The Fighting Chance Part 3

"Wish to!"

"I see. But you won't, of course."

She drew rein, bringing the horse to a walk at the foot of a long hill.

"We are going much too fast," said Miss Landis, smiling.

"Driving too fast for--"

"No, not driving, going--you and I."

"Oh, you mean--"

"Yes I do. We are on all sorts of terms, already."

"In the country, you know, people--"

"Yes I know all about it, and what old and valued friends one makes at a week's end. But it has been a matter of half-hours with us, Mr. Siward."

"Let us sit very still and think it over," he suggested. And they both laughed.

It was perhaps the reaction of her gaiety that recalled to her mind her telegram. The telegram had been her promised answer after she had had time to consider a suggestion made to her by a Mr. Howard Quarrier. The last week at Shotover permitted reflection; and while her telegram was no complete answer to the suggestion he had made, it contained material of interest in the eight words: "I will consider your request when you arrive.

"I wonder if you know Howard Quarrier?" she said.

After a second's hesitation he replied: "Yes--a little. Everybody does."

"You do know him?"

"Only at--the club."

"Oh, the Lenox?"

"The Lenox--and the Patroons."

Preoccupied, driving with careless, almost inattentive perfection, she thought idly of her twenty-three years, wondering how life could have pa.s.sed so quickly leaving her already stranded on the shoals of an engagement to marry Howard Quarrier. Then her thoughts, errant, wandered half the world over before they returned to Siward; and when at length they did, and meaning to be civil, she spoke again of his acquaintance with Quarrier at the Patroons Club--the club itself being sufficient to settle Siward's status in every community.

"I'm trying to remember what it is I have heard about you," she continued amiably; "you are--"

An odd expression in his eyes arrested her--long enough to note their colour and expression--and she continued, pleasantly; "--you are Stephen Siward, are you not? You see I know your name perfectly well--" Her straight brows contracted a trifle; she drove on, lips compressed, following an elusive train of thought which vaguely, persistently, coupled his name with something indefinitely unpleasant. And she could not reconcile this with his appearance. However, the train of unlinked ideas which she pursued began to form the semblance of a chain. Coupling his name with Quarrier's, and with a club, aroused memory; vague uneasiness stirred her to a glimmering comprehension. Siward? Stephen Siward? One of the New York Siwards then;--one of that race--

Suddenly the truth flashed upon her,--the crude truth lacking definite detail, lacking circ.u.mstance and colour and atmosphere,--merely the raw and ugly truth.

Had he looked at her--and he did, once--he could have seen only the unruffled and very sweet profile of a young girl. Composure was one of the masks she had learned to wear--when she chose.

And she was thinking very hard all the while; "So this is the man? I might have known his name. Where were my five wits? Siward!--Stephen Siward!

He is very young, too much too young to be so horrid.

Yet--it wasn't so dreadful, after all; only the publicity! Dear me! I knew we were going too fast."

"Miss Landis," he said.

"Mr. Siward?"--very gently. It was her way to be gentle when generous.

"I think," he said, "that you are beginning to remember where you may have heard my name."

"Yes--a little--" She looked at him with the direct gaze of a child, but the lovely eyes were troubled. His smile was not very genuine, but he met her gaze steadily enough.

"It was rather nice of Mrs. Ferrall to ask me," he said, "after the mess I made of things last spring."

"Grace Ferrall is a dear," she replied.

After a moment he ventured: "I suppose you saw it in the papers."

"I think so; I had completely forgotten it; your name seemed to--"

"I see." Then, listlessly: "I couldn't have ventured to remind you that--that perhaps you might not care to be so amiable--"

"Mr. Siward," she said impulsively, "you are nice to me! Why shouldn't I be amiable? It was--it was--I've forgotten just how dreadfully you did behave--"

"Pretty badly."

"Very?"

"They say so."

"And what is your opinion Mr. Siward?"

"Oh, I ought to have known better." Something about him reminded her of a bad small boy; and suddenly in spite of her better sense, in spite of her instinctive caution, she found herself on the very verge of laughter. What was it in the man that disarmed and invited a confidence--scarcely justified it appeared? What was it now that moved her to overlook what few overlook--not the fault, but its publicity? Was it his agreeable bearing, his pleasant badinage, his amiably listless moments of preoccupation, his youth that appealed to her--aroused her charity, her generosity, her curiosity?

And had other people continued to accept him, too? What would Quarrier think of his presence at Shotover? She began to realise that she was a little afraid of Quarrier's opinions. And his opinions were always judgments. However Grace Ferrall had thought it proper to ask him, and that meant social absolution. As far as that went she also was perfectly ready to absolve him if he needed it. But perhaps he didn't care!--She looked at him, furtively. He seemed to be tranquil enough in his abstraction. Trouble appeared to slide very easily from his broad young shoulders. Perhaps he was already taking much for granted in her gentleness with him. And gradually speculation became interest and interest a young girl's innocent curiosity to learn something of a man whose record it seemed almost impossible to reconcile with his personality.

"I was wondering," he said looking up to encounter her clear eyes, "whose house that is over there?"

"Beverly Plank's shooting-box; Black Fells," she replied nodding toward the vast pile of blackish rocks against the sky, upon which sprawled a heavy stone house infested with chimneys.

"Plank? Oh yes."

He smiled to remember the battering blows rained upon the ramparts of society by the master of Black Fells.

But the smile faded; and, glancing at him, the girl was surprised to see the subtle change in his face--the white worn look, then the old listless apathy which, all at once to her, hinted of something graver than preoccupation.

"Are we near the sea?" he asked.

"Very near. Only a moment to the top of this hill.

Now look!"

There lay the sea--the same grey-blue crawling void that had ever fascinated and repelled him--always wrinkled, always in flat monotonous motion, spreading away, away to the sad world's ends.