The Obstacle Race Part 33

"Must I?" he said.

She lifted the hand she had taken and laid it against her cheek. "I've got--a good deal to say to you, d.i.c.k," she said. "You've taken me so completely by storm. Please be generous now! Please let me have--the honours of war!"

"My dear!" he said.

He let her go with the words, and she clasped her hands about her knees and looked out to sea. She was still trembling a little, but as he sat beside her in unbroken silence she grew gradually calmer, and presently she spoke without any apparent difficulty.

"You've taken a good deal for granted, d.i.c.k, haven't you? You don't know me very well."

"Don't I?" he said.

"No. You've been--dreadfully headlong all through." She smiled faintly, with a touch of sadness. "You've skipped all the usual preliminaries--which isn't always wise. Don't you teach your boys to look before they leap?"

"When there's time," he said. "But you know, dear, you gave the word for--the final plunge."

She nodded slowly once or twice. "Yes. But I didn't expect quite--quite--Well, never mind what I expected! The fact remains, we haven't known each other long enough. No, I know we can't go back now and begin again. But, d.i.c.k, I want you--and it's for your sake as much as for my own--I want you, please, to be very patient. Will you? May I count on that?"

He put out his hand to her and gently touched her shoulder. "Don't talk to me like a slave appealing to a sultan!" he said.

She made a little movement towards him, but she did not turn. "I don't want to hurt you," she said. "But I'm going to ask of you something that you won't like--at all."

"Well, what is it?" he said.

"I want you--" she paused, then turned and resolutely faced him--"I want you to be--just friends with me again," she said.

His eyes looked straight into hers. "In public you mean?" he said.

"In private too," she answered.

"For how long?" Swiftly he asked the question, his eyes still holding hers with a certain mastery of possession.

She made a slight gesture of pleading. "Until you know me better," she said.

His brows went up. "That's not a business proposition, is it? You don't really expect me to agree to that. Now do you?"

"Ah! But you've got to understand," she said rather piteously. "I'm not in the least the sort of woman you think I am. I'm not--d.i.c.k, I'm not--a specially good woman."

She spoke the words with painful effort, her eyes wavered before his. But in a moment, without hesitation, he had leapt to the rescue.

"My darling, don't tell me that! I can see what you are. I know! I know!

I don't want your own valuation. I won't listen to it. It's the one point on which your opinion has no weight whatever with me. Please don't say any more about it! It's you that I love--just as you are. If you were one atom less human, you wouldn't be you, and my love--our love--might never have been."

She sighed. "It would have saved a lot of trouble if it hadn't, d.i.c.k."

"Don't be silly!" he said. "Is there anything else that matters half as much?"

She was silent, but her look was dubious. He drew suddenly close to her, and slipped his hand through her arm.

"Is there anything else that really matters at all, Juliet? Tell me! I've got to know. Does--Robin matter?"

She started at the question. It was obviously unexpected. "No! Of course not!" she said.

"Thank you," he said steadily. "I loved you for that before you said it."

She laid her hand upon his and held it. "That's--one of the things I love you for, d.i.c.k," she said, with eyes downcast. "You are so--splendidly--loyal."

"Sweetheart!" he said softly. "There's no virtue in that."

Her brows were slightly drawn. "I think there is. Anyway it appeals to me tremendously. You would stick to Robin--whatever the cost."

"Well, that, of course!" he said. "I flatter myself I am necessary to Robin. But with Jack it is otherwise. I've kicked him out."

"d.i.c.k!" She looked at him in sharp amazement.

He smiled, a thin-lipped smile. "Yes. It had to be. I've put up with him long enough. I told him so last night."

"You--quarrelled?" said Juliet.

"No. We didn't quarrel. I gave him his marching orders, that's all."

"But wasn't he very angry?"

"Oh, pshaw!" said d.i.c.k. "What of it?"

She was looking at him intently, for there was something merciless about his smile. "Do you always do that, I wonder," she said, "with the people who make you angry?"

"Do what?" he said.

"Kick them out." Her voice held a doubtful note.

He turned his hand upwards and clasped hers. "My darling, it was a perfectly just sentence. He deserved it. Also--though I admit I have only thought of this since--it's the best thing that could happen to him. He can make his own way in life. It's high time he did so. I didn't kick him out because I was angry with him either."

"But you were angry," she said. "You were nearly white-hot."

He laughed. "I kept my hands off him anyhow. But I can't be answerable for the consequences if anyone sets to work to bait Robin persistently.

It's not fair to the boy--to either of us."

"Do you think Robin might do him a mischief?" she asked.

"I think--someone might," he answered grimly. "But never mind that now!

You don't regard Robin as a just cause and impediment. What's the next obstacle? My profession?"

"No," she said instantly and emphatically. "I like that part of you.

There's something rather quaint about it."

His quick smile flashed upon her. "Oh, thanks awfully! I'm glad I'm quaint. But I didn't know it was a quality that appealed to you.

I've been laying even odds with myself that I'd make you have me in spite of it."