The Safety Curten, Ethel May Dell [e ink epub reader .TXT] 📗

II
HIS INTENTIONS

"Where is Doris?" asked Phil Abingdon, looking round upon the guests assembled in his drawing-room at Rivermead. "We are all waiting for her."
"I think we had better go in without her," said his wife, with her nervous smile. "She arranged to motor down with Mrs. Lockyard and her party this afternoon. Possibly they have persuaded her to dine with them."
"She would never do that surely," said Phil, with an involuntary glance at Vivian Caryl who had just entered.
"If you are talking about my _fiance_, I think it more than probable that she would," the latter remarked. "Mrs. Lockyard's place is just across the river, I understand? Shall I punt over and fetch Doris?"
"No, no!" broke in his hostess anxiously. "I am sure she wouldn't come if you did. Besides--"
"Oh, as to that," said Vivian Caryl, with a grim smile, "I think, with all deference to your opinion, that the odds would be in my favour. However, let us dine first, if you prefer it."
Mrs. Abingdon did prefer it, and said so hastily. She seemed to have a morbid dread of a rupture between Doris Fielding and her _fiance_, a feeling with which Caryl quite obviously had no sympathy. There was nothing very remarkable about the man save this somewhat supercilious demeanour which had caused Vera to marvel many times at Doris's choice.
They went in to dinner without further discussion. Caryl sat on Vera's left, and amazed her by his utter unconcern regarding the absentee. He seemed to be in excellent spirits, and his dry humour provoked a good deal of merriment.
She led the way back to the drawing-room as soon as possible. There was a billiard-room beyond to which the members of her party speedily betook themselves, and here most of the men joined them soon after. Neither Caryl nor Abingdon was with them, and Vera counted the minutes of their absence with a sinking heart while her guests buzzed all unheeding around her.
It was close upon ten o'clock when she saw her husband's face for a moment in the doorway. He made a rapid sign to her, and with a murmured excuse she went to him, closing the door behind her.
Caryl was standing with him, calm as ever, though she fancied that his eyes were a little wider than usual and his bearing less supercilious.
Her husband, she saw at a glance, was both angry and agitated.
"She has gone off somewhere with that bounder Brandon," he said. "They got down to tea, and went off again in the motor afterwards, Mrs. Lockyard doesn't seem to know for certain where."
"Phil!" she exclaimed in consternation, and added with her eyes on Caryl, "What is to be done? What can be done?"
Caryl made quiet reply:
"There was some talk of Wynhampton. I am going there now on your husband's motor-bicycle. If I do not find her there----"
He paused, and on the instant a girl's high peal of laughter rang through the house. The drawing-room door was flung back, and Doris herself stood on the threshold.
"Goodness!" she cried. "What a solemn conclave! You can't think how funny you all look! Do tell me what it is all about!"
She stood before them, the motor-veil thrown back from her dainty face, her slight figure quivering with merriment.
Vera hastened to meet her with outstretched hands.
"Oh, my dear, you can't think how anxious we have been about you."
Doris took her by the shoulders and lightly kissed her.
"Silly! Why? You know I always come up smiling. Why, Phil, you are looking positively green! Have you been anxious, too? I am indeed honoured."
She swept him a curtsey, her face all dimples and laughter.
"We've had the jolliest time," she declared. "We motored to Wynhampton and saw the last of the races. After that, we dined at a dear little place with a duckpond at the bottom of the garden. And finally we returned--it ought to have been by moonlight, only there was no moon. Where is everyone? In the billiard-room? I want some milk and soda frightfully. Vivian, you might, like the good sort you are, go and get me some."
She bestowed a dazzling smile upon her _fiance_ and offered him one finger by way of salutation.
Abingdon, who had been waiting to get in a word, here exploded with some violence and told his young cousin in no measured terms what he thought of her conduct.
She listened with her head on one side, her eyes brimful of mischief, and finally with an airy gesture turned to Caryl.
"Don't you want to scold me, too? I am sure you do. You had better be quick or there will be nothing left to say."
Abingdon turned on his heel and walked away. He was thoroughly angry and made no attempt to hide it. His wife lingered a moment irresolute, then softly followed him. And as the door closed, Caryl looked very steadily into the girl's flushed face and spoke:
"All I have to say is this. Maurice Brandon is no fit escort for any woman who values her reputation. And I here and now forbid you most strictly, most emphatically, ever to go out with him alone again."
He paused. She was looking straight back at him with her chin in the air.
"Dear me!" she said. "Do you really? And who gave you the right to dictate to me?"
"You yourself," he answered quietly.
"Indeed! May I ask when?"
He stiffened a little, but his face did not alter.
"When you promised to be my wife," he said.
Her eyes blazed instant defiance.
"An engagement can be broken off!" she declared recklessly.
"By mutual consent," said Caryl drily.
"That is absurd," she rejoined. "You couldn't possibly hold me to it against my will."
"I am quite capable of doing so," he told her coolly, "if I think it worth my while."
"Worth your while!" she exclaimed, staring at him as if she doubted his sanity.
"Even so," he said. "When I have fully satisfied myself that a heartless little flirt like you can be transformed into a virtuous and amiable wife. It may prove a difficult process, I admit, and perhaps not altogether a pleasant one. But I shall not shirk it on that account."
He leant back against the mantelpiece with a gesture that plainly said that so far as he was concerned the matter was ended.
But it was not so with Doris. She stood before him for several seconds absolutely motionless, all the vivid colour gone from her face, her blue eyes blazing with speechless fury. At length, with a sudden, fierce movement, she tore the ring he had given her from her finger and held it out to him.
"Take it!" she said, her voice high-pitched and tremulous. "This is the end!"
He did not stir a muscle.
"Not yet, I think," he said.
She flashed a single glance at him in which pride and uncertainty were strangely mingled, then made a sudden swoop towards the fire. He read her intention in a second, and stooping swiftly caught her hand. The ring shot from her hold, gleamed in a shining curve in the firelight, and fell with a tinkle among the ashes of the fender.
Caryl did not utter a word, but his face was fixed and grim as, still tightly gripping the hand he had caught, he knelt and groped among the half-dead embers for the ring it had wantonly flung there. When he found it he rose.
"Before you do anything of that sort again," he said, "let me advise you to stop and think. It will do you no harm, and may save trouble."
He took her left hand, paused a moment, and then deliberately fitted the ring back upon her finger. She made no resistance, for she was instinctively aware that he would brook no morefrom her just then. She was in fact horribly scared, though his voice was still perfectly quiet and even. Something in his touch had set her heart beating, something electric, something terrifying. She dared not meet his eyes.
He dropped her hand almost contemptuously. There was nothing lover-like about him at that moment.
"And remember," he said, "that no experiment can ever prove a success unless it is given a fair trial. You will continue to be engaged to me until I set you free. Is that understood?"
She did not answer him. She was pulling at the loose ends of her veil with restless fingers, her face downcast and very pale.
"Doris!" he said.
She glanced up at him sharply.
"I am rather tired," she said, and her voice quivered a little. "Do you mind if I say good-night?"
"Answer me first," he said.
She shook her head.
"I forget what you asked me. It doesn't matter, does it? There's someone coming, and I don't want to be caught. Good-night!"
She whisked round with the words before he could realize her intention, and in a moment was at the door. She waved a hand to him airily as she disappeared. And Caryl was left to wonder if her somewhat precipitate departure could be regarded as a sign of defeat or merely a postponement of the struggle.


CHAPTER III
THE KNIGHT ERRANT

It was the afternoon of Easter Day, and a marvellous peace lay upon all things.
Maurice Brandon, a look of supreme boredom on his handsome face, had just sauntered down to the river bank. A belt of daffodils nodded to him from the shrubbery on the farther shore. He stood and stared at them absently while he idly smoked a cigarette.
Finally, after a long and quite unprofitable inspection, he turned aside to investigate a boathouse under the willows on Mrs. Lockyard's side of the stream. He found the door unlocked, and discovered within a somewhat dilapidated punt. This, after considerable exertion, he managed to drag forth and finally to run into the water. The craft seemed seaworthy, and he proceeded to forage for a punt-pole.
Fully equipped at length, he stepped on board and poled himself out from the shore. Arrived at the farther bank, he calmly disembarked and tied up under the willows. He paused a few seconds to light another cigarette, then turned from the river and sauntered up the path between the high box hedges.
The garden was deserted, and he pursued his way unmolested till he came within sight of the house. Here for the first time he stopped to take deliberate stock of his surroundings. Standing in the shelter of a giant rhododendron, he saw two figures emerge and walk along the narrow gravelled terrace before the house. As he watched, they reached the farther end and turned. He recognized them both. They were Caryl and his host Abingdon.
For a few moments they stood talking, then went away together round an angle of the house.
Scarcely had they disappeared before a girl's light figure appeared at an upstairs window. Doris's mischievous face peeped forth, wearing her gayest, most impudent grimace.
There was no one else in sight, and with instant decision Brandon stepped into full view, and without the faintest suggestion of concealment began to stroll up the winding path.
She heard his footsteps on the gravel, and turned her eyes upon him with a swift start of recognition.
He raised his hand in airy salute, and he heard her low murmur of laughter as she waved him a hasty sign to await her in the shrubbery from which he had just emerged.
* * * * *


"Did you actually come across the river?" said Doris. "Whatever made you do that?"
"I said