The Eagle's Shadow

a bit better—no, not a bit.'

'It's very like his hat,' she declared, 'in that he has a new one every year.' Then she rested her hand on his, in a half-maternal fashion. 'What's the matter, boy?' she asked, softly. 'You're always so fresh and wholesome. I don't like to see you like this. Better leave phrase-making to us phrase-mongers.'

Her voice rang true—true, and compassionate, and tender, and all that a woman's voice should be. Billy could not but trust her.

'I've been an ass,' said he, rather tragically. 'Oh, not an unusual ass, Kathleen—just the sort men are always making of themselves. You see, before I went to France, there was a girl I—cared for. And I let a quarrel come between us—a foolish, trifling, idle little quarrel, Kathleen, that we might have made up in a half-hour. But I was too proud, you see. No, I wasn't proud, either,' Mr. Woods amended, bitterly; 'I was simply pig-headed and mulish. So I went away. And yesterday I saw her again and realised that I—still cared. That's all, Kathleen. It isn't an unusual story.' And Mr. Woods laughed, mirthlessly, and took a turn on the terrace.

Mrs. Saumarez was regarding him intently. Her cheeks were of a deeper, more attractive pink, and her breath came and went quickly.

'I—I don't understand,' she said, in a rather queer voice.

'Oh, it's simple enough,' Billy assured her. 'You see, she—well, I think she would have married me once. Yes, she cared for me once. And I quarreled with her—I, conceited young ass that I was, actually presumed to dictate to the dearest, sweetest, most lovable woman on earth, and tell her what she must do and what she mustn't. I!— good Lord, I, who wasn't worthy to sweep a crossing clean for her!—who wasn't worthy to breathe the same air with her!—who wasn't worthy to exist in the same world she honoured by living in! Oh, I was an ass! But I've paid for it!—oh, yes, Kathleen, I've paid dearly for it, and I'll pay more dearly yet before I've done. I tried to avoid her yesterday—you must have seen that. And I couldn't—I give you my word, I could no more have kept away from her than I could have spread a pair of wings and flown away. She doesn't care a bit for me now; but I can no more give up loving her than I can give up eating my dinner. That isn't a pretty simile, Kathleen, but it expresses the way I feel toward her. It isn't merely that I want her; it's more than that—oh, far more than that. I simply can't do without her. Don't you understand, Kathleen?' he asked, desperately.

'Yes—I think I understand,' she said, when he had ended. 'I—oh, Billy, I am almost sorry. It's dear of you— dear of you, Billy, to care for me still, but—but I'm almost sorry you care so much. I'm not worth it, boy dear. And I—I really don't know what to say. You must let me think.'

Mr. Woods gave an inarticulate sound. The face she turned to him was perplexed, half-sad, fond, a little pleased, and strangely compassionate. It was Kathleen Eppes who sat beside him; the six years were as utterly forgotten as the name of Magdalen's first lover. She was a girl again, listening—with a heart that fluttered, I dare say—to the wild talk, the mad dithyrambics of a big, blundering boy.

The ludicrous horror of it stunned Mr. Woods.

He could no more have told her of her mistake than he could have struck her in the face.

'Kathleen—!' said he, vaguely.

'Let me think!—ah, let me think, Billy!' she pleaded, in a flutter of joy and amazement. 'Go away, boy dear! —Go away for a little and let me think! I'm not an emotional woman, but I'm on the verge of hysterics now, for—for several reasons. Go in to breakfast, Billy! I—I want to be alone. You've made me very proud and—and sorry, I think, and glad, and—and—oh, I don't know, boy dear. But please go now—please!'

Billy went.

In the living-hall he paused to inspect a picture with peculiar interest. Since Kathleen cared for him (he thought, rather forlornly), he must perjure himself in as plausible a manner as might be possible; please God, having done what he had done, he would lie to her like a gentleman and try to make her happy.

A vision in incredible violet ruffles, coming down to breakfast, saw him, and paused on the stairway, and flushed and laughed deliciously.

Poor Billy stared at her; and his heart gave a great bound and then appeared to stop for an indefinite time.

'Good Lord!' said Mr. Woods, in his soul. 'And I thought I was an ass last night! Why, last night, in comparison, I displayed intelligence that was almost human! Oh, Peggy, Peggy! if I only dared tell you what I think of you, I believe I would gladly die afterward—yes, I'm sure I would. You really haven't any right to be so beautiful!—it isn't fair to us, Peggy!'

But the vision was peeping over the bannisters at him, and the vision's eyes were sparkling with a lucent mischief and a wonderful, half-hushed contralto was demanding of him:

 'Oh, where have you been, Billy boy, Billy boy?
   Oh, where have you been, charming Billy?'

And Billy's baritone answered her:

 'I've been to seek a wife—'

and broke off in a groan.

'Good Lord!' said Mr. Woods.

It was a ludicrous business, if you will. Indeed, it was vastly humorous—was it not?—this woman's thinking a man's love might by any chance endure through six whole years. But their love endures, you see; and the silly creatures have a superstition among them that love is a sacred thing, stronger than time, victorious over death itself. 

Let us laugh, then, at Kathleen Saumarez—those of us who have learned that love is only a tinkling cymbal and faith a sounding brass and fidelity an obsolete affectation: but for my part, I honour and think better of the woman who through all her struggles with the world—through all those sordid, grim, merciless, secret battles where the vanquished may not even cry for succour—I honour her, I say, for that she had yet cherished the memory of that first love which is the best and purest and most unselfish and most excellent thing in life.

XVI

Breakfast Margaret enjoyed hugely. I regret to confess that the fact that every one of her guests was more or less miserable moved this hard-hearted young woman to untimely and excessive mirth. Only Mrs. Saumarez puzzled her, for she could think of no reason for that lady's manifest agitation when Kathleen eventually joined the others.

But for the rest, the hopeless glances that Hugh Van Orden cast toward her caused Adele to flush, and Mrs. Haggage to become despondent and speechless and astonishingly rigid; and Petheridge Jukesbury's vaguely apologetic attitude toward the world struck Miss Hugonin as infinitely diverting. Kennaston she pitied a little; but his bearing toward her ranged ludicrously from that of proprietorship to that of supplication, and, moreover, she was furious with him for having hinted at various times that Billy was a fortune-hunter.

Margaret was quite confident by this that she had never believed him—'not really, you know'—having argued the point out at some length the night before, and reaching her conclusion by a course of reasoning peculiar to herself.

Mr. Woods, as you may readily conceive, was sunk in the Slough of Despond deeper than ever plummet sounded. Margaret thought this very nice of him; it was a delicate tribute to her that he ate nothing; and the fact that Hugh Van Orden and Petheridge Jukesbury—as she believed—acted in precisely the same way for precisely the same reason, merely demonstrated, of course, their overwhelming conceit and presumption.

So sitting in the great Eagle's shadow, she ate a quantity of marmalade—she was wont to begin the day in this ungodly English fashion—and gossiped like a brook trotting over sunlit pebbles. She had planned a pulverising surprise for the house-party; and in due time, she intended to explode it, and subsequently Billy was to apologise for his conduct, and then they were to live happily ever afterward.