CHAPTER XII

THE SOUND OF A KISS

Rosamond Fayre told herself that it was just like Cecil Bray to carry out his written intention to come and look her up at Urquhart's Court, on the very afternoon of that hen-party.

Poor dear boy! He simply couldn't have chosen a worse time for his visit!

To begin with, he must needs make his appearance in the middle of that vortex of getting the assorted flocks of girls off in the brakes that were to carry them, laughing, chattering and calling like homing rooks, to the station and the London-bound special train.

Then it was such an age before Rosamond could find and disentangle Eleanor and introduce this old friend of her brother's to her employer.

And then Eleanor, instead of doing it herself, must turn to her dear Ted (who'd come up with the other man) to ask him to ask Mr. Bray to stay to dinner.

Dinner, too, seemed a disorganised, spiritless, after-the-party sort of meal!

Nobody dressed. Everybody was tired, dull with reaction. The whole air still seemed a-twitter with the treble clamour of the lately-departed hen-party. Nobody appeared to wish to talk; with the exception of old Mr. Urquhart, who had returned from his motor-expedition in what was for him quite a sociable mood.

He discovered that he had been up at Magdalen with this young Mr. Bray's father--no, grandfather; indeed, he had corresponded with him for several years afterwards, on the subject of some manuscripts that had been found appertaining to some marriage settlements of a Dame Urquhart who had married a de Braye or Braie in the reign of....

Presently he was saying that there would scarcely be time to go into all those very interesting old letters in just one evening. The best plan would be for his young friend, Mr. Bray, to stay the night--to stay the week-end, if he would, at the Court--would it not?

"Awfully kind of you, Sir," murmured the young man fervently. His china-blue eyes lighted up. Evidently he asked for nothing better than to stay the week-end. He glanced round the oval table expecting the conventional "Yes, do," and "That would be very nice," from the rest of the party.

The rest of the party remained almost forbiddingly mute.

Poor Cecil Bray, a sensitive youth, felt thereby obliged to decline the invitation with a rueful "But I'm awfully sorry, I'm afraid I really have to get back to-night," without knowing why no one but the old gentleman had made any attempt to keep him.

The reason was----

As far as Eleanor was concerned, she hardly heard what was going on at the table. Her striving, earnest little mind was still with the party of the afternoon. Had it been a success? Had no one been offended or overlooked? Would it have been better to have had Votes of Thanks proposed to those University Group Ladies? Besides these problems, there was another more disquieting memory of the afternoon. Something Miss Fabian had just been beginning to tell Eleanor about a friend of hers, a lady rent-collector in Brixton. This friend seemed to know "something" about one of Miss Urquhart's protegées, something "not very creditable" about the theatrical girl, Pansy Vansittart. About Pansy? A Club girl who had enjoyed the special privilege of being one of those who were taken into Eleanor's Normandy Hostel? What could this be? Someone had called Miss Fabian away before she said more. But she had promised to make enquiries of that friend, to write to Miss Urquhart later. What could it be? pondered Eleanor uneasily. No wonder her attention had wandered leagues away from this young man who'd come to call on Rosamond!

As for Rosamond--Well! She couldn't press Cecil Bray to stay at Urquhart's Court.

It wasn't her house.

It was the house of Eleanor's _fiancé_.

Rosamond was only one of the staff!

Besides, even had it been otherwise, he didn't want Cecil there. She knew what would happen if he stayed for a week-end where she was. He'd promised not to "bother" her again. But she knew what became of that sort of promise made by that sort of young man. Of course he'd propose again. She saw every symptom of it threatening in every line of his fair, fifth-form-room face. She could prophesy, verbatim, the old familiar, futile, ever-recurring dialogue between man and maid that must presently ensue.

_He_ (gabbling with earnestness): "I would do anything, Miss Fayre, _anything_ to make you happy. Can't you try and----"

_She_: "I am most frightfully sorry, but it's no good. No man can 'make' a woman happy. Either she is happy with him or she isn't. And I know I couldn't be with you. Not in that way, Cecil."

_He_ (clearing his throat for a fresh start): "You don't care for me yet, I know. But look here, give me a chance, just a chance! If you saw more of me you'd grow to care----"

_She_ (miserably): "No, no. People may 'grow' to like other people. But nobody ever, ever yet 'grew' to love anybody.... Please, please don't go on like this.... I'm so sorry. I like you so. Very well then, I won't say I feel like your sister.... But there are other girls----"

_He_ (gruffly): "Not for me!"

_She_ (strenuously persuasive): "If you only knew, one girl is much the same as another. Some are prettier. But otherwise they don't vary. Honestly! It's you men who vary so----"

And so on. Again Rosamond repeated to herself ruefully and gently what she was fated to be saying presently aloud: "Oh, Cecil! I am so sorry!"

Even if she were the mistress of the Court, she would not ask Cecil Bray to stay.

As for the master of that Court, well! He was very well aware that this guest opposite couldn't take his eyes from the girl he'd come to see. He, Ted Urquhart, could give a very good guess at what had brought the young beggar down. And he wasn't going to have him staying under his roof for one moment longer than he could help. The sooner he packed off, out of the place, the better.

There was a jolly good train up to town at eight-forty....

But it struck eight as they finished dinner; and confound him, the young beggar made no sign of packing off. He would have to be put up with, then, until the last train that night.

Not longer!

In the drawing-room, Eleanor looked up over the coffee-cups, murmured to her father that she must see him about something, drew him away into the little morning-room, and shut the door.

Ted Urquhart, left with the other two, knew what Eleanor meant. She meant to rescue this Mr. Bray from old Mr. Urquhart's conversational clutches. After all, it was Rosamond he'd come down to see. He must be allowed a little talk with her.

For a second Urquhart found himself hesitating.

Must he go?

Well, he could hardly stay!

He was the host.

Common politeness .... Yes! He'd have to go.

He'd have to leave the coast clear for this young cub with that unfair advantage of being an old acquaintance. He'd go.

A nice situation for any man. Forced, in his own house, to take himself off while another man proposed, as likely as not, to----

The girl who wasn't supposed to be anything at all to the master of the house.

That was the maddening part of it.

Raging silently, Urquhart went.

And he met the only girl whose doings Ted Urquhart had any right to resent or arrange, in the hall.

Eleanor's small face--sallow with tiredness--was turned up to his in the ivy-softened frame of the door-way, just where that other girl--the secretary-girl in whom he hadn't any right--had stood this afternoon, blushing like a rose to hear that ironic mistake blared abroad by that American lady with the voice.

"Oh, Ted----"

"Hullo, Eleanor, I haven't had a word with you all day," said her _fiancé_, outwardly pleasantly civil, inwardly savage because he had no valid right to feel savage at all.

"Oh, Ted, I was just going to ask you if you'd mind if I didn't come out for my little walk with you to-night. There's something I do so want to finish," said the engaged girl. "I am never really happy unless I can check all the caterers' accounts the very day they----"

"Oh, all right," agreed her betrothed, quickly. "Not if you've anything more important to do."

More important! Accounts, visitors, anything at Urquhart's Court was reckoned of more importance than Ted Urquhart himself to-night, thought the young man bitterly as he strode out.

Precious little consideration he got from either of these girls!

A rum idea of the position of an engaged girl his cousin seemed to have! Pretty unsatisfactory for him, if he'd happened to be madly in love with her. And even if he wasn't in love with her, he was engaged to her. Yes. A curious notion she had of playing the game. She treated her lawful _fiancé_ a good deal more off-handedly than that other young fellow was treated. Young Bray, now, was to have a solid couple of hours _tête-à-tête_ and the whole drawing-room to himself with the girl--the other girl....

Or they'd go out for a stroll together, thought Urquhart angrily, as his long legs carried him over the wide and empty lawn in the golden, slowly-gathering dusk. He clenched his brown hands in his jacket-pocket as he pictured that other fellow picking up a wrap out of the hall, putting it, reverently as he might have put his own arm, about the supple shoulders of---- "My girl," exclaimed Ted Urquhart aloud and violently to the lime-trees. "_My_ girl----"

The sound of his own voice and the preposterous thing it said checked him.

More slowly he struck into the Avenue. He walked along between those late-blossoming lime-trees with their scent of thyme-and-white-currants-mixed. And as he walked, he thought, seriously and deliberately, over the whole complicated situation that had just condensed itself into two words.

Two simple words that may be said to sum up the problem of life so often, and to so many a worried-to-death young man!

His girl....

It was now perfectly clear to Ted Urquhart that he could never think of Eleanor's secretary as anything else. No getting out of it. Every atom of him had recognised her, from the first moment that he'd come upon her, swinging along by the waters' edge in France with the happy sea-wind making free with that hair of hers.

His!

Yes; he'd recognised his love, his mate. He'd tell her----

But stop. He'd no right to tell her anything of the sort while he was still pledged to marry somebody else.

He lighted his pipe; then strode on smoking, thinking doggedly over a problem that seems each time too ghastly to be hackneyed.

This couldn't go on. Not this Hades of a life in the same house with the wrong girl to whom he was bound, while the right girl was dangled incessantly before his tantalised eyes. He couldn't stand another day of it. No!

Well, there were two ways of putting a stop to it.

One--Marry Eleanor and clear out.

Two--Break off his engagement with the wrong girl.

That was the dickens!

That was about the most unpleasant job a man is ever called upon to face. Lord, how it would make him wish himself back in the Andes; under 'em!

Messing up a girl's life----

Still, wasn't it far, far more of a mess if, instead of breaking with, a man married the wrong girl? Common sense said yes. Common sense said it was making the mistake of a lifetime, and with one's eyes open. Involving two people ... perhaps three ... sometimes four! Ruining all chance of future happiness, just to save a present wrench. Just because one felt a cur not to go on.

Breaking it off was the only possible solution. Yes! Even after a year. Even at the eleventh hour. That must be done. It remained "the dickens," all the same....

Here the brooding Ted came to the wrought-iron lodge-gates. He pushed them aside.

The very Deuce and All!

He went on down the lane between tall hedges, where coloured flowers were darkening to black blots while white blossoms were gleaming whiter in the gradual dusk.

Eleanor. She was the difficulty. Of his own making!

Yes, he'd got himself into it. Ass! Ass that he'd been!

Now he'd got to get himself out--and to feel, as well as feeling an ass, a cad about it all....

Here a gap in the hedge showed a cornfield where men, evidently mistrusting the holding-up of the dry weather, were still working, late as it was, carting the early-ripened sheaves.

Ted Urquhart leant over the gate, watching mechanically the big, galleon-like shape of the waggon against the open, lilac sky, the steady movements of the men in the fading light. At another time he would have offed with his coat, vaulted that gate into the field, and offered to lend a hand. This evening he'd something else to do.

He'd got to consider, definitely, how he was going to put it to Eleanor.

To tell her he'd thought better of marrying her--after this whole year of having it peacefully and satisfactorily settled that he was going to do so.

What on earth would she say? She'd have every right to say she thought he'd behaved--most extraordinarily. (He had.) Would she ask, "Is it that you are disappointed in me?"

What could a chap say to that?

He wasn't "disappointed." That didn't even enter into it at all.

Supposing she said, "Have you met somebody else, then?"

Whew!

The shaded lane behind him was growing darker, darker. But over the cornfield in front of him the moon was slowly rising, the bright, coppery, shield of a full moon that had looked a mere silver trifle to ornament a girl's gold hair on the evening of the first day that he'd met----

Never mind that yet. Eleanor.

Supposing she said, "If there's somebody else, why didn't you write and tell me? You have been here for days. Why didn't you tell me directly you came?"

Well, why hadn't he? He wished to Heaven he had, instead of procrastinating to make sure of--what he'd been as certain of as if it had been going on from the beginning of all things.

Supposing Eleanor went on, "Who is it?"

Or, "Do I know her?"

Would he have to set forth the whole embarrassing story to the poor little soul? Inflict upon her something that would offend and wound the heart of any girl alive, whether or not she had ever cared passionately for the wretched man who was practically explaining to her that she (whom he'd found excellent reasons for asking to become his wife) was now considered inadequate, shoved out of existence in his mind by one glance from--No! Not even from, but at the girl she employed!

And then, what about that arrangement about the Court?

Damn that old house, thought the young owner of it. He was in a mood to contemplate rushing up to his lawyers' on Monday morning about drawing up a deed-of-gift to his Uncle. Couldn't he hand it over bodily like that? Or refuse to take anything but a quit-rent of say a basket of Kentish cherries or a pink rose at Midsummer ... anything!

He knew he'd never live in the place himself. These last few infernal days had about fed him up with a peaceful--as they called it--English country-life. Let Eleanor and the old man stay on. And even if they insisted that now they'd have to turn out, it needn't come to that. That part of it could be allowed to drift until something happened. Or, as is more frequent in such a programme, until nothing happened. He, Ted, would clear. He'd sink some other property and buy a steam-yacht. Then he'd be off with his wife to----

H'm. Here he was thinking of her as his wife now, this girl whose hand he had never touched, and to whom he hadn't, when he came to examine it, actually said a word of anything but the merest commonplaces.

What did words matter--in a miracle?

He'd take the shortest cut. She'd got to have him.

Surely she had the sense to see that she was made for him?

She might have the sense; but, Urquhart thought with a memory of that demure stare of hers, that meek, pretty, mocking voice, she might not choose to admit it all at once.

He'd make her.

However, all that was for afterwards....

With a jerk he took his arms from the gate, turned his back on the cornfield in the moonlight, and began to make his way back towards the lodge--and Eleanor.

For now his mind was made up. To break off his idiotic "engagement" first. Then try his luck with ... his own girl.

He'd tell Eleanor, he decided, to-night. He'd go in and get that perfectly rotten interview over as soon as possible.

He'd trust to luck and the first words--remorseful but unmistakable--that came into his head when he stood before her.

It was quite dark under the lime-trees now. Later than he'd thought. Still, Eleanor would be in the little office where she sometimes sat balancing books after she'd come in from the every-evening stroll which she was now accustomed to take with her _fiancé_....

Yesterday had meant the last of those flavourless walks, then. There was a flicker of comfort in the thought. Still there was the Old Harry to pay for it!

Through the darkness Urquhart heard the stable-clock slowly striking ten.

That Bray boy--he was only a youngster, after all!--would probably have gone, thought Urquhart, hurrying doggedly along to his perfectly rotten interview; to the Old Harry. Yes: that lad would be off by this time....

The sounds of steps and voices, approaching on the lawn on the other side of the lime-trees, told Urquhart that he was wrong. The Bray boy was only going now. He was making his way down to the drive by the shortcut across the lawn. And "She" was seeing him off.

That meant nothing, of course. But----

There followed something that suddenly held up Ted Urquhart in his stride just as if a barbed barricade had crashed down across his path.

In that blankly horrible moment of revelation he could not move.

For without premeditation or warning he caught the sound of Miss Fayre's voice, which was speaking to young Bray in a tone that Urquhart, who thought he knew by heart every one of its pretty mocking cadences, had never heard. No. He had not been privileged to hear that note in the voice that seemed to utter a whole volume of gentle wistful tenderness in just two words. Yes; for the second time that evening a couple of words gave the whole of a situation. This time they were these:--

"Oh, Cecil!"

That alone was enough to smash a dream!

And then worse followed. Another, an unmistakable sound that struck a sledge-hammer blow full on the heart of the young man who heard it. Yet, such a soft little whisper of a sound; not louder than the chirp of a sleepy thrush on the bough above him.... This sound, though, was not to be confused with the noise that might be made by any bird, or by any rustling of the lime-branches that separated young Urquhart from those two standing there in the darkness. There are not two sounds like it.

It was the sound of a kiss.