Greatheart, Ethel May Dell [children's books read aloud TXT] 📗

eyes very bright. "I heard the dance-music in the distance," she said nervously. "It—it made me want to go and dance."

"I am sorry it disturbed you," he said gently. "It was only that then?
You weren't really troubled about anything?"

She hesitated, then, meeting the kindness of his look, her eyes suddenly filled with tears. She turned her head away in silence.

He leaned towards her. "Is there anything you want?" he said. "Tell me what it is! I will get it for you if it is humanly possible."

"I know—I know!" faltered Dinah, and hid her face in the pillow.

He waited a moment or two, then laid a very gentle hand upon her dark head. "Don't cry, little one!" he said softly. "Tell me what it is!"

"I can't," murmured Dinah.

"You wanted to go and dance," said Scott sympathetically. "Was it just that?"

"Not—just—that!" she whispered forlornly.

"I thought not. You were wanting something more than that. What was it?"

She tried not to tell him. She would have given almost all she had to keep silence on the subject; but somehow she had to speak. Under the pressure of that kind hand, she could not maintain her silence any longer.

"I was thinking of—of your brother," she told him with tears. "I was wondering if—if he were dancing, and—and I not there!"

It was out at last, and she hid her face in overwhelming shame because she had given him a glimpse of her secret heart which none had ever seen before. She wondered with anguish what he thought of her, if she had forfeited his good opinion of her for ever, if indeed he would ever speak to her with kindness again.

And then very quietly he did speak, and in a moment all her anxiety was gone. "He may have been dancing," he said. "But I believe he has been very bored ever since the weather broke. I wonder if he might come and see you. Would it be too much for you? Should you mind?"

"Mind!" Dinah's tears were gone in a flash. She turned shining eyes upon him. "But would he come?" she said, with sudden misgiving. "Wouldn't that bore him too?"

Scott smiled at her in a way that set her mind wholly at rest. "No, I think not," he said. "When shall he come? This evening?"

Dinah slipped a confiding hand into his. She felt that now Scott knew and was not scandalized, there was no further need for embarrassment. "Oh, just any time," she said. "But hadn't I better get up? It would look better, wouldn't it?"

"I don't know about that," said Scott. "You had better ask the doctor."

Dinah's face flushed red. "Need the doctor know?" she asked him shyly. "I am—so afraid of his saying I am well enough to go home. And that—that will end everything."

"He shan't say that," Scott promised, still smiling in the fashion that so warmed her heart. "I will drop him a hint."

"Oh, you are good!" Dinah said very earnestly. "I think you are the kindest man I have ever met."

He laughed at that. "My dear, it is easy to be kind to you," he said.

"I'm sure I don't know why," she protested. "I'm getting very spoilt and selfish."

He patted her hand gently and laid it down. "You are—just you," he said, and rising with the words rather abruptly he left her.

CHAPTER XXIV THE LIGHTS OF A CITY

"May I come in?" said Sir Eustace.

He stood in the doorway, a gigantic figure to Dinah's unaccustomed eyes, and looked in upon her with a careless smile on his handsome face.

"Oh, please do!" she said.

She was lying on a couch under a purple rug belonging to Isabel. Very fragile and weak she looked, but her face was flushed and eager, her eyes alight with welcome. She thought he had never looked so splendid, so godlike, as at that moment. She wanted to hold out both her arms to him and be borne upward to Olympus in his embrace.

He came forward with his easy carriage and stood beside her. His smile was one of kindly indulgence. He looked down at her as he might have looked upon an infant.

An uneasy sense of her own insignificance went through Dinah. She could not remember that he had ever regarded her thus before. A faint, faint throb of resentment also pulsed through her. His attitude was so suggestive of the mere casual acquaintance. Surely—surely he had not forgotten!

"Won't you sit down?" she asked in a small voice that was quite unconsciously formal.

He seated himself in the chair that had been placed at her side. "So they have left you behind to be mended, have they?" he said. "I hope it is a satisfactory process, is it?"

She had meant to give him her hand, but as he did not seem to expect it she refrained from doing so. A great longing to cover her face and burst into tears took possession of her; she resisted it frantically, with all her strength.

"Oh yes, I am getting better, thank you," she said, in a voice that quivered in spite of her. "I am afraid I have been a great nuisance to everybody. I am sure the de Vignes thought so; and—and—I expect you do too."

She could not keep the tears from springing to her eyes, strive as she would. He was so different—so different. He might have been a total stranger, sitting there beside her.

Yet as he looked at her, she felt something of the old quick thrill; for the blue eyes regarded her with a slightly warmer interest as he said, "I can't answer for the de Vignes of course, but it doesn't seem to me that either they or I have had much cause for complaint. I shouldn't fret about that if I were you."

She commanded herself with an effort. "I don't. Only it isn't nice to feel a burden to anyone, is it? You wouldn't like it, would you?"

"Oh, I don't know," he said, with his easy arrogance. "I think I should expect to be waited on if I were ill. You've had rather a bad time, I'm afraid. But you haven't missed much. The weather has been villainous."

"I've missed all the dances," said Dinah, stifling a sob.

He began to smile. "I wish I had. I haven't enjoyed one of them."

That comforted her a little. At least Rose had not scored an unqualified victory! "You've been bored?" she asked.

"Horribly bored," said Sir Eustace. "There's been no fun for anyone since the weather broke."

She gathered her courage in both hands. "And so you're going home?" she said, and lay in quivering dread of his answer.

He did not make one immediately. He seemed to be considering the matter. "There doesn't seem to be much point in staying on," he said finally, "unless things improve."

"But they will improve," said Dinah quickly. "At least—at least they ought to."

"A fortnight of bad weather isn't particularly encouraging," he remarked.

"Of course it isn't! It's horrid," she agreed. "But every day makes it less likely that it will last much longer. And I expect it's much worse in England," she added.

"I wonder," said Sir Eustace. "There's the hunting anyway."

"Oh no; it would freeze directly you got there," she said, with a shaky little laugh. "And then you would wish you had stayed here."

"I could shoot," said Sir Eustace.

"And there is the Hunt Ball, isn't there?" said Dinah with more assurance.

He looked at her keenly. "What Hunt Ball?"

She met his eyes with a faint challenge in her own. "I heard you were going to stay with the de Vignes. They always go to the Hunt Ball every year."

"Do you go?" asked Sir Eustace.

She shook her head. "No. I never go anywhere."

She saw his eyes soften unexpectedly as he said, "Then there isn't much inducement for me to go, is there?"

Her heart gave a wild throb of half-incredulous delight. She made a small movement of one hand towards him, and quite suddenly she found it grasped in his. He bent to her with a laugh in his eyes.

"Shall we go on with the game,—Daphne?" he whispered. "Are you well enough?"

Her eyes answered him. Was he not irresistible? "Oh," she whispered, "I thought—I thought you had forgotten."

He glanced round, as if to make sure that they were alone, and then swiftly bent and kissed her quivering lips. "But the past has no claims," he said. "Remember, it is a game without consequences!"

She laughed very happily, clasping his hand. "I was afraid it was all over," she said. "But it isn't, is it?"

He laughed too under his breath. "I am under the very strictest orders not to excite you," he said, passing the question by. "If the doctor were to come and feel your pulse now, there would be serious trouble. And I shouldn't be allowed within a dozen yards of you again for many a long day."

"What nonsense!" murmured Dinah. "Why, you have done me so much good that I feel almost well." She squeezed his hand with all the strength she could muster. "Don't go away till I'm quite well!" she begged him wistfully. "We must have—one more dance."

His eyes kindled suddenly with that fire which she dared not meet. "I will grant you that," he said, "on condition that you promise—mind, you promise—not to run away afterwards."

His intensity embarrassed her, she knew not wherefore. "Why—why should I run away?" she faltered.

"You ran away last time," he said.

"Oh, that was only—only because I was afraid the Colonel might be angry with me," she murmured.

"Oh well, there is no Colonel to be angry now," he said. "It's a promise then, is it?"

But for some reason wholly undefined she hesitated. She felt as if she could not bring herself thus to cut off her own line of retreat. "No, I don't think I can quite promise that," she said, after a moment.

"You won't?" he said.

His tone warned her to reconsider her decision. "I—I'll tell you to-morrow," she said hastily.

"I may be gone by to-morrow," he said.

She looked up at him with swift daring. "Oh no, you won't," she said, with conviction. "Or if you are, you'll come back."

"How do you know that?" he demanded, frowning upon her while his eyes still gleamed with that lambent fire that made her half afraid.

She dropped her own. "There's someone coming," she whispered. "It doesn't matter, does it? I do know. Good-bye!"

She slipped her hand from his with a little secret sense of triumph; for though he had so arrogantly asserted himself she was conscious of a certain power over him which gave her confidence. She was firmly convinced in that moment that he would not go.

He rose to leave her as Isabel came softly into the room, and between the brother and sister there flashed a look that was curiously like the crossing of blades.

Isabel came straight to Dinah's side. "You must settle down now, dear child," she said, in that low, musical voice of hers that Dinah loved. "It is getting late, and you didn't sleep well last night."

Dinah smiled, and drew the hand that had so often smoothed her pillow to her cheek. But her eyes were upon Eustace, and she caught a parting gleam from his as with a gesture of farewell he turned away.

"I am much better," she said to Isabel later, as she composed herself to rest. "I feel as if I am going to sleep well."

Isabel stooped to kiss her. "Sleep is the best medicine in the world," she said.

"Do you sleep better now?" Dinah asked, detaining her.

Isabel hesitated for a second. "Oh yes, I sleep," she said then. "I am able to sleep now that you are safe, my darling."

Dinah clung to her. "I can't think what I would do without you," she murmured. "No one was ever so good to me before."

Isabel held her closely. "Don't you realize," she said fondly, "that you have been my salvation."

"Not—not really?" faltered Dinah.

"Yes, really." There was a throb of passion in Isabel's voice. "I have been a prisoner for years, but you—you, little Dinah,—have set me free. I am travelling forward again now—like the rest of the world." She paused a moment, and her arms clasped Dinah more