"You must not say that. I am sure the Thorhaven people are grateful,"

murmured Miss Ethel.

"Old fool!" blurted out Mr. Graham with alarming ferocity and suddenness. "A woman like that ought to be kept indoors when other people are enjoying themselves, and only taken out in a churchyard on a chain. Fit for nothing else!"

"Arthur! What are you talking about?" said his wife, naturally startled.

"Well," he said, then had to swallow and choke. "Well, I bought one of those paper snakes just to encourage the lad and set things going a bit. Then I let it run out as I pa.s.sed a dull-looking group that seemed not to be enjoying themselves. And--and----"

"Well, Arthur?"

"A wretched woman turned round and called me an impudent old scoundrel--told me she didn't want any grey-haired married men after her girls."

"I don't believe it! I can't! She meant somebody else. Don't you feel sure she must have meant her remark for some other pa.s.ser-by, Mrs.

Bradford?" said Mrs. Graham, much agitated by his annoyance.

Mrs. Bradford eyed Mr. Graham with stolid thoroughness. "I think she must. He doesn't look at all like that. But my husband used to say that the sedate middle-aged-looking ones were often the worst, so perhaps she may have thought the same."

"If she did, she was an idiot," said Mrs. Graham; then abruptly changed the subject. "Oh, there's G.o.dfrey Wilson! I suppose he often comes through here on his way to his rooms."

"Yes, that's it. No fear of his wanting to dance with the girls on the promenade nowadays," answered Mr. Graham, beginning to recover himself by degrees. "Well, Lizzie, I think we've had enough of this, don't you? Shall we go in and have a bit of supper? Then I will see Mrs.

Bradford and Miss Ethel home."

But as they walked away, he could not refrain from casting a backward glance at the decent woman struggling with her unruly air-balloons, and a sense of disappointed _joie de vivre_ came over him once more. "I wish to goodness the whole bag o' tricks would blow away into the sea,"

he said. "I'd willingly pay the piper. I'm sick to death of seeing the things bob up and down in the wind."

"Are you?" said Miss Ethel in her sharp way. "Then why don't you buy them all up and send them to the children at the Convalescent Home that Laura is so interested in?"

"Now that's an idea," said Mr. Graham at once. For the feeling that it was his duty to give to a charitable inst.i.tution when he could, had been handed down to him--it was a part of life, no less natural than having his hair cut or going to the dentist's. Out in the new, changed world this instinctive generosity might already be taking flight--scared away, as the fairies had been by steam traffic--but in Thorhaven it still remained.

So he went back to the woman selling air-balloons with restored self-satisfaction, and stood there in the high wind, diving into his pockets for the amount required. The air balloons blew about--purple, pink and white--all looking almost equally colourless by the faint light as they bobbed about the woman's head, impeding her view of the purchaser. A few moments later she was making her way home, thankful to be done with a job which seemed to her ridiculous.

_Chapter XII_

_The End of the Gala_

G.o.dfrey Wilson waited until Mr. Graham had departed, then strolled slowly along the promenade towards Caroline. He had no real objection to anyone knowing that he spoke to her, but preferred to say a necessary word or two about the type-writing machine when Miss Ethel and her party were not there. This is what he told himself as he went along the path to the place where she stood with another girl, watching the dancing.

All the same it was something deeper than argument which informed his movements--something stronger than common sense. It was a stirring of the insatiable curiosity of the human being who has begun to be s.e.xually interested in another. Though not exactly coa.r.s.e-fibred, he was so far removed from anything attenuated as almost to be so. He only thought of himself.

He wanted to know what she was thinking of him, whether she liked him more or less than when they last met. And yet in spite of that he believed himself to be quite honest when he a.s.sured his conscience that he only wanted to say something about a paper carrier which had not worked well. For instinct is such a wonderful hand at camouflage that he believed quite honestly--despite previous experience--that he wanted nothing more. For the most wonderful thing about this kind of deception is that the same old trick may seem new time after time.

Just as a healthy woman forgets what she has gone through on having her child, so a very virile man will forget--in a way--what he has experienced in pursuit of a girl.

At any rate, G.o.dfrey Wilson was not at all conscious of going over old ground; though when he approached Caroline saying rather formally, "Good evening, Miss Raby. I just wanted to ask you if that paper carrier was working satisfactorily now----" he could not quite ignore the suggestion of a giggle in the att.i.tude of Caroline's companion, who moved away at once with some murmur about finding a cousin. The "Two's company and three's none!" in her tone spoke as plainly as that.

Wilson felt annoyed by it.

"Oh well, that was all I wanted to know," he said when she had given the information, and he spoke rather loudly and distinctly, so that anyone near might hear.

But as Caroline at once moved away to follow her friend, he suddenly felt that he wanted to say something more.

"The Gala has not been a very gay affair, has it? Nearly over now, though," he said.

She stood still again and they both glanced up and down the long promenade, which was fast emptying: just then a heavy cloud sailed across the moon, obscuring everything but those islands of light near the gas-lamps. The little coloured globes were by now more than half blown out, while the rest flickered uncertainly, accentuating the windy darkness. It was the last dance, and the band played very quickly.

The few couples left were mostly men and girls more or less in love with each other who wanted to spin out the happy hours.

"Come!" said Wilson, putting his arm round Caroline's waist, on the impulse of the moment. "Let's dance these last few bars. It is all over."

All over---- It was curious how the words echoed in his own mind as he circled round faster and faster. He would not be dancing with little girls on the Thorhaven promenade any more after to-night. He would be a married man when the next Gala took place--ranged, respected; and though he felt a deep affection for Laura, he knew it was not on that altar alone that he had sacrificed his freedom. His wife's fortune would also just lift him above the dead-level where opportunities are very few, into the region where a clever and enterprising man with ambition is certain to find many; but he was sufficiently fond of Laura to make the prospect of matrimony with her agreeable, though he was not what is called a marrying man.

But a bridegroom of his type is bound to have regrets, unless in the thrall of an engrossing pa.s.sion; and to-night Wilson felt these misgivings more acutely than he had done since his engagement--perhaps because the loss of bachelor freedom was getting so near. Therefore his dance with Caroline--though such a trivial matter in itself--was not simply a dance, but a last fling: and he felt a ridiculous desire to call out to the band to go on when he heard them stopping, so as to prolong something in his own life which he knew to be nearly at an end.

He did not do so, of course; and the performers at once began to pack up, thankfully looking forward to warmth and bed. Wilson and Caroline chanced to stop dancing near the turnstile leading on to the cliff, so they went out that way, which was near his lodgings, and equally convenient for her to reach the Cottage. One or two couples pa.s.sed out just before them, but Caroline and Wilson were the last, and when they stepped into the clayey ground at the beginning of the cliff path, they seemed to plunge all at once into absolute darkness.

"Careful!" cried Wilson sharply. "You'll be over the cliff in a minute, if you don't look out." And he put his hand through her arm.

The sea gleamed very faintly under the black sky as they turned their backs on it and walked cautiously along the uneven path leading to the main road. At the corner she stood still and withdrew her arm. "I can manage all right now. It was so dark under the shadow of that wall.

Good night."

"Oh no. I can't let you go home alone. You would be walking into a fence or spraining your ankle over a stone heap before you got to the Cottage," he answered. "Come on." And he took her arm again. "There!

You see you are stumbling already."

She had trodden carelessly, disturbed by his touch, and she felt his grasp strengthen--then felt some instinct in herself fighting against it. "No. I'll go alone. I can quite well. I'd rather. I hate bringing you so far out of your way." She spoke in short phrases, nervously.

"Of course, I can't let you walk home by yourself in this," he said, his a.s.surance somehow increased by her fluttering nervousness. "Don't be a silly girl. What are a few hundred yards to me one way or another?"

"Oh well!" Caroline suddenly gave way, feeling she had been making ridiculously too much of it. "Must be after eleven," she murmured.

"The Committee extended the time to eleven. I expect they'll wish they hadn't, when it was such a cold night."

"I suppose they've been out after eleven before." But she knew by his tone he was not thinking of what he was saying. All that they had really to say to each other seemed to be pa.s.sing through the electric current which pa.s.sed between his strong, warm fingers and the tingling flesh of her arm--though they actually did discourse about Mr. Graham, and the balloons, and the financial disappointment which the Gala must have been to the Committee.

But near the gate of the Cottage Caroline resolutely withdrew her arm.

"Please don't come up the drive. I'd rather you didn't. Good night!"

She spoke in a low voice, hurriedly.

"Sure you're all right?" he said.

"Yes. Yes. Good night," she repeated.

He let her go a few steps, then she suddenly felt an arm of iron about her, the brief touch of his lips on her cheek--heard his voice saying with a queer accent of triumph: "I knew it would be like that!"

He was gone, leaving her standing there. He had satisfied the urge of a burning curiosity which had a.s.sailed him first as she sat in the window of Laura's drawing-room, and he noticed the magnolia texture of her healthy pallor and the little golden powdering of freckles on her nose. He had fought against that recollection. He had been ashamed to have begun it there. Now as he strode away into the dark he swore to himself that he was satisfied; he would never let himself go again; that he would be faithful to Laura in thought and deed.

As for Caroline--well, he remembered that she had walked out with a young man named Wilf; probably with others before that. A kiss more or less was not a serious thing to a girl of that sort; though he felt sorry, all the same, that he had been betrayed into giving it.