“I’d rather stay here,” she said in a low voice.
“Shall I pull down the blind, sir?”
“You may as well.”
In a minute the man brought in coffee, and then they heard him running along the deck through the pelting rain.
Ivy’s hand lay on the table. She looked at it—her fingers were twitching. She felt, with joy and triumph, the tenseness of the atmosphere between them, and, for the first time, something in her responded to Rushworth’s still voiceless passion.
“I don’t want any coffee,” she murmured.
“Neither do I.”
They both rose. He looked across at her. “You’ll find that sofa over there comfortable, I think.”
He uttered the commonplace words in a strained, preoccupied tone. The summer storm outside seemed at one with him, shutting them off from the world.
Ivy walked across to the little couch, which was just large enough for two, and, after a perceptible moment of hesitation, he followed her.
For a moment he stood silently gazing down into her upturned face. Then he began moving forward a chair.
“Won’t you sit down here, by me?” she asked, looking at him with her dove-like eyes.
“Shall I? Is there room?”
“Plenty of room,” she said tremulously.
As he sat down, there came another vivid flash of lightning, followed by a peal of thunder louder than the one before.
He turned quickly to her: “You’re not frightened, are you?”
“I am—a little.”
And then all at once she was in his arms, and he was murmuring low, passionate words of endearment and of reassurance between each long, trembling, clinging kiss.
How he loved her! And how wonderful to know that she, poor darling, loved him too. He felt as may feel a man who, after wandering for days in the desert, suddenly comes on an oasis and a cool stream.
But even now, when every barrier between them seemed miraculously broken down, Rushworth kept a certain measure of control over himself.
“I’m going to pull up the blind and put out the light,” he whispered at last.
A moment later they were in darkness, though now and again a vivid flash of lightning illuminated the harbour through sheets of blinding, torrential rain.
He strode back to the little couch, and sank down again by her; but he resisted the aching longing to take her once more into his arms. Instead he took her soft hand in his, while he muttered in a broken voice, “I’ve been a brute! You must forgive me.”
She answered in a stifled voice, “There is nothing to forgive.”
“I’ve been to blame all through!”
Then, in a tone he strove to lighten, “I ought to have labelled you ‘dangerous’ from the first moment I saw you.”
She melted into tears, and remorsefully he whispered, “Have I hurt you by saying that?”
She shook her head; but she pulled her hand away.
“Listen, Ivy?”
It was the first time Miles Rushworth had called her by her name, and for that, Jervis, poor fool, had thought him old-fashioned and over-formal.
“Yes,” she whispered submissively.
“We’ve got to talk this out—you and I.”
“Yes,” she said again, wondering what he meant by those strange words, and longing, consciously, even exultantly, longing, for him to take her again in his strong arms.
“I’ll begin by telling you something I’ve never told to any living being.”
He uttered those words in so serious a tone that Ivy felt a thrill of fear, of doubt, go through her. Had he a woman in his life whom he would not, or could not, give up?
“I was twenty when my father died, and before his death we had a long private talk. Quite at the end of our talk, he made me give him a solemn promise.”
Rushworth stopped a moment. He was remembering what had been the most moving passage up to now in his thirty-five years of life. It was as if he heard the very tones of his father’s firm, if feeble, voice.
“At the time my promise seemed easy to keep. Indeed, I was surprised he thought it necessary to exact it.”
“What was your promise?” Ivy whispered, and she came a little, only a little, nearer to him.
“My promise was never to allow myself to fall in love with a married woman. Though it hasn’t always been as easy as I thought it would be, till now I have kept that promise. But now I’ve broken it, for I love you. Love you? Why I adore you, my darling—”
Again he waited, and Ivy felt oppressed, bewildered. Many men had said that they adored her. But no man had made that delightful, exciting admission, without showing strong apparent emotion.
Rushworth had uttered the words calmly, collectedly, and staring straight before him.
“And I can’t help myself—that’s the rub,” he went on, in the same matter-of-fact voice. “Indeed, I’m afraid I’m going to go on loving you all my life,” he smiled a rueful smile in the soft darkness which encompassed them.
“But of course I knew, even then, when I was a cub of twenty, what my father really meant. There is a part of my promise to him I can keep; and what’s more—by God, I intend to keep it!”
She was moved, thrown off her usual calculating balance, by the strength of his sincerity, and also made afraid.
“What d’you mean?” she faltered.
“It’s true that I love you—I didn’t know there could be such love in the world as that which I feel for you, Ivy. If it would do you any good for me to jump into that harbour out there and be drowned, I’d do it! But I’m going to keep my love for you sacred, and I’m going not only to save myself, but I’m going to save you, my darling, darling love.”
He took her hand again, and this time he kissed it.
Ivy burst into bitter tears, and Rushworth put his arm around her.
“I know how you’re feeling,” he whispered brokenly. “My poor little darling! But for God’s sake don’t cry. I can’t bear it. You’ve nothing to be ashamed of—it’s been all my fault.”
“Can’t we go on being friends? It’s been so wonderful
