“Two of my main objects,” Anthony said, “have been to get Deacon off and to keep you and your brother out. I think I’ve done both. I thought at one time that I couldn’t round off the business without dragging you in. But the gods were good and dropped into my hands a little man who knew as much and a deal more than you. I exulted. I still exult. Like Stalky, I gloat!” He thumped his chest with an air. “I know everything; but I shan’t tell. I know so much that I could tell you almost to a minute what time it was when you looked through the window of Hoode’s study—and that’s more than you know yourself. But I won’t tell. Your secret, lady, is safe with me!”
She laughed; but there was something more than laughter in the sound.
“I think,” she said slowly, “that you are a very perfect—Fairy Godmother! And now you must go, or you’ll have pneumonia. And if you did you might never hear those thanks I’m going to give you”—she smiled, and he saw with wonder that the dark eyes were glistening with tears—“after I’ve apologised for behaving as I did the other night.” She paused; then burst out: “And, please, will you shake hands?”
Anthony looked at the white fingers held out towards him. The last shreds of self-control went flying.
“No, by God, I won’t!” he shouted.
Lucia, amazed, was caught in long arms. Kisses were rained upon her mouth, her eyes, her hair, her throat. She strove with hands against his chest.
The great eyes blazed dark fire into his above them. “Let go! Let go, I say! Will you let me go!” The words came between her teeth.
Some measure of sanity returned to him. His arms dropped to his sides. Lucia, released, fell back against the wall. There she remained, hands behind her and pressed her to the panelling. Her eyes (“God! what eyes!” thought poor Anthony) never left his face.
He said very heavily: “I suppose—I suppose I’ve been presumptuous. Oh! I’ll grant you it was unpardonable. But, Lord, there’s reason enough for my madness. I know I’m ridiculous. I feel, believe me, sufficient dislike of myself. But I make this excuse for the inexcusable.” He paused and moistened his lips. They were parched, dry.
The woman stayed half-leaning, half-crouching, against the wall. Still those eyes were fixed upon his.
Anthony went on: “I offer this excuse, I say. It is that I love you. Oh, I know I’m laughable! You can tell me I’ve only known you for—what is it?—three days. You can tell me that I have only been in your company for a few—a very few—hours of those days. You can tell me all this and more. You can tell me that I know nothing of you nor you of me. And to it all I answer: Days? Time? Hours? Friendship? What have all these to do with me? I love you.”
The diffidence born of contrition for his treatment of her was fading fast. He came a step nearer.
“D’you hear what I say? I love you. I love you. I love you! From the first moment I saw you—in this room here—when I had come to make you tell me what you knew, from that moment, in that moment, I loved you.” He straightened himself and flung out both hands in a gesture almost Latin. “And, by God, can I be blamed? Can I be blamed for what I did just now, I say? For a hundred hours that were a hundred years I have been obsessed by you. Your hair—that black net of beautiful magic; your eyes—those great dark windows of your heart—they have been with me all those hundred hours that were a lifetime. I have drowned my soul in those eyes of yours, Madonna Lucia. I have—”
“Oh, stop, stop! What are you saying? This is all madness! Madness!” She was erect now, hands pressed to flaming cheeks.
But he would not stop. “Oh, I haven’t finished!” He laughed—a wild sound. “Not yet. You say this is madness. What is it that has made me mad? It is you, you, you! You—your face, your body, all the unbelievable wonder of you! You say that I am mad. I say that I am sane. What could be saner than a man who tells you, as I have told you, that he loves you? For how could any man help loving you? Madness, the real madness, would have lain in not telling you.” He came close and caught her hands and carried them to his lips. Fingers, palms, wrists, he covered them with kisses.
He straightened himself and released her. “And that,” he said wearily, “is that. I’m afraid I’ve grown dramatic. Forgive me.”
She did not speak. Anthony looked down; he could not trust himself to meet those eyes.
“And so now,” he said, “I’ll go.” He turned to the door.
There came a voice from behind him.
“But—but”—it stammered deliciously—“but please, I don’t want you to go. Please will you come back.”
II
“On Saturday,” said Anthony in his lady’s ear—one chair held them both—“on Saturday we leave this England. Before I’m wanted at this unpleasant trial a fortnight or three weeks will elapse, if I know anything of English justice. In that time, lady, we will paint a girdle of colour about the earth—or some of it at least.” His clasp tightened about her shoulders. “Shall we? Shall we? I want to take you away, right away! I want to show you places you’ve never seen before though you may have been in them many times. Where shall it be? Paris? Brittany? Sicily? Madrid? Any’ll be a better heaven than is really possible.”
To their ears came the hum of a car. As they listened, it grew louder; and yet louder. The car swept up the drive; halted. Down the stairs and past the door of the drawing-room came flying feet—Dora’s.
“Archie. It’s Archie!” Lucia struggled
