"I should like to help you," she said simply.

"You are very good," he answered, still looking hard into the fire.

Lorraine got up and moved slowly about the room, touching a flower here, and a flower there, and rearranging them with deft fingers. She turned on an electric light with a soft shade, and glanced at the books Flip Denton had brought her.

Hermon sat back in his chair and watched her. He thought he had never seen her lovelier than she looked in the homely simplicity of a graceful tea-gown, and her thick black hair coiled in a large loose knot low on her neck. It gave her an absurdly youthful air, that somehow seemed far removed from the brilliant star as he knew her on the stage.

Then she came towards him, and stood beside him, resting one foot on the fender and one hand on the mantelpiece; and he saw, with swift seeing, the shapeliness of the long, thin fingers and the graceful, rounded arm.

"You are thoughtful, _mon ami_," she said, with a soft lightness.

"Tell me what you are thinking of."

"I don't know. I don't think I am thinking at all. I feel rather as if I were sunning myself in your smiles, like a cat."

"You like being here, like this?"

"I love it."

"Then come often. Why not?"

"I shall bore you."

"I think not. It is pleasant to me also to have some one keeping me company in such a natural, homely way. You see, I am very much alone.

I have no women friends except Hal, who is nearly always engaged; and there are not many men one can invite to come and sit by one's fireside. You seem to come so naturally and simply. It is clever of you. Very few men could. It is difficult to believe you are only twenty-four."

"I fancy years often do not go for very much. I have travelled about alone a great deal. Anyhow, you are just as young for thirty-two as I am old for twenty-four."

"Hal has helped to keep me young. She restores me like some patent elixir. I suppose I love her more than any one in the world."

"I'm not surprised," he answered. "A good many people love Hal. d.i.c.k and Quin just dote on her."

She looked at him keenly a moment.

"I am spared wasting my affection," he added, "by her obvious contempt for me."

"She doesn't mean any of it. She only wants to rouse you."

"Still, she succeeds in making me feel rather a worm."

Lorraine made no comment, but she could not resist a little inward smile at the thought of any one making such a man feel a worm. She realised there might be no harm in the leavening influence.

The clock struck seven, and he gave a start, rising quickly to his feet beside her. Lorraine was a little under medium height if anything, and as they stood together he seemed to tower above her like some splendid prehistoric human, while she appeared as some exquisite miniature, or frail and perfect piece of Dresden china.

And again it seemed as if his physical beauty acted upon her with some irresistible magnetism, flowing round her and over her and through her, till she was enveloped and obsessed by him.

His age was nothing, years are mere detail; she felt only that he was a splendid creature, and everything in her gloried in it. She rested her hand lightly on his arm.

"How big you are. You almost overpower me."

He smiled down at her, but it was just a quiet, friendly smile, and she could not tell if her touch stirred him.

"I'm afraid I am rather a monster. It is sometimes a nuisance."

"Ah, don't say that. I am quite sure the first Adam was as big as you, and Eve was frightened and ran away, but she wouldn't for the world have had him an inch smaller. And every true Eve since has gloried in the man who towered above her, and was a little terrifying in his strenght. Don't let them spoil you," she added with a note of wistfulness, "all the Eves who must needs follow with or without your bidding."

"I imagine Hal will counteract much of that; and the feeling, when I am with you, that I am just a great, brainless, useless animal."

"No; you are not that; and you are quite extraordinarily unspoilt as yet. Come and see me again soon, when you've nothing better to do."

"How soon?"

He was looking hard into her face now, almost as if he were only just fully realising her beauty, and she flushed a little as she met his ardent eyes and answered:

"As soon as you like."

"Friday is my first free evening."

"The come and dine here quietly. I shall not act this week at all. I shall run down to the sea from Sat.u.r.day to Monday."

She had intended to go on Friday afternoon, but with his nearness all Flip Denton's sage advice vanished from her mind, and instead of running away as he urged, she went a step nearer to the temptation.

When he had gone she sat down in the arm chair he had used, and stared hard at the fire. Jean came in to urge her to go to bed, but she only said:

"No; I like this room and the fire. Bring me the fish, or whatever it is, here. I will go to bed about half-past eight if you like, but not before."

So she sat on, and in her heart she saw still the fine face, with its unspoiled freshness, and felt his presence still filling the room.

It would seem Fate had brought her and Hal together into the arena of new happenings and new feelings, for amont the crowded houses of Bloomsbury, in a little high-up bedroo near the sky, Hal sat on the edge of her bed leisurely brushing her long, bright hair, and pondering a telephone message that had asked her to go for a motor ride the following Sat.u.r.day.

"It means putting Amy off," was her final cogitation, "but I think I'll go. It wil be such fun, and I'm rather sick of work."

So, in spite of strong wills and common-sense warning, we still, as ever, let our footsteps follow the alluring paths, and go boldly forth to meet a joy, ever careless of the following sorrow that may accompany it, until the hour of shunning is past.

CHAPTER XVI

The following Friday afternoon Lorraine went out with Flip Denton in his motor, and among his first questions was:

"Well, how is the foolish falling in love progressing?"

"It is stationary. I've got another friend I want to keep, Flip; another friend like you."

"Ah, I can't pa.s.s that. You were never even remotely in sight of falling in love with me. And you know what Kipling says: 'Love's like line-work; you can't stand still, you must go backward or forward.'

You don't propose to take my advice and run away from it?"