Margaret Pedler - The Splendid Folly

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He dropped his hand suddenly.

"Oh, forgive me!" he exclaimed, with a quick gesture of deprecation.
"It--it was unpardonable of me . . ." His voice vibrated with some
strong emotion, and Diana regarded him curiously.

"Then you meant it?" she said slowly. "It was deliberate?"

He bent his head affirmatively.

"Yes," he replied. "I suppose you think it unforgivable. And yet--and
yet it would have been better so."

"Better? But why? I'm generally"--dimpling a little--"considered rather
nice."

"'Rather nice'?" he repeated, in a peculiar tone. "Oh, yes--that does
not surprise me."

"And some day," she continued gaily, "although I'm nobody just now, I may
become a really famous person--and then you might be quite happy to know
me!"

Her eyes danced with mirth as she rallied him.

He looked at her strangely.

"No--it can never bring me happiness. . . _Ah, mais jamais_!" he added,
with sudden passion.

Diana was startled.

"It--it was horrid of you to cut me," she said in a troubled voice.

"My punishment lies in your hands," he returned. "When I leave you at
the Rectory--after to-day--you can end our acquaintance if you choose.
And I suppose--you, _will_ choose. It would be contrary to human nature
to throw away such an excellent opportunity for retaliation--feminine
human nature, anyway."

He spoke with a kind of half-savage raillery, and Diana winced under it.
His moods changed so rapidly that she was bewildered. At one moment
there would be an exquisite gentleness in his manner when he spoke to
her, at the next a contemptuous irony that cut like a whip.

"Would it be--a punishment?" she asked at last.

He checked a sudden movement towards her.

"What do you suppose?" he said quietly.

"I don't know what to think. If it would be a punishment, why were you
so anxious to take it out of my hands? It was you who ended our
acquaintance on Sunday, remember."

"Yes, I know. Twice I've closed the door between us, and twice fate has
seen fit to open it again."

"Twice? . . . Then--then it _was_ you--in Grellingham Place that day?"

"Yes," he acknowledged simply.

Diana bent her head to hide the small, secret smile that carved her lips.

At last, after a pause--

"But why--why do you not want to know me?" she asked wonderingly.

"Not want to?" he muttered below his breath. "God in heaven! _Not want
to_!" His hand moved restlessly. After a minute he answered her,
speaking very gently.

"Because I think you were born to stand in the sunshine. Some of us
stand always in the shadow; it creeps about our feet, following us
wherever we go. And I would not darken the sunlit places of your life
with the shadow that clings to mine."

There was an undercurrent of deep sadness in his tones.

"Can't you--can't you banish the shadow?" faltered Diana. A sense of
tragedy oppressed her. "Life is surely made for happiness," she added, a
little wistfully.

"Your life, I hope." He smiled across at her. "So don't let us talk any
more about the shadow. Only"--gently--"if I came nearer to you--the
shadow might engulf you, too." He paused, then continued more lightly:
"But if you'll forgive my barbarous incivility of Sunday,
perhaps--perhaps I may be allowed to stand just on the outskirts of your
life--watch you pass by on your road to fame, and toss a flower at your
feet when all the world and his wife are crowding to hear the new _prima
donna_." He had dropped back into the vein of light, ironical mockery
which Diana was learning to recognise as characteristic of the man. It
was like the rapier play of a skilled duellist, his weapon flashing
hither and thither, parrying every thrust of his opponent, and with
consummate ease keeping him ever at a distance.

"I wonder"--he regarded her with an expression of amused curiosity--"I
wonder whether you would stoop to pick up my flower if I threw one? But,
no"--he answered his own question hastily, giving her no time to
reply--"you would push it contemptuously aside with the point of your
little white slipper, and say to your crowd of admirers standing around
you: 'That flower is the gift of a man--a rough boor of a man--who was
atrociously rude to me once. I don't even value it enough to pick it
up.' Whereupon every one--quite rightly, too!--would cry shame on the
man who had dared to insult so charming a lady--probably adding that if
bad luck befell him it would be no more than he deserved! . . . And I've
no doubt he'll get his desserts," he added carelessly.

Diana felt the tears very near her eyes and her lip quivered.. This man
had the power of hurting her--wounding her to the quick--with his bitter
raillery.

When she spoke again her voice shook a little.

"You are wrong," she said, "quite wrong. I should pick up the flower
and"--steadily--"I should keep it, because it was thrown to me by a man
who had twice done me the greatest service in his power."

Once again he checked, as if by sheer force of will, a sudden eager
movement towards her.

"Would you?" he said quickly. "Would you do that? But you would be
mistaken; I should be gaining your kindness under false pretences. The
greatest service in my power would be for me to go away and never see you
again. . . . And, I can't do that--now," he added, his voice vibrating
oddly.

His eyes held her, and at the sound of that sudden note of passion in his
tone she felt some new, indefinable emotion stir within her that was half
pain, half pleasure. Her eyelids closed, and she stretched out her hands
a little gropingly, almost as if she were trying to ward away something
that threatened her.

There was appeal in the gesture--a pathetic, half-childish appeal, as
though the shy, virginal youth of her sensed the distant tumult of
awakening passion and would fain delay its coming.

She was just a frank, whole-hearted girl, knowing nothing of love and its
strange, inevitable claim, but deep within her spoke that instinct,
premonition--call it what you will--which seems in some mysterious way to
warn every woman when the great miracle of love is drawing near. It is
as though Love's shadow fell across her heart and she were afraid to turn
and face him--shrinking with the terror of a trapped wild thing from
meeting his imperious demand.

Errington, watching her, saw the childish gesture, the quiver of her
mouth, the soft fall of the shadowed lids, and with a swift, impetuous
movement he leaned forward and caught her by the arms, pulling her
towards him. Instinctively she resisted, struggling in his grip, her
eyes, wide and startled, gazing into his.

"_Diana_!"

The word seemed wrung from him, and as though something within her
answered to its note of urgency, she suddenly yielded, stumbling forward
on to her knees. His arms closed round her, holding her as in a vice,
and she lay there, helpless in his grasp, her head thrown back a little,
her young, slight breast fluttering beneath the thin silk of her blouse.

For a moment he held her so, staring down, at her, his breath hard-drawn
between his teeth; then swiftly, with a stifled exclamation he stooped
his head, kissing her savagely, bruising, crushing her lips beneath his
own.

She felt her strength going from her--it seemed as though he were drawing
her soul out from her body--and then, just as sheer consciousness itself
was wavering, he took his mouth from hers, and she could see his face,
white and strained, bent above her.

She leaned away from him, panting a little, her shoulders against the
side of the car.

"God!" she heard him mutter.

For a space the throb of the motor was the only sound that broke the
stillness, but presently, after what seemed an eternity, he raised her
from the floor, where she still knelt inertly, and set her on the seat
again. She submitted passively.

When he had resumed his place, he spoke in dry, level tones.

"I suppose I'm damned beyond forgiveness after this?"

She made no answer. She was listening with a curious fascination to the
throb of her heart and the measured beat of the engine; the two seemed to
meet and mingle into one great pulse, thundering against her tired brain.

"Diana"--he spoke again, still in the same toneless voice--"am I to be
forbidden even the outskirts of your life now?"

She moved her head restlessly.

"I don't know--oh, I don't know," she whispered.

She was utterly spent and exhausted. Unconsciously every nerve in her
had responded to the fierce passion of that suffocating kiss, and now
that the tense moment was over she felt drained of all vitality. Her
head drooped listlessly against the cushions of the car and dark shadows
stained her cheeks beneath the wide-opened eyes--eyes that held the
startled, frightened expression of one who has heard for the first time
the beat of Passion's wings.

Gradually, as Errington watched her, the strained look left his face and
was replaced by one of infinite solicitude. She looked so young as she
lay there, huddled against the cushions--hardly more than a child--and he
knew what that mad moment had done for her. It had wakened the woman
within her. He cursed himself softly.

"Diana," he said, leaning forward. "For God's sake, say you forgive me,
child."

The deep pain in his voice pierced through her dulled, senses.

"Why--why did you do it?" she asked tremulously.

"I did it--oh, because for the moment I forgot that I'm a man barred out
from all that makes life worth living! . . . I forgot about the shadow,
Diana. . . . You--made me forget."

He spoke with concentrated bitterness, adding mockingly:--

"After all, there's a great deal to be said in favour of the Turkish
yashmak. It at least removes temptation."

Diana's hand flew to her lips--they burned still at the memory of those
kisses--and he smiled ironically at the instinctive gesture.

"I hate you!" she said suddenly.

"Quite the most suitable thing you could do," he answered composedly.
All the softened feeling of a few moments ago had vanished: he seemed to
have relapsed into his usual sardonic humour, putting a barrier between
himself and her that set them miles apart.

Diana was conscious of a fury of resentment against his calm readjustment
of the situation. He was the offender; it was for her to dictate the
terms of peace, and he had suddenly cut the ground from under her feet.
Her pride rose in arms. If he could so contemptuously sweep aside the
memory of the last ten minutes, careless whether his plea for forgiveness
were granted or no, she would show him that for her, too, the incident
was closed. But she would not forgive him--ever.

She opened her campaign at once.

"Surely we must be almost at the Rectory by now?" she began in politely
conventional tones.

A sudden gleam of wicked mirth flashed across his face.

"Has the time, then, seemed so long?" he demanded coolly.

Diana's lips trembled in the vain effort to repress a smile. The man was
impossible! It was also very difficult, she found, to remain righteously
angry with such an impossible person.

If he saw the smile, he gave no indication of it. Rubbing the window
with his hand he peered out.

"I think we are just turning in at the Rectory gates," he remarked
carelessly.

In another minute the motor had throbbed to a standstill and the
chauffeur was standing at the open door.

"I'm sorry we've been so long coming, sir," he said, touching his hat.
"I took a wrong turning--lost me way a bit."

Then as Errington and Diana passed into the house, he added thoughtfully,
addressing his engine:--

"She's a pretty little bit of skirt and no mistake. I wonder, now, if we
was lost long enough, eh, Billy?"

CHAPTER VII

DIANA SINGS

"I feel that we are very much indebted to you, Mr. Errington," said
Stair, when he and Joan had listened to an account of the afternoon's
proceedings--the major portion of them, that is. Certain details were
not included in the veracious history. "You seem to have a happy knack
of turning up just at the moment you are most needed," he added
pleasantly.

"I think I must plead indebtedness to Miss Quentin for allowing me such
unique opportunities of playing knight errant," replied Max, smiling.
"Such chances are rare in this twentieth century of ours, and Miss
Quentin always kindly arranges so that I run no serious risks--to life
and limb, at least," he added, his mocking eyes challenging Diana's.

She flushed indignantly. Evidently he wished her to understand that that
breathless moment in the car counted for nothing--must not be taken
seriously. He had only been amusing himself with her--just as he had
amused himself by chatting in the train--and again a wave of resentment
against him, against the cool, dominating insolence of the man, surged
through her.

"I hope you'll stay and join us at dinner," the Rector was
saying--"unless it's hopelessly spoilt by waiting so long. Is it, Joan?"

"Oh, no. I think there'll be some surviving remnants," she assured him.

"Then if you'll overlook any discrepancies," pursued Stair, smiling at
Errington, "do stay."

"Say, rather, if you'll overlook discrepancies," answered Errington,
smiling back--there was something infectious about Stair's geniality.
"I'm afraid a boiled shirt is out of the question--unless I go home to
fetch it!"

Diana stared at him. Was he really going to stay--to accept the
invitation--after all that had occurred? If he did, she thought
scornfully, it was only in keeping with that calm arrogance of his by
which he allocated to himself the right to do precisely as he chose,
irrespective of convention--or of other people's feelings.

Meanwhile Stair was twinkling humorously across at his visitor.

"If you can bear to eat your dinner without being encased in the
regulation starch," he said, "I don't think I should advise risking what
remains of it by any further delay."

"Then I accept with pleasure," replied Errington.

As he spoke, his eyes sought Diana's once again. It almost seemed as
though they pleaded with her for understanding. The half-sad,
half-bitter mouth smiled faintly, the smile accentuating that upward
curve at the corners of the lips which lent such an unexpected sweetness
to its stern lines.

Diana looked away quickly, refusing to endorse the Rector's invitation,
and, escaping to her own room, she made a hasty toilet, slipping into a
simple little black gown open at the throat. Meanwhile, she tortured
herself with questioning as to why--if all that had passed meant nothing
to him--he had chosen to stay. Once she hid her burning face in her
hands as the memory of those kisses rushed over her afresh, sending
little, new, delicious thrills coursing through her veins. Then once
more the maddening doubt assailed her--were they but a bitter humiliation
which she would remember for the rest of her life?

When she came downstairs again, Max Errington and Stair were conversing
happily together, evidently on the best of terms with themselves and each
other. Errington was speaking as she entered the room, but he stopped
abruptly, biting his words off short, while his keen eyes swept over the
slim, black-gowned figure hesitating in the doorway.

"Mr. Stair has been pledging your word during your absence," he said.
"He has promised that you'll sing to us after dinner."

"I? Oh"--nervously--"I don't think I want to sing this evening."

"Why not? Have the"--he made an infinitesimal pause, regarding her the
while with quizzical eyes--"events of the afternoon robbed you of your
voice?"

Diana gave him back his look defiantly. How dared he--oh, how dared
he?--she thought indignantly.

"My adventures weren't serious enough for that," she replied composedly.

The ghost of a smile flickered across his face.

"Then you will sing?" he persisted.

"Yes, if you like."

He nodded contentedly, and as they went in to dinner he whispered:--

"I found the adventure--rather serious."

Dinner passed pleasantly enough. Errington and Stair contributed most of
the conversation, the former proving himself a charming guest, and it was
evident that the two men had taken a great liking to each other. It
would have been a difficult subject indeed who did not feel attracted by
Alan Stair; he was so unconventionally frank and sincere, brimming over
with humour, and he regarded every man as his friend until he had proved
him otherwise--and even then he was disposed to think that the fault must
lie somewhere in himself.

"I'm not surprised that your church was so full on Sunday," Errington
told him, "now that I've met you. If the Church of England clergy, as a
whole, were as human as you are, you would have fewer offshoots from your
Established Church. I always think"--reminiscently--"that that is where
the strength of the Roman Catholic _padre_ lies--in his intense
_humanness_."

The Sector looked up in surprise.

"Then you're not a member of our Church?" he asked.

For a moment Errington looked embarrassed, as though he had said more
than he wished to.

"Oh, I was merely comparing the two," he replied evasively. "I have
lived abroad a good bit, you know."

"Ah! That explains it, then," said Stair. "You've caught some little
foreign turns of speech. Several times I've wondered if you were
entirely English."

Errington's face, as he turned to reply, wore that politely blank
expression which Diana had encountered more than once when conversing
with him--always should she chance to touch on any subject the natural
answer to which might have revealed something of the man's private life.

"Oh," he answered the Rector lightly, "I believe there's a dash of
foreign blood in my veins, but I've a right to call myself an Englishman."

After dinner, while the two men had their smoke, Diana, heedless of
Joan's common-sense remonstrance on the score of dew-drenched grass,
flung on a cloak and wandered restlessly out into the moonlit garden.
She felt that it would be an utter impossibility to sit still, waiting
until the men came into the drawing-room, and she paced slowly backwards
and forwards across the lawn, a slight, shadowy figure in the patch of
silver light.

Presently she saw the French window of the dining-room open, and Max
Errington step across the threshold and come swiftly over the lawn
towards her.

"I see you are bent on courting rheumatic fever--to say nothing of a sore
throat," he said quietly, "and I've come to take you indoors."

Diana was instantly filled with a perverse desire to remain where she was.

"I'm not in the least cold, thank you," she replied stiffly, "And--I like
it out here."

"You may not be cold," he returned composedly. "But I'm quite sure your
feet are damp. Come along."

He put his arm under hers, impelling her gently in the direction of the
house, and, rather to her own surprise, she found herself accompanying
him without further opposition.

Arrived at the house, he knelt down and, taking up her foot in his hand,
deliberately removed the little pointed slipper.

"There," he said conclusively, exhibiting its sole, dank with dew. "Go
up and put on a pair of dry shoes and then come down and sing to me."

And once again she found herself meekly obeying him.

By the time she had returned to the drawing-room, Pobs and Errington were
choosing the songs they wanted her to sing, while Joan was laughingly
protesting that they had selected all those with the most difficult
accompaniments.

"However, I'll do my best, Di," she added, as she seated herself at the
piano.

Joan's "best" as a pianist did not amount to very much at any time, and
she altogether lacked that intuitive understanding and sympathy which is
the _sine qua non_ of a good accompanist. Diana, accustomed to the
trained perfection of Olga Lermontof, found herself considerably
handicapped, and her rendering of the song in question, Saint-Saens'
_Amour, viens aider_, left a good deal to be desired in consequence--a
fact of which no one was more conscious than she herself.

But the voice! As the full rich notes hung on the air, vibrant with that
indescribably thrilling quality which seems the prerogative of the
contralto, Errington recognised at once that here was a singer destined
to make her mark. The slight surprise which he had evinced on first
learning that she was a pupil of the great Baroni vanished instantly. No
master could be better fitted to have the handling of such a voice--and
certainly, he added mentally, Joan Stair was a ludicrously inadequate
accompanist, only to be excused by her frank acknowledgment of the fact.

"I'm dreadfully sorry, Di," she said at the conclusion of the song. "But
I really can't manage the accompaniment."

Errington rose and crossed the room to the piano.

"Will you allow me to take your place?" he said pleasantly. "That is, if
Miss Quentin permits? It is hard lines to be suddenly called upon to
read accompaniments if you are not accustomed to it."

"Oh, do you play?" exclaimed Joan, vacating her seat gladly. "Then
please do. I feel as if I were committing murder when I stumble through
Diana's songs."

She joined the Rector at the far end of the room, adding with a smile:--

"I make a much better audience than performer."

"What shall it be?" said Errington, turning over the pile of songs.

"What you like," returned Diana indifferently. She was rather pale, and
her hand shook a little as she fidgeted restlessly with a sheet of music.
It almost seemed as though the projected change of accompanist were
distasteful to her.

Max laid his own hand over hers an instant.

"Please let me play for you," he said simply.

There was a note of appeal in his voice--rather as if he were seeking to
soften her resentment against him, and would regard the permission to
accompany her as a token of forgiveness. She met his glance, wavered a
moment, then bent her head in silence, and each of them was conscious
that in some mysterious way, without the interchange of further words, an
armistice had been declared between them.

With Errington at the piano the music took on a different aspect. He was
an incomparable accompanist, and Diana, feeling herself supported, and
upborne, sang with a beauty of interpretation, an intensity of feeling,
that had been impossible before. And through it all she was acutely
conscious of Max Errington's proximity--knew instinctively that the
passion of the song was shaking him equally with herself. It was as
though some intangible live wire were stretched between them so that each
could sense the emotion of the other--as though the garment with which we
so persistently conceal our souls from one another's eyes were suddenly
stripped away.

There was a tense look in Max's face as the last note trembled into
silence, and Diana, meeting his glance, flushed rosily.

"I can't sing any more," she said, her voice uneven.

"No."

He added nothing to the laconic negative, but his eyes held hers
remorselessly.

Then Pobs' cheerful tones fell on their ears and the taut moment passed.

"Di, you amazing child!" he exclaimed delightfully. "Where did you find
a voice like that? I realise now that we've been entertaining genius
unawares all this time. Joan, my dear, henceforth two commonplace bodies
like you and me must resign ourselves to taking a back seat."

"I don't mind," returned Joan philosophically. "I think I was born with
a humdrum nature; a quiet life was always my idea of bliss."

"Sing something else, Di," begged Stair. But Diana shook her head.

"I'm too tired, Pobs," she said quietly. Turning abruptly to Errington
she continued: "Will you play instead?"

Max hesitated a moment, then resumed his place at the piano, and, after a
pause, the three grave notes with which Rachmaninoff's wonderful
"Prelude" opens, broke the silence.

It was speedily evident that Errington was a musician of no mean order;
indeed, many a professional reputation has been based on a less solid
foundation. The Rachmaninoff was followed by Chopin, Tchaikowsky,
Debussy, and others of the modern school, and when finally he dropped his
hands from the piano, laughingly declaring that he must be thinking of
taking his departure before he played them all to sleep, Joan burst out
bluntly:--

"We understood you were a dramatist, Mr. Errington. It seems to me you
have missed your vocation."

Every one laughed.

"Rather a two-edged compliment, I'm afraid, Joan," chuckled Stair
delightfully.

Joan blushed, overcome with confusion, and remained depressed until
Errington, on the point of leaving, reassured her good-humouredly.

"Don't brood over your father's unkind references to two-edged
compliments, Miss Stair. I entirely decline to see any but one meaning
to your speech--and that a very pleasant one."

He shook hands with the Rector and Diana, holding the latter's hand an
instant longer than was absolutely necessary, to ask, rather low:--

"Is it peace, then?"

But the softening spell of the music was broken, and Diana felt her
resentment against him rise up anew.

Silently she withdrew her hand, refusing him an answer, defying him with
a courage born of the near neighbourhood of the Rector and Joan, and a
few minutes later the hum of his motor could be heard as it sped away
down the drive.

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