XXIX

ASTh.o.r.e

The sun hung low over Northbrook hills as Barres turned his touring car in between the high, white service gates of Foreland Farms, swung around the oval and backed into the garage.

Barres senior, very trim in tweeds, the web-straps of a creel and a fly-book wallet crossing his breast, glanced up from his absorbing occupation of preparing evening casts on a twelve-foot, tapered mist-leader.

"h.e.l.lo," he said absently, glancing from his son to Westmore through his monocle, "where have you been keeping yourselves all day?"

"I'll tell you all about it later, dad," said Garry, emerging from the garage with Westmore. "Where is mother?"

"In the kennels, I believe.... What do you think of this cast, Jim?--a whirling dun for a dropper, a hare's ear for a----" He checked himself; glanced doubtfully at the two young men.

"You're somewhat muddy," he remarked; and continued to explore his fly-book for new combinations.

Westmore, very weary, started for the house; Garry walked across to the kennel gate, let himself in among a dozen segregated and very demonstrative English setters, walked along the tree-bordered alley behind the garage, and, shutting out the affectionate but quarantined dogs, entered the kennels.

His mother, in smock and ap.r.o.n, and wearing rubber gloves, was seated on the edge of a straw-littered bunk, a bottle in one hand, a medicine-dropper in the other. Her four-footed patient, swathed in blankets, lay on the straw beside her.

"Well, dear," she said, looking up at her son, "where have you been all night, and most of to-day?"

"I'll tell you about it later, mother. There's something else I want to ask you----" He fell silent, watching her measure out fourteen drops of Grover's Specific for distemper.

"I'm listening, Garry," she said, bending over the sick pup and gently forcing open his feverish jaws. Then she dropped her medicine far back on his tongue; the pup gulped, sneezed, looked at her out of dull eyes and feebly wagged his tail.

"I'm going to pull him through, Garry," she said. "The other pups are doing well, too. But your sister and I were up with them all night. I only hope and pray that the distemper doesn't spread."

She looked up at her son:

"Well, dear, what is it you have to ask me?"

"Mother, do you like Dulcie Soane?"

"I scarcely know her yet.... She's very sweet--very young----"

"Do you like her?"

"Why--yes----" She looked intently at her tall, unsmiling son. "But I don't even know who she is, Garry."

Her son bent down beside her and put one arm around her shoulder. She sat quite motionless with the bottle of Grover's Specific in one rubber-gloved hand, the medicine dropper poised in the other.

He said:

"Dulcie's name is Fane, not Soane. Her grandfather was Sir Barry Fane, of Fane Court--an Irishman. His daughter, Eileen, was Dulcie's mother.... Her father--is dead--I believe."

"But--this explains nothing, Garry."

"Is it not explanation enough, mother?"

"Is it enough for you, my son?"

"Yes."

Her head slowly drooped. She sat gazing in silence at the straw-littered floor.

He looked earnestly, anxiously at his mother's face. Her brooding expression remained tranquil but inscrutable.

He said, watching her intently:

"I wasn't sure about myself until last night. I don't know about Dulcie, whether she can care for me--in this new way.... We were friends. But I am in love with her now.... Deeply."

It was one of the moments in his career which remain fixed forever in a young man's memory.

In a mother's memory, too. Whatever she says and does then, he never forgets. She, too, remembers always.

He stood leaning over her in the dim light of the kennel, one arm around her shoulders, waiting. And presently she lifted her head, looked him quietly in the eyes, bent forward very gently, and kissed him.

Dulcie was not in the house, nor was Thessalie.

Barres and Westmore exchanged conversation between their open doors while bathing and dressing.

"You know, Garry," admitted the latter, "I feel all shaken up, yet, over that ghastly business."

"So do I.... If they hadn't died so gamely.... But Skeel was a _man_!"

"You bet he was, crazy or sane!... What a pity!... And that poor devil, Soane! Did you hear them cheering there, at the last? And what superb nerve--breaking out that green flag!"

"And think of their opening on that big patrol boat! They hadn't a chance."

"They had no chance anyway," said Westmore. "It meant execution if they surrendered--at least, they probably thought so. But how do you suppose that cowardly strangler, Ferez, felt when he realised that Skeel was going to fight?"

"He certainly got what was coming to him, didn't he?" said Barres grimly. "You'll tell Thessa, won't you?"

"As soon as I can find her," nodded Westmore, giving his fresh bow-tie a most killing twist.

He was ready before Barres was, and he lost no time in starting out to find Thessalie.

Barres, following him later, discovered him on the library lounge with Thessalie's fair cheek resting against his.

"I'm s-sorry!" he stammered, backing out, and very conscious of Westmore's unconcealed annoyance. But Thessalie called to him in a perfectly calm voice, and he ventured to come back.

"Are you going to tell Dulcie about this horrible affair?" she asked.

"Not immediately.... Are you feeling all right, Thessa?"

"Yes. I had a horrid night. Isn't it odd how a girl can so completely lose her nerve after a thing is all over?"