CHAPTER XXVII

THREE MONTHS' TRUCE

"Red marble shall not ease the heartache..."

"Why should I rear me halls of rare Design, on proud shafts mounting high? Why bid my Sabine vale good-bye For doubled wealth and care?" --C. S. CALVERLEY.

There was, however, much in Melicent's new position which was irksome, and to her inexperience, wholly unexpected. She had not foreseen that the event would make a stir in the county, and bring her into a prominence much accented by the fact that she was a qualified architect, now occupied in building a gentleman's country-seat.

Sir Joseph's paternal kiss was an infliction which positively scared her; and the influx of congratulatory visitors still worse.

"Capital, Melicent darling!" was Mrs. Cooper's honeyed sting; "you are quite a lesson to us all in overcoming unfortunate tendencies! I always quote you to anybody who complains to me of children that are difficult to manage."

Lancelot was out of earshot when this amenity was uttered; but Mr. Helston heard it, and, being unregenerate, hit back.

"Talking of children that are difficult to manage," he said, "what news have you of George?"

"A most amusing letter," promptly replied the vicar, who was always ready, with armour girt on, to defend his own. "He gives a capital account of the colonial method of pooling labour for harvesting purposes. Had you that custom among the Boers, Millie?"

"I don't know," said Melicent. "Ask Captain Brooke."

"Brooke's gone back to town," said Helston. "He went off last night on his motor. He is going to take it to Clunbury by road."

"Oh," said Millie, "I wish he had taken me! Travelling all night too! I should have enjoyed it!"

"Oh," cried her aunt, "we must really tell Mr. Burmester this! You must remember, Melicent darling, that you are appropriated now. It would never do to make Mr. Burmester jealous."

"Really, Aunt Minna," said Melicent disgustedly, "one would think you were the under-housemaid."

She walked away, with her head in the air, after this unpardonable speech, and told Lancelot that she could not stand Fransdale now that she was engaged; they must go back to town at once.

"Well," said Lance, "of course I ought to be back, only I was waiting till you went. We'll travel together."

"Captain Brooke's off, I hear."

"Yes; the builders' estimates for that confounded house came in, and he was off like a shot; thinks of nothing else but his house and his motor car; hardly took any notice when I told him we were engaged."

"Oh, well," said Melicent vaguely; "one wouldn't expect him to be interested in that."

"I did. I do. He's my friend."

"Ah! That's why, I expect! You see, he knows me better than you do."

Until Lance's blank stare faced her she did not realise the thing she had said.

"I mean," she hastily subjoined, "that he may have heard all about what a naughty girl I used to be from Mr. Mayne. You know, they are great friends."

"Ah," said Lance tenderly, "but Mayne thinks the world of you."

"Does he?" said Melicent, rather wearily.

* * * * * * * *

In the train, on the way to town, she felt happier. Things were falling out as she wished. It was unconsciously that she was acting with such surpassing selfishness. She did not tell herself that she was fencing herself with an engagement in order to be free to gratify her ambition. She did not even know that at the back of her mind lay the treacherous thought that, when Lone Ash was built, Lance might be thrown over. But a deeper self-knowledge would have shown her that this was what she really intended. Her mind just now was full of dreams: but they were in stone and mortar. Visions of corbie-stepped gables, of oriel windows, of mullions, drip-stones and other bewitching details, would keep coming in between her and Lance's scholarly, boyish face opposite. She and he were at one end of the carriage, the Helstons, with newspapers ostentatiously spread, at the other.

Lancelot was a good deal elated and somewhat thrown off his balance by the great fact of his engagement. He arrived at the railway station brimful of the idea of writing to his paper to decline the St. Petersburg mission. He was terribly dashed at first by his _fiancée's_ warm opposition to this idea.

"You can't care for me, if you can coolly face the idea of my being away till the end of June!" he cried.

"I never pretended to care for you in that emotional kind of way; I'm not emotional," said Millie, with calmness. "I care with my mind, and I like a man to go and do his duty, not to hang round a woman's apron-string. Look how soldiers and sailors have to part from the women they love! You have your name to make in the world."

"I see your point of view," said the lover wistfully, "but it is a little hard to go off and leave you so soon. I'm--I'm very much in love, you know, darling. You are the kind of girl men do make fools of themselves for."

Melicent sighed. Perhaps she was thinking of a certain cup of coffee streaming down a man's face and shirt, and the fight that ensued on that swift insult.

"I tell you honestly, Lance, I'm not in love with you," she said. "It's no use pretending."

He was silent, giving her only an ardent look--a look that she resented.

But she told herself, a man is only in love for such a short time. It is the kind of thing a woman must tolerate and allow until the brief madness passes. Now with regard to Bert, she doubted if such well-recognised rules would hold. He might easily prove capable of being in love all his life, which made him inexcusable. Her fancy ran off again upon this tack, till she was recalled by hearing Lance say:

"If you knew how awful it is to think of leaving you. Words don't convey the horrible feeling, the craving for you, when you are out of my sight."

"Perhaps you don't trust me," she said, with a little supercilious smile. "Perhaps you think I shall not keep faith if you leave me?"

"Melicent!" He insisted upon taking her hand, unbuttoning and removing her glove, kissing the palm and holding it to his cheek. "I shan't say another word. I'm the happiest man on earth. I shall look on my exile as the proof of my manhood."

"I am more likely to value you correctly if you go away," said Melicent, withdrawing her hand when she had borne his caress as long as she could. "I shall grow used to the idea of you. I can't adjust my horizons at present, with you in the foreground. It used to be so empty."

"And you will spend all to-morrow with me, won't you? We will lunch, shop, dine together, go to the theatre--we will have one day of happiness, and then part."

One day of happiness! The girl looked wistfully at him.

"Lance, will it truly make you very happy to spend the day with me?"

"I wonder you can ask," he said. He added a string of lovers' folly--tender names and protestations.

"Well, then, we'll try it!" she cried recklessly. "I want a day of happiness too. You shall take me where you like, and I shall try and be happy. I think I am too cold and selfish. I'll try and let myself go to-morrow, and enjoy things, and be sweet to you. You shall have a memory to carry to Russia with you--the memory of a day as happy as I can make it."

* * * * * * * *

The day of happiness was a pitiable failure as far as Melicent was concerned. She did her best, honestly. She wore her prettiest clothes, and tried hard to be really interested in jewellery, and to persuade herself that driving down Bond Street in a hansom, purchasing a smart diamond ring, lunching at the Trocadero, and so on, in company with a good-looking, well-dressed, clever and agreeable young man, constituted the elements of enjoyment for her. But it would not do. She would rather have been wandering alone on Fransdale Rigg in a storm and a mackintosh; or, better still, superintending the foundation-laying of the first child of her genius.

After their final leave-taking, and the passionate demonstration on the part of Lance which she had not been able to evade, she was almost determining to put an end to the whole thing. But when he was gone the tension relaxed at once. She liked him very well at a distance. Perhaps--almost certainly--by the time he returned, she would find that her affections had progressed in his direction. Meanwhile, she blindly felt the protection of her engagement to be an imperious necessity in the present circumstances.

And three days after the sailing of her lover, the idea of her approaching wedding had grown dim and far; for Captain Brooke came to Mr. Helston's office to consider the builders' estimates.

Melicent was at her drawing-board when he came in, her fair head bent over a piece of delicate work. The meeting was expected on both sides, and both were thoroughly on guard. Mr. Helston was present, and after the usual greetings had passed, the Captain, without pause, offered Melicent his congratulations on her engagement.

"Mayne seemed afraid that you would throw up your commission and leave me in the lurch in consequence of more pressing interests," he said. "I am glad to find you are more business-like than that."

She smiled.

"I'm afraid Lance knows that he will have to go shares with architecture in my heart," she said, slightly shrugging her shoulders.

Helston had gone for a moment to the outer office, to carry a paper to a clerk: the two were alone.

"_What a fool Burmester must be!_" said Brooke hurriedly, under his breath.

She looked up, angry, amazed; but his eyes were in another direction, and it was impossible for her to answer him, because Helston immediately returned. They plunged into business; and thereafter her client's manner was wholly natural, quiet and business-like.

In the course of two or three interviews, the raw surfaces of Melicent's susceptibilities were healed, her apprehensions lulled.

Fired through and through with professional enthusiasm, she gave herself heart and soul to the difficulties and the fascinations of her profession.

The glory of it! To see her Idea taking shape in material that should endure for ages! To see dreams and thoughts reduced to dimensions and proportions and traced upon the bosom of the ground in foundations that would be still young, years after their designer was dust!

The circumstances were exceptional. Her client gave her _carte-blanche_, and was to the full as enthusiastic as she. The spring was a glorious one. As the fruit trees in the old orchard of Lone Ash Farm burst into flower, the outline of Melicent's creation began to rise imperishable, on the hill-side.