The Obstacle Race Part 24

A POINT OF HONOUR

"How like my husband!" said Mrs. Fielding impatiently, fidgeting up and down the long drawing-room with a fretful frown on her pretty face. "Why didn't you put a stop to it, Miss Moore? You might so easily have said that the storm had upset me and I wasn't equal to a visitor at the dinner-table to-night." She paused to look at herself in the gilded mirror above the mantel-piece. "I declare I look positively haggard. I've a good mind to go to bed. Only if I do--" she turned slowly and looked at Juliet--"if I do, he is sure to be brutal about it--unless you tell him you persuaded me."

Juliet, seated in a low chair, with a book on her lap, looked up with a gleam of humour in her eyes. "But I am afraid I haven't persuaded you," she said.

Mrs. Fielding shrugged her white shoulders impatiently. "Oh, of course not! You only persuade me to do a thing when you know that it is the one thing that I would rather die than do."

"Am I as bad as that?" said Juliet.

"Pretty nearly. You're coming to it. I know you are on his side all the time. He knows it too. He wouldn't tolerate you for a moment if you weren't."

"What a horrid accusation!" said Juliet, with a smile.

"The truth generally is horrid," said Mrs. Fielding. "How would you like to feel that everyone is against you?"

"I don't know. I expect I should find a way out somehow. I shouldn't quarrel," said Juliet. "Not with such odds as that!"

"How--discreet!" said Mrs. Fielding, with a sneer.

"Discretion is my watchword," smiled Juliet.

"And very wise too," said Green's voice in the doorway. "How do you do, Mrs. Fielding? As I can't dress, I've been sent down to try and make my peace with you for showing my face here at all. I hope you'll be lenient for once, for really I've had a thorough bullying for my sins."

He came forward with the words. His bearing was absolutely easy though neither he nor his hostess seemed to think of shaking hands.

She looked at him with a disdainful curve of the lips that could scarcely have been described as a smile of welcome. "I imagine it would take a good deal of that sort of thing to make much impression upon you, Mr.

Green," she said.

Green's eyes began to s.h.i.+ne. He glanced at Juliet. "Really I am much more inoffensive than you seem to think," he said. "I hope you are not going to repeat the dose. I was hoping to secure your forgiveness for what happened this afternoon. Believe me, no one regrets it more sincerely than I do."

Mrs. Fielding drew herself together with a gesture of distaste. "Oh, that! I have no desire whatever to discuss it with you. I have long regarded your half-witted brother as a disgrace to the neighbourhood, and my opinion is scarcely likely to be modified by what happened this afternoon."

"How unfortunate!" said Green.

Again he glanced at Juliet. She lifted her eyes to his. "I am afraid I haven't taken my share of the blame," she said. "But I think you know that I am very sorry for Robin."

"You are always kind," he rejoined gravely.

"How could you be to blame, Miss Moore?" asked Mrs. Fielding.

Juliet turned towards her. "Because Robin and I are friends," she explained simply. "He came here to look for me, and Jack ordered him off.

That was the origin of the trouble. And so--" she smiled--"Mr. Green tells me it was my fault."

"He would," commented Mrs. Fielding.

She turned with the words as if Green's proximity were an offence to her, and walked away to the window at the further end of the room.

In the slightly strained pause that followed, Juliet bent to fondle Columbus who was sitting pressed against her and her book slid from her lap to the ground. Green stooped swiftly and picked it up.

"What is it? May I look?"

She held out her hand for it. "It is _Marionettes_,--Dene Strange's latest. Mrs. Fielding lent it to me."

He kept the book in his hand. "I thought you said you wouldn't read any more of that man's stuff."

She knitted her brows a little. "Did I say so? I don't remember."

He looked down at her keenly. "You said you hated the man and his work."

She began to smile. "Well, I do--in certain moods. But I've got to read him all the same. Everyone does."

"Surely you don't follow the crowd!" he said.

She laughed--her sweet, low laugh. "Surely I do! I'm one of them."

He made a sharp gesture. "That's just what you are not. I say, Miss Moore, don't read this book! It won't do you any good, and it'll make you very angry. You'll call it cynical, insincere, cold-blooded. It will hurt your feelings horribly."

"I don't think so," said Juliet. "You forget,--I am no longer--a marionette. I have come to life."

Again she held out her hand for the book. He gave it to her reluctantly.

"Don't read it!" he said.

She shook her head, still smiling. "No, Mr. Green, I'm not going to let you censor my reading. I will tell you what I think of it next time we meet."

"Don't!" he said again very earnestly.

But Juliet would not yield. She stooped again over Columbus and fondled his ear.

Green stood looking down at her, his dark face somewhat grim, his eyes extremely bright.

"I believe he's cross with us, Christopher," murmured Juliet. "Never mind, old thing! We shall get over it if he doesn't. Being cross always hurts oneself the most. We're--never cross, are we, Christopher? We please ourselves and we please each other--always."

Columbus grunted appreciatively and leaned harder against her. He liked to be included in the conversation.

Green suddenly bent and pulled the other ear. "You're a jolly lucky chap, Columbus," he said. "I'll change places with you any day in the week."

Columbus smiled at him indulgently, and edged his nose onto his mistress's knee. He knew his position was secure.

"Don't you listen to him, Christopher!" said Juliet. "He wouldn't be in your place two minutes. If I dared to thwart him in anything, he'd turn and rend me."

"He wouldn't," said Green decidedly. "Anyone else--perhaps, but his mistress--never."

Columbus yawned. The topic did not interest him. But Juliet laughed again, and for a moment her eyes glanced upwards, meeting the man's look.

"Is that a promise?" she asked lightly.