The Essential Elinor Glyn Collection. Glyn Elinor

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СКАЧАТЬ said John Derringham. "It is going to rain, and I must go to Bristol this afternoon. I have to see a man on business."

      Cheiron's left penthouse went up into his forehead.

      "Matters complicating?" was all he said.

      "Yes, the very devil," responded John Derringham.

      "Beginning to feel the noose already, poor lad?"

      "Er--no, not exactly," and he turned round. "But I don't quite know what I ought to do about her--Mrs. Cricklander."

      "A question of honor?"

      "I suppose so."

      The Professor grunted, and then chuckled.

      "A man's honor towards a woman lasts as long as his love. When that goes, it goes with it--to the other woman."

      "You cynic!" said John Derringham.

      "It is the truth, my son. A man's point of view of such things shifts with his inclinations, and if other people are not likely to know, he does not experience any qualms in thinking of the woman's feelings--it is only of what the world will think of _him_ if it finds him out. Complete cowards, all of us!"

      John Derringham frowned. He hated to know this was true.

      "Well, I am not going to marry Mrs. Cricklander, Master," he announced after a while.

      "I am very glad to hear it," Cheiron said heartily. "I never like to see a fine ship going upon the rocks. All your vitality would have been drawn out of you by those octopus arms."

      "I do not agree with you in the least about any of those points," John Derringham said stiffly. "I have the highest respect for Mrs. Cricklander--but I can't do it."

      "Well, you can thank whichever of your stars has brought you to this conclusion," growled the Professor. "I suppose I'll pull through somehow financially," the restless visitor went on, pacing the floor--"anyway, for a few years; there may be something more to be squeezed out of Derringham. I must see."

      "Well, if you are not marrying that need not distress you," Cheiron consoled him with. "Those things only matter if a man has a son."

      John Derringham stopped abruptly in his walk and looked at his old master.

      His words gave him a strange twinge, but he crushed it down, and went on again:

      "It is a curse, this want of money," he said. "It makes a man do base things that his soul revolts against." And then, in his restless moving, he absently picked up a volume of Aristotle, and his eye caught this sentence: "The courageous man therefore faces danger and performs acts of courage for the sake of what is noble."

      And what did an honorable man do? But this question he would not go further into.

      "You were out very late last night, John," Mr. Carlyon said presently. "I left this window open for you on purpose. The garden does one good sometimes. You were not lonely, I hope?"

      "No," said John Derringham; but he would not look at his old master, for he knew very well he should see a whimsical sparkle in his eyes.

      Mr. Carlyon, of course, must be aware of Halcyone's night wandering proclivities. And if there had been nothing to conceal John Derringham would have liked to have sat down now and rhapsodized all about his darling to his old friend, who adored her, too, and knew and appreciated all her points. He felt bitterly that Fate had not been as kind to him as she might have been. However, there was nothing for it, so he turned the conversation and tried to make himself grow as interested in a question of foreign policy as he would have been able to be, say, a year ago. And then he went out for a walk.

      And Cheiron sat musing in his chair, as was his habit.

      "The magnet of her soul is drawing his," he said to himself. "Well, now that this has begun to work, we must leave things to Fate."

      But he did not guess how passion on the one side and complete love and trust upon the other were precipitously forcing Fate's hand.

      The possibility of John Derringham's sending a message to Halcyone was very slender. The post was out of the question--she probably never got any letters, and the arrival of one in a man's handwriting would no doubt be the cause of endless comment in the household. The foolishness had been not to make a definite appointment with her when they had parted before dawn. But they had been too overcome with love to think of anything practical in those last moments, and now the only thing would be for him to go again to-night to the tree, and hope that she would meet him there. But the sky was clouding over, and rain looked quite ready to fall. As a last resource he could send Demetrius--his own valet he would not have trusted a yard.

      The rain kept off for his journey to Bristol, and his business was got through with rapidity. And if the registrar did connect the name of John Derringham, barrister-at-law, of the Temple, London, with John Derringham, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, he was a man of discretion and said nothing about it.

      It was quite late when Mr. Carlyon's guest returned to his roof--cross-country trains were so tiresome--and it had just begun to pour with rain, so there was no use expecting that Halcyone would be there by the tree. And bed, with a rather feverish sensation of disappointment, seemed John Derringham's portion.

      Halcyone had passed a day of happy tranquillity. She was of that godlike calm which frets not, believing always that only good could come to her, and that, as she heard nothing from her lover, it was because--which was indeed the truth--he was arranging for their future. If it had been fine she had meant to go to the tree, but as it rained she went quietly to her room, and let her Priscilla brush her hair for an hour, while she stared in the old dark glass, seeing not her own pale and exquisite face, but all sorts of pictures of future happiness. That she must not tell her old nurse, for the moment, of her good fortune was her one crumpled rose-leaf, but she had arranged that when she went she would post a letter at once to her, and Priscilla would, of course, join her in London, or wherever it was John Derringham would decide that she should live. The thought of leaving her aunts did not so much trouble her. The ancient ladies had never made her their companion or encouraged her to have a single interest in common with them. She was even doubtful if they would really miss her, so little had they ever taken her into their lives. For them she was still the child to be kept in her place, however much she had tried to grow a little nearer. Then her thoughts turned back to ways and means.

      She so often spent the whole day with Cheiron that her absence would not be remarked upon until bedtime. But then she suddenly remembered, with a feeling of consternation, that the Professor intended to leave on the Tuesday in Whitsun week for his annual fortnight in London. If the household knew of this, it might complicate matters, and was a pity. However, there was no use speculating about any of these things, since she did not yet know on which day she was to start--to start for Paradise--as the wife of her Beloved!

      Next morning it was fine again, and she decided she would go towards their tree, and if John were not there, she would even go on to the orchard house, because she realized fully the difficulty he would find in sending her a message.

      But he was there waiting for her, in the bright sunlight, and she thought him the perfection of what a man should look in СКАЧАТЬ