Helena's Path Part 6

"I do intend to support them, Mr. Stillford. That you'll very soon find out."

"By force?" Stillford himself was gratified by the shocked solemnity which he achieved in this question.

"If so, your side has no prejudice against legal proceedings. Prisons are not strange to me----"

"What?" Stillford was a little startled. He had not heard all the stories about Lord Lynborough.

"I say, prisons are not strange to me. If necessary, I can do a month. I am, however, not altogether a novice in the somewhat degrading art of getting the other man to hit first. Then he goes to prison, doesn't he?

Just like the law! As if that had anything to do with the merits!"

Stillford kept his eye on the point valuable to him. "By supporting your claim I intended to convey supporting it by legal action."

"Oh, the cunning of this world, the cunning of this world, Roger!" He flung himself into an arm-chair, laughing. Stillford was already seated.

"Take a cigarette, Mr. Stillford. You want to know whether I'm going to law or not, don't you? Well, I'm not. Is there anything else you want to know? Oh, by the way, we don't abstain from the law because we don't know the law. Permit me--Mr. Stillford, solicitor--Mr. Roger Wilbraham, of the Middle Temple, Esquire, barrister-at-law. Had I known you were coming, Roger should have worn his wig. No, no, we know the law--but we hate it."

Stillford was jubilant at a substantial gain--the appeal to law lay within the Marchesa's choice now; and that was in his view a great advantage. But he was legitimately irritated by Lynborough's sneers at his profession.

"So do most of the people who belong to--the people to whom prisons are not strange, Lord Lynborough."

"Apostles--and so on?" asked Lynborough airily.

"I hardly recognize your lords.h.i.+p as belonging to that--er--er--category."

"That's the worst of it--n.o.body will," Lynborough admitted candidly. A note of sincere, if whimsical, regret sounded in his voice. "I've been trying for fifteen years. Yet some day I may be known as St. Ambrose!"

His tones fell to despondency again. "St. Ambrose the Less, though--yes, I'm afraid the Less. Apostles--even Saints--are much handicapped in these days, Mr. Stillford."

Stillford rose to his feet. "You've no more to say to me, Lord Lynborough?"

"I don't know that I ever had anything to say to you, Mr. Stillford. You must have gathered before now that I intend to use Beach Path."

"My client intends to prevent you."

"Yes?--Well, you're three able-bodied men down there--so my man tells me--you, and the Colonel, and the Captain. And we're three up here. It seems to me fair enough."

"You don't really contemplate settling the matter by personal conflict?"

He was half amused, yet genuinely stricken in his habits of thought.

"Entirely a question for your side. We shall use the path." Lynborough c.o.c.ked his head on one side, looking up at the st.u.r.dy lawyer with a mischievous amus.e.m.e.nt. "I shall harry you, Mr. Stillford--day and night I shall harry you. If you mean to keep me off that path, vigils will be your portion. And you won't succeed."

"I make a last appeal to your lords.h.i.+p. The matter could, I believe, be adjusted on an amicable basis. The Marchesa could be prevailed upon to grant permission----"

"I'd just as soon ask her permission to breathe," interrupted Lynborough.

"Then my mission is at an end."

"I congratulate you."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Well, you've found out the chief thing you wanted to know, haven't you?

If you'd asked it point-blank, we should have saved a lot of time.

Good-by, Mr. Stillford. Roger, the bell's in reach of your hand."

"You're pleased to be amused at my expense?" Stillford had grown huffy.

"No--only don't think you've been clever at mine," Lynborough retorted placidly.

So they parted. Lynborough went back to his Dean, Stillford to the Marchesa. Still ruffled in his plumes, feeling that he had been chaffed and had made no adequate reply, yet still happy in the solid, the important fact which he had ascertained, he made his report to his client. He refrained from openly congratulating her on not being challenged to a legal fight; he contented himself with observing that it was convenient to be able to choose her own time to take proceedings.

Lady Norah was with the Marchesa. They both listened attentively and questioned closely. Not the substantial points alone attracted their interest; Stillford was constantly asked--"How did he look when he said that?" He had no other answer than "Oh--well--er--rather queer." He left them, having received directions to rebarricade the gate as solidly and as offensively as possible; a board warning off trespa.s.sers was also to be erected.

Although not apt at a description of his interlocutor, yet Stillford seemed to have conveyed an impression.

"I think he must be delightful," said Norah thoughtfully, when the two ladies were left together. "I'm sure he's just the sort of a man I should fall in love with, Helena."

As a rule the Marchesa admired and applauded Norah's candor, praising it for a certain patrician flavor--Norah spoke her mind, let the crowd think what it would! On this occasion she was somehow less pleased; she was even a little startled. She was conscious that any man with whom Norah was gracious enough to fall in love would be subjected to no ordinary a.s.sault; the Irish coloring is bad to beat, and Norah had it to perfection; moreover, the aforesaid candor makes matters move ahead.

"After all, it's my path he's trespa.s.sing on, Norah," the Marchesa remonstrated.

They both began to laugh. "The wretch is as handsome as--as a G.o.d,"

sighed Helena.

"You've seen him?" eagerly questioned Norah; and the glimpse--that tantalizing glimpse--on Sandy Nab was confessed to.

The Marchesa sprang up, clenching her fist. "Norah, I should like to have that man at my feet, and then to trample on him! Oh, it's not only the path! I believe he's laughing at me all the time!"

"He's never seen you. Perhaps if he did he wouldn't laugh. And perhaps you wouldn't trample on him either."

"Ah, but I would!" She tossed her head impatiently. "Well, if you want to meet him. I expect you can do it--on my path to-morrow!"

This talk left the Marchesa vaguely vexed. Her feeling could not be called jealousy; nothing can hardly be jealous of nothing, and even as her acquaintance with Lynborough amounted to nothing, Lady Norah's also was represented by a cipher. But why should Norah want to know him? It was the Marchesa's path--by consequence it was the Marchesa's quarrel.

Where did Norah stand in the matter? The Marchesa had perhaps been constructing a little drama. Norah took leave to introduce a new character!

And not Norah alone, as it appeared at dinner. Little Violet Dufaure, whose appealing ways were notoriously successful with the emotionally weaker s.e.x, took her seat at table with a demurely triumphant air.

Captain Irons reproached her, with polite gallantry, for having deserted the croquet lawn after tea.

"Oh, I went for a walk to Fillby--through Scarsmoor, you know."

"Through Scarsmoor, Violet?" The Marchesa sounded rather startled again.

"It's a public road, you know, Helena. Isn't it, Mr. Stillford?"

Stillford admitted that it was. "All the same, perhaps the less we go there at the present moment----"

"Oh, but Lord Lynborough asked me to come again and to go wherever I liked--not to keep to the stupid road."

Absolute silence reigned. Violet looked round with a smile which conveyed a general appeal for sympathy; there was, perhaps, special reference to Miss Gilletson as the guardian of propriety, and to the Marchesa as the owner of the disputed path.