Second String. Anthony Hope

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СКАЧАТЬ your having had to turn back will vex your father, but I suppose there was no help for it, and I'm sure he'll be much obliged to—"

      "Mr. Hayes." Vivien supplied the name, and Andy made his bow.

      "Oh yes, I've heard Mr. Harry Belfield speak of you." Her tone was gracious, and she smiled at Andy good-humouredly. If she confirmed his impression of capability, and perhaps added a new one of masterfulness, there was at least nothing to hint that her power would not be well used or that her sway would be other than benevolent.

      Vivien had dismounted, and a stable-boy was leading the pony away, after receiving instructions to submit the suspected off fore-leg to his chief's inspection. There seemed nothing to keep Andy, and he was about to take his leave when Miss Vintry called to the retreating stable-boy, "Oh, and let Curly out, will you? He hasn't had his run this afternoon."

      Vivien turned her head towards the stables with a quick apprehensive jerk. A big black retriever, released in obedience to Isobel Vintry's order, ran out, bounding joyously. He leapt up at Isobel, pawing her and barking in an ecstasy of delight. In passing Andy, the stranger, he gave him another bark of greeting and a hasty pawing; then he clumsily gambolled on to where Vivien stood.

      "He won't hurt you, Vivien. You know he won't hurt you, don't you?" The dog certainly seemed to warrant Isobel's assertion; he appeared a most good-natured animal, though his play was rough.

      "Yes, I know he won't hurt me," said Vivien.

      The dog leapt up at her, barking, frisking, pawing her, trying to reach her face to lick it. She made no effort to repel him; she had a little riding-whip in her hand, but she did not use it; her arms hung at her side; she was rather pale.

      "There! It's not so terrible after all, is it?" asked Isobel. "Down, Curly, down! Come here!"

      The dog obeyed her at her second bidding, and sat down at her feet. Andy was glad to see that the ordeal—for that was what it looked like—was over, and had been endured with tolerable fortitude; he had not enjoyed the scene. Somewhat to his surprise Vivien's lips curved in a smile.

      "Somehow I wasn't nearly so frightened to-day," she said. Apparently the ordeal was a daily one—perhaps one of several daily ones, for she had already been out hunting. "I didn't run away as I did yesterday, when Harry Belfield was here."

      "You are getting used to it," Isobel affirmed. "Mr. Wellgood's quite right. We shall have you as brave as a lion in a few months." Her tone was not unkind or hard, neither was it sympathetic. It was just extremely matter-of-fact. "It's all nerves," she added to Andy. "She overworked herself at school—she's very clever, aren't you, Vivien?—and now she's got to lead an open-air life. She must get used to things, mustn't she?"

      Andy had a shamefaced feeling that the ordeals or lessons, if they were necessary at all, had better be conducted in privacy. That had not apparently occurred to Mr. Wellgood or to Isobel Vintry. Indeed that aspect of the case did not seem to trouble Vivien herself either; she showed no signs of shame; she was smiling still, looking rather puzzled.

      "I wonder why I was so much less frightened." She turned her eyes suddenly to Andy. "I know. It was because you were there!"

      "You ran away, in spite of Mr. Harry's being here yesterday," Isobel reminded her.

      "Mr. Hayes is so splendidly big—so splendidly big and solid," said Vivien, thoughtfully regarding Andy's proportions. "When he's here, I don't think I shall be half so much afraid."

      "Oh, then Mr. Wellgood must ask him to come again," laughed Isobel. "You see how useful you'll be, Mr. Hayes!"

      "I shall be delighted to come again, anyhow, if I'm asked—whether I'm useful or not. And I think it was jolly plucky of you to stand still as you did, Miss Wellgood. If I were in a funk, I should cut and run for it, I know."

      "I thought you'd been a soldier," said Isobel.

      "Oh, well, it's different when there are a lot of you together. Besides—" He chuckled. "You're not going to get me to let on that I was in a funk then. Those are our secrets, Miss Vintry. Well now, I must go, unless—"

      "No, there are no more tests of courage to-day, Mr. Hayes," laughed Isobel.

      Vivien's eyes had relapsed into inexpressiveness; they told Andy nothing of her view of the trials, or of Miss Vintry, who had conducted the latest one; they told him no more of her view of himself as she gave him her hand in farewell. He left her still standing on the spot where she had endured Curly's violent though well-meant attentions—again rather a pathetic figure, in her torn habit, with the long red scratch (by-the-by Miss Vintry had made no inquiry about it—that was part of the system perhaps) on her forehead, and with the background, as it were, of ordeals, or tests, or whatever they were to be called. Andy wondered what they would try her with to-morrow, and found himself sorry that he would not be there—to help her with his bigness and solidity.

      It was difficult to say that Mr. Wellgood's system was wrong. It was absurd for a grown girl—a girl living in the country—to be frightened at horses, dogs, and motor-cars, to be disgusted by dirt and dust, by getting very hot—and by butchers' shops. All these were things which she would have to meet on her way through the world, as the world is at present constituted. Still he was sorry for her; she was so slight and frail. Andy would have liked to take on his broad shoulders all her worldly share of dogs and horses, of dust, of getting very hot (a thing he positively liked), and of butchers; these things would not have troubled him in the least; he would have borne them as easily as he could have carried Vivien herself in his arms. As he walked home he had a vision of her shuddering figure, with its pale face and reticent eyes, being led by Isobel Vintry's firm hand into Jack Rock's shop in High Street, and there being compelled to inspect, to touch, to smell, the blue-rosetted, red-rosetted, and honourably mentioned carcasses which adorned that Valhalla of beasts—nay, being forced, in spite of all horror, to touch Jack Rock the butcher himself! Isobel Vintry would, he thought, be capable of shutting her up alone with all those dead things, and with the man who, as she supposed, had butchered them.

      "I should have to break in the door!" thought Andy, his vanity flattered by remembering that she had seen in him a stand-by, and a security which apparently even Harry Belfield had been unable to afford. True it was that in order to win the rather humble compliment of being held a protection against an absolutely harmless retriever dog he had lost his day's hunting. Andy's heart was lowly; he did not repine.

Chapter III.

      THE POTENT VOICE.

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      After anxious consultation at Halton it had been decided that Harry Belfield was justified in adopting a political career and treating the profession of the Bar, to which he had been called, as nominal. The prospects of an opening—and an opening in his native Division—were rosy. His personal qualifications admitted of no dispute, his social standing was all that could be desired. The money was the only difficulty. Mr. Belfield's income, though still large, was not quite what it had been; he was barely rich enough to support his son in what is still, in spite of all that has been done in the cause of electoral purity, a costly career. However the old folk exercised economies, Harry promised them, and it was agreed that the thing could be managed. It was, perhaps, at the back of the father's mind that for a young man of his son's attractions there was one obvious way of increasing his income—quite obvious and quite proper for the future owner of Halton Park.

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