The Hermit of Far End Part 20

"No. I--don't owe it to a shop at all. It's--it's a bridge debt!" The confession came out rather hurriedly.

Sara's face grew grave.

"But, Molly, you little fool, you've no business to be playing bridge.

Where have you been playing?"

"Oh, we play sometimes at the studios--when the light's too bad to go on painting, you know"--airily.

"You mean," said Sara, "the artists' club people play?"

"Yes."

Sara frowned. She knew that Molly was one of the youngest members of this club of rather irresponsible and happy-go-lucky folk, and privately considered that Selwyn had made a great mistake in ever allowing her to join it. It embodied, as she had discovered by inquiry, some of the most rapid elements of Oldhampton's society, and was, moreover, open to receive as temporary members artists who come from other parts of the country to paint in the neighbourhood. More than one well-known name had figured in the temporary members.h.i.+p list, and, in addition, the name of certain _dilettanti_ to whom the freedom from convention of the artistic life signified far more that art itself.

"I don't understand," said Sara slowly, "how they let you go on playing until you owed twenty pounds. Don't you square up at the end of the afternoon's play?"

"Yes. But I'd--I'd been losing badly, and--and some one lent me the money."

Molly flushed a bewitching rose-colour and appealed with big, pathetic eyes. It was difficult to be righteously wroth with her, but Sara steeled her heart.

"You'd no right to borrow," she said shortly.

"No. I know I hadn't. But, don't you see, I thought I should be sure to win it all back? I couldn't ask Dad for it. Every penny he can spare goes on something that mother can't possibly do without," added the girl with unwonted bitterness.

The latter fact was incontrovertible, and Sara remained silent. In her own mind she regarded Mrs. Selwyn as a species of vampire, sucking out all that was good, and sweet, and wholesome from the lives of those about her--even that of her own daughter. Did the woman realize, she wondered, that instead of being the help all mothers were sent into the world to be, she was nothing but a hindrance and a stumbling-block?

"I don't know what to do, I simply don't." Molly's humble, dejected tones broke through the current of Sara's thoughts. "You see, the worst of it is"--she blushed even more bewitchingly than before--"that I owe it to a _man_. It's detestable owing money to a man!"--with suppressed irritation.

Two fine lines drew themselves between Sara's level brows. This was worse than she had imagined.

"Who is it?" she asked, at last, quietly.

"Lester Kent."

"And who--or what--is Lester Kent?"

"He's--he's an artist--by choice. I mean," stumbled Molly, "that he's quite well off--he only paints for pleasure. He often runs down from town for a month or two at a time and takes out a temporary members.h.i.+p for our club."

"And he has lent you this money?"

"Yes"--rather shamefacedly.

"Well, he must be paid back at once. At once, do you understand? I will give you the twenty pounds--you're not to bother your father about it."

"Oh, Sara! You are a blessed duck!"

In an instant Molly's cares had slipped from her shoulders, and she beamed across at her deliverer with the most disarming grat.i.tude.

"Wait a moment," continued Sara firmly. "You must never borrow from Mr.

Kent--or any one else--again."

"Oh, I won't! Indeed, I won't!" Molly was fervent in her a.s.surances.

"I've been wretched over this. Although"--brightening--"Lester Kent was really most awfully nice about it. He said it didn't matter one bit."

"Did he indeed?" Sara spoke rather grimly. "And how old is this Lester Kent?"

"How old? Oh"--vaguely--"thirty-five--forty, perhaps. I really don't know. Somehow he's not the sort of person whose age one thinks about."

"Anyway, he's old enough to know better than to be lending you money to play bridge with," commented Sara. "I wish you'd give up playing, Molly."

"Oh, I couldn't!" coaxingly. "We play for very small stakes--as a rule. But it _is_ amusing, Sara. And, you know this place is as dull as ditchwater unless one does _something_. But I won't get into debt again--I really won't."

Molly had all the caressing charm of a nice kitten, and now that the pressing matter of her indebtedness to Lester Kent was settled, she relapsed into her usual tranquil, happy-go-lucky self. She rubbed her cheek confidingly against Sara's.

"You are a pet angel, Sara, my own," she said. "I'm so glad you adopted us. Now I can go to the Herricks' tea-party this afternoon without having that twenty pounds nagging at the back of my mind all the time. I suppose"--glancing at the clock--"it's time we put on our glad rags. The Lavender Lady said she expected us at four."

Half-an-hour later, Molly reappeared, looking quite impossibly lovely in a frock of the cheapest kind of material, "run up" by the local dressmaker, and very evidently with no other thought "at the back of her mind" than of the afternoon's entertainment.

The tea-party was a small one, commensurate with the size of the rooms at Rose Cottage, and included only Sara and Molly, Mrs. Maynard, and, to Sara's surprise, Garth Trent.

As she entered the room, he turned quietly from the window where he had been standing looking out at the Herricks' charming garden.

"Mr. Trent"--Miss Lavinia fluttered forward--"let me introduce you to Miss Tennant."

The Lavender Lady's pretty, faded blue eyes beamed benevolently on him.

She was so _very_ glad that "that poor, lonely fellow at Far End" had at last been induced to desert the solitary fastnesses of Monk's Cliff, but as she was simply terrified at the prospect of entertaining him herself--and Audrey Maynard seemed already fully occupied, chatting with Miles--she was only too thankful to turn him across to Sara's competent hands.

"We've met before, Miss Lavinia," said Trent, and over her head his hazel eyes met Sara's with a gamin amus.e.m.e.nt dancing in them. "Miss Tennant kindly called on me at Far End."

"Oh, I didn't know." Little Miss Lavinia gazed in a puzzled fas.h.i.+on from one to the other of her guests. "Sara, my dear, you never told me that you and Dr. Selwyn had called on Mr. Trent."

Sara laughed outright.

"Dear Lavender Lady--we didn't. Neither of us would have dared to insult Mr. Trent by doing anything so conventional." The black eyes flashed back defiance at the hazel ones. "I got caught in a storm on the Monk's Cliff, and Mr. Trent--much against his will, I'm certain"--maliciously--"offered me shelter."

"Now that was kind of him. I'm sure Sara must have been most grateful to you." And the kind old face smiled up into Trent's dark, bitter one so simply and sincerely that it seemed as though, for the moment, some of the bitterness melted away. Not even so confirmed a misanthrope as the hermit of Far End could have entirely resisted the Lavender Lady, with her serene aroma of an old-world courtesy and grace long since departed from these hurrying twentieth-century days.

She moved away to the tea-table, leaving Trent and Sara standing together in the bay of the window.

"So you are overcoming your distaste for visiting," said Sara a little nervously. "I didn't expect to meet you here."

His glance held hers.

"You wished it," he answered gravely.

A sudden colour flamed up into the warm pallor of her skin.

"Are you suggesting I invited you to meet me here?" she responded, willfully misinterpreting him. She shook her read regretfully. "You must have misunderstood me. I should never have imposed such a strain on your politeness."