The Gambler Part 6

It lay before him like a tremendous gla.s.sy lake, stretching in one untroubled sweep from Orristown to the point, three miles away, where the purple headland of Carrigmore completed the semicircle of the bay.

The silence, the majesty of that sweep of water was indescribable. From the rim of yellow sand, which the indolent waves were lapping, to the misted horizon, not one sign of human life marred the smoothness of its surface. Across the bay at Carrigmore a few spirals of smoke rose from the cl.u.s.ter of pink and white cottages lying under the shadow of the Round Tower; on the long, sandy strand a couple of bare-legged boys were leisurely raking up the sea-weed that the waves had left, and slowly piling it on a waiting donkey b.u.t.t; but the sea itself was undisturbed. It lay as it might have lain on the first day of completed creation--mystical, sublime, untouched.

Milbanke was no poet, yet the scene impressed him. The extraordinary sense of an inimitable and impenetrable peace before which man and man's mere transitory concerns are dwarfed, if not entirely eliminated, touched him vaguely. It was with a tinge of something bordering upon reluctance that he at last drew his eyes from the picture and began to dress.

But once freed from the spell of the ocean, his mind reverted to the other interests that lay closer at hand. He found himself wondering how his entertainers would appear on a second inspection; whether, like his room, they would take on a more commonplace semblance with the advent of daylight. The touch of irrepressible and human curiosity that the speculation aroused gave a spur to the business of dressing; and it was well under the twenty minutes usually devoted to his neat and careful toilet when he found himself crossing the corridor and descending the stairs.

He encountered no one as he pa.s.sed through the hall; and catching a fresh suggestion of suns.h.i.+ne through the door that stood hospitably open, he paused for an instant to take a cursory glance at the gravelled sweep that terminated the drive, and the gra.s.sy slope surmounted by a fringe of beeches that formed the outlook from the front of the house. Then he turned quickly, and, recrossing the hall, pa.s.sed into the dining-room.

None of the household had yet appeared, but here also the daylight had worked changes.

The curtains were drawn back, permitting the view of fields and sea, that he had already studied from his bedroom, to break uninterruptedly through the three lofty windows. The effect was one of extreme airiness and light; and it was quite a minute before his gaze turned to the darker side of the room, where the portrait of the famous Anthony a.s.shlin hung above the fire.

Realising that he was alone in the big room, he crossed to the table where breakfast was already laid--the remains of the enormous ham rising from an untidy paper frill to defy the attacks of the largest appet.i.te. In the brilliance of the light, the fineness of the table linen and its state of dilapidation were both accentuated, as was the genuine beauty and intrinsic value of the badly kept silver.

But Milbanke had no time to absorb these details, for instantly he reached the table his eye was caught by a folded slip of paper lying by his place. With a touch of surprise he stooped forward and picked it up; then a wave of annoyance, almost of guilt, succeeded the surprise as he realised that it was a cheque made out in a.s.shlin's straggling handwriting for his losses of the night before.

As he fingered it uncomfortably a vivid remembrance of his interview with Clodagh rose to his mind. He thought of the poverty, suggested rather than expressed by the girl's words; he thought of the Muskeere horse-dealer who had all but emptied the stables. With a puckered brow he studied his own name scrawled across the cheque; then, with a sense of something like duplicity, he hurriedly pushed it under his plate as he heard the hall door close, and footsteps sound across the hall. A moment later a.s.shlin, followed by his two daughters, entered the room.

All three greeted him in turn; then a.s.shlin crossed to the fire and proceeded to stir it to a blaze, while Nance and Clodagh pa.s.sed to their appointed places.

Both girls looked pleasantly in keeping with the fresh morning--their rich, youthful colouring having nothing to fear from the searching light. Nance was dressed in a very clean blue cotton frock that accentuated the colour of her eyes; but Clodagh was again attired in the old-fas.h.i.+oned riding-habit, though this time the boy's cap was absent, and the suns.h.i.+ne caught reflections in her light brown hair.

"I hope you don't mind my being dressed like this," she said, as she took her seat. "I always have a ride in the mornings, and I generally tidy up for breakfast; but I'm riding a race at ten with Larry--my cousin, you know--so 'twouldn't be worth while to change to-day."

She spoke quite naturally, encountering Milbanke's eyes with no suggestion of embarra.s.sment for last night's adventure.

He met her glance for an instant; then his own wandered guiltily to the corner of the cheque protruding from under his plate.

"Not at all!" he said hurriedly--"not at all! I hope I may be permitted to see the race."

Clodagh smiled.

"Of course--if you like," she said. "But it won't be much to look at."

She added this with a quick glance that ineffectually attempted to gauge the guest's tastes and powers of appreciation.

"'Twill be grand!" murmured Nance softly. "And I know who's going to win."

"Nonsense!" said Clodagh. "I won in the practice last night, but the strand was wet, and the cob is only sure on hard ground."

But nevertheless she flushed and threw a quick look of appreciation and affection at her loyal little partisan.

"What are you two chattering about?" said a.s.shlin, standing up from the fire and straightening his shoulders.

"Is that your notion of hospitality? To keep a stranger waiting for his breakfast? Faith, we knew better in the old days--eh, James?"

He laughed, and pa.s.sed round the table.

Clodagh presided at the old-fas.h.i.+oned silver urn; and either her confidences of the night before or the prospect of her coming contest affected her, for she forgot the diffidence that had marked her at the dinner of the preceding evening, and talked brightly and with interest on a variety of subjects. Finally, as she handed Milbanke his second cup of tea, she touched upon the object of his visit.

"'Twas to see the ruins at Carrigmore, not us, that you came, wasn't it?" she said with a shade of humour.

He returned her glance seriously.

"Oh no," he said. "At least----"

"Ah, now you've let it out!" she cried, with a laugh. "I knew it. I said so. Didn't I, Nance? I knew no one would come here just to see us."

a.s.shlin laughed.

"'Pon my soul!" he cried, "you haven't learned your market value yet, Clo! If I were a girl, I'm hanged if I'd rate myself lower than a fourth-century ruin."

He laughed afresh.

But Clodagh displayed no embarra.s.sment. She was too unversed in the ways of coquetry to see or resent the point of the remark.

"I?" she said naively. "What have I to do with it?"

After this there was a trifling silence, at the end of which, a.s.shlin looked quickly at his guest.

"By the way, James," he exclaimed, "we were too well amused last night to look ahead. I never thought of asking you about to-day. Have you any pet plans or schemes? Is it to be a pilgrimage to St. Galen? Or what do you say to a day in the saddle? There's a meet not five miles away; and if a good gallop pleases you, I have as neat a little horse for you as ever carried a saddle. What do you say? Of course if you think the Round Tower is likely to collapse or be demolished by a tidal wave, I won't raise a finger; but----"

Milbanke laughed.

"My dear Denis," he said quickly, "don't you trouble on my account." He glanced deprecatingly over a.s.shlin's sporting attire. "Don't you trouble about me. I never was a sportsman, as you know. I'll go to my own hunting, and you go to yours. Don't let me interfere with any plans you may have formed. I enjoy a solitary excursion."

But a.s.shlin's face darkened.

"Oh no," he objected after a short pause--"oh no. If you're not game for it, then the meet is off so far as I'm concerned. I can't have you roaming about the country by yourself. Oh no; I hope I remember my obligations."

Milbanke looked distressed. With a genuine feeling of embarra.s.sment he turned from one face to the other.

"My dear Denis," he objected feebly, "I must really beg of you----"

"Not another word!--not another word!" a.s.shlin ostentatiously helped himself to some ham, "I hope, James, that whatever our environments, we still understand the traditions of hospitality. If you don't feel on for it, there's no hunting for me to-day."

After this there was another unpleasant pause. a.s.shlin attempted to hide his chagrin, but his face was unmistakably dark with disappointment.

For a s.p.a.ce Milbanke toyed with his breakfast, then he spoke again.

"But, my dear Denis, if you will only allow me----" he ventured.

But before a.s.shlin could reply, Clodagh's voice broke in.

"Oh! you needn't bother so much, father," she said easily. "You go to the meet, and I'll take Mr. Milbanke to Carrigmore. I'll drive him over in the pony-trap, or we'll walk--whichever he likes best."

She spoke fluently and gaily, and it was difficult for Milbanke to reconcile the high, buoyant tones of her voice with the serious note struck by her the night before. Filled with relief, however, at her timely interruption, he was satisfied to let the discrepancy go unregarded.

"Excellent!" he cried--"an excellent idea, Miss Clodagh! Here's your difficulty solved, Denis. Your Irish sense of chivalry won't allow you to deprive me of so charming a guide."