CHAPTER VI.

AMARYLLIS.

A little after noon on the following day, Amaryllis and d.i.c.k Bellamy, followed by Gorgon with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, entered the hall by the front door, clamouring for drinks, to find Caldegard swearing over a telegram.

"What's the matter, dad?" she asked.

"Sir Charles Colombe," replied her father. "He will be deeply indebted if I will call at the Home Office at one-thirty p.m. I should think he would be! If the message had been sent in time I could have caught the twelve thirty-five. It's a quarter past now, and it can't be done."

"Yes, it can," said d.i.c.k. "Grab your hat and tie it on, while I get my car."

Randal, coming from his study, was in time to see the car vanish in a cloud of dust.

"Where are they going?" he asked.

"To catch the twelve thirty-five," replied Amaryllis. "d.i.c.k says he can do it in seven and a half minutes."

Randal not only noticed the christian name, but also the girl's unconsciousness of having used it.

"They want father at the Home Office. Who's Sir Charles Colombe, Sir Randal?" she asked.

"Permanent Under Secretary," he answered. "I suppose Broadfoot is making trouble again."

And he looked at her as if he were thinking of Amaryllis rather than of permanent or political chiefs of Home Affairs.

"This is Friday, you know," he said at last.

"Yes," replied the girl, and Randal thought her face showed embarra.s.sment--but of what nature, he could not tell.

"I won't spoil your lunch, my dear child," he said, looking down at her with eyes curiously contracted. "But if you'll give me half an hour in the afternoon----"

"Of course I will," she replied, with frank kindness. "And, oh! may I have a lemon-squash?"

A little later, as he watched her drink it, he admired her more than ever before. Since he first met her he had taken increasing pleasure from the tall figure, of which the fine lines and just proportions hid the strength and energy he had seen her upon occasion display; and he had often asked himself in what att.i.tude or action her inherent grace appeared most charming. Sometimes it was driving from the tee, at another taking a swift volley which she must run to meet; or, again, just pouring out his coffee. But now, lounging on the old leather sofa, with her head tipped well back for red lips and white teeth to capture the slip of ice sliding to them from the bottom of the long tumbler, he thought her the very perfection of innocent freedom and symmetry.

And when the ice was crunched and swallowed, she laughed joyously, showing him that the teeth he had cried pity on were sound as ever; so that he raked his mind for jest and anecdote just that he might see them flash yet again.

But there was a difference in her to-day--a softer touch, as of happiness to come, flinging backward in her face a clouded reflection from the future. The image in that distant mirror, however, he could not see, and his gaiety failed him.

"I'm awfully untidy," she said at last, springing to her feet and pushing back loosened hair. "It's nearly lunch time--I hope so, at least, because I'm horribly hungry."

Perhaps it was best, after all, standing a little to one side, to see her mount that flight of broad, shallow steps; yet, being unable at once to make up his mind, he waited there at the stair's foot to see her come down again.

She came at last, with so new a smile on her lips, that criticism was lost in curiosity. Its subtle curves blended expectancy, fear and tenderness, seen through a veil of restraint.

Then he saw that she was looking over his head, and turned to see his brother standing in the doorway, with the sunlight behind him.

The half-hour she had promised him left Amaryllis little less unhappy than Randal Bellamy.

Tea under the cedar was over, and Amaryllis could not eat even another eclair, when he had said to her, "It's half-past five."

"Oh, yes," she replied, and folded her hands in her lap.

"So I've got till six o'clock," he went on.

"Yes," said Amaryllis, adding, a little uneasily, "and as much longer as you like, Sir Randal."

He smiled at her mistake, and shook his head in resignation.

"You don't mean that--not in my sense," he said. "But look here, my dear: I do really think it wouldn't be a bad thing for you to marry me.

You have no idea how good I should be to you. I have money and position.

You like me, and you will like me better. And for me--well, it hardly seems fair to tell you what it would mean to me."

"Why not fair?" asked the girl, pained by his eagerness, and wishing it all over.

"I've always thought that appealing _ad misericordiam_ was taking a mean advantage. If I do it now, don't listen to me. But, if I'm worth it to you, Amaryllis, take me, and you shan't regret it."

"You are worth anything--everything!" she cried, much distressed. "Worth ever so much more, dear Sir Randal, than I could give. But I'd give you all that I am--indeed I would--if it wasn't for--for----"

"Yes?" he asked. "Go on. Wasn't for what?"

"If it wasn't for something that says 'don't!' Oh, please understand. I like you awfully, but it says it, and says it--I don't know why."

For a moment neither spoke.

"You _do_ understand, don't you?" she asked at last.

"I believe you, my dear," he answered; then added gently: "There's a happier man somewhere, I think."

Amaryllis opened her eyes wide, almost, it seemed, in fear.

"Oh, no, no!" she cried. "Truthfully, I don't know any more than I've told you."

When he was gone, she sat for a long time, wishing she could feel alone.

Several times between lunch and dinner that day had Amaryllis wondered why d.i.c.k Bellamy was so taciturn--silent and sombre almost to moroseness. But Randal had no doubt that he knew.

d.i.c.k, the least sullen and most even-tempered of men, was for once at war with himself. The midnight phantom had become a daylight obsession.

Although he thought he knew what women were, he had never reached a definition of "being in love." For, having more than once believed himself in that condition, he had as often found himself too suddenly free.

Before this English girl had seized upon his thoughts so that nothing else interested him, he had said there was always the car in which to run away.

He was not afraid of offending his brother, for Randal knew him as he knew Randal. But a man does not throw himself into the sea just because there is a lifebuoy handy. Secure, therefore, in his power to escape, it was not until this afternoon that he found decision forced upon him. If he went, there was good chance of freedom; if he stayed, no chance at all.

He was lying on his back, looking up through the branches of a huge tree, when he reached what he considered this clear alternative. He was a man who seldom lied to himself; so now it was with a sudden sharpness that he felt the sting of self-deception.