You dont know! you dont know! If heredity is a dark vista, and if you must stare through it all your life, sword in hand, always on your guard, do you think you are the only one?
Are youone? he said incredulously.
Yeswith an involuntary shuddernot that way. It is easier for me; I think it isI know it is. But there are things to combatimpulses, a recklessness, perhaps something almost ruthless. What else I do not know, for I have never experienced violent emotions of any sortnever even deep emotion.
You are in love!
Yes, thoroughly, she added with conviction, but not violently. I she hesitated, stopped short, leaning forward, peering at him through the dusk; and: Mr. Siward! are you laughing? She rose and he stood up instantly.
There was lightning in her darkening eyes now; in his something that glimmered and danced. She watched it, fascinated, then of a sudden the storm broke and they were both laughing convulsively, face to face there under the stars.
Mr. Siward, she breathed, I dont know what I am laughing at; do you? Is it at you? At myself? At my poor philosophy in shreds and tatters? Is it some infernal mirth that you seem to be able to kindle in mefor I never knew a man like you before?
You dont know what you were laughing at? he repeated. It was something about love
No I dont know why I laughed! II dont wish to, Mr. Siward. I do not desire to laugh at anything you have made me sayanything you may infer
I dont infer
You do! You made me say somethingabout my being ignorant of deep, of violent emotion, when I had just informed you that I am thoroughly, thoroughly in love
Did I make you say all that, Miss Landis?
You did. Then you laughed and made me laugh too. Then you
What did I do then? he asked, far too humbly.
Youyou infer that I am either not in love or incapable of it, or too ignorant of it to know what Im talking about. That, Mr. Siward, is what you have done to me to-night.
IIm sorry
Are you?
I ought to be anyway, he said.
It was unfortunate; an utterly inexcusable laughter seemed to bewitch them, hovering always close to his lips and hers.
How can you laugh! she said. How dare you! I dont care for you nearly as violently as I did, Mr. Siward. A friendship between us would not be at all good for me. Things pass too swiftlytoo intimately. There is too much mockery in you She ceased suddenly, watching the sombre alteration of his face; and, Have I hurt you? she asked penitently.
No.
Have I, Mr. Siward? I did not mean it. The attitude, the words, slackening to a trailing sweetness, and then the moments silence, stirred him.
Im rather ignorant myself of violent emotion, he said. I suspect normal people are. You know better than I do whether love is usually a sedative.
Am I normalafter what I have confessed? she asked. Cant love be well-bred?
Perfectly I should sayonly perhaps you are not an expert
In what?
In self-analysis, for example.
There was a vague meaning in the gaze they exchanged.
As for our friendship, well do the best we can for it, no matter what occurs, he added, thinking of Quarrier. And, thinking of him, glanced up to see him within ear-shot and moving straight toward them from the veranda above.
There was a short silence; a tentative civil word from Siward; then Miss Landis took command of something that had a grotesque resemblance to a situation. A few minutes later they returned slowly to the house, the girl walking serenely between Siward and her preoccupied affianced.
If your shoes are as wet as my skirts and slippers you had better change, Mr. Siward, she said, pausing at the foot of the staircase.
So he took his congé, leaving her standing there with Quarrier, and mounted to his room.
In the corridor he passed Ferrall, who had finished his business correspondence and was returning to the card-room.
Heres a letter that Grace wants you to see, he said. Read it before you turn in, Stephen.
All right; but Ill be down later, replied Siward passing on, the letter in his hand. Entering his room he kicked off his wet pumps and found dry ones. Then moved about, whistling a gay air from some recent vaudeville, busy with rough towels and silken foot-gear, until, reshod and dry, he was ready to descend once more.
The encounter, the suddenly informal acquaintance with this young girl had stirred him agreeably, leaving a slight exhilaration. Even her engagement to Quarrier added a tinge of malice to his interest. Besides he was young enough to feel the flattery of her concern for himof her rebuke, of her imprudence, her generous emotional and childish philosophy.
Perhaps, as like recognises like, he recognised in her the instincts of the born drifter, momentarily at anchorthe temporary inertia of the opportunist, the latent capacity of an unformed character for all things and anything. Add to these her few years, her beauty, and the wholesome ignorance so confidently acknowledged, what man could remain unconcerned, uninterested in the development of such possibilities? Not Siward, amused by her sagacious and impulsive prudence, worldliness, and innocence in accepting Quarrier; and touched by her profitless, frank, and unworldly friendliness for himself.
Not that he objected to her marrying Quarrier; he rather admired her for being able to do it, considering the general scramble for Quarrier. But let that take care of itself; meanwhile, their sudden and capricious intimacy had aroused him from the morbid reaction consequent upon the cheap notoriety which he had brought upon himself. Let him sponge his slate clean and begin again a better record, flattered by the solicitude she had so prettily displayed.
Whistling under his breath the same gay, empty melody, he opened the top drawer of his dresser, dropped in his mothers letter, and locking the drawer, pocketed the key. He would have time enough to read the letter when he went to bed; he did not just now feel exactly like skimming through the fond, foolish sermon which he knew had been preached at him through his mothers favourite missionary, Grace Ferrall. What was the use of dragging in the sad old questions againof repeating his assurances of good behaviour, of reiterating his promises of moderation and watchfulness, of explaining his own self-confidence? Better that the letter await his bed timehis prayers would be the sincerer the fresher the impression; for he was old-fashioned enough to say the prayers that an immature philosophy proved superfluous. For, he thought, if prayer is any use, it takes only a few minutes to be on the safe side.
So he went down-stairs leisurely, prepared to acquiesce in any suggestion from anybody, but rather hoping to saunter across Sylvia Landis path before being committed.
She was standing beside the fire with Quarrier, one foot on the fender, apparently too preoccupied to notice him; so he strolled into the gun-room, which was blue with tobacco smoke and aromatic with the volatile odours from decanters.
There were a few women there, and the majority of the men. Lord Alderdene, Major Belwether, and Mortimer were at a table by themselves; stacks of ivory chips and five cards spread in the centre of the green explained the nature of their game; and Mortimer, raising his heavy inflamed eyes and seeing Siward unoccupied, said wheezily: Cut out that widow, and give Siward his stack! Anything above two pairs for a jack triples the ante. Come on, Siward, theres a decent chap!