The Second Fiddle Part 17

"I beg your pardon," he said. "Why should you suppose any such thing?"

"I expect because it is true," said Stella, quietly. "Of course you don't growl or show your teeth, and your eyes aren't red; but n.o.body could suppose when you said 'Come in' just now that you wanted anybody to come in."

"The chances were all in favor of its being somebody that I didn't want," explained Julian, politely. "For once they misled me. I apologize."

Stella smiled; her eyes held his for a moment. She did not contradict him, but she let him see that she didn't believe him. "If he was ever really sorry," she thought, "he wouldn't apologize. When he's polite, it's because he isn't anything else."

"I came," she explained, "to ask you to lend me Professor Paulson's book on reindeer-moss. Will you tell me where it is and let me get it for myself, if Ostrog doesn't mind?"

To her surprise, Julian allowed her to find it for herself. Ostrog continued to growl, but without immediate menace. When she had found it, she took it across to Julian.

"Please don't run away," he said quickly, "unless you want to. Tell me what you intend to look up about the moss. I had a little tussle with Paulson over it once. He was an awfully able fellow, but he hadn't the health to get at his facts at first hand. That was unfortunate; second-hand accuracy leaks."

Stella sat down near him, and in a minute they were launched into an eager discussion. She had typed the book herself, and had its facts at her fingers'-end. She presented a dozen facets to her questions, with a light on them from her dancing mind.

Julian differed, defended himself, and explained, till he found himself at length in the middle of an account of his last expedition. He pulled himself up abruptly.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "what a dark horse you are! Do tell me how you come to know anything about such a subject. Did you smuggle yourself into an Arctic expedition as a stowaway, or have you been prospecting gold at Klondike with a six-shooter and a sleeping-sack? It's amazing what you know about the North."

"It is not so uncanny as you think," said Stella, quietly. "I was Professor Paulson's secretary. For five years I studied the fauna and flora of arctic regions. I used to help him examine the tests brought back by explorers. He taught me how to understand and check climate and weather charts. All the collected specimens went through my hands. I did the drawings for this book, for instance. You know, a secretary is a kind of second fiddle. Give him a lead, and he catches up the music and carries it through as thoroughly, though not so loudly, as the first violin. I like being a second fiddle and I like the North."

"That's odd," said Julian, drawing his heavy eyebrows together. "I had an idea I had met Professor Paulson's secretary before."

"You are quite right," said Stella; "you did meet her before."

Julian stared at her; his eyes hardened.

"Do you mean that it was you I met at Sir Francis Young's?" he asked her. "You are Miss Young's great friend, then, are you not?"

Stella turned her eyes away from him. She hated to see him guarding himself against her.

"I was her friend," she said in a low voice; "but I have not seen her or heard from her for six months, nor have I written."

Sir Julian still looked at her, but the sternness of his eyes decreased.

She sat meekly beside him, with her drooping head, like the snowdrops she had brought in with her from the March morning. She did not look like a woman who could be set, or would set herself, to spy upon him. He acquitted her of his worst suspicions, but his pride was up in arms against her knowledge.

"It's too stupid for me," he said, "not to have recognized you immediately; for I haven't in the least forgotten you or our talk. You said some charming things, Miss Waring; but fate, a little unkindly, has proved them not to be true."

Stella turned her eyes back to his. She no longer felt any fear of him.

She was too sorry for him to be afraid.

"No," she said eagerly, "I was perfectly right. I said you were strong.

Things have happened to you,--horrible things,--but you're there; you're there as well as the things--in control of them. Why, look at what you've been telling me--the story of your last expedition! It's so fearfully exciting, and it's all, as you say, first-hand knowledge. You brought back with you the fruits of experience. Why don't you select and sort them and give them to the world?"

He looked at her questioningly.

"Do you mean these old arctic sc.r.a.ps?" he said slowly. "They might have mattered once, but they're all ancient history now. The flood and the fire have come on us since then. All that's as dead--as dead and useless as a crippled man. Besides, no one can write a book unless it interests him. I'm not even interested."

Stella's eyes fell; her breath came quickly.

"But don't you think," she said, "you could be made a little interested again? You were interested, weren't you, when you were talking to me a few minutes ago?"

Sir Julian laughed good-naturedly.

"I dare say I was interested talking to you," he said. "You're such a changeling: you play chess like a wizard and know the North like a witch. I'm afraid, Miss Waring, that interest in your conversation isn't in itself sufficient to turn a man into an author."

Stella rose slowly to her feet. She opened her lips as if to speak to Julian, but he was looking past her out of the window, with a little bitter smile that took away her hopefulness. Ostrog escorted her, growling less and less menacingly, to the door. Stella did not look back at Julian, and she forgot to hold her head up as she went out of the room. After she had gone Julian discovered that she had dropped two of her snowdrops on the floor. He picked them up carefully and laid them on his desk.

"A curious, interesting girl," he said to himself; "an incredible friend for Marian to have had. I wonder what made my mother take her up?"

CHAPTER XX

Lady Verny finished her weeding. It took her an hour and a half to do what she wanted to the bed; then she rose from her cramped position, and went into Julian's library by one of the French windows. She guessed that Stella had failed.

Julian was lying on a long couch, with his hands behind the back of his head and his eyes fixed on the ceiling. Lady Verny knew that, when he was alone, he was in the habit of lying like this for hours. He had told her that since his accident it amused him more than anything else.

She came in without speaking, and, drawing off her long gauntlets, folded them neatly together, and sat down, facing him.

Julian's eyes moved toward her as she entered; but he gave her no further greeting, and after a speculative glance his eyes returned to the ceiling.

"It's a pity," said Lady Verny, thoughtfully, "that poor child has to go back to the town hall next week, a dreadful, drafty place, and be made love to by a common little town clerk."

Julian's eyes flickered for a moment, but did not change their position.

"Town clerks," he observed, "are, I feel sure, distinguished persons who confine their pa.s.sions to rates and taxes."

"That must make it all the more trying," said Lady Verny. "But I don't mind the town clerk as much as I mind the drafts. Stella had pleurisy before she came here; and you know what girls who do that kind of work eat--ghastly little messes, slopped on to marble tables, and tasting like last week's wash."

"Well, why the devil doesn't she look for another job?" Julian asked irritably. "She has brains enough for twenty. That's what I dislike about women: they get stuck anywhere. No dash in 'em, no initiative, no judgment." It was not what he disliked about women.

"She has tried," said Lady Verny. "The man she hoped to get a job from wouldn't have her. She tried this morning."

Julian's eyes moved now; they shot like a hawk's on to his mother's, while his body lay as still as a stone figure on a tomb.

"Then it was a trap," he said coldly. "I wondered. I thought we'd settled you were going to leave me alone."

"Yes," said Lady Verny in a gentle, even voice, "I know we had, Julian; but I can't bear it."

Julian's eyes changed and softened. He put his hand on her knee and let it rest there for a moment.

"I can, if it's only you," he said; "but I can't stand a lot of sympathetic women. One's a lot."

"You don't like her, then?" his mother asked. "I'm sorry; I always did from the first day I saw her. I don't know why; she hasn't any behavior."