Ben Blair Part 43

Sidwell turned blankly. "Read what, please?" he asked.

The girl smiled triumphantly. "The story you have just written. I know by your face it must be good."

The flame of exaltation vanished. The man understood now.

"What if I should refute your theory?" he asked.

"I hardly believe that is possible. I know of nothing else which could make you look like that."

Sidwell hesitated. "There are but few things," he admitted, "but nevertheless I spoke the truth. It was one of them this time."

Florence smiled interestedly. "I am very curious," she suggested.

The brown eyes and the black met steadily. "Very well, then," said the man, "I'll tell you. The reason was, because I have with me the handsomest girl in the whole city."

Instantly the brown eyes dropped; the face reddened, but not with the flush of pleasure. Florence was not yet sufficiently artificial for such empty compliment.

"I'd rather you wouldn't say such things," she said simply. "They hurt me."

"But not when they're true," he persisted.

There was no answer, and they drove on again in silence; the tap of the thoroughbreds' feet on the asphalt sounding regular as the rattle of a snare-drum, the rows of houses at either side running past like the s.h.i.+fting scenes of a panorama. They pa.s.sed numbers of other carriages, and to the occupants of several Sidwell lifted his hat. Each as he did so glanced at his companion curiously. The man was far too well known to have his actions pa.s.s without gossip. At last they reached a semblance of the open country, and a few minutes later Sidwell pointed out the row of lights on the broad veranda of the big one-story club-house. The affair had begun in the afternoon with a golf tournament, and when the two drove up and Sidwell turned over his trotters to a man in waiting, the entertainment was in full blast, although the hour was still early.

The building itself, ordinarily ample for the organization's rather exclusive members.h.i.+p, was fairly crowded on this occasion. The club-house had been given up to the orchestra and dancers, and refreshments were being served on the lawn and under the adjoining trees. Even the veranda had been cleared of chairs.

As Sidwell and his companion approached the place, he said in an undertone, "Let's not get in the crush yet; if we do, we won't escape all the evening." His dark eyes looked into his companion's face meaningly. "I have something I wish especially to say to you."

Florence did not meet his eyes, but she well knew the message therein.

She nodded a.s.sent to the request.

Making a detour, they emerged into the park, and strolled back to a place where, seeing, they themselves could not be seen. Sidwell found a bench, and they sat down side by side. The girl offered no suggestion, no protest. Since that row of lights had appeared in the distance she had become pa.s.sive. She knew beforehand all that was to take place; something that she had decided to accede to, the details of which were unimportant. An apathy which she did not attempt to explain held her.

The music heard so near, the glimpses of s.h.i.+fting, faultlessly dressed figures, the loveliness of a perfect night--things that ordinarily would have been intensely exhilarating--now pa.s.sed by her unnoticed. Her senses were temporarily in lethargy. If she had a conscious wish, it was that the inevitable would come, and be over with.

From without this land of unreality she was suddenly conscious of a voice speaking to her. "Florence," it said, "Florence Baker, you know before I say a word the thing I wish to tell you, the question I wish to ask. You know, because more than once I've tried to speak, and at the last moment you have prevented. But you can't stop me to-night. We have run on understanding each other long enough; too long. I have never lied to you yet, Florence, and I am not going to begin now. I will not even a.n.a.lyze the feeling I have for you, or call it by name. I know this is an unheard-of-way to talk to a girl, especially one so impressionable as you; but I cannot help it. There is something about you, Florence, that keeps me from untruth, when probably under the same circ.u.mstances I would lie to any other woman in the world. I simply know that you impersonate a desire of my nature ungratified; that without you I have no wish to live."

Strange and cold-blooded as this proposal would have seemed to a listener, Florence heard it without a sign. It did not even affect her with the shock of the unexpected. It was merely a part of that inevitable something she had antic.i.p.ated, and had for months watched slowly taking form.

"I suppose it seems unaccountable to you," the voice went on, "that I should have been attracted to you in the first place. It has often been so to me, and I've tried to explain it. Beautiful, you undeniably are, Florence; but I do not believe it was that. It was, I think, because, despite your ideals of something which--pardon me--doesn't exist, you were absolutely natural; and the women I'd met before were the reverse of that. Like myself, they had tasted of life and found it flat. I danced with them, drank with them, went the round of so-called gayety with them; but they repelled me. But you, Florence, are very different.

You make me think of a prairie anemone with the dew on its petals. I haven't much to offer you save money, which you already have in plenty, and an empty fame; but I'll play the game fair. I'll take you anywhere in the world, do anything you wish." Out of the shadow an arm crept around the girl's waist, closed there, and she did not stir. "I am writing an English story now, and the princ.i.p.al character, a soldier, has been ordered to India. To catch the atmosphere, I've got to be on the spot. The boat I wish to take will leave in ten days. Will you go with me as my wife?"

The voice paused, and the face so near her own remained motionless, waiting. Into the pause crept the music of the orchestra--beat, beat, beat, like the throbbing of a mighty heart. Above it, distinct for an instant, sounded the tinkle of a woman's laugh; then again silence. It was now the girl's turn to speak, to answer; but not a sound left her lips. She had an odd feeling that she was playing a game of checkers, and that it was her turn to play. "Move!" said an inward monitor. "Move!

move!" But she knew not where or how.

The man's arm tightened around her; his lips touched hers again and again; and although she was conscious of the fact, it carried no particular significance. It all seemed a part of the scene that was going on in which she was a silent actor--of the game in which she was a player.

"Florence," said an insistent voice, "Florence, Florence Baker! Don't sit like that! For G.o.d's sake, speak to me, answer me!"

This time the figure stirred, the head drooped in a.s.sent.

"Yes," she said.

Again the circling arm tightened, and the man's lips touched her own, again and again. The very repet.i.tion aroused her.

"And you will sail with me in ten days?"

Fully awake was Florence Baker now, fully conscious of all that had happened and was happening.

"Yes," she said. "The sooner the better. I want to have it over with." A moment longer she sat still as death; then suddenly the mood of apathy departed, and in infinite weakness, infinite pathos, the dark head buried itself on the man's shoulder. "Promise me," she pleaded brokenly, "that you will be kind to me! Promise me that you always will be kind!"

CHAPTER XXVI

LOVE'S SURRENDER

Scotty Baker was not an adept at concealing his emotions, and he stared in unqualified surprise at the long figure in brown which of a sudden intruded into his range of vision. The morning paper upon his knees fluttered unnoticed to the floor of the porch.

"Ben Blair, by all that's good and proper!" he exclaimed to the man who, without a look to either side, turned up the short walk. "Where in heaven's name did you come from? I supposed you'd gone home a week ago."

Blair stopped at the steps, and deliberately wiped the perspiration from his face.

"You were misinformed about my going," he explained. "I changed hotels, that was all."

Scotty stared harder than before.

"But why?" he groped. "I inquired of the clerk, and he said you had gone by an afternoon train. I don't see--"

Ben mounted the steps and took a chair opposite the Englishman.

"If you will excuse me," he said, "I would rather not go into details.

The fact's enough--I am still here. Besides--pardon me--I did not call to be questioned, but to question. You remember the last time I saw you?"

Scotty nodded an affirmative. He had a premonition that the unexpected was about to happen.

"Yes," he said.

Ben lit a cigar. "You remember, then, that you made me a certain promise?"

Scotty threw one leg over the other restlessly. "Yes, I remember," he repeated.

The visitor eyed him keenly. "I would like to know if you kept it," he said.

Scotty felt the seat of his chair growing even more uncomfortable than before, and he cast about for an avenue of escape. One presented itself.

"Is that what you stayed to find out?" he questioned in his turn.

Ben blew out a cloud of smoke, and then another.