The Essential Elinor Glyn Collection. Glyn Elinor
that a beard was a most unusual thing for a young modern man of the world, and that John Derringham for that reason must always be distinguished from his fellows. Carpenters and hedgers and ditchers wore them, and nondescript young fellows she remembered seeing when she went into Upminster with her aunts; but these excursions had been discontinued now for the past five years, so the villagers of Sarthe-under-Crum and the denizens of the rather larger Applewood were the only human beings she ever saw.
The party at Wendover were to arrive on the Thursday before Good Friday--Priscilla had told her that--and it was just possible that some of them might be in church.
The aunts now drove a low basket shay which had been their pride in the sixties, but which for countless years, until the investment began to pay, they had been unable to keep a pair of ponies for. Now, however, the shay was unearthed from the moldy coach-house and for the past year two very old and quiet specimens of Shetland had been found for them by Mr. Martin and they were able to drive to church every Sunday in state, William sitting up behind, holding the reins between his mistresses, while Miss La Sarthe flourished a small whip whose delicate handle was studded with minute turquoises. From it dangled a ring which she could slip on her finger over her one-buttoned slate-colored glove, and so feel certain of not dropping this treasure. Halcyone always walked.
On Good Friday there was not a sight of the Wendover party in church, and Halcyone went back by the orchard house to look in at Cheiron, who had had a cold in the last few days.
Stretched in the armchair she found John Derringham.
The brisk walk in the fresh spring air had brought some faint color to her pale cheeks, her soft hair was wound about her head with becoming simplicity, and she wore an ordinary suit which could not disguise her beautiful slender limbs, so long and thin, a veritable Artemis in her chaste perfection of balance and proportion.
Halcyone could pass in any crowd and perhaps no one would ever notice her and her mouse-like coloring, but once your eye was arrested, then, like looking at some rare bit of delicate enamel, you began to perceive undreamed-of graces which soothed the sight until you were filled with the consciousness of an exquisite beauty as intangible as her other charm--distinction. An infinite serenity was in her atmosphere, a promise of all pure and tender things in her great soft eyes. The mystery and freshness of the night seemed always to hang about her. Her ways were noiseless--the most creaking door appeared to forget its irritating habit when under her touch. Thus it was that John Derringham, smoking a cigar, never even glanced up until a voice of extreme cultivation and softness said gently:
"Good morning. And how are you?"
Then he bounded from his chair, startled a little, and held out his hand.
"My old friend, Miss Halcyone, the Priestess of Truth!" he exclaimed, "as I am alive!"
She smiled serenely while they shook hands, and sat down demurely by the Professor's side.
"I thought you would have been translated to Olympus long ago," the visitor said. "Have you honored this ordinary earth and our friend Cheiron's cave, ever since?"
"Ever since!"
"There can be nothing left for you to learn. Master, it is you and I whom she could teach," he laughed.
"How do you know all this?" asked Halcyone quietly, while her eyes smiled at his raillery. "Do I look such an old-fashioned blue-stocking, then?"
"You look perfectly sweet," and John Derringham's expressive eyes confirmed what he said.
"Enough, enough, John. Halcyone is quite unaccustomed to gallants from the world like you," the Professor growled. "If you pay her compliments she won't believe you can really make a speech."
So Mr. Derringham laughed and continued his interrupted conversation. He seemed in good humor with all the world. He was going to stay at Wendover for the whole of Easter week. Mrs. Cricklander had an amusing party of luminaries of both sides--she was the most perfect hostess and had a remarkable talent for collecting the right people.
"She is quite the best-read woman I have ever met, Master," John Derringham said. "You must let me bring her over here one day to see you--you would delight in her wit and beauty. She does not leave you a dull moment."
"Yes, bring her," the Professor returned between the puffs at his long pipe. "I have never met any of these new hothouse roses grafted upon briar roots. I should like to study how the system has worked."
"Quite admirably, as you will see. I do not know any Englishwomen who are to compare to such Americans in brilliancy and fascination."
Over Halcyone, in spite of her serenity, there crept a feeling of cold. She did not then analyze why, and, as was her habit when anything began to distress her, she looked out of the window, whether it were night or day. She always did this, and when her eyes saw Nature in any of her moods, calm returned to her.
"She will simply revel in La Sarthe Chase when she sees it," Mr. Derringham went on, now addressing Halcyone. "She is a past-mistress in knowledge of the dates of things. You are going to have the most delicious neighbor, Miss Halcyone, and in learning, a foeman worthy of your steel."
Cheiron was heard to chuckle wickedly, and when his former Oxford pupil asked him with mild humor the reason of his inappropriate mirth, he answered dryly:
"She is never likely to see the inside of the park even. Queen Victoria did not receive divorced persons, and the Misses La Sarthe, in consequence, cannot either. You will have to bring her here by the road, John!"
Halcyone winced a little. She disliked this conversation; it was not as _fine_ as she liked to think were the methods of both the men who were carrying it on.
John Derringham reddened up to his temples, where there were a few streaks of gray in his dark hair which added to the distinction of his finely cut, rather ascetic face. The short, well-trimmed beard was very becoming, Halcyone thought, and gave him a look of great masculinity and strength. His hawk's eyes were shadowed, as though he sat up very late at night; which indeed he did. For John Derringham, at this period of his life, burnt the candle at both ends and in the middle, too, if it could add to the pleasure or benefit of his calculated career, mapped out for himself by himself.
A sensation almost of wrath rose in his breast at his old master's words. These ignorant country people, to dare to criticise his glittering golden pheasant, whom he was very nearly making up his mind to take for a wife! This aspect of the case, that even these unimportant old ladies could question the position of his choice, galled him. He had spent up to the last penny of his diminished income in his years of man's estate, and Derringham was mortgaged to its furthest acre--and a gentleman must live--and with his brilliant political future expanding before him, lack of means must not be allowed to stand in his way. He would give this woman in gratified ambition as much or more than she would give him in wealth, so it would be an equal bargain and benefit them both. And, above all, he was more than half in love with her, and could get quite a large share of pleasure out of the affair as well. He had been too busy to trouble much over women as a sex since he had left the University--except in the way he had once described to his old master, regarding them as flowers in a garden--mere pleasures for sight and touch, and experiencing ephemeral passions which left no mark. But women either feared or adored him; and this woman, the desired of a host of his friends, had singled him out for her especial favors. It had amused him the whole of the last season; he had defied her efforts to chain him to her chariot wheels, and in the winter she had gone to Egypt, and had only just returned. But the charm was growing, and he felt he would allow himself to be caught in her net.
"Mrs. Cricklander would be very much amused could she hear this verdict of the county," he said with a certain tone in his voice which did not escape Halcyone. "In London we do not occupy ourselves with such unimportant things--but I dare say she will get over it. And now I really must be going back. May I walk with you through the park, Miss Halcyone, if you are going, too? I am sure there must be an opening somewhere,