CHAPTER V

IN WHICH ADRIAN'S KNOWLEDGE OF SOME INHABITANTS OF THE TOWER HOUSE IS SENSIBLY INCREASED

A week of the burning mid-May weather, such as often comes in the fir and heather country. The Baughurst woods and all the coast-line from Marychurch to Barryport basked in the strong, still heat. Over open spaces the heat became visible, dancing and swirling like the vapors off a lime-kiln as it baked all residue of moisture out of the light surface soil. Aromatic scents given off by the lush foliage and lately risen sap filled the air. The furze-pods crackled and snapped. Fir-cones fell, softly thudding, on to the deep, dry beds of fir-needles, and films of bark scaling off the red upper branches made small, ticking noises in the sun-scorch. All day long in the heart of the woodland turtle doves repeated their cozy, crooning lament. Wandering cuckoos called. In the gardens blackbirds and thrushes, though silent at mid-day, sang early and late. Great blue and green dragonflies hawked over the lawns, darting back and forth from the warm dappled shade of the fir plantations, where their enameled bodies and transparent wings glinted across long slanting shafts of sunlight. In the shrubberies rhododendrons, azaleas, pink thorns, and crab-trees were in flower. Lilac and syringa blossom was about to break. The sky, high and unclouded, showed a deep, hot blue above the dark-plumed pines and fir-trees and against the red-tiled roofs and sextagonal red-brick tower--surmounted by a gilt weather-vane--of the Tower House from sunrise to sunset.

Adrian Savage lay back in a long cane chair set upon the veranda, around the fluted terra-cotta pillars of which trumpet-flowered honeysuckle, jasmine, and climbing roses flourished. He found the English heat heavy and somewhat enervating, clear though the atmosphere was. It made him lazy, inclined to dream and disinclined to act or think. He laid The Times down on the wicker table beside him, put his Panama hat on the top of it, returned a small illustrated French newspaper, of questionable modesty, to the breast-pocket of his jacket, stretched, stifled a yawn, and lighted his third cigarette. Then, reclining in the chair again, he contemplated the perspective of his own person--clad in a suit of white flannel with a faint four-thread black stripe--to where the said perspective ended in a pair of tan boots. He had bought the boots in London. He knew they represented the last word of the right thing. So he ought to like them.--He crossed and re-crossed his feet.--But he wasn't sure he did like them. On the whole he thought not. Therefore he sighed meditatively, pulled the tip of his close-cut black beard and pushed up the rather fly-away ends of his mustache. Stared sadly at the tan boots, raised his eyebrows and shoulders just perceptibly, and mournfully shook his close-cropped black head. Sighed again, and then looked away, across the gravel terrace and flower-beds immediately below it crowded with pink, mauve, and pale-yellow tulips, to where, on the sunk court at the far end of the long, wide lawn, four agile, ruddy-faced, white-clothed young people very vigorously played tennis.

In the last three months Adrian had lost weight. _La belle Gabrielle_ had not been kind; not at all kind. More than ever did she appear elusive and baffling. More than ever was the mysterious element of her complex and enchanting personality in evidence. She frequented drawing-room meetings at which Feminists, male as well as female, held forth. She received Zélie de Gand and other such vermin--the term is Adrian's--at her thrice-sacred flat. Finally, her attitude was altogether too maternal and beneficent toward M. René Dax. These things caused Adrian rage and unhappiness. He lost flesh. In his eyes was a permanently pathetic and orphaned look. Happily, his nose retained its native pugnacity of outline, testifying to the fact that, although he might voluminously sigh as a lover, as a high-spirited and perfectly healthy young gentleman he could still very handsomely spoil for a fight.

But no legitimate fight presented itself--that was exactly where, from Adrian's point of view, the worry came in. He might haunt _la belle Gabrielle's_ staircase, spend hours in consultation with wise and witty Anastasia Beauchamp, exert all his ingenuity to achieve persuasion or excision of René Dax, but without practicable result. About as useful to try to bottle a shadow, play leap-frog with an echo, tie up the wind in a sack! Really he felt quite glad to go away to England for a time, out of the vexatiously profitless wear and tear of it all.

The sun, sloping westward, slanted in under the round-headed terra-cotta arches supporting the roof of the veranda. Adrian drew his feet back out of the scorch, and in so doing sat more upright, thereby gaining a fuller view of the tennis players.

Marion Chase happened to be serving. She interested him as a type produced by current English methods of mental and physical culture practically unknown in France. She stood--so she informed him with the utmost frankness--five feet ten in her stockings, took eight and a half in shoes, measured forty inches round the chest and twenty-nine and three-quarters round the waist. To these communicated details he could add from personal observation that she had the complexion of a Channel pilot, owned a sensible, good-tempered, very managing face, and spoke in a full barytone voice. He accredited her with being very fairly honorable, irreproachably virtuous, and conspicuously devoid of either the religious or artistic sense--though she frequented concerts, picture galleries, and church services with praiseworthy regularity and persistence. He liked her rather, and wondered at her much--being unaccustomed to the society of such large-boned, athletic, and sexless persons, petticoated, yet conspicuously deficient in haunches and busts.

Miss Chase, he further remarked, was permanently in waiting upon Margaret Smyrthwaite, while a tail of youths and maidens was almost as permanently in waiting upon Miss Chase. Their relation to her was gregarious rather than sentimental, a mere herding of children who follow a leader at play. The said tail to-day consisted of the Busbridge boys and Amy Woodford--the former two lanky, sandy-headed, quite innocuous young fellows in immaculate flannels, their nether garments sustained by green and orange silk handkerchiefs knotted--Adrian trusted securely--about their waists; the latter a rather stout, dark-haired young lady, arrayed in white linen, who would have been very passably pretty had not her mouth been too small, her nose too long, and her bright, boot-button-black eyes set insufficiently far apart.

Idly he watched the quartette as the members of it ran, leaped, backed, called, stood breathing after a long rally, with, apparently, as little soul or mind in their active young bodies as a mob of colts and fillies. Then his eyes traveled to Margaret Smyrthwaite sitting outside the larch-built, heather-thatched tennis pavilion beyond the court in the shade of a grove of tall fir and beech trees.

If Marion Chase caused him wonder, Margaret caused him very much more, though from a different angle. Her development in the last three months struck him as phenomenal--a startling example of the adaptability to environment inherent in the feminine nature. From a rather negative and invertebrate being, with little to say and a manner alternately peevish and silly, she had grown into a self-possessed young woman, capable of making her presence, pleasure, and displeasure, definitely felt. The likeness and the unlikeness she bore to Joanna had from the first appeared to Adrian both pathetic and singular. Now, on seeing the twin sisters again, this likeness and unlikeness passed the bounds of pathos and became, to his eyes, quite actively cruel. For they bore to each other--it was thus he put it--the same relation that the _édition de luxe_ of a book bears to its original rough copy--Joanna, naturally, representing the rough copy. All the ungracious and ungrateful aspects of Joanna's appearance were nicely corrected in her sister, fined down or filled out--heavy, yellowish auburn hair, improved to crisp copper; a pasty complexion giving place to a fair though freckled skin and bright color; blue eyes no longer prominent or anxious, but clear, self-content, and possibly a trifle sly.

At forty Adrian could imagine her fat and a little coarse-looking, but now her figure was graceful, and she dressed well, though with perhaps too great elaboration for impeccable taste. Adrian trembled as to the flights of decorative fancy which might present themselves when her period of mourning was passed! To-day she wore a black muslin dress and a wide-brimmed, black chip hat, trimmed with four enormous black silk and gauze roses, the whole of rather studied candor of effect. Yes, she was quite an agreeable object to look upon; but Joanna, oh! poor, poor Joanna!

Adrian lit a fourth cigarette, stretched himself in his chair again, crossing his legs and gazing up at the roof rafters. Joanna afforded him an uncomfortable subject of thought, and one which he tried to avoid in so far as possible. He respected her. More than ever he felt a chivalrous pity toward her. But he did not like her, somehow. Ridiculous though it might sound, he was a wee bit afraid of her, conscious of self-protective instincts, of an inclination to erect small barricades and throw up small earthworks behind which to shelter when alone with her. He was ashamed of his own sensations, but--and more particularly since he had seen those degraded drawings upon the wall of René's studio which so dreadfully resembled her--she, to use a childish expression, gave him the creeps.

Then, suddenly penetrated by a conviction that her pale eyes were at that very moment fixed upon him, Adrian whipped out of his chair and wheeled round, very alert and upright in his tan boots and light flannel suit.

"Ah! my dear cousin, it is you! I thought so," he said, quickly. "At last you come out to enjoy this ideal afternoon. That is well. Is it not ravishing?"

For quite a perceptible space of time Joanna made no reply. She stood on the stone step of one of the large French windows opening on to the veranda. Her lips were parted and upon her face was a singular expression, midway--so it struck Adrian--between driveling folly and rapture. This recalled to him with such vividness those evil drawings upon the studio wall that had the likeness been completed by her sporting masculine attire it would hardly have surprised him. She, in point of fact, however, wore nothing more peculiar than a modest, slightly limp, black alpaca coat and skirt. Adrian was aware of developing an unreasoning detestation of that innocent and very serviceable material.

"I am so sorry," she said, at last, in a sort of hurried whisper. "I ought not to have come out unexpectedly thus, by the window. I have disturbed you. It was thoughtless of me and inconsiderate."

"But--no--no--not in the least," he assured her. "I was doing absolutely nothing. The hot weather disposes one to idleness. I tried to read The Times. I found it a monument of dullness. I looked into a little French paper I have here." He patted the breast-pocket of his jacket. "I found it quite too lively."

The corners of his mouth gave slightly; for oh! how very far away from poor Joanna's was the outlook upon things in general of that naughty little print!

"Have no fear," he added. "It shall remain safely stowed away. It is not, I admit, exactly designed for what you call family reading--unsuited, for example, to the ingenuous minds of those excellent young tennis players! Ah, the energy they display! It puts me to shame."

Joanna came forward slowly, touching chairs, flower-stands, tables, in passing, as though blindly feeling her way.

"I have wanted so much to speak to you alone," she said.

"Yes--yes?" Adrian answered inquiringly, with a hasty mental looking around for suitable barricade-building material.

"Ever since you told me you had lately suffered anxiety and trouble," she continued.

"Ah! my dear cousin, you are too sympathetic, too kind. Who among us is free from anxieties and troubles--_des ennuis_? One accepts them as an integral part of one's existence upon this astonishing planet. One even cherishes a certain affection for them, perhaps one's own dear little personal _ennuis_."

Joanna sank into a chair. Her lips worked with emotion.

"I wish I could feel as you do," she said. "But I am weak. I rebel against that which pains me or causes me anxiety. I have no large tolerance of philosophy. But, therefore, all the more do I admire it in you. Now, when I allude to your trouble you try to put the matter aside gracefully out of consideration for me. Indeed, I appreciate that consideration, but while it causes me gratitude, it increases my regret.--You will not think me officious or intrusive? But I cannot tell you how it distresses me that you should endure any mental suffering, that you should have troubles or anxieties. I had never thought of the possibility of anything unhappy in your life or circumstances. Since you told me I think of it continually. Forgive me if I appear presumptuous, but you have done so incalculably much for--for us--Margaret, I mean, and me--especially, I know"--her voice faded to a mere thread--"I know, of course, for me--that I have wondered whether there was not anything in which I could be of some slight use to you, in which I could help you, in return?"

Adrian had subsided into his long chair again. He leaned sideways, his legs crossed, his right arm extended to its full length across the arm of the chair, holding his cigarette between his first and second fingers, as far from his companion as possible lest the smoke of it should be unpleasant to her. His lean, shapely hand and wrist showed brown against the hard white of his shirt-cuff, and the blue smoke from the smoldering cigarette curled delicately upward in the hot, fragrant air. And Joanna watched his every movement; watched with the fixed intentness, the beatified idiocy, of those who dote.

Outwardly the young man remained charmingly debonair. Inwardly he labored at the erection of barricades and the strengthening of earthworks with positive frenzy, distractedly apprehensive of what might be coming next.

"Sympathy so generously given as yours can never be otherwise than helpful, dear cousin," he said. "Believe me, I am deeply touched by the interest you take in me. But the trouble I have on my mind--and which it was foolish and selfish of me ever to allude to--"

"Oh no," Joanna interrupted, breathlessly. "Do not say that. Pray don't. It was entirely my doing. Both Margaret and I observed that you--you looked sad, that you had grown thinner. I questioned you. Perhaps it was intrusive of me to do so. Yet how could I remain silent when all which affects you necessarily concerns me so profoundly?"

Notwithstanding the high temperature, Adrian felt something queerly like a trickle of iced water down the length of his spine. He just managed not to change his position, but remained leaning sideways toward her.

"You are more than kind to me, dear cousin," he said. "Really, more than kind and good. But I am sure your ready sympathy will make you comprehend there is a stage of most _ennuis_, private worries and bothers, when it is only discreet, only, indeed, honorable, to maintain silence. Yet, believe me, I shall never forget your amiable solicitude for my happiness. Some day in the future it may become possible for me to explain--"

"Yes--oh! yes--in the future--thank you--I know--in the future," Joanna whispered, pressing her hands over her eyes.

And Adrian shrank away from her. He couldn't help it. Mercifully, she wasn't looking. He uncrossed his legs, sat upright. Then, leaning forward with bent head, he stared at the red and purple quarries of the pavement, resting his wrists upon his knees. He was about to reply, but Joanna's toneless speech rushed onward.

"Pray, pray do not suppose that I wish to cross-question you or force myself into your confidence. Nothing could be further from my intention than that. I am so sure you know far best what to tell and what to withhold from me. I could never question your judgment for an instant. In this, as in everything--yes, everything--I am ready and contented to wait. Only sometimes there are practical ways of being helpful. I have lived among business people all my life, and I could not help thinking that if there was any scheme--connected with your Review, for instance--forgive me if I am presumptuous--but any business affair in which you were interested and which might require capital, might need financing--"

Adrian raised his head slightly. His face was drawn and very pale. His nostrils quivered. He had sufficient self-control to keep his eyes steadily upon the white, capering forms of the tennis players there on the other side of the sunny lawn. Was it conceivable that she, Joanna--of all created women--was trying to buy him? The degradation, the infinite disgust of it!--But no, that really was too vile a thought. With all the cleanness, all the chivalry of his nature, Adrian thrust it aside, refusing to dishonor her so much. Again he nerved himself to speak, and again her speech rushed onward like--so it seemed to him--some toneless hissing of wind over a barren, treeless, seedless waste.

"Pray, pray do not be displeased with me," she pleaded. "I may be

## acting unconventionally in touching thus upon matters apparently

outside my province. But, as I think you will admit, I am at most only forestalling the right, the privilege rather--for to me no privilege could be greater--which will be mine later on, in the future of which you just now spoke. Please think of it thus. And if my action is premature, a little unbecoming or unusual, you--who understand everything--will most surely forgive. No--Cousin Adrian, do not answer me, I implore you--not just yet. I have longed so earnestly for this opportunity of talking alone with you. Give me time. Let me finish. I know I do not express myself well. But be patient with me. When we are together I am only conscious of your presence. I become miserably deficient in courage and resource. Words fail me. I am so sensible of my own shortcomings. Therefore I cannot consent to lose this opportunity. There is something I so intensely need to tell you, because I cannot help hoping it may lighten the anxieties which have been troubling you--"

During this extraordinary address Adrian held himself rigidly still, his head again bent, while he stared at the red and purple quarries. He could not trust himself to move by so much as an inch lest he should betray the repulsion with which she inspired him. Meanwhile his mind worked like some high-powered engine at full pressure, for, indeed, the situation was extravagant in its unpleasantness. How to say anything conclusive without assuming too much passed human wit. Yet what more fatuous, what more execrably bad taste than to assume just that too much? He wanted to spare the poor woman, and act toward her with as perfect charity, as perfect good breeding, as he might.

"This is what I have so wanted to tell you, Adrian," Joanna went on. "Lately I have felt quite differently about my unfortunate brother, about poor Bibby, of whose unhappy career I spoke to you when you were here before. I have learned to think differently upon many subjects in the last three months--"

Joanna paused, pressing her hands against her forehead.

"Yes--upon many, many subjects," she said. "That is natural, inevitable, with the wonderful prospect which lies before me."

The young man braced himself, each muscle growing taut, as a man braces himself for a life-and-death fight. But he did not alter his position.

"When we talked of my brother before, I told you--I thought it right to do so--that I proposed to put aside the larger portion of my fortune for his benefit. I believed it my duty to do my utmost to make amends for papa's harshness toward him. But since then I have come to see the matter in a different light. I no longer feel that my brother has the first claim upon me. I no longer believe my first duty is to Bibby. It is to some one else. And I have ceased to believe he is still living. A strange and deepening conviction has grown upon me that he is dead."

Adrian's muscles relaxed. He threw back his head and looked into the sky, into the strong, steady sunlight. For hearing Joanna's last words, he hailed salvation--salvation coming, be it added, from the very queerest and most unexpected quarter.

"Consequently I have decided to alter my will," Joanna continued. "I scrutinized my own motives carefully. I have earnestly tried not to be unduly influenced by my own inclinations, but to do what is just and right. I have not yet spoken to Margaret about it, but I intend to make a redistribution of my property, devoting that portion of it which I held in reserve for my brother to another person--I mean another purpose. Under my altered circumstances I feel not only that I am justified in doing this, but that it has become an imperative obligation. Were my poor brother still living the news of papa's death must have reached him by this time and he would have communicated either with Andrew Merriman or with me. As he has not communicated with either of us, I am free to assume the fact of his death. You agree with me, Adrian? I am at liberty to make this redistribution of my property? You--you assent?"

"Since you are good enough to ask my advice, dear cousin," Adrian said, looking upon the ground and speaking quietly and distinctly, "I am compelled to answer you truthfully. You are not free at the present time, in my opinion, to make any alteration in your will which affects your bequest to your brother."

"But," Joanna protested, with a smoldering violence, "but if I am certain, morally certain, that my unfortunate brother is dead?"

Putting a strong force upon himself, Adrian leaned sideways in his chair, again crossing his legs, turning his face toward Joanna, and looking gravely and kindly at her.

"Dear cousin," he said, "perhaps I should have acted more wisely had I written or spoken to you before now of a certain discovery which I happened, accidentally, to make immediately after my return to France. I hesitated after the exhausting experiences you had recently passed through to subject you to further anxiety and suspense or to raise hopes which might be fated to disappointment. But I possess evidence--to myself conclusive--that your brother was living as lately as three months ago; that in February last he was in Paris. Yes, I know, I sympathize--I readily comprehend," he went on, feelingly, "how greatly this information is calculated to surprise you. On that account I have withheld it, and I grieve it is not possible to soften the shock of it by giving a happy account of your brother's state of mind or of his circumstances."

Here the speaker stopped, for Joanna raised her hand with an almost menacing gesture.

"Wait, Adrian," she cried, "wait! I cannot bear any more at present. I must accustom myself to this idea. It means so much, so dreadfully much. I must have time to think."

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