Belle had told Betty that she was "crazy" about Nicholas Kenyon. There is usually a wildness of exaggeration about this expression which renders it almost harmless. The exuberant type of girl who uses it applies it with equal thoughtlessness to a new hat, a new play or a new set of furs. She will be crazy about a tenor and a pomeranian, a so-called joke in a comic paper and the sermon of a fashionable preacher. In regard to Kenyon, however, Belle was really and truly crazy in its most accurate dictionary sense. After the Worcester Ball, during which she gave him nearly every dance,--to the fl.u.s.tered concern of the Don's wife who was her chaperon,--she went to no trouble to conceal from Kenyon the fact that she found him vastly attractive. Kenyon was not surprised. Already he was a complete expert in the art of making himself loved by women. He knew exactly what they liked him to say and he said it with a touch of insolence which took their breath away and a following touch of deference which gave them back their self-respect.

Belle was very much to his liking. Her rather Latin beauty, which was rendered unexplainable by the sight of her parents--her incessant high spirits and love of life--her nave a.s.sumption that she was the mistress of all the secrets of this world, amused, interested and tickled his fancy. Her beauty, freshness and youth pleased him as an epicure, and he went out of his way to be with her as much as he could. He had no intention whatever of falling in love with her,--first of all because it was all against his creed to fall in love with anyone but himself; secondly, because his way of living demanded that he should have no partner in his business,--all that he could win by his wits he would need. Nevertheless, he was quite as ready as usual to take everything that was given to him, and give nothing in return except flattery, well-rounded sentences and a good deal of his personal attention.

During the week that pa.s.sed so quickly he had only been able to see Belle with her people, and when he found that this bored her as much as it bored him, he set his brain to work to devise some plan by which he could escape with her from the party for a few hours. Needless to say he succeeded.

On the night before the party were to leave Oxford he arranged another evening trip on the river, maneuvered Peter into one punt with his father and mother, Graham and Betty, and got into another with Belle.

For some little time he poled along closely behind them, but as the river was full of similar parties he found it easy to drop behind and dodge deftly into a back water. Here he tied up to a branch, set himself down on the cushions at Belle's side and lit a cigarette.

"How's that?" he asked.

Belle laughed a little excitedly. "Very clever," she said. "I wondered how you were going to do it."

He didn't find it necessary to tell her that he had performed a similar trick a hundred times. "Under the right sort of inspiration," he said, "even I can develop genius. Tell me something about New York, and what you find to do there."

"I should have to talk from now until to-morrow morning even to begin to tell you," she said. "I only came out last winter, but the history of it would fill a book. New York is some town and I guess a girl has a better time there than anywhere else in the world. Why don't you come and see something of it for yourself?"

Kenyon leaned lightly against the girl's soft shoulder. "That's precisely what I'm going to do," he said. "Your father has given me a cordial invitation to stay at his house, and I shall go over with Peter in October."

"Oh, isn't that fine!" cried Belle. "You'll love the place--it's so different."

"I'm not worrying about the place," said Kenyon. "I'm simply going for the chance of dancing with you to the band which really does know how to play rag-time. It'll be worth crossing three thousand miles of unnecessary water to achieve that alone."

"I don't believe you," said Belle; but all her teeth gleamed in the moonlight and her heart pumped a little. How wonderful it would be to become the wife of the Honourable Nicholas Kenyon, who seemed to her to be everything that was desirable.

Kenyon picked up her hand and just touched it with his lips. "You don't believe it? Well, we'll see." He knew very well that if he had chosen to do so he could have kissed her lips, but his policy was to go slow. His epicurianism was so complete that he liked to take his enjoyment in sips and not empty his gla.s.s at a gulp. This girl whose imagined worldliness was so childlike was well worth all his attention. He looked forward with absolute certainty to the hour when he should place her on his little list of achievements; but like all collectors and connoisseurs he added to his pleasure by winning his point gradually, step by step, with a sort of cold-blooded pa.s.sion.

Belle was accustomed to men who were a little crude in their naturalness and who immediately voiced their admiration and their liking with boyish spontaneity. She had strings of beaux of all ages who immediately sent her flowers and presents and dogged her heels from dance to dance and rang her up constantly on the telephone and generally showed their eagerness with that lack of control which was characteristic of a nation which had deliberately placed women in the position of queens.

Perhaps it was because this man's methods were so different that she found him so attractive. He fed her vanity and piqued it at the same time. He said more by saying nothing than any man had ever ventured to do, and he retired so quickly after an amazing advance that he left her a.s.suming more than if he had never advanced at all. It was perfectly natural, although she had already dipped into the fastest New York set, that she should believe that at the end of every man's intention there was a marriage and a sort of throne in his house. She little knew Nicholas Kenyon. She had had the good fortune to meet men in New York, and not collectors.

"What are your father's plans when he leaves Oxford?" asked Kenyon, leaning a little more closely against the girl's soft shoulder.

"Why, we're going to Shakespeare's country, to the English lakes and then to Scotland, where father's ancestors lived; and then in August we shall go to London for a week, and go home on the _Olympic_. Why don't you go over with us?"

"I should like nothing better," said Kenyon, "but as a matter of fact I shall wait until Peter has got through his various engagements. He rows at Henley in July, you know,--the boat is entered for the Lady's Plate,--and then he comes home with me. He wants to shoot my father's birds in August and see a little of English country life before he settles down to his law work in America."

Belle was silent for a few moments. She wished that this wonderful week could be extended over the whole of her holidays. She knew, and was really a little frightened at knowing, that when she left Oxford the next day she would leave behind her a heart that had hitherto been quite untouched. She was amazed and even a little annoyed to find that a mere week had brought about such a revolution in all her feelings and in her whole outlook on life. She had meant to have a perfectly wonderful time before falling in love.

"I suppose," she said, "that we shan't hear anything of you until we see you again, unless,--unless you write sometimes to mother and tell her how you are and what Peter is doing."

Kenyon didn't even smile. "Peter will write to your mother once a week, as usual--he's very consistent--and I'll get him to put in a postscript about me, if you like. I shall have some difficulty in preventing myself from writing to you from time to time, although I'm a child in the art of letter-writing."

"Why should you prevent it? I should simply love to have your letters."

"But isn't your mother a little old-fashioned?"

"Maybe," said Belle, "but does that matter? You've not met any American girls before--that's easy to see. We do just what we like, and if our mothers don't agree they don't dare to say so. Shall I tell you why?

Because it wouldn't make any difference if they did."

"Then I shall write," said Kenyon, "and give you brief but eloquent descriptions of English weather, English politics and the condition of my liver,--that is to say, the three inevitable topics of this country."

Belle laughed. "Then it will be perfectly safe for me to leave your letters about," she said.

"Perfectly,--always supposing that you censor the postscripts."

"I'm crazy about you!" said Belle; and this time her laugh awoke the echoes of the river and filled a nightingale near by with a pathetic ambition to emulate its music.

And then they heard Peter's great voice shouting, "N-i-c-k!" Whereupon Kenyon gathered himself together, not unpleased at being disturbed, stood up gracefully and pulled back into the main stream. "The call of duty," he said--"such is life." It was consistent with his policy to conduct this most pleasant affair by instalments.

When he saw the other punt he asked Peter, with a touch of beautiful petulance, why he had deliberately lost them, and turned a deaf ear to Graham's idiotic chuckle.

The landing stage was in the shadow, which was just as well. When Kenyon gave his hand to Belle to help her out of the punt, he drew her close against him and with a touch of pa.s.sion as unexpected as the sudden flash of a searchlight across a dark sky left a kiss on her lips that took her breath away.

All the way back to the hotel she hung on Peter's arm and dared not trust herself to speak. For the first time in her young life she had caught a glimpse of its meaning. It left her strangely moved and thrilled.

Little Mrs. Guthrie walked back with Kenyon, very proud of the fact that he was Peter's friend.

Poor little mother!

VIII

On the steps of the Randolph Hotel, Mrs. Guthrie turned to Kenyon and asked him, with one of her most motherly smiles, to have some supper with them. Telegraphing quickly to Peter and Graham that they were not to accept the invitation, Kenyon said: "Nothing would give me greater pleasure--absolutely nothing. Unfortunately Peter and I have already accepted an invitation from two of our Dons and we cannot possibly get out of this dull but profitable hour."

"How very disappointing!" said Mrs. Guthrie.

"How silly!" said Belle.

Betty merely said, "Oh!" but the rest of her sentence was condensed into one quick look at Peter.

Peter, utterly without guile, turned round to Nicholas Kenyon in blank amazement. "It's the first I've heard of it," he said. "What on earth do you mean? Two of the Dons? Who are they?"

But Kenyon was an artist and a strategist, and therefore a liar. "My dear old boy! What would you do without me? I'm your diary, your secretary, your guide, philosopher and friend. If you've forgotten the engagement I certainly haven't." And he shot at Peter a swift and subtle wink, in which he included Graham.

Scenting adventure and gathering that the two Dons were in all probability coming from the chorus of "The Pirates of Penzance," Graham joined in quickly. "I suppose I can't come and listen humbly to the learned conversation of these two professors?"

"But why not?" said Kenyon. "No doubt you can tell them more about Wall Street in five minutes than they would ever learn in their lives.

Therefore, dear Mrs. Guthrie, I'm afraid we must all say 'good-night.'

We'll rejoin you in the morning for breakfast as arranged, and wind up what's been the pleasantest week of my life, by driving out to Woodstock for lunch."

It was all done in the most masterly manner, and when the three men left the hotel arm in arm they were not guided by Kenyon toward St. Giles, but to the theatre, where the curtain was just about to fall with the last act.

"What's all this?" asked Peter, impatiently. "Mother had set her heart upon having us to supper."

"Mother has had us all day," replied Kenyon. "Bear in mind the fact that there are other women in the world to whom we owe a little gallantry.

You and Graham are going to eat Welsh Rabbit at the somewhat humble rooms of my little friends, Lottie Lawrence and Billy Seymour."

"I'll see you d.a.m.ned first!" said Peter. "I've no use for these people.

Come on, Graham, let's go back."