"When you think of life, what do you see?"

"I--don't know."

"But you must."

He compelled his imagination. "The moor, and the farm, and the folks in the town, standing on the pavement, and Oxford Street in London--and Paris."

"Have you been to Paris?"

"I couldn't think about it if I hadn't."

She gave the laugh which coolly put him from her. "Couldn't you? Poor George!" She balanced from her heels to her toes and back again, with steadying movements of her arms, so that she was like a bird refusing to take flight. "I don't see things plainly like that," she murmured. "It's like a black ball going round and round with sparks inside, and me; and the blackness and the sparks are feelings and thoughts, and things that have happened and are going to happen, all mixing themselves up with the me in the middle. George, do you feel how strange it is? I can't explain, but here we are on the moor, with the sky above us, and the earth underneath--and why? But I'm really rolling over and over in the black ball, and I can't stop and I can't go on. I'm just inside."

"I know," he said. "It's all mixed. It's--" He kicked a heather-bush.

"You want a thing and you don't want it--I don't know."

"I always know what I want," she said, and into her thoughtfulness there crept the personal taint. "I want every one to adore me. Good-night, George. I wonder if we shall ever meet again!"

In the garden, with her hands folded on her knee, Helen was sitting meekly on a stool under the poplars and watching the swaying of the tree-tops.

"The young nun at prayer," Miriam said. "I thought you came back to be with Notya."

"She seemed not to want me."

"Then you sacrificed me for nothing. That's just like you."

"How?"

"By throwing me into the alluring company of that young man. If I love him and he doesn't love me, well, you've blighted my life. And if he loves me and I don't love him--"

"You are always talking about love," Helen said with an accent of distaste.

"I know it's not the sort of thing a young virgin should be interested in; but after all, what else can be so interesting to the Y. V.?"

"But you spoil it."

"I don't. Do you mind if I put my head on your knee? No, I'm not comfortable. That's better. It's you who spoil it with being sentimental and one-love-one-life-ish. Now for me it's a game that nymphs and G.o.ddesses might play at."

"But you can't play it alone," said Helen, troubled.

"No, that's the fun of it." She smiled against Helen's dress. "I wonder if my young man is at home yet. And there's only a cold supper for him!

Dear, dear, dear!"

With her apparent obtuseness, Helen said, "It won't matter so much in the summertime."

"Ah, that's a comfort," Miriam said, and rolled her head luxuriously.

John came through the French window.

"I've been looking for you both," he said. "I want to tell you something."

"Now it's coming," Miriam muttered.

"Sit down, then," Helen said. "We can't see you so high up."

"What! in my best clothes? All right." The light was dim, but they felt the joviality that hung about him and saw his teeth exposed in a smile he could not subdue. "The ground's damp, you know. There's a heavy dew."

There was a silence through which the poplars whispered in excitement.

"Perhaps I am a little deaf," Miriam said politely, "but I haven't heard you telling us anything."

"Yes; he said the ground was damp."

"So he did! Come along, we'll go in."

"No, don't!" he begged. "I know I'm not getting on very fast, but the fact is--I can't bear women to be called after flowers. If it weren't for that I should have told you long ago. And hers is one of the worst,"

he added sadly.

Miriam and Helen shook each other with their silent laughter.

"You can call her something else," Helen said.

"Mrs. C. would be a jaunty way of addressing her."

"Well, anyway, she's going to marry me, bless her heart. Get up! Notya wants to know why supper isn't ready." He did a clumsy caper on the gra.s.s. "Who's glad?"

"I am," Helen said.

"When?" Miriam asked.

"Soon."

"What did Notya say?" was Helen's question.

"Nothing worth repeating. Don't talk of that."