"I—if you call it that;—yes! But a family can not adapt itself, instantaneously, to such a cataclysm as threatens—I mean—I mean—oh, Louis! Try to understand us and sympathise a little with us!"

His arms closed around her shoulders:

"Little sister, we both have the family temper—and beneath it, the family instinct for cohesion. If we are also selfish it is not individual but family selfishness. It is the family which has always said to the world, 'Noli me tangere!' while we, individually, are really inclined to be kinder, more sympathetic, more curious about the neighbours outside our gate. Let it be so now. Once inside the family, what can harm Valerie?"

"Dearest, dearest brother," she murmured, "you talk like a foolish man. Women understand better. And if it is a part of your program that this girl is to be accepted by an old-fashioned society, now almost obsolete, but in which this family is merely a single superannuated unit, that program can never be carried out."

"I think you are mistaken," he said.

"I know I am not. It is inevitable that if you marry this girl she will be more or less ignored, isolated, humiliated, overlooked outside our own little family circle. Even in that limited mob which the newspapers call New York Society—in that modern, wealthy, hard-witted, over-jewelled, self-sufficient league which is yet too eternally uncertain of its own status to assume any authority or any responsibility for a stranger without credentials,—it would not be possible to make Valerie West acceptable in the slightest sense of the word. Because she is too well known; her beauty is celebrated; she has become famous. Her only chance there—or with us—would have been in her absolute anonymity. Then lies might have done the rest. But lying is now useless in regard to her."

"Perfectly," he said. "She would not permit it."

In his vacant gaze there was something changed—a fixedness born of a slow and hopeless enlightenment.

"If that is the case, there is no chance," he said thoughtfully. "I had not considered that aspect."

"I had."

He shook his head slightly, gazing through the window at the starry lustre overhead.

"I wouldn't care," he said, "if she would only marry me. If she'd do that I'd never bother anybody—nor embarrass the family—"

"Louis!"

"I mean make any social demands on you…. And, as for the world—" He slowly shook his head again: "We could make our own friends and our own way—if she would only consent to do it. But she never will."

"Do you mean to say she will not marry you if you ask her?" began Lily incredulously.

"Absolutely."

"Why?"

"For your sakes—yours, and mother's, and father's—and for mine."

There was a long silence, then Lily said unsteadily:

"There—there seems to be a certain—nobility—about her…. It is a pity—a tragedy—that she is what she is!"

"It is a tragedy that the world is what it is," he said. "Good night."

* * * * *

His father sent for him in the morning; Louis found him reading the Tribune in his room and sipping a bowl of hot milk and toast.

"What have you been saying to your mother?" he asked, looking up through his gold-rimmed spectacles and munching toast.

"Has she not told you, father?"

"Yes, she has…. I think you had better make a trip around the world."

"That would not alter matters."

"I differ with you," observed his father, leisurely employing his napkin.

"There is no use considering it," said his son patiently.

"Then what do you propose to do?"

"There is nothing to do."

"By that somewhat indefinite expression I suppose that you intend to pursue a waiting policy?"

"A waiting policy?" His son laughed, mirthlessly. "What am I to wait for? If you all were kind to Valerie West she might, perhaps, consent to marry me. But it seems that even our own family circle has not sufficient authority to protect her from our friends' neglect and humiliation….

"She warned me that it would be so, long ago. I did not believe it; I could not comprehend it. But, somehow, Lily has made me believe it. And so have you. I guess it must be true. And if that's all I have to offer my wife, it's not enough to compensate her for her loss of freedom and happiness and self-respect among those who really care for her."

"Do you give me to understand that you renounce all intentions of marrying this girl?" asked his father, breaking more toast into his bowl of milk.

"Yes," said his son, listlessly.

"Thank God!" said his father; "come here, my son."

They shook hands; the son's lifeless arm fell to his side and he stood looking at the floor in silence. The father took a spoonful of hot milk with satisfaction, and, after the younger man had left the room, he resumed his newspaper. He was particularly interested in the "Sunshine Column," which dispensed sweetness and light under a poetic caption too beautiful to be true in a coldly humorous world.

* * * * *

That afternoon Gordon Collis said abruptly to Neville:

"You look like the devil, Louis."

"Do I?"

"You certainly do." And, in a lower voice: "I guess I've heard what's the matter. Don't worry. It's a thing about which nobody ever ought to give anybody any advice—so I'll give you some. Marry whoever you damn please. It'll be all the same after that oak I planted this morning is half grown."

"Gordon," he said, surprised, "I didn't suppose you were liberal."

"Liberal! Why, man alive! Do you think a fellow can live out of doors as I have lived, and see germs sprout, and see mountain ranges decay, and sit on a few glaciers, and swing a pick into a mother-lode—and not be liberal? Do you suppose ten-cent laws bother me when I'm up against the blind laws that made the law-makers?—laws that made life itself before Christ lived to conform to them?… I married where I loved. It chanced that my marriage with your sister didn't clash with the sanctified order of things in Manhattan town. But if your sister had been the maid who dresses her, and I had loved her, I'd have married her all the same and have gone about the pleasures and duties of procreation and conservation exactly as I go about 'em now…. I wonder how much the Almighty was thinking about Tenth Street when the first pair of anthropoids mated? Nobilitas sola est atque unica virtus. If you love each other—Noli pugnare duobus. … And I'm going into the woods to look for ginseng. Want to come?"

Neville went. Cameron and Stephanie, equipped with buckskin gloves, a fox terrier, and digging apparatus, joined them just where the slender meadow brook entered the woods.

"There are mosquitoes here!" exclaimed Cameron wrathfully. "All day and every day I'm being stung down town, and I'm not going to stand for it here!"

Stephanie let him aid her to the top of a fallen log, glancing back once or twice toward Neville, who was sauntering forward among the trees, pretending to look for ginseng.

"Do you notice how Louis has changed?" she said, keeping her balance on the log. "I cannot bear to see him so thin and colourless."

Cameron now entertained a lively suspicion how matters stood, and knew that Stephanie also suspected; but he only said, carelessly: "It's probably dissipation. You know what a terrible pace he's been going from the cradle onward."

She smiled quietly. "Yes, I know, Sandy. And I know, too, that you are the only man who has been able to keep up that devilish pace with him."

"I've led a horrible life," muttered Cameron darkly.

Stephanie laughed; he gave her his hand as she stood balanced on the big log; she laid her fingers in his confidently, looked into his honest face, still laughing, then sprang lightly to the ground.

"What a really good man you are!" she said tormentingly.

"Oh, heaven! If you call me that I'm really done for!"

"Done for?" she exclaimed in surprise. "How?"

"Done for as far as you are concerned."

"I? Why how, and with what am I concerned, Sandy? I don't understand you."

But he only turned red and muttered to himself and strolled about with his hands in his pockets, kicking the dead leaves as though he expected to find something astonishing under them. And Stephanie glanced at him sideways once or twice, thoughtfully, curiously, but questioned him no further.

Gordon Collis pottered about in a neighbouring thicket; the fox terrier was chasing chipmunks. As for Neville he had already sauntered out of sight among the trees.

Stephanie, seated on a dry and mossy stump, preoccupied with her own ruminations, looked up absently as Cameron came up to her bearing floral offerings.

"Thank you, Sandy," she said, as he handed her a cluster of wild blossoms. Then, fastening them to her waist, she glanced up mischieviously:

"How funny you are! You look and act like a little boy at a party presenting his first offering to the eternal feminine."

"It's my first offering," he said coolly.

"Oh, Sandy! With your devilish record!"

"Do you know," he said, "that I'm thirty-two years old? And that you are twenty-two? And that since you were twelve and I was twenty odd I've been in love with you?"

She looked at him in blank dismay for a moment, then forced a laugh:

"Of course I know it, Sandy. It's the kind of love a girl cares most about—"

"It's really love," said Cameron, un-smiling—"the kind I'm afraid she doesn't care very much about."

She hesitated, then met his gaze with a distressed smile:

"You don't really mean that, Sandy—"

"I've meant it for ten years…. But it doesn't matter—"

"Sandy!… It does matter—if—"

"No, it doesn't…. Come on and kick these leaves about and we'll make a million dollars in ginseng!"

But she remained seated, mute, her gaze a sorrowful interrogation which at length he could not pretend to ignore:

"Stephanie child, don't worry. I'm not worrying. I'm glad I told you….

Now just let me go on as I've always gone—"

"How can we?"

"Easily. Shut your eyes, breathe deeply, lifting both arms and lowering them while counting ten in German—"

"Sandy, don't be so foolish at—such a time."

"Such a time? What time is it?" pretending to consult his watch with great anxiety. Then a quick smile of relief spread over his features: "It's all right, Stephanie; it's my hour to be foolish. If you'll place a lump of sugar on my nose, and say 'when,' I'll perform."

There was no answering smile on her face.

"It's curious," she said, "how a girl can make a muddle of life without even trying."

"But just think what you might have done if you'd tried! You've much to be thankful for," he said gravely.

She raised her eyes, considering him:

"I wonder," she said, under her breath.

"Sure thing, Stephanie. You might have done worse; you might have married me. Throw away those flowers—there's a good girl—and forget what they meant."

Slowly, deliberately, blossom by blossom she drew them from her girdle and laid them on the moss beside her.

"There's one left," he said cheerfully. "Raus mit it!"

But she made no motion to detach it; appeared to be unconscious of it and of him as she turned her face and looked silently toward the place where Neville had disappeared.

An hour or two later, when Gordon was ready to return to the house, he shouted for Neville. Cameron also lifted up his voice in a series of prolonged howls.

But Neville was far beyond earshot, and still walking through woods and valleys and pleasant meadows in the general direction of the Estwich hills.

Somewhere there amid that soft rolling expanse of green was the woman who would never marry him. And it was now, at last, he decided that he would never take her on any other terms even though they were her own terms; that he must give her up to chance again as innocent as chance had given her into his brief keeping. No, she would never accept his terms and face the world with him as his wife. And so he must give her up. For he believed that, in him, the instinct of moral law had been too carefully developed ever to be deliberately ignored; he still believed marriage to be not only a rational social procedure, not only a human compromise and a divine convention, but the only possible sanctuary where love might dwell, and remain, and permanently endure inviolate.

CHAPTER XIV

The Countess Hélène had taken her maid and gone to New York on business for a day or two, leaving Valerie to amuse herself until her return.

Which was no hardship for Valerie. The only difficulty lay in there being too much to do.

In the first place she had become excellent friends with the farmer and had persuaded him to delegate to her a number of his duties. She had to collect the newly laid eggs, hunt up stolen nests, inspect and feed the clucking, quacking, gobbling personnel of the barnyard which came crowding to her clear-voiced call.

As for the cattle, she was rather timid about venturing to milk since the Ogilvy's painful and undignified début as an amateur Strephon.

However, she assisted at pasture call accompanied by a fat and lazy collie; and she petted and salted the herd to her heart's content.

Then there were books and magazines to be read, leisurely; and hammocks to lie in, while her eyes watched the sky where clouds sailed in snowy squadrons out of the breezy west.

And what happier company for her than her thoughts—what tenderer companionship than her memories; what more absorbing fellowship than the little busy intimate reflections that came swarming around her, more exciting, more impetuous, more exquisitely disturbing as the hurrying, sunny hours sped away and the first day of June drew nigh?

She spent hours alone on the hill behind the house, lying full length in the fragrant, wild grasses, looking across a green and sunlit world toward Ashuelyn.

She had told him not to attempt to come to Estwich; and, though she knew she had told him wisely, often and often there on her breezy hilltop she wished that she hadn't—wished that he would disregard her request—hoped he would—lay there, a dry grass stem between her lips, thinking how it would be if, suddenly, down there by—well, say down by that big oak, for example, a figure should stroll into view along the sheep-path…. And at first—just to prolong the tension—perhaps she wouldn't recognise him—just for a moment. Then, suddenly—

But she never got beyond that first blissful instant of recognition—the expression of his face—his quick spring forward—and she, amazed, rising to her feet and hastening forward to meet him. For she never pictured herself as standing still to await the man she loved.

When Hélène left, Valerie had the place to herself; and, without any disloyalty to the little countess, she experienced a new pleasure in the liberty of an indolence which exacted nothing of her.

She prowled around the library, luxuriously, dipping into inviting volumes; she strolled at hazard from veranda to garden, from garden to lawn, from lawn to farmyard.

About luncheon time she arrived at the house with her arms full of scented peonies, and spent a long while selecting the receptacles for them.

Luncheon was a deliciously lazy affair at which she felt at liberty to take her own time; and she did so, scanning the morning paper, which had just been delivered; making several bites of every cherry and strawberry, and being good to the three cats with asparagus ends and a saucer of chicken bouillon.

Later, reclining in the hammock, she mended a pair of brier-torn stockings; and when that thrifty and praiseworthy task was finished, she lay back and thought of Neville.

But at what moment in any day was she ever entirely unconscious of him? Besides, she could always think of him better—summon him nearer—visualise him more clearly, when she was afield, the blue sky above her, the green earth under foot, and companioned only by memory.

So she went to her room, put on her stout little shoes and her walking skirt; braided her hair and made of it a soft, light, lustrous turban; and taking her dog-whip, ran down stairs.

The fat old collie came wagging up to the whistle, capered clumsily as in duty bound; but before she had entirely traversed the chestnut woods he basely deserted her and waddled back to the kitchen door where a thoughtful cook and a succulent bone were combinations not unknown.

Valerie missed him presently, and whistled; but the fat sybarite, if within earshot, paid no attention; and she was left to swing her dog-whip and stroll on alone.

Her direction lay along the most inviting by-roads and paths; and she let chance direct her feet through this friendly, sunny land where one little hill was as green as another, and one little brook as clear and musical as another, and the dainty, ferny patches of woodlands resembled one another.

It was a delight to scramble over stone walls; she adored lying flat and wriggling under murderous barbed-wire, feeling the weeds brush her face. When a brook was a little too wide to jump, it was ecstasy to attempt it. She got both shoes wet and loved it. Brambles plucked boldly at her skirt; wild forest blossoms timidly summoned her aside to kneel and touch them, but to let them live; squirrels threatened her and rushed madly up and down trees defying her; a redstart in vermilion and black, fussed about her where she sat, closing and spreading its ornamental tail for somebody's benefit—perhaps for hers.

She was not tired; she did not suppose that she had wandered very far, but, glancing at her watch, she was surprised to find how late it was. And she decided to return.

After she had been deciding to return for about an hour it annoyed her to find that she could not get clear of the woods. It seemed preposterous; the woods could not be very extensive. As for being actually lost it seemed too absurd. Life is largely composed of absurdities.

There was one direction which she had not tried, and it lay along a bridle path, but whether north or south or east or west she was utterly unable to determine. She felt quite certain that Estwich could not lie either way along that bridle-path which stretched almost a straight, dark way under the trees as far as she could see.

Vexed, yet amused, at her own stupid plight, she was standing in the road, trying to make up her mind to try it, when, far down the vista, a horseman appeared, coming on at a leisurely canter; and with a sigh of relief she saw her troubles already at an end.

He drew bridle abreast of her, stared, sprang from his saddle and, cap in hand, came up to her holding out his hand:

"Miss West!" he exclaimed. "How on earth did you ever find your way into my woods?"

"I don't know, Mr. Cardemon," she said, thankful to encounter even him in her dilemma. "I must have walked a great deal farther than I meant to."

"You've walked at least five miles if you came by road; and nobody knows how far if you came across country," he said, staring at her out of his slightly prominent eyes.

"I did come across country. And if you will be kind enough to start me toward home—"

"You mean to walk back!"

"Of course I do."

"I won't permit it!" he exclaimed. "It's only a little way across to the house and we'll just step over and I'll have a car brought around for you—"

"Thank you, I am not tired—"

"You are on my land, therefore you are my guest," he insisted. "I am not going to let you go back on foot—"

"Mr. Cardemon, if you please, I very much prefer to return in my own way."

"What an obstinate girl you are!" he said, with his uncertain laugh, which never came until he had prejudged its effect on the situation; but the puffy flesh above his white riding-stock behind his lobeless ears reddened, and a slow, thickish colour came into his face and remained under the thick skin.

"If you won't let me send you back in a car," he said, "you at least won't refuse a glass of sherry and a biscuit—"

"Thank you—I haven't time—"

"My housekeeper, Mrs. Munn, is on the premises," he persisted.

"You are very kind, but—"

"Oh, don't turn a man down so mercilessly, Miss West!"

"You are exceedingly amiable," she repeated, "but I must go at once."

He switched the weeds with his crop, then the uncertain laugh came:

"I'll show you a short cut," he said. His prominent eyes rested on her, passed over her from head to foot, then wandered askance over the young woodland.

"In which direction lies Estwich?" she asked, lifting her gaze to meet his eyes; but they avoided her as he answered, busy fumbling with a girth that required no adjustment:

"Over yonder,"—making a slight movement with his head. Then taking his horse by the head he said heartily:

"Awfully sorry you won't accept my hospitality; but if you won't you won't, and we'll try to find a short cut."

He led his horse out of the path straight ahead through the woods, and she walked beside him.

"Of course you know the way, Mr. Cardemon?" she said pleasantly.

"I ought to—unless the undergrowth has changed the looks of things since I've been through."

"How long is it since you've been through?"

"Oh, I can't just recollect," he said carelessly. "I guess it will be all right."

For a while they walked steadily forward among the trees; he talking to her with a frank and detached amiability, asking about the people at Estwich, interested to hear that the small house-party had disintegrated, surprised to learn that the countess had gone to town.

"Are you entirely alone in the house?" he asked; and his eyes seemed to protrude a little more than usual.

"Entirely," she said carelessly; "except for Binns and his wife and the servants."

"Why didn't you 'phone a fellow to stop over to lunch?" he asked, suddenly assuming a jovial manner which their acquaintance did not warrant. "We country folk don't stand on ceremony you know."

"I did not know it," she said quietly.

His bold gaze rested on her again; again the uncertain laugh followed:

"If you'd ask me to dine with you to-night I'd take it as a charming concession to our native informality. What do you say, Miss West?"

She forced a smile, making a sign of negation with her head, but he began to press her until his importunities and his short, abrupt laughter embarrassed her.

"I couldn't ask anybody without permission from my hostess," she said, striving to maintain the light, careless tone which his changing manner toward her made more difficult for her.

"Oh, come, Miss West!" he said in a loud humorous voice; "don't pass me the prunes and prisms but be a good little sport and let a fellow come over to see you! You never did give me half a chance to know you, but you're hands across the table with that Ogilvy artist and José Querida—"

"I've known them rather longer than I have you, Mr. Cardemon."

"That's my handicap! I'm not squealing. All I want is to start in the race—"

"What race?" she asked coolly, turning on him a level gaze that, in spite of her, she could not maintain under the stare with which he returned it. And again the slight uneasiness crept over her and involuntarily she looked around her at the woods.

"How far is it now?" she inquired.

"Are you tired?"

"No. But I'm anxious to get back. Could you tell me how near to some road we are?"

He halted and looked around; she watched him anxiously as he tossed his bridle over his horse's neck and walked forward into a little glade where the late rays of the sun struck ruddy and warm on the dry grass.

"That's singular," he said as she went forward into the open where he stood; "I don't seem to remember this place."

"But you know about where we are, don't you?" she asked, resolutely suppressing the growing uneasiness and anxiety.

"Well—I am not perfectly certain." He kept his eyes off her while he spoke; but when she also turned and gazed helplessly at the woods encircling her, his glance stole toward her.

"You're not scared, are you?" he asked, and then laughed abruptly.

"Not in the slightest."

"Sure! You're a perfectly good sport…. I'll tell you—I'll leave my horse for one of my men to hunt up later, and we'll start off together on a good old-fashioned hike! Are you game?"

"Yes—if I only knew—if you were perfectly sure how to get to the edge of the woods. I don't see how you can be lost in your own woods—"

"I don't believe I am!" he said, laughing violently. "The Estwich road must be over in that direction. Come ahead, Miss West; the birds can cover us up if worst comes to worst!"

She went with him, entering the thicker growth with a quick, vigorous little stride as though energy and rapidity of motion could subdue the misgiving that threatened to frighten her sooner or later.

Over logs, boulders, gulleys, she swung forward, he supporting her from time to time in spite of her hasty assurance that she did not require aid.

Once, before she could prevent it, he grasped her and fairly swung her across a gulley; and again, as she gathered herself to jump, his powerful arm slipped around her body and he lowered her to the moss below, leaving her with red cheeks and a rapid heart to climb the laurel-choked ravine beside him.

It was breathless work; again and again, before she could prevent it, he forced his assistance on her; and in the abrupt, almost rough contact there was something that began at last to terrify her—weaken her—so that, at the top of the slope, she caught breathless at a tree and leaned against the trunk for a moment, closing her eyes.

"You poor little girl," he breathed close to her ear; and as her startled eyes flew open, he drew her into his arms.

For a second his congested face and prominent, pale eyes swam before her; then with a convulsive gasp she wrenched herself partly free and strained away from his grasp, panting.

"Let me go, Mr. Cardemon!"

"Look here, Valerie, you know I'm crazy about you—"

"Will you let me go?"

"Oh, come, little girl, I know who you are, all right! Be a good little sport and—"

"Let me go," she whispered between her teeth. Then his red, perspiring features—the prominent eyes and loose mouth drew nearer—nearer—and she struck blindly at the face with her dog-whip—twice with the lash and once with the stag-horn handle. And the next instant she was running.

He caught her at the foot of the slope; she saw blood on his cheek and puffy welts striping his distorted features, strove to strike him again, but felt her arm powerless in his grasp.

"Are you mad!" she gasped.

"Mad about you! For God's sake listen to me, Valerie! Batter me, tear me to pieces—and I won't care, if you'll listen to me a moment—"

She struggled silently, fiercely, to use her whip, to wrench herself free.

"I tell you I love you!" he said; "I'd go through hell for you. You've got to listen—you've got to know—"

"You coward!" she sobbed.

"I don't care what you say to me if you'll listen a moment—"

"As Rita Tevis listened to you!" she said, white to the lips—"you murderer of souls!" And, as his grasp relaxed for a second, she tore her arm free, sprang forward and slashed him across the mouth with the lash.

Behind her she heard his sharp cry of pain, heard him staggering about in the underbrush. Terror winged her feet and she fairly flew along the open ridge and down through the dead leaves across a soft, green, marshy hollow, hearing him somewhere in the woods behind her, coming on at a heavy run.

For a long time she ran; and suddenly collapsed, falling in a huddled desperate heap, her slender hands catching at her throat.

At the foot of the hill she saw him striding hither and thither, examining the soft forest soil or halting to listen—then as though scourged into action, running aimlessly toward where she lay, casting about on every side like a burly dog at fault.

Once, when he stood not very far away, and she had hidden her face in her arms, trembling like a doomed thing—she heard him call to her—heard the cry burst from him as though in agony:

"Valerie, don't be afraid! I was crazy to touch you;—I'll let you cut me to pieces if you'll only answer me."

And again he shouted, in a voice made thin by fright: "For God's sake, Valerie, think of me for a moment. Don't run off like that and let people know what's happened to you!"

Then, in a moment, his heavy, hurried tread resounded; and he must have run very near to where she crouched, because she could hear him whimpering in his fear; but he ran on past where she lay, calling to her at intervals, until his frightened voice sounded at a distance and she could scarcely hear the rustle of the dead leaves under his hurrying tread.

Even then terror held her chained, breathing fast like a wounded thing, eyes bright with the insanity of her fear. She lay flat in the leaves, not stirring.

The last red sunbeams slanted through the woods, painting tree trunks crimson and running in fiery furrows through, the dead leaves; the sky faded to rose-colour, to mauve; faintly a star shone.

For a long time now nothing had stirred in the woodland silence. And, as the star glimmered brighter through the branches, she shivered, moved, lay listening, then crawled a little way. Every sound that she made was a terror to her, every heart beat seemed to burst the silence.

It was dusk when she crept out at last into a stony road, dragging her limbs; a fine mist had settled over the fields; the air grew keener. Somewhere in the darkness cow-bells tinkled; overhead, through the damp sheet of fog, the veiled stars were still shining.

Her senses were not perfectly clear; she remembered falling once or twice—remembered seeing the granite posts and iron gates of a drive, and that lighted windows were shining dimly somewhere beyond. And she crept toward them, still stupid with exhaustion and fright. Then she was aware of people, dim shapes in the darkness—of a dog barking—of voices, a quick movement in the dusk—of a woman's startled exclamation.