The Highgrader Part 33

"_Why are you so cruel to me?_"

His chin dropped with amazement. Then slowly an angry flush rose to his face. His jaw set firmly as he looked at her.

"Yes, it's certainly ridiculous ... and amusing," he said aloud.

"There's another, too," she went on quickly, recovering the book.

Her fingers turned a page or two swiftly. On the margin was a penciled note.

"I must see you alone, Dobyans. I must."

She lifted to him a face flushed and eager, from which wounded eyes filmy with tears appealed to him. Her shyness, her diffidence, the childlike call upon his chivalry were wholly charming. She was a distractingly pretty woman, and she had thrown herself upon his mercy.

Verinder began insensibly to soften, but he would not give up his grievance.

"It's amusing, too--and unnecessary, I think," he said.

The long lashes fluttered tremulously to her cheeks. It seemed to him that she was on the verge of unconsciousness, that the pent emotion was going to prove too much for her.

"I--I think the story calls for it," she answered, a little brokenly.

He retorted, still carrying on the conversation that was to mean one thing to the others in case they heard and another to them. "Depends on the point of view, I suppose. The story is plain enough--doesn't need any more to carry its meaning."

He was standing between her and the rest of the party. Joyce laid an appealing hand on his coat sleeve. Tears brimmed over from the soft eyes. She bit her lip and turned her head away. If ever a woman confessed love without words Joyce was doing it now. Verinder's inflammable heart began to quicken.

"Where?" he asked grudgingly, lowering his voice.

A glow of triumphant relief swept through her. She had won. But the very nearness of her defeat tempered pride to an emotion still related to grat.i.tude. The warm eyes that met his were alive with thanks. She moved her head slightly toward the window.

In another moment they stood outside, alone in the darkness. The night was chill and she s.h.i.+vered at the change from the warm room. Verinder stepped back into the parlor, stripped from the piano the small Navajo rug that draped it, and rejoined Joyce on the porch. He wrapped it about her shoulders.

She nodded thanks and led him to the end of the porch. For a few moments she leaned on the railing and watched the street lights. Then, abruptly, she shot her question at him.

"Why are you going away?"

Stiff as a poker, he made answer. "Business in London, Miss Seldon.

Sorry to leave and all that, but----"

She cut him off sharply. "I want the truth. What have I done that you should ... treat me so?"

Anger stirred in him again. "Did I say you had done anything?"

"But you think I'm to blame. You know you do."

"Do I?" His vanity and suspicion made him wary, though he knew she was trying to win him back. He told himself that he had been made a fool of long enough.

"Yes, you do ... and it's all your fault." She broke down and turned half from him. Deep sobs began to rack her body.

"I'd like to know how it's my fault," he demanded resentfully. "Am I to blame because you broke your engagement to walk with me and went with that thief Kilmeny?"

"Yes." The word fell from her lips so low that he almost doubted his ears.

"What? By Jove, that's rich!"

Her luminous eyes fell full into his, then dropped. "If ... if you can't see----"

"See what? I see you threw me overboard for him. I see you've been flirting a mile a minute with the beggar and playing fast and loose with me. I'm hanged if I stand it."

"Oh, Dobyans! Don't you see? I ... I ... You made me."

"Made you?"

She was standing in profile toward him. He could see the quiver of her lip and the shadows beneath her eyes. Already he felt the lift of the big wave that was to float him to success.

"I ... have no mother."

"Don't take the point."

She spoke as a troubled child, as if to the breezes of the night. "I have to be careful. You know how people talk. Could I let them say that I ... ran after you?" The last words were almost in a whisper.

"Do you mean...?"

"Oh, couldn't you see? How blind men are!"

The little man, moved to his soul because this proud beauty was so deeply in love with him, took her in his arms and kissed her.

A little shudder went through her blood. It had not been two hours since Jack Kilmeny's kisses had sent a song electrically into her veins. But she trod down the momentary nausea with the resolute will that had always been hers. Verinder had paid for the right to caress her. He had offered his millions for the privilege. She too must pay the price for what she received.

"We must go in," she told him presently. "They will wonder."

"They won't wonder long, by Jove," he replied, a surge of triumph in his voice.

Joyce looked at him quickly. "You're not going to tell them to-night?"

He nodded. "To-night, my beauty."

"Oh, no. Please not to-night. Let's ... keep it to ourselves for a few days, dear." The last word was a trifle belated, but that might be because she was not used to it.

Verinder shot a look of quick suspicion at her. "I'm going to tell them to-night--as soon as we get back into the room."

"But ... surely it's for me to say that, Dobyans. I want to keep our little secret for awhile." She caught with her hands the lapels of his dinner jacket and looked pleadingly at him.

"No--to-night." He had a good deal of the obstinacy characteristic of many stupid men, but this decision was based on shrewd sense. He held the upper hand. So long as they were in the neighborhood of Jack Kilmeny he intended to keep it.

"Even though I want to wait?"

"Why do you want to wait?" he demanded sullenly. "Because of that fellow Kilmeny?"

She knew that she had gone as far as she dared. "How absurd. Of course not. Tell them if you like, but--it's the first favor I've asked of you since----"