The Essential Elinor Glyn Collection. Glyn Elinor
out of their holes, and to wondering what Fate held in store for her in the immediate future. What was going to be her life? That nothing but good could happen she always knew, because since the very beginning God--the same personal kindly force that she had always worshiped, unaltered by her deep learning, unweakened by any theological dissertations--was there manifesting the whole year round His wonderful love for the world.
And so she sat until the clock of the church at Sarthe-under-Crum struck one, and she started up, realizing that she was too late now to go on to Cheiron's and would only just have time to return for lunch with her aunts. She must go instead in the afternoon. So she walked briskly to the house, with a strange feeling of relief and joy, which she was quite unable to account for in any explicable way.
Nothing delayed her on her second attempt to reach the orchard house, and she found Cheiron placidly smoking while he read a volume of Lucian. She was quite aware what that meant. When the Professor was in an amused and cynical humor he always read Lucian, and although he knew every word by heart, it still caused him complete satisfaction, plainly to be discerned by the upward raising of the left penthouse brow.
Halcyone sat down and smiled sympathetically while she tried to detect which volume it was, that she might have some clew to the cause of her Professor's mood. But he carefully closed the book, so that she could not see--it was the Judgment of Paris in the dialogue of the gods--and she was unable to have her curiosity gratified.
"Something has entertained you, Cheiron?" she said.
"I have had the visit of two goddesses," he answered, chuckling. "Our friend John Derringham brought them. He wanted to show them off and get my opinion, I think."
"And did you give him one?" she asked. "I suppose not!"
"He went away with his teeth shut--" and Mr. Carlyon's smile deepened as he stroked his white beard.
Halcyone laughed. She seldom asked questions herself. If the Professor wished to tell her anything about the ladies he would do so--she was dying to hear! Presently a set of disjointed sentences flowed from her master's lips between his puffs of smoke.
"Girl--worth something--showy--honest--sure of herself--clever--pretty--on her own roots--not a graft."
"Girl"--who was the girl? Halcyone wondered. But Cheiron continued his laconic utterances.
"Woman--beautiful--determined--thick--roots of the commonest--grafting of the best--octopean, tenacious--dangerous--my poor devil of a John!"
"And did you give the apple to either, Cheiron?" Halcyone asked with a gleam of fine humor in her wise eyes. "Or, one of the trio being absent, did you feel yourself excused?"
Mr. Carlyon glanced at her sharply, and then broke into a smile.
"Young woman, I do not think I have ever allowed you to read the Judgment of Paris," he said. "Wherefore your question is ill-timed and irrelevant."
Then they laughed together. How well they knew one another!--not only over things Greek. And presently they began their reading. They were in the middle of Symonds' "Renaissance," and so forgot the outer world.
But after Halcyone had gone in the dusk through the park, the Professor sat in the firelight for a while, and did not ring for lights. He was musing deeply, and his thoughts ran something in this line:
"John must dree his weird. Nothing anyone could say has ever influenced him. If he marries this woman she will eat his soul; having only a sham one of her own, she will devour his. She'll do very well to adorn the London house and feed his friends. He'll find her out in less than a year--it will kill his inspirations. Well, Zeus and all the gods cannot help a man in his folly. But my business is to see that he does not ensnare the heart of my little girl. If he had waited he could have found her--the one woman with a soul."
* * * * *
Miss Roberta had, unfortunately, a bad attack of rheumatism on Easter Sunday, augmented by a cold, and Halcyone stayed at home to rub her poor knee with hot oil, so she did not see the Wendover party, several of whom came to church. Miss La Sarthe occupied the family pew alone, and was the source of much amusement and delight to the smart inhabitants of the outer world.
"Isn't she just too sweet, Cis?" whispered Miss Lutworth into Mrs. Cricklander's ear. "Can't we get Mr. Derringham to take us over there this afternoon?"
But when the subject was broached later at luncheon by his hostess, John Derringham threw cold water upon the idea. He had stayed behind for a few minutes to renew his acquaintance with the ancient lady, and had given her his arm down the short church path, and placed her with extreme deference in the Shetland pony shay, to the absolute enchantment of Miss Lutworth, who, with Lord Freynault, stood upon the mound of an old forgotten grave, the better to see. It was in the earlier days of motor-cars, and Mrs. Cricklander's fine open Charron created the greatest excitement as it waited by the lych-gate. The two Shetlands cocked their ears and showed various signs of nervous interest, and William had all he could do to hold the minute creatures. But Miss La Sarthe behaved with unimpaired dignity, never once glancing in the direction of the great green monster. She got in, assisted by the respectful churchwarden, and allowed John Derringham to wrap the rug round her knees, and then carefully adjusted the ring of her turquoise-studded whip handle.
"Good day, Goddard," she said with benign condescension to the churchwarden. "And see that Betsy Hodges' child with the whooping-cough gets some of Hester's syrup and is not brought to church again next Sunday." And she nodded a gracious dismissal. Then, turning to John Derringham, she gave him two fingers, while she said with some show of haughty friendliness: "My sister and I will be very pleased to see you if you are staying in this neighborhood, Mr. Derringham, and care to take tea with us one day."
"I shall be more than delighted," he replied, as he bowed with homage and stood aside, because William's face betrayed his anxiety over the fidgety ponies.
Miss La Sarthe turned her head with its pork-pie hat and floating veil, and said with superb tranquillity, "You may drive on now, William." And they rolled off between a lane of respectful, curtseying rustics.
Mrs. Cricklander and Lady Maulevrier had already entered the motor and were surveying the scene with amused interest, while Miss Lutworth and Lord Freynault, chaperoned by Arabella Clinker, were preparing to walk. It was not more than a mile across the park, and it was a glorious day. John Derringham joined them.
"I think I will come with you, too," he said. "You take my place, Sir Tedbury. It is only fair you should drive one way."
And so it was arranged, not altogether to the satisfaction of the hostess, who would have preferred to have walked also. However, there was nothing to be done, and so they were whizzed off, while with the tail of her eye Cecilia Cricklander perceived that Lord Freynault had been displaced from Cora's side and was now stalking behind the other pair, beside Arabella Clinker.
"What an extraordinary sight that was," she said to Sir Tedbury Delvine as they went along. "I thought no villagers curtsied any more now in England. That very funny-looking old lady might have been a royalty!"
"It is because she has never had a doubt but that she is--or something higher--complete owner of all these souls," he returned, "that they have not yet begun to doubt it either. They and their forebears have bobbed to the La Sarthe for hundreds of years, and they will go on doing it if this holder of the name lives to be ninety-nine. They would never do so to any new-comer, though, I expect."
"But I am told they have not a penny left, and have sold every acre of the land except the park. Is it not wonderful, Kitty?" Mrs. Cricklander went on, turning to Lady Maulevrier. "I am dying to know them. I hope they will call."
But Sir Tedbury had already chanced to have talked the matter over with John Derringham, because he himself was most anxious to see La Sarthe Chase, which was of deep historical interest, and had incidentally been made aware by that gentleman of the old ladies' views,