He looked at her, and for a moment it revived, it stirred in his heart, that odd mingled sense of absurdity and tenderness.

She would come back, he told himself; she would come back. Meanwhile he could call his soul his own, to say nothing of his body. Under all the shock of it Ransome felt a certain relief in realizing that Violet Usher had gone. It was as if some danger, half discerned, had been hanging over him and had gone with her.

But winter and spring pa.s.sed, and she did not come back. They pa.s.sed monotonously, like all the springs and winters he had known. He had got his rise at Michaelmas; but he was free from the obsession of the matrimonial idea and all that he now looked forward to was an indefinite extension of the Athletic Life.

In June of nineteen-four he entered for the Wandsworth Athletic Sports.

He hoped to win the silver cup for the Hurdle Race, against Fred Booty, as he had done last year.

Wandsworth was sure of its J. R. F. Ransome. Putney and Wimbledon, competing, were not sending any better men than they had sent last year.

And this year, as Booty owned, Ransome was "a fair masterpiece," a young miracle of fitness. His admirable form, hitherto equal to young Booty's, was improved by strenuous training, and at his worst he had what Booty hadn't, a fire and a spirit, a power, utterly incalculable, of sudden uprush and outburst, like the loosening of a secret energy. When he flagged it would rise in him and sting him to the spurt. But, while it made him the darling of the crowd, it was apt to upset the betting of experts at the last minute.

There is a level field not far from Wandsworth which is let for football matches and athletic sports. Railings and broken hedges and a few elm trees belt the field. All round the s.p.a.ce marked out for the contest, a ring of ropes held back the straining crowd; and all round, within the ring, went the course for the mile-flat race. Down one side of the field, facing the Grand Stand, was the course for the jumping, for the hundred yards' flat race, and for the hurdle race, which was the last event. On this side, where the crowd was thickest, the rope was supplemented by a wooden barrier.

The starting-post was on the right near the entrance to the field; the winning-post on the left directly opposite the Grand Stand. Those who could not buy tickets for the Grand Stand had to secure front places at the barrier if they wished to see anything.

Here, then, there was a tight-packed line of men and women, youths and girls, with an excited child here and there squeezed in among them, or squatting at their feet under the barrier. Here were young Tyser and Buist and Wauchope of the Polytechnic, who had come to cheer. And here, by the winning-post, well in the front, having been there since the gates were open, were Maudie Hollis and Winny Dymond, in flower-wreathed hats and clean white frocks. Behind, conspicuous in their seats on the Grand Stand as became them, were Mr. and Mrs. Randall, and with them was Ranny's mother.

For all these persons there was but one event--the Hurdle Race. For all of them, expectant, concentrated on the imminence of the Final Heat, there was but one distraction, and that was the remarkable behavior of a young woman who had arrived too late for a satisfactory place among the crowd.

She had wriggled and struggled through the rear, with such success that her way to the front row was obstructed only by the bodies of two small children. They were firmly wedged, yet not so firmly but that a determined young woman could detach them by exerting adequate pressure.

This she did; and having loosened the little creatures from their foot-hold, she partly lifted, partly shoved them behind her and slipped into their places at the barrier. This high-handed act roused the resentment of a young man, the parent or guardian of the children. He wanted to know what she thought she was doing, shoving there, and told her that the kids had as much right to see the blooming show as she had, and he'd trouble her to give 'em back the place she'd taken. And it was then that the young woman revealed herself as remarkable. For she turned and bent upon that young man a pair of black brows with blue eyes smiling under them, and said to him in a vivid voice that penetrated to the Grand Stand, "Excuse me, but I _do_ so want to see." And the young man, instead of making the obvious retort, took off his hat and begged her pardon and gave her more room than she had taken.

"Well," said Mr. Randall (for he had been observing her for some time with sidelong appreciation), "some people have a way with them."

"Some people have impudence," said Mrs. Randall.

"And if it was you or me, Bessie," Mrs. Ransome said, "it wouldn't have been made so easy for us."

"I see you wanting to shove anybody, Emmy," said her brother.

"If I did, I shouldn't begin with little innocent children. I should shove some one of my own size."

Then they were silent and paid no more attention to the young woman and her ways.

For far down at the end of the course the racers, the winners of the first four heats, were being ranged for the start, four abreast; the two young men from Putney and Wimbledon on the inside of the course, Fred Booty in the middle, and Ransome outside. Booty knew that, starting even with his rival, he hadn't much of a chance. As for the young men from Putney and Wimbledon, they would be nowhere.

Of those four young bodies, Ransome's was by far the finest. Even Booty, with his wild slenderness and faunlike grace, could not be compared with Ransome, so well knit, so perfect in every limb was he. Beside him the two young men from Putney and Wimbledon were distinctly weedy. He stood poised, with head uplifted, his keen mouth tight shut, his nostrils dilated, his eyes gazing forward, intent on the signal for the start.

His brown hair, soaked in the sweat of the first heat and then sun-dried, was crisped and curled about his head. Under his white gauze "zephyr" and black running-drawers the charged muscles quivered. His whole body was a quivering vehicle for the leashed soul of speed.

The pistol-shot was fired. They let themselves go. From far up the course by the winning-post, where Winny leaned out over the barrier, it was as if at the first row of hurdles four bodies leaped into the air like one and wriggled there. At the sixth row, well in sight, two bodies, Booty and Ransome, soared clean and dropped together. Putney and Wimbledon rose wriggling close behind their drop. At the seventh row Ransome was in front, divided from Booty by an almost imperceptible interval. Putney and Wimbledon were several yards behind. At the eighth and the ninth hurdles he rose gloriously and alone; Booty dropped with a dull thud a yard behind him. Putney and Wimbledon were nowhere. n.o.body looked at them as they went lolloping, unevenly, dejectedly, over their seventh hurdle.

And now Booty was catching up, but the race was Ransome's. He knew it.

Booty knew it. The field knew it.

Ranny's mother knew it. Little s.h.i.+vers went up and down her back; there was a painful constriction in her throat, and tears of excitement in her eyes; her hand was clenched convulsively over her pocket handkerchief which had rolled itself into a ball. She had been holding herself in; for she knew that these symptoms would increase when she saw Ranny, her boy, come running.

Below, at the barrier, there were hoa.r.s.e cries, shrill cries, deep shouting. "Go it, Ransome! Go it, old Wandsworth! Wandsworth wins!"

Tyser and Buist and Wauchope were yelling "Stick it, Ranny! Stick it!"

"Stick it!" "Stick--it!" The last voice, which was Wauchope's, died away in a groan.

Somebody was leaning over the barrier, on a line with the last hurdles.

Somebody stretched out an arm and shook a little white handkerchief at him as he came on. Somebody caught his eyes and struck him with a blue flash under black brows. She struck and fixed him as he ran to his last leap.

He looked at her and started and stood staggering with checked speed.

And as he staggered Booty rose slenderly and dropped and rushed on to the tape-line at the winning-posts. The white tape fluttered across him as he breasted it. Booty had won the race.

They cheered him; they were bound to cheer the winner. But at the barrier and from the Grand Stand there burst forth a more frantic uproar of applause as Ransome recovered himself and took his last hurdle at a stand.

It was all very well to cheer him; but he was beaten, beaten in the race that was his.

He staggered out of the course. Hanging his head, and heedless of his friends, and of Booty's hand on his bent shoulder, he went and hid himself in the dressing-tent.

And there in the dressing-tent, his faunlike face more sanguine than ever in his pa.s.sion, Booty burst out like a young lunatic. He swore most horribly. He swore at the umpire. He swore at Ransome. He swore at everybody all round. The more Ranny congratulated him, the more he swore at him. He called Ranny a blanky young fool, and asked him what the blank he did it for. He said it was a blanky shame, and that if anybody tried to give _him_ a blanky cup, he'd throw it at 'em. Even when they'd calmed him down a bit, he still swore that he'd give Ranny the cup, for Ranny'd given him the race. He explained to them in his hoa.r.s.est tones that it stood to reason he could never have got in with the pace Ranny'd got on him. It wasn't fair, he said. It was a fluke, a blanky fluke.

And round him Tyser and Buist and Wauchope clamored in the tent and agreed with him, declaring that it wasn't fair. Of course it was a fluke, a blanky fluke.

And Ranny, though he told Booty to dry up and stow it; though he put it to Tyser and Buist and Wauchope that it wasn't any blanky fluke, that it couldn't well be fairer, seeing how he'd funked it at the finish, Ranny knew in his heart that somewhere there was something queer about it. He couldn't think why on earth he'd funked it.

That night, in her little room in St. Ann's Terrace, Winny lay awake and cried.

Violet Usher had come back.

CHAPTER X

It was from the next day, Sunday, that he dated it--what happened. It followed as a sequel to the events of Sunday.

For Ransome was convinced that it never could have happened if he had not gone with Wauchope on Sunday evening to that Service for Men. He used to say that if you traced it back far enough, poor old Wauchope was at the bottom of it. It was poor old Wauchope who had "rushed" him for the Service (in calling him poor old Wauchope, he recognized him as the unknowing and unwilling thing of Destiny). Thus it had its root and rise in the extraordinary state of Wauchope's soul.

Wauchope had realized that he _had_ a soul, and was beginning to take an interest in it. That, of course, was not the way he put it when he approached Ransome on Sat.u.r.day night after the Sports Dinner at the "Golden Eagle." All he said was that he was "in for it." Been let in by a curate johnnie who'd rushed him for a Service for Men to-morrow night at Clapham. Wauchope wasn't going because he wanted to, but because the curate was such a decent chap he didn't like to disappoint him. He ran a Young Men's Club in St. Matthias's, Clapham, and Wauchope helped him by looking in now and then for a knock-up with the gloves. The curate was handy with the gloves himself. A bit c.u.mbrous, but fancied himself as a featherweight, in a skipping, dodging, dance-all-round-you, land-you-one-presently sort of style. Well, the curate johnnie had been handing round printed invitations for this Service. "All Welcome," don't you know? "Come, and bring a Friend." Wauchope had promised, Honor Bright, he'd come and bring a friend. And Ransome, in a weak moment, had consented to be brought.

The Service would be at eight, and would last, say, till nine. Half past nine was the very earliest hour he could fix for his appointment with Miss Usher.

For he had seen her. She had risen up before him, to his amazement, on that Sunday evening, as he turned out of his own door on his way to supper with Wauchope at Clapham. He had walked with her for five minutes, wheeling his bicycle in the gutter, while they settled how and where they were to meet.

She was living in Wandsworth, lodging in St. Ann's Terrace, near to Winny Dymond, so that Winny could take care of her. She had got another situation at Starker's, in the millinery department.

He proposed that he should meet her at closing-time to-morrow, and she smiled at him and said she didn't mind; but Winny would be there (he had forgotten Winny). Then he suggested next Sat.u.r.day afternoon or Sunday about three; and she said she really couldn't say. Sat.u.r.day and Sunday were such a long way off, and things might be different now that she was in the millinery. And she smiled again, and in such a manner that he had a vision, a horrible vision, of other fellows crowding round her on Sat.u.r.days and Sundays. He more than suspected that this was "c.o.c.k-a-tree"; but it made him desperate, so that he said, "Well--how about to-night?"

Well--_to-night_ she'd promised Winny she'd be good and go to church.