"I would not touch a penny! I meant to give it to the schools, here--whatever I recovered.... Your misunderstanding of me is abominable!"

He hung his head, heavy-witted, confused as a stupid schoolboy, feeling, helplessly, his clumsiness of mind and body.

Something of this may have been perceptible to her--may have softened her ideas concerning him--ideas which had acc.u.mulated bitterness during the year of his misbehaviour and selfish neglect. Her instinct divined in his apparently sullen att.i.tude the slow intelligence and mental perturbation of a wilful, selfish boy made stupid through idleness and self-indulgence. Even what had been clean-cut, attractive, in his face and figure was being marred and coa.r.s.ened by his slothful habits to an extent that secretly dismayed her; for she had always thought him very handsome; and, with that natural perversity of selection, finding in him a perfect foil to her own character, had been seriously inclined to like him.

Attractions begin in that way, sometimes, where the gentler is the stronger, the frailer, the dominant character; and the root is in the feminine instinct to care for, develop, and make the most of what palpably needs a protectorate.

Without comprehending her own instinct, Mrs. Ascott had found the preliminary moulding of Portlaw an agreeable diversion; had rather taken for granted that she was doing him good; and was correspondingly annoyed when he parted his moorings and started drifting aimlessly as a derelict scow awash, floundering seaward without further notice of the trim little tug standing by and amiably ready to act as convoy.

Now, sitting her saddle in silence she surveyed him, striving to understand him--his recent indifference, his deterioration, the present figure he was cutting. And it seemed to her a trifle sad that he had no one to tell him a few wholesome truths.

"Mr. Portlaw," she said, "do you know that you have been exceedingly rude to me?"

"Yes, I--do know it."

"Why?" she asked simply.

"I don't know."

"Didn't you care for our friendship? Didn't it amuse and interest you?

How could you have done the things you did--in the way you did?... If you had asked my permission to build a dozen dams I'd have given it.

Didn't you know it? But my self-respect protested when you so cynically ignored me--"

"I'm a beast all right," he muttered.

She gazed at him, softened, even faintly amused at his repentant bad-boy att.i.tude.

"Do you want me to forgive you, Mr. Portlaw?"

"Yes--but you oughtn't."

"That is quite true.... Turn your horse and ride back with me. I'm going to find out exactly how repentant you really are.... If you pa.s.s a decent examination you may dine with Miss Palliser, Mr. Wayward, and me.

It's too late anyway to return through the forest.... I'll send you over in the motor."

And as they wheeled and walked their horses forward through the dusk, she said impulsively:

"We have four for Bridge if you like."

"Alida," he said sincerely, "you _are_ a corker."

She looked up demurely. What she could see to interest her in this lump of a man Heaven alone knew, but a hint of the old half-patient, half-amused liking for him and his slow wits began to flicker once more.

De gustibus--alas!

CHAPTER XXIV

THE SCHOOL OF THE RECRUIT

When Portlaw arrived home late that evening there existed within his somewhat ordinary intellect a sense of triumph. The weak usually experience it at the beginning and through every step of their own subjugation.

Malcourt, having decided to take an express which stopped on signal at six in the morning, was reading as usual before the empty fireplace; and at the first glance he suspected what had begun to happen to Portlaw.

The latter bustled about the room with an air of more or less importance, sorted his letters, fussed with a newspaper; and every now and then Malcourt, glancing up, caught Portlaw's eyes peeping triumphantly around corners at him.

"You've been riding?" he said, much amused. "Are you stiff?"

"A trifle," replied the other carelessly. "I must keep it up. Really, you know, I've rather neglected the horses lately."

"Rather. So you're taking up riding again?"

Portlaw nodded: "I've come to the conclusion that I need exercise."

Malcourt, who had been urging him for years to exercise, nodded approval as though the suggestion were a brand-new one.

"Yes," said Portlaw, "I shall ride, I think, every day. I intend to do a good bit of tramping, too. It's excellent for the liver, Louis."

At this piece of inspired information Malcourt a.s.sumed an expression of deepest interest, but hoped Portlaw might not overdo it.

"I'm going to diet, too," observed Portlaw, watching the effect of this astounding statement on his superintendent. "My theory is that we all eat too much."

"Don't do anything Spartan," said Malcourt warningly; "a man at your time of life--"

"My--what! Confound it, Louis, I'm well this side of forty!"

"Yes, perhaps; but when a man reaches your age there is not much left for him but the happiness of overeating--"

"What d'y' mean?"

"Nothing; only as he's out of the race with younger men as far as a pretty woman is concerned--"

"Who's out!" demanded Portlaw, red in the face. "What sort of men do you suppose interest women? Broilers? I always thought your knowledge of women was superficial; now I know it. And you don't know everything about everything else, either--about summonses and lawsuits, for example." And he cast an exultant look at his superintendent.

But Malcourt let him tell the news in his own way; and he did, imparting it in bits with naive enjoyment, apparently utterly unconscious that he was doing exactly what his superintendent had told him to do.

"You _are_ a diplomat, aren't you?" said Malcourt with a weary smile.

"A little, a little," admitted Portlaw modestly. "I merely mentioned these things--" He waved his hand to check any possible eulogy of himself from Malcourt. "I'll merely say this: that when I make up my mind to settle anything--" He waved his hand again, condescendingly.

"That man," thought Malcourt, "will be done for in a year. Any woman could have had him; the deuce of it was to find one who'd take him. I think she's found."

And looking up blandly:

"Porty, old fellow, you're really rather past the marrying age--"