The Vision of Desire Part 22

His blue eyes swept the girl's slim, supple figure as she lay in the hammock with a long, raking glance that missed nothing and then came back to her face.

"If I answered that question truthfully you'd pretend to be offended," he said.

"I shouldn't pretend--anything," she retorted. "Please tell me why you're here."

"Oh, that's quite a different proposition! I can answer that one. I'm here as the emissary of my respected Aunt Susan."

"Lady Susan?"

"Yes. We've just walked over from White Windows, and when we arrived and found you were out, and that the delightful old Devons.h.i.+re party who opened the door to us could supply no recent data concerning your whereabouts, Aunt Susan collapsed into a comfortable chair and sent me to spy out the land."

Ann sprang up out of the hammock.

"How good of her to have walked over in all this heat!" she said, preparing to lead the way back to the house.

"It was my doing," he replied with an air of complacency, as they walked on together. "I only arrived yesterday and she talked so much about you that I was consumed with a quite pardonable anxiety to meet you."

"I hope you found it worth the three-mile walk," commented Ann dryly.

"Oh, quite," he returned with conviction. "I always like making new friends."

The cool a.s.surance of the a.s.sertion annoyed her.

"We've hardly got to that stage yet," she observed distantly.

"No. But we shall do"--confidently. "Perhaps further than that, ultimately."

She threw him a quick glance and encountered his eyes fixed on her with a kind of gay bravado--like that of a small boy experimenting how far he dare go. It irritated her--this sanguine a.s.sumption of his that he was going to count for something in her life. She walked on more quickly.

"Aren't you rather a conceited person?" she asked mildly.

"I'd prefer to call it having decided ideas," he returned.

"Well, you must know you can't force your ideas on other people."

"Can't I?" He halted in the middle of the path and faced her. "Do you really think that?"

Ann avoided meeting his glance, but she felt it playing over her like lightning over a summer sky. It was as though he had flung down a challenge and dared her to pick it up. She temporised.

"Do I think--what? I've almost forgotten what we were talking about."

"No, you haven't," he returned bluntly. "You're merely evading the question--as every woman does when she's afraid to answer."

"I'm not afraid!" exclaimed Ann indignantly. "I certainly shouldn't be afraid of you," she added, emphasising the final p.r.o.noun pointedly.

"Shouldn't you?" He looked down at her with an odd intentness. "Do you know, I think I should rather like to make you--afraid of me."

In spite of herself Ann shrank a little inwardly. She was suddenly conscious of a sense of the man's force, of the dogged tenacity of purpose of which he might be capable. He had not been dowered with that conquering nose and those dare-devil, reckless eyes for nothing! She could imagine him riding rough-shod over anything and any one in order to attain his ends.

She contrived a laugh.

"I hope you won't attempt such a thing," she said, endeavouring to speak lightly. "If you do, I shall appeal to Lady Susan for protection."

"That wouldn't help you any," he a.s.sured her. "Aunt Susan would let you down quite shamelessly. She keeps a permanently soft spot in her heart for disreputable characters--like me."

When they reached the house they discovered Lady Susan located in the easiest chair she could find, placidly smoking a cigarette, her gold-k.n.o.bbed ebony stick--inseparable companion of her walks abroad--propped up beside her. From outside the front door could be heard sundry scratchings and appealing whines, punctuated by an occasional hopeful bark, which emanated from the bunch of dogs without whom she was rarely to be seen in Silverquay. They went by the generic name of the Tribes of Israel--a gentle reference to their tendency to multiply, and they ran the whole gamut of canine rank, varying in degree from a pedigree prize-winner to a mongrel Irish terrier which Lady Susan had picked up in a half-starved condition in a London side-street and had promptly adopted.

The last-named was probably her favourite, since, as Forrester had remarked, she had a perennially soft spot in her heart for disreputable characters.

"My dear," she said, as Ann stooped and kissed her, "I do hope and pray that your adorable Maria Coombe is at this moment concerning herself with the making of tea. Much as I love you, I shouldn't have toiled over here in this appalling heat but for this graceless nephew of mine, who would give me no peace till I did. So I chose the lesser evil."

Forrester seemed supremely unrepentant, but Ann noticed that when tea appeared he waited rather charmingly on Lady Susan, antic.i.p.ating her wants even down to the particular brand of cigarette she preferred to smoke when, after swallowing three cups of scaldingly hot tea _a la Russe_, she p.r.o.nounced her thirst satisfactorily a.s.suaged. There was a certain half-humorous, half-tender indulgence in his manner towards her, and Ann could imagine that he would know very well how to spoil the woman he loved.

But he would master her completely first. Of that she felt sure.

It appeared that he had descended upon White Windows unexpectedly. He had been cruising round the coast and, without troubling to apprise Lady Susan of his intention, had suddenly elected to pay her a visit, and his yacht, the _Sphinx_, was now lying at anchor in Silverquay Bay.

"And even now I don't know how long he proposes staying!" smiled his aunt.

"How long?" He smiled back at her. "The question is, how long will you put up with me? I don't think--now"--with a swift, audacious glance which Ann refused to meet--"that I can do better than throw myself on the hospitality of White Windows for the remainder of the summer."

"My dear boy"--Lady Susan beamed. "Will you really? I should love to have you; you know that. And, after all"--with a twinkle--"Silverquay has its amus.e.m.e.nts. We take tea with each other, and boat, and bathe--"

"I can do all those things," said Forrester modestly. He turned suddenly to Ann. "Can you swim?"

"I can keep up for about two strokes," she replied, smiling. "After that, overcome by my own prowess, I sink like a stone."

"Then I'll teach you," he said. "We'll begin to-morrow. What time and where do you generally bathe?"

Ann raised one or two feeble objections, but they were promptly overruled, and before she quite knew how it had happened she found herself committed to a promise that she would be at Berrier Cove the following morning, prepared to take a first lesson in the art of swimming.

"It's really a very sensible idea," approved Lady Susan. "If you'd actually tipped over into Lac Leman that night, you'd certainly have gone to the bottom if you'd had to depend on your own unaided efforts."

"What happened?" asked Forrester with interest, and Lady Susan embarked on a graphic account of Ann's adventure during the progress of the Venetian fete at Montricheux, and of the way in which Eliot Coventry had come to her rescue.

"Coventry? Is that the morose-looking individual who lives at Heronsmere?"

inquired Brett.

Ann glanced up in some surprise.

"Oh, have you met him already?"

"We came across him with Brian Tempest on our way here," explained Lady Susan. "The two men are rather a study in contrasts," she added. "Brian is really a great dear. I always think it's so clever of him to have preserved his faith in human nature when he's condemned to live with that oil-and-vinegar sister of his. It may be very unchristian of me"--with a small schoolboy grin--"but I simply can't abide Caroline Tempest!"

Shortly afterwards she professed herself sufficiently rested to essay the return journey to White Windows.

"I shall certainly come down to the Cove to-morrow and watch you disporting yourselves in the briny," she said, as she kissed Ann good-bye. "Does Robin bathe with you?"

"When he has time. But Cara Hilyard is sure to be there. She swims like a fish."

"That's the lovely lady who lives at the Priory, isn't it? You'll have to meet her, Brett."