第55章

When Keith looks at you, you feel that you are seeing the rarest being in the world--an absolutely reliable person.When I think of him I think of reliable, just as when you think of the sun you think of brightness.''

``I had no idea it was so serious as this,'' teased Stanley.

``Nor had I,'' returned Cyrilla easily, ``until I began to talk about him.Don't tell him, Mr.Baird, or he might take advantage of me.''

The idea amused Stanley.``He doesn't care a rap about women,'' said he.``I hear he has let a few care about him from time to time, but he soon ceased to be good-natured.He hates to be bored.''

As he came just then, they had to find another subject.Mildred observed him with more interest.She had learned to have respect for Mrs.Brindley's judgments.But she soon gave over watching him.That profound calm, those eyes concentrating all the life of the man like a burning glass-- She had a disagreeable sense of being seen through, even to her secretest thought, of being understood and measured and weighed --and found wanting.It occurred to her for the first time that part of the reason for her not liking him was the best of reasons--that he did not like her.

The first time she was left alone with him, after this discovery, she happened to be in an audacious and talkative mood, and his lack of response finally goaded her into saying: ``WHY don't you like me?'' She cared nothing about it; she simply wished to hear what he would say--if he could be roused into saying anything.

He was sitting on the steps leading from the veranda to the sea--was smoking a cigarette and gazing out over the waves like a graven image, as if he had always been posed there and always would be there, the embodiment of repose gazing in ineffable indifference upon the embodiment of its opposite.He made no answer.

``I asked you why you do not like me,'' said she.

``Did you hear?''

``Yes,'' replied he.

She waited; nothing further from him.Said she:

``Well, give me one of your cigarettes.''

He rose, extended his case, then a light.He was never remiss in those kinds of politeness.When she was smoking, he seated himself again and dropped into the former attitude.She eyed him, wondering how it could be possible that he had endured the incredible fatigues and hardships Stanley Baird had related of him--hunting and exploring expeditions into tropics and into frozen regions, mountain climbs, wild sea voyages in small boats, all with no sign of being able to stand anything, yet also with no sign of being any more disturbed than now in this seaside laziness.Stanley had showed them a picture of him taken twenty years and more ago when he was in college; he had looked almost the same then--perhaps a little older.

``Well, I am waiting,'' persisted she.

She thought he was about to look at her--a thing he had never done, to her knowledge, since they had known each other.She nerved herself to receive the shock, with a certain flutter of expectancy, of excitement even.But instead of looking, he settled himself in a slightly different position and fixed his gaze upon another point in the horizon.She noted that he had splendid hands--ideal hands for a man, with the same suggestion of intense vitality and aliveness that flashed from his eyes.She had not noted this before.Next she saw that he had good feet, and that his boots were his only article of apparel that fitted him, or rather, that looked as if made for him.

She tossed her cigarette over the rail to the sand.

He startled her by speaking, in his unemotional way.

He said:

``Now, I like you better.''

``I don't understand,'' said she.

No answer from him.The cigarette depending listlessly from his lips seemed--as usual--uncertain whether it would stay or fall.She watched this uncertainty with a curious, nervous interest.She was always thinking that cigarette would fall, but it never did.

Said she:

``Why did you say you liked me less?''

``Better,'' corrected he.

``We used to have a pump in our back yard at home,''

laughed she.``One toiled away at the handle, but nothing ever came.And it was a promising-looking pump, too.''

He smiled--a slow, reluctant smile, but undeniably attractive.Said he:

``Because you threw away your cigarette.''

``You object to women smoking?''

``No,'' said he.His tone made her feel how absurd it was to suspect him of such provincialism.

``You object to MY smoking?'' suggested she;laughing, ``Pump! Pump!''

``No,'' said he.

``Then your remark meant nothing at all?''

He was silent.

``You are rude,'' said she coldly, rising to go into the house.

He said something, what she did not hear, in her agitation.She paused and inquired:

``What did you say?''

``I said, I am not rude but kind,'' replied he.

``That is detestable!'' cried she.``I have not liked you, but I have been polite to you because of Stanley and Mrs.Brindley.Why should you be insulting to me?''

``What have I done?'' inquired he, unmoved.He had risen as she rose, but instead of facing her he was leaning against the post of the veranda, bent upon his seaward vigil.

``You have insinuated that your reasons for not liking me were a reflection on me.''

``You insisted,'' said he.

``You mean that they are?'' demanded she furiously.

She was amazed at her wild, unaccountable rage.

He slowly turned his head and looked at her--a glance without any emotion whatever, simply a look that, like the beam of a powerful searchlight, seemed to thrust through fog and darkness and to light up everything in its path.Said he:

``Do you wish me to tell you why I don't like you?''

``No!'' she cried hysterically.``Never mind--Idon't know what I'm saying.'' And she went hastily into the house.A moment later, in her own room upstairs, she was wondering at herself.Why had she become confused? What did he mean? What had she seen--or half seen--in the darkness and fog within herself when he looked at her? In a passion she cried:

``If he would only stay away!''