The Flaming Jewel Part 28

Here it was he discovered mutual friends among the n.o.bler Victorians--surprised to discover _Sigurd_ there--and, carrying it to her bedside, looked leisurely through the half forgotten pages.

"Would you read a little?" she ventured.

He blushed but did his best. His was an agreeable, boyish voice, betraying taste and understanding. Time pa.s.sed quickly--not so much in the reading but in the conversations intervening.

And now, made uneasy by chance consultation with his wrist-watch, and being rather a conscientious young man, he had risen and had informed Eve that she ought to go to sleep.

And she had denounced the idea, almost fretfully.

"Even if you go I shan't sleep till daddy comes," she said. "Of course,"

she added, smiling at him out of gentian-blue eyes, "if _you_ are sleepy I shouldn't dream of asking you to stay."

"I'm not intending to sleep."

"What are you going to do?"

"Take a chair on the landing outside your door."

"What!"

"Certainly. What did you expect me to do, Eve?"

"Go to bed, of course. The beds in the guest rooms are all made up."

"Your father didn't expect me to do that," he said, smiling.

"I'm not afraid, as long as you're in the house," she said.

She looked up at him again, wistfully. Perhaps he was restless, bored, sitting there beside her half the day, and, already, half the night. Men of that kind--active, nervous young men accustomed to the open, can't stand caging.

"I want you to go out and get some fresh air," she said. "It's a wonderful night. Go and walk a while. And--if you feel like--coming back to me----"

"Will you sleep?"

"No, I'll wait for you."

Her words were natural and direct, but in their simplicity there seemed a delicate sweetness that stirred him.

"I'll come back to you," he said.

Then, in his response, the girl in her turn became aware of something beside the simple words--a vague charm about them that faintly haunted her after he had gone away down the stairs.

_That_ was the man she had once tried to kill! At the sudden and terrible recollection she s.h.i.+vered from curly head to bandaged feet.

Then she trembled a little with the memory of his lips against her bruised hands--bruised by handcuffs which he had fastened upon her.

She sat very, very still now, huddled on the bed's edge, scarcely breathing.

For the girl was beginning to dare formulate the deepest of any thoughts that ever had stirred her virgin mind and body.

If it was love, then it had come suddenly, and strangely. It had come on that day--at the very moment when he flung her against the tree and handcuffed her--that terrible instant--if it were love.

Or--what was it that so delicately overwhelmed her with pleasure in his presence, in his voice, in the light, firm sound of his spurred tread on the veranda below?

Friends.h.i.+p? A lonely pa.s.sion for young and decent companions.h.i.+p? The clean youth of him in contrast to the mangy, surly louts who haunted Clinch's Dump,--was that the appeal?

Listening there where she sat clasping the book, she heard his steady tread patrolling the veranda; caught the faint fragrance of his brier pipe in the still night air.

"I think--I think it's--love," she said under her breath.... "But he couldn't ever think of me----" always listening to his spurred tread below.

After a while she placed both bandaged feet on the rug. It hurt her, but she stood up, walked to the open window. She wanted to look at him--just a moment----

By chance he looked up at that instant, and saw her pale face, like a flower in the starlight.

"Why, Eve," he said, "you ought not to be on your feet."

"Once," she said, "you weren't so particular about my bruises."

Her breathless little voice coming down through the starlight thrilled him.

"Do you remember what I did?" he asked.

"Yes. You bruised my hands and made my mouth bleed."

"I did penance--for your hands."

"Yes, you kissed _them_!"

What possessed her--what irresponsible exhilaration was inciting her to a daring utterly foreign to her nature? She heard herself laugh, knew that she was young, pretty, capable of provocation. And in a sudden, breathless sort of way an overwhelming desire seized her to please, to charm, to be noticed by such a man--whatever, on afterthought, he might think of the step-child of Mike Clinch.

Stormont had come directly under her window and stood looking up.

"I dared not offer further penance," he said.

The emotion in his voice stirred her--but she was still laughing down at him.

She said: "You _did_ offer further penance--you offered your handkerchief. So--as that was _all_ you offered as reparation for--my lips----"

"Eve! I could have taken you into my arms----"

"You _did_! And threw me down among the spruces. You really did everything that a contrite heart could suggest----"

"Good heavens!" said that rather matter-of-fact young man, "I don't believe you have forgiven me after all."

"I have--everything except the handkerchief----"

"Then I'm coming up to complete my penance----"

"I'll lock my door!"