CHAPTER XXVII

LIONEL AND KATE

"What an appalling little bounder!" Kate's face was expressive as she fanned the air with her apron.

Lionel shut his eyes and sniffed. "I can smell his handkerchief yet."

"Don't!" she implored. "I'm trying to forget it."

Fitz-Brown turned his attention to the rose bush. The flowers hung their heads dejectedly, as if conscious of their guilty secret.

"How about the 'floral offering'?" he asked.

"I'll make you a present of it," said the countess.

"Thanks, awfully. I say, Kate," Lionel went on, "I don't mind telling you I had all I could do to keep my hands off that half crown. I give you my word if the fellow had brought out a half sovereign I should have snatched it before he knew where he was."

"Don't be too sure," laughed Kate. "I was nearer to him than you were, and I have a good long reach, too! See if I haven't."

She stretched out her arm, bare to the elbow, in bantering challenge. As they faced each other the creamy curve of her forearm lay close along his flanneled biceps, and her slender finger-tips pressed lightly against his neck. Lionel's hand, like a bronze epaulette, closed over her shoulder, and she felt the heat of his palm through the thin muslin, as, with gentle strength, he held her immovable.

Ever since that unforgettable night on the golf links, over a week ago, Lionel had kept his resolution to be no obstacle to Kate Clendennin's prospects. To his idolatrous mind, Kate's ultimatum that she was going to marry Robert Baxter settled the matter. To put her altogether out of his thoughts, out of his dreams, was an impossibility, but he had kept away from her as much as possible; he had even "funked" the morning and evening handshake whenever he could. And now the curve of her warm shoulder in the hollow of his hand, the touch of her finger-tips, the white curve of her wrist so near his lips, stirring a forbidden memory with its subtle fragrance, this was more than Lionel had bargained for. It brought to bear on his resolution a pressure "beyond its guaranteed capacity." And, inasmuch as when a steam boiler explodes it is the engineer and not the boiler that is held to blame, so Lionel must not be censured for what was beyond his control.

Kate, with the supersentience of her sex, felt it coming before Lionel had the least idea of it, and as she waited second by second for the moment when her lover would press his lips passionately to her wrist, all power to draw away left her. She felt his kisses on her bare arm, up and up, and still she did not move, and when at last his lips came to hers, and for a moment he held her unresisting in his arms, Lionel had no disturbing delusion, as on a former occasion, that Kate Clendennin had fainted.

When Kate, by the exercise of that mysterious power of unreasoning possessed only by women, had made Lionel desperately ashamed of having done just what she had wanted him to do, and when Lionel had sufficiently humbled himself, she lifted him to a second best heaven by allowing herself (much against her will) to be persuaded not to renounce him forever. Then, discovering that the air was stifling in the conservatory, she announced her intention of taking a walk. No! On no account would she let Lionel accompany her. He might go anywhere in the world except with her. She was going down by the lake, and she wanted to be alone.

Lionel watched her dejectedly as she crossed the lawn and disappeared through the firs. For ten minutes, fifteen minutes he waited, and then, unable to endure it any longer, and choosing to brave her displeasure rather than remain away from her another minute, Lionel followed the path Kate had taken, and found her sitting in the summer house at the end of the little rustic pier.

"I say, Kate," he plunged right in, "I can't stand this. I'll have to clear out. I thought I could go through with it a week ago, but it's too much for me. When I acted like a brute just now and--and kissed you it was because I was such a beastly ass as to think a chap like me could make you happy on nothing a year, love in a cottage and all that. But that's what I'm going to do, Kate, only without the love--just plain cottage."

"Yes?"

"The fact is," he floundered on, "I've begun to feel differently about things, about money and all that. Old Baxter's right. Work is the only thing, and--I've made up my mind I'm going to take up farming. You know that place I told you of, Kate. I can get it for next to nothing. It belongs to that uncle I told you about at Wormwood Scrubbs--the disgustingly rich one--you know. You see I'm his favorite nephew--I mean to say his only nephew--which comes to the same thing, doesn't it? At all events he's my favorite uncle, and he's bound to leave me his money sometime, as that's the only way I could ever have enough to pay him back."

"Isn't he the aeroplane uncle?" asked Kate. Her voice sounded listless, and her eyes were fixed on the further shore of the little lake.

"That's the one. He goes in for biplanes. I had rather hoped he'd get a monoplane--not that I bear the dear old chap any ill will, don't you know." He paused and then went on more cheerfully: "But, after all, an uncle is an uncle, isn't he, Kate?"

Lionel had a way of stating great truths that carried his hearers off their feet.

"I believe he is, now that you speak of it," Kate assented. There was a slight twinkle in her eye, but she looked away before Lionel caught it, "What will you do on a farm?"

"Oh, I'm going in for vegetables, potatoes, you know, and all that sort of thing. You get the names out of a catalogue. I'm told the catalogues are free--that's one of the things that decided me--and they contain photographs of all the vegetables--regular family album, don't you know." Lionel laughed for the first time since his downfall. "All you have to do is to compare the photographs with the things, as soon as they come up, and that's how you know which is which. It sounds hard, but really it's perfectly simple when you get the hang of it."

"What if you failed to recognize a vegetable from its photograph?" questioned Kate in a serious voice. "Photographs are sometimes very flattering, you know, especially in catalogues. Suppose you mistook a lettuce for a cabbage?"

"Ah, there you have me. I believe it's almost impossible to tell them apart, that is, until they are ripe, but there's no use burning your bridge--I mean spoiling your cabbage until you come to it--is there, Kate? Of course," he continued, "I shall begin with potatoes. I shall feel perfectly at home with a potato."

Kate turned her head away quickly.

"Did you see that swan?" she cried. "He turned a perfect somersault in the water."

Lionel adjusted his monocle and stared at the unruffled surface of the lake. "He must have dived and come up on the other side of the island," he suggested.

"Please go on," she said. "What will be your attitude toward a--toward a--po--po----" She was afraid to trust her voice.

"A potato? My dear girl, it's the simplest thing in the world. Once plant the seeds and put the sticks in----"

"The sticks?" interrupted Kate.

Lionel permitted himself the smile of superior knowledge. "Of course, for the little beggars to climb up. I say, Kate, didn't you know that the potato is a creeper? Some of the catalogues call it a vine, but that's confusing, because a vine, don't you know, bears grapes, and a potato only bears potatoes. A chap might easily go wrong on that, mightn't he? Gardening is full of pitfalls, but so is every other profession when it comes to that, and I fancy I'll muddle through somehow, and if I don't, well, there you are!"

Lionel leaned back in the rustic seat and blew out a triumphant cloud of smoke. Kate watched him in silence.

Presently, in response to a pair of lifted eyebrows and an outstretched palm, Lionel fumbled for his cigarette case. Kate selected one, and, poising it delicately between her lips, tipped her face toward his for a light. Lionel hastily removed his cigarette and handed it to her. She took it silently, with a look that missed its mark.

After lighting her cigarette the countess tossed Lionel's into the lake with an exclamation that caused him to look round.

"How stupid of me!" she said. "Take mine."

He was feeling for the case. Kate wondered if he had heard. She watched him with a curious expression as he took a fresh one, then as he was feeling for a match she quickly leaned her face toward his, steadying her cigarette with her slender fingers. There was no evading it this time. To complicate matters, her hand shook ever so slightly, but enough to necessitate Lionel's holding it close against his.

"Thanks, awfully," said Lionel, puffing vigorously as he withdrew from the danger zone.

Kate watched the struggling spark with a look of half-amused suspense.

"Thanks! I have it," he added, a moment later, as he leaned back and exhaled an immense cloud of smoke.

Suddenly he jumped to his feet. "I must be getting back to my 'chores,' as old Baxter calls them."

Kate remained seated. "How soon do you go?" she asked in a tone of elaborate unconcern, made perfect by the preoccupation of dusting an imaginary cigarette ash from her knee.

"Go?" queried Lionel.

"To the farm?"

"Oh, yes, of course, the farm. I shall write to Uncle Cyril to-night. By Jove, won't he be surprised to hear I'm going in for farming and all that sort of thing? I'm afraid the old boy'll think I'm pulling his leg, but I'm not, Kate, upon my word, I'm in dead earnest. This working game has made another man of me. I never felt fitter in my life. I feel better every way, physically and," he hesitated, "yes, by Jove, morally." He paused breathless on this pinnacle of thought.

"And how about me?" She had turned away and was looking out over the lake, her chin resting on her hand. "I suppose you think it has made no difference to me. You don't think I'm worth making over. If I get up every morning at six and go to bed at nine, after working all day in the kitchen, it's just a joke. And as for my morals--whatever you mean by morals----"

Lionel had tried several times to get in a word, but Kate, never once taking her eyes off the lake, had kept on in a low voice, as if no one were there. It sounded to Lionel like some one talking in sleep. Now, as she paused and turned toward him, he broke in.

"Kate!" he cried. "For God's sake don't talk like that. How can you say those things? You know better. You know I don't mean that you--that you----" he stopped for want of words and went on disjointedly. "There's not another woman on earth to compare with you--physically or morally or any other way. If I thought I was such a beastly ass as not to think so I'd kick myself into that lake there and lie down. The beastly lake isn't deep enough to drown standing up in. There isn't another woman like you anywhere--I don't care who she is. You're the best pal a chap ever had, and I'd back your say so on a polo pony against anyone I know." He had reached another thought pinnacle, and again he paused for breath.

Kate got up and came to him. "It's all right, Lionel. I know you didn't mean to hurt me, but I want to tell you something. It has made a difference to me--every way, just as it has to you, Lionel--and I stand for every word Cousin Hiram said--I didn't at the time, I admit." She smiled at the recollection. "A week ago yesterday I went up to my room and packed my boxes, all by myself, too. I just threw things in anyhow, higglety pigglety. You never saw such a job as I made of it."

"By Jove!" exclaimed Lionel. "I did the same identical thing."

"I made up my mind," continued Kate, "I would go right out of that house and never come back."

"So did I," said Lionel; "upon my word I did. I say, Kate," he went on, "what made you change your mind?"

"The best reason in the world. I didn't know where to go."

"No more did I," admitted Lionel.

They both laughed, and the countess went on in a serious tone.

"I've learned a lot of things this last week, Lionel," she said, "and I didn't get them all out of Mrs. Beeton's Family Cookery Book. One is that the best imitation of happiness consists in----"

"Oh, come, I say," interrupted Lionel.

"In self-forgetfulness," continued Kate. "And the best receipt for forgetfulness is good, hard work."

Lionel gave her a stare of glassy bewilderment. "I may be a silly ass, I've been told so often enough by chaps who ought to know, but I'm dashed if I see what you want with imitation happiness. There's no imitation about you, Kate." He looked down. There was something he had to say and every meeting of their eyes made it harder. "Either you'll be happy or you won't be happy," he went on. "Whichever it is, it won't be an imitation. It will be the real thing and I hope--I hope----" He took a long breath, as if to pull himself together, and hurried on, still without looking at her. "It may sound a bit thick from a chap feeling the way I do, but I mean it, upon my word, I do. I hope you'll be happy, Kate, I hope to God he'll make you happy."

The countess was leaning back against the rustic doorway and her two bare arms made a glowing worshipful "V" as they flowed downward, with the gentle undulation of her body, to the slender link of her drooping hands.

On the third finger of her left hand Lionel now saw for the first time, what at first he took for a plain gold ring, but a second look discovered a widening at one side that betrayed a setting of some sort turned inward for concealment. As he looked up, Lionel knew by the quick tightening of her mouth that Kate had been smiling, yet, in her eyes, there was something very far from laughter.

"Why didn't you tell me, Kate?"

She put her hands behind her.

"Tell you what?"

"That it was all settled--your engagement, I mean."

"My engagement? But I'm not engaged--that is, I mean I haven't accepted him."

"You haven't accepted him?"

There was a tremendous knocking of Hope at the door of Lionel's heart.

"Not yet," she answered. "It is ten days since he asked me and I have given him no answer."

Lionel stared at her in blank amazement. Ten days ago! That was the day when he had met Kate on the golf course and had held her in his arms and thought she had fainted.

"That day? Kate, you don't mean it? You can't mean--do you know what day that was?"

Suddenly she caught both of his hands in hers. "Yes, of course I know, Lionel. It was there on the golf links--under the chestnut tree--in the dark--that he asked me to marry him--the man I love and--and I'm waiting to answer him here--now--this very minute! Now do you understand?"

For a moment Lionel was quite dazed. It was as if he had bumped his head against a rainbow.

"I say, Kate," he faltered, "this isn't a joke, is it? Do you know what you're saying? Are you going to be my wife?"

Kate pulled the ring off her third finger, the one and only ring she had on, and placed it on Lionel's little finger. It was a signet ring with a small engraved seal of chrysophrase.

"It belonged to my grandmother, dear! Look," she said, pointing to the pale green stone. And there, cut in minute script were the words, "_Qui me négligé, me perde_."