found it amusing to go to church and also to occasionally make amiable calls at the vicarage. It was not difficult, at such times, to refer delicately to his regret that domestic discomfort had led him into the error of remaining much away from Stornham. He knew that he had been even rather touching in his expression of interest in the future of his son, and the necessity of the boy’s being protected from uncontrolled hysteric influences. And, in the years of Rosalie’s unprotected wretchedness, he had taken excellent care that no “stupid evidence” should be exposed to view.
Of all this Betty was thinking and summing up definitely, point after point. Where was the wise and practical course of defence? The most unthinkable thing was that one could find one’s self in a position in which action seemed inhibited. What could one do? To send for her father would surely end the matter—but at what cost to Rosy, to Ughtred, to Ffolliott, before whom the fair path to dignified security had so newly opened itself? What would be the effect of sudden confusion, anguish, and public humiliation upon Rosalie’s carefully rebuilt health and strength—upon her mother’s new hope and happiness? At moments it seemed as if almost all that had been done might be undone. She was beset by such a moment now, and felt for the time, at least, like a creature tied hand and foot while in full strength.
Certainly she was not prepared for the event which happened. Roland stiffened his ears, and, beginning a rumbling growl, ended it suddenly, realising it an unnecessary precaution.
He knew the man walking up the incline of the mound from the side behind them. So did Betty know him. It was Sir Nigel looking rather glowering and pale and walking slowly. He had discovered where she had meant to take refuge, and had probably ridden to some point where he could leave his horse and follow her at the expense of taking a short cut which saved walking.
As he climbed the mound to join her, Betty rose to her feet.
“My dear girl,” he said, “don’t get up as if you meant to go away. It has cost me some exertion to find you.”
“It will not cost you any exertion to lose me,” was her light answer. “I AM going away.”
He had reached her, and stood still before her with scarcely a yard’s distance between them. He was slightly out of breath and even a trifle livid. He leaned on his stick and his look at her combined leaping bad temper with something deeper.
“Look here!” he broke out, “why do you make such a point of treating me like the devil?”
Betty felt her heart give a hastened beat, not of fear, but of repulsion. This was the mood and manner which subjugated Rosalie. He had so raised his voice that two men in the distance, who might be either labourers or sportsmen, hearing its high tone, glanced curiously towards them.
“Why do you ask me a question which is totally absurd?” she said.
“It is not absurd,” he answered. “I am speaking of facts, and I intend to come to some understanding about them.”
For reply, after meeting his look a few seconds, she simply turned her back and began to walk away. He followed and overtook her.
“I shall go with you, and I shall say what I want to say,” he persisted. “If you hasten your pace I shall hasten mine. I cannot exactly see you running away from me across the marsh, screaming. You wouldn’t care to be rescued by those men over there who are watching us. I should explain myself to them in terms neither you nor Rosalie would enjoy. There! I knew Rosalie’s name would pull you up. Good God! I wish I were a weak fool with a magnificent creature protecting me at all risks.”
If she had not had blood and fire in her veins, she might have found it easy to answer calmly. But she had both, and both leaped and beat furiously for a few seconds. It was only human that it should be so. But she was more than a passionate girl of high and trenchant spirit, and she had learned, even in the days at the French school, what he had never been able to learn in his life—self-control. She held herself in as she would have held in a horse of too great fire and action. She was actually able to look—as the first Reuben Vanderpoel would have looked—at her capital of resource. But it meant taut holding of the reins.
“Will you tell me,” she said, stopping, “what it is you want?”
“I want to talk to you. I want to tell you truths you would rather be told here than on the high road, where people are passing—or at Stornham, where the servants would overhear and Rosalie be thrown into hysterics. You will NOT run screaming across the marsh, because I should run screaming after you, and we should both look silly. Here is a rather scraggy tree. Will you sit on the mound near it—for Rosalie’s sake?”
“I will not sit down,” replied Betty, “but I will listen, because it is not a bad idea that I should understand you. But to begin with, I will tell you something.” She stopped beneath the tree and stood with her back against its trunk. “I pick up things by noticing people closely, and I have realised that all your life you have counted upon getting your own way because you saw that people—especially women —have a horror of public scenes, and will submit to almost anything to avoid them. That is true very often, but not always.”
Her eyes, which were well opened, were quite the blue of steel, and rested directly upon him. “I, for instance, would let you make a scene with me anywhere you chose—in Bond Street— in Piccadilly—on the steps of Buckingham Palace, as I was getting out of my carriage to attend a drawing-room—and you would gain nothing you wanted by it—nothing. You may place entire confidence in that statement.”
He stared back at her, momentarily half-magnetised, and then broke forth into a harsh half-laugh.
“You are so damned handsome that nothing else matters. I’m hanged if it does!” and the words were an exclamation. He drew still nearer to her, speaking with a sort of savagery. “Cannot you see that you could do what you pleased with me? You are too magnificent a thing for a man to withstand. I have lost my head and gone to the devil through you. That is what I came to say.”
In the few seconds of silence that followed, his breath came quickly again and he was even paler than before.
“You came to me to say THAT?” asked Betty.
“Yes—to say it before you drove me to other things.”
Her gaze was for a moment even slightly wondering. He presented the curious picture of a cynical man of the world, for the time being ruled and impelled only by the most primitive instincts. To a clear-headed modern young woman of the most powerful class, he—her sister’s husband—was making threatening love as if he were a savage chief and she a savage beauty of his tribe. All that concerned him was that he should speak and she should hear— that he should show her he was the stronger of the two.
