第27章

She started up and waved her sunshade, but he did not see her.No doubt he meant to go back with the gamekeeper, perhaps to the kennels, to see a retriever who had hurt his leg.Suddenly she was seized by the whim to overtake him.

She threw down the parasol, thrust her letter into her bodice, and catching up her skirts began to run.

She was slight and light, with a natural ease and quickness of gait, but she could not recall having run a yard since she had romped with Owen in his school-days; nor did she know what impulse moved her now.She only knew that run she must, that no other motion, short of flight, would have been buoyant enough for her humour.She seemed to be keeping pace with some inward rhythm, seeking to give bodily expression to the lyric rush of her thoughts.The earth always felt elastic under her, and she had a conscious joy in treading it; but never had it been as soft and springy as today.It seemed actually to rise and meet her as she went, so that she had the feeling, which sometimes came to her in dreams, of skimming miraculously over short bright waves.

The air, too, seemed to break in waves against her, sweeping by on its current all the slanted lights and moist sharp perfumes of the failing day.She panted to herself: "This is nonsense!" her blood hummed back: "But it's glorious!"and she sped on till she saw that Owen had caught sight of her and was striding back in her direction.

Then she stopped and waited, flushed and laughing, her hands clasped against the letter in her breast.

"No, I'm not mad," she called out; "but there's something in the air today--don't you feel it?--And I wanted to have a little talk with you," she added as he came up to her, smiling at him and linking her arm in his.

He smiled back, but above the smile she saw the shade of anxiety which, for the last two months, had kept its fixed line between his handsome eyes.

"Owen, don't look like that! I don't want you to!" she said imperiously.

He laughed."You said that exactly like Effie.What do you want me to do? To race with you as I do Effie? But Ishouldn't have a show!" he protested, still with the little frown between his eyes.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"To the kennels.But there's not the least need.The vet has seen Garry and he's all right.If there's anything you wanted to tell me----""Did I say there was? I just came out to meet you--I wanted to know if you'd had good sport."The shadow dropped on him again."None at all.The fact is I didn't try.Jean and I have just been knocking about in the woods.I wasn't in a sanguinary mood."They walked on with the same light gait, so nearly of a height that keeping step came as naturally to them as breathing.Anna stole another look at the young face on a level with her own.

"You DID say there was something you wanted to tell me,"her step-son began after a pause.

"Well, there is." She slackened her pace involuntarily, and they came to a pause and stood facing each other under the limes.

"Is Darrow coming?" he asked.

She seldom blushed, but at the question a sudden heat suffused her.She held her head high.

"Yes: he's coming.I've just heard.He arrives to-morrow.

But that's not----" She saw her blunder and tried to rectify it."Or rather, yes, in a way it is my reason for wanting to speak to you----""Because he's coming?"

"Because he's not yet here."

"It's about him, then?"

He looked at her kindly, half-humourously, an almost fraternal wisdom in his smile.

"About----? No, no: I meant that I wanted to speak today because it's our last day alone together.""Oh, I see." He had slipped his hands into the pockets of his tweed shooting jacket and lounged along at her side, his eyes bent on the moist ruts of the drive, as though the matter had lost all interest for him.

"Owen----"

He stopped again and faced her."Look here, my dear, it's no sort of use.""What's no use?"

"Anything on earth you can any of you say."She challenged him: "Am I one of 'any of you'?"He did not yield."Well, then--anything on earth that even YOU can say.""You don't in the least know what I can say--or what I mean to.""Don't I, generally?"

She gave him this point, but only to make another."Yes; but this is particularly.I want to say...Owen, you've been admirable all through."He broke into a laugh in which the odd elder-brotherly note was once more perceptible.

"Admirable," she emphasized."And so has SHE.""Oh, and so have you to HER!" His voice broke down to boyishness."I've never lost sight of that for a minute.

It's been altogether easier for her, though," he threw off presently.

"On the whole, I suppose it has.Well----" she summed up with a laugh, "aren't you all the better pleased to be told you've behaved as well as she?""Oh, you know, I've not done it for you," he tossed back at her, without the least note of hostility in the affected lightness of his tone.

"Haven't you, though, perhaps--the least bit? Because, after all, you knew I understood?""You've been awfully kind about pretending to."She laughed."You don't believe me? You must remember I had your grandmother to consider.""Yes: and my father--and Effie, I suppose--and the outraged shades of Givre!" He paused, as if to lay more stress on the boyish sneer: "Do you likewise include the late Monsieur de Chantelle?"His step-mother did not appear to resent the thrust.She went on, in the same tone of affectionate persuasion: "Yes:

I must have seemed to you too subject to Givre.Perhaps Ihave been.But you know that was not my real object in asking you to wait, to say nothing to your grandmother before her return."He considered."Your real object, of course, was to gain time.""Yes--but for whom? Why not for YOU?"

"For me?" He flushed up quickly."You don't mean----?"She laid her hand on his arm and looked gravely into his handsome eyes.

"I mean that when your grandmother gets back from Ouchy Ishall speak to her----"

"You'll speak to her...?"