“Nigel will be caught in the rain,” she said to her sister. “I wonder why he goes out now. It would be better to wait until to-morrow.”
But Sir Nigel did not think so. He had calculated matters with some nicety. He was not exactly on such terms with Mount Dunstan as would make a casual call seem an entirely natural thing, and he wished to drop in upon him for a casual call and in an unpremeditated manner. He meant to reach the Mount about the time the storm broke, under which circumstance nothing could bear more lightly an air of being unpremeditated than to take refuge in a chance passing.
Mount Dunstan was in the library. He had sat smoking his pipe while he watched the purple cloud roll up and spread itself, blotting out the chrysoprase and pink and blue, and when the branches of the trees began to toss about he had looked on with pleasure as the rush of big rain drops came down and pelted things. It was a fine storm, and there were some imposing claps of thunder and jagged flashes of lightning. As one splendid rattle shook the air he was surprised to hear a summons at the great hall door. Who on earth could be turning up at this time? His man Reeve announced the arrival a few moments later, and it was Sir Nigel Anstruthers. He had, he explained, been riding through the village when the deluge descended, and it had occurred to him to turn in at the park gates and ask a temporary shelter. Mount Dunstan received him with sufficient courtesy. His appearance was not a thing to rejoice over, but it could be endured. Whisky and soda and a smoke would serve to pass the hour, if the storm lasted so long.
Conversation was not the easiest thing in the world under the circumstances, but Sir Nigel led the way steadily after he had taken his seat and accepted the hospitalities offered. What a place it was—this! He had been struck for the hundredth time with the impressiveness of the mass of it, the sweep of the park and the splendid grouping of the timber, as he had ridden up the avenue. There was no other place like it in the county. Was there another like it in England?
“Not in its case, I hope,” Mount Dunstan said.
There were a few seconds of silence. The rain poured down in splashing sheets and was swept in rattling gusts against the window panes.
“What the place needs is—an heiress,” Anstruthers observed in the tone of a practical man. “I believe I have heard that your views of things are such that she should preferably NOT be an American.”
Mount Dunstan did not smile, though he slightly showed his teeth.
“When I am driven to the wall,” he answered, “I may not be fastidious as to nationality.”
Nigel Anstruthers’ manner was not a bad one. He chose that tone of casual openness which, while it does not wholly commit itself, may be regarded as suggestive of the amiable half confidence of speeches made as “man to man.”
“My own opportunity of studying the genus American heiress within my own gates is a first-class one. I find that it knows what it wants and that its intention is to get it.” A short laugh broke from him as he flicked the ash from his cigar on to the small bronze receptacle at his elbow. “It is not many years since it would have been difficult for a girl to be frank enough to say, `When I marry I shall ask something in exchange for what I have to give.’ “
“There are not many who have as much to give,” said Mount Dunstan coolly.
“True,” with a slight shrug. “You are thinking that men are glad enough to take a girl like that—even one who has not a shape like Diana’s and eyes like the sea. Yes, by George,” softly, and narrowing his lids, “she IS a handsome creature.”
Mount Dunstan did not attempt to refute the statement, and Anstruthers laughed low again.
“It is an asset she knows the value of quite clearly. That is the interesting part of it. She has inherited the far-seeing commercial mind. She does not object to admitting it. She educated herself in delightful cold blood that she might be prepared for the largest prize appearing upon the horizon. She held things in view when she was a child at school, and obviously attacked her French, German, and Italian conjugations with a twelve-year-old eye on the future.”
Mount Dunstan leaning back carelessly in his chair, laughed— as it seemed—with him. Internally he was saying that the man was a liar who might always be trusted to lie, but he knew with shamed fury that the lies were doing something to his soul—rolling dark vapours over it—stinging him, dragging away props, and making him feel they had been foolish things to lean on. This can always be done with a man in love who has slight foundation for hope. For some mysterious and occult reason civilisation has elected to treat the strange and great passion as if it were an unholy and indecent thing, whose dominion over him proper social training prevents any man from admitting openly. In passing through its cruelest phases he must bear himself as if he were immune, and this being the custom, he may be called upon to endure much without the relief of striking out with manly blows. An enemy guessing his case and possessing the infernal gift whose joy is to dishearten and do hurt with courteous despitefulness, may plant a poisoned arrow here and there with neatness and fine touch, while his bound victim can, with decency, neither start, nor utter brave howls, nor guard himself, but must sit still and listen, hospitably supplying smoke and drink and being careful not to make an ass of himself.
Therefore Mount Dunstan pushed the cigars nearer to his visitor and waved his hand hospitably towards the whisky and soda. There was no reason, in fact, why Anstruthers—or any one indeed, but Penzance, should suspect that he had become somewhat mad in secret. The man’s talk was marked merely by the lightly disparaging malice which was rarely to be missed from any speech of his which touched on others. Yet it might have been a thing arranged beforehand, to suggest adroitly either lies or truth which would make a man see every sickeningly good reason for feeling that in this contest he did not count for a man at all.
“It has all been pretty obvious,” said Sir Nigel. “There is a sort of cynicism in the openness of the siege. My impression is that almost every youngster who has met her has taken a shot. Tommy Alanby scrambling up from his knees in one of the rose-gardens was a satisfying sight. His much-talked-of-passion for Jane Lithcom was temporarily in abeyance.”
The rain swirled in a torrent against the window, and casually glancing outside at the tossing gardens he went on.
“She is enjoying herself. Why not? She has the spirit of the huntress. I don’t think she talks nonsense about friendship to the captives of her bow and spear. She knows she can always get what she wants. A girl like that MUST have an arrogance of mind. And she is not a young saint. She is one of the women born with THE LOOK in her eyes. I own I should not like to be in the place of any primeval poor brute who really went mad over her—and counted her millions as so much dirt.”
Mount Dunstan answered with a shrug of his big shoulders:
“Apparently he would seem as remote from the reason of to-day as the men who lived on the land when Hengist and Horsa came—or when Caesar landed at Deal.”
“He would seem as remote to her,” with a shrug also. “I should not like to contend that his point of view would not interest her or that she would particularly discourage him. Her eyes would call him—without malice or intention, no doubt, but your early Briton ceorl or earl would be as well understood by her. Your New York beauty who has lived in the market place knows principally the prices of things.”
He was not ill pleased with himself. He was putting it well and getting rather even with her. If this fellow with his shut mouth had a sore spot hidden anywhere he was giving him “to think.” And he would find himself thinking, while, whatsoever he thought, he would be obliged to continue to keep his ugly mouth shut. The great idea was to say things WITHOUT saying them, to set your hearer’s mind to saying them for you.