A Servant of the Public. Anthony Hope
thought so," he nodded. "Somehow both of them seemed anxious to have reasons, good sound reasons."
"Oh, well, but she's in love with him," said Ora. "I suppose that's a reason."
"And he with her?"
"Of course."
It had been Ora's firm intention not to refer in the most distant manner to what had passed between Bowdon and herself. But our lips and eyes are traitors to our careful tongues; and there are people who draw out a joke from any hiding-place.
"He's done a very wise thing," said Ashley, looking straight into her eyes. She blushed and laughed. "I admire wise things," he added, laughing in his turn.
"But don't do them?"
"Oh, sometimes. To-day for example! What can be wiser than to refresh myself with a day in the country, to spend a few hours in fresh air and—and pleasant surroundings?"
She looked at him for a moment, then settled herself more luxuriously on the seat as she murmured, "I like being wise too."
The one porter at the little station eyed Ora with grave appreciation; the landlady of the little inn where they procured a plain lunch seemed divided between distrust of the lady and admiration of her garments. Ashley ordered an early dinner and then invited his friend to come out of doors.
He had brought her to no show view, no famous prospect. There was only a low slow stream dawdling along through the meadows, a belt of trees a quarter of a mile away behind them, in front a stretch of flat land beyond the river, and on the water's edge, here and there, a few willows. She found a convenient slope in the bank and sat down, he lying beside her, smoking a cigar. The sun shone, but the breeze was fresh. Ora had been merry at lunch but now she became silent again. When Ashley Mead threw the stump of his cigar into the stream, she seemed to rouse herself from a reverie and watched it bob lazily away.
"Sleepy after lunch?" he asked.
"No, I'm not sleepy," she answered. "I was letting things pass through my head." She turned to him rather abruptly. "Why did you bring me here to-day?" she asked, with a touch of protest in her voice.
"Purely a desire for pleasure; I wanted to enjoy myself."
"Are you like that too? Because I am." She seemed to search his face. "But there's something else in you."
"Yes, at other times," he admitted. "But just then there wasn't, so I brought you. And just now there isn't."
She laughed, rather nervously as it seemed to him.
"And what do the other things, when they're there, say to it?" she asked.
"Oh, they're sure of their innings in the end!" His tone was careless, but his eyes did not leave her face. He had meant not to make love to her; he would not have admitted that he was making love to her. But to have her face there and not look at it had become impossible; it chained him with its power of exciting that curiosity mingled with attraction which is roughly dubbed fascination. He felt that he must not only see more of her but know more of her; there was a demand of the brain as well as a craving of the emotions. She seemed moved to tell him nothing; she made no disclosures of her past life, where she had been born or bred, how she had fared, how come where she was, how become Mrs. Jack Fenning, or how now again turned to Ora Pinsent. She left him to find out anything he wanted to know. Her assumption that there was nothing to tell, or no reason to tell anything, spurred him to further study of her. That he studied at his peril he knew well and had known from the first; it was but another prick of the spur to him.
She had been gazing across the stream, at the meadows and the cattle. Now her eyes returned to him and, meeting his glance, she laughed again in that half-amused, half-embarrassed way.
"Shall I make up a life for you?" he asked. "Listen now. You weren't pretty as a young girl; you were considered very naughty, rather good-for-nothing; I think they were a bit down on you, tried to drill you into being like other people, to—what's the word?—eradicate your faults, to give you the virtues. All that made you rather unhappy; you'd a good deal rather have been petted. But you weren't drilled, your faults weren't eradicated, you never got the virtues."
She was listening with a smile and amused eyes.
"The training broke down because you began to grow beautiful and coaxing; they couldn't drill you any more; it wasn't in their hearts. They began to see that they'd got something uncommon; or perhaps they just despaired. They said it was Ora's way.—"
"Lizzie's way," she corrected with a merry nod.
"Oh, no. Hang Lizzie! They said it was Ora's way, and that it was no use bullying the girl. Your father said it first and had some trouble in convincing your mother. But he did at last. Then you grew up, and everybody made love to you. And I expect somebody died and home wasn't so comfortable. So some time or other you took a flight away, and the stage became a reality. I suppose it had been a dream. And at some time or other you took a certain step. Then I don't know anything more except what's written in the Chronicles of Queen Ora Pinsent." He ended the story, which had been punctuated by pauses in which he gathered fresh information from her face.
"You've done well to find out so much. It wasn't very unlike that. Now tell me the future. What's going to happen to me?"
"You're going to be young and beautiful for ever and ever."
She laughed joyfully.
"Oh, yes!" she cried. "Let me see. I shall be young—young enough—for ten years more, and with the proper appliances beautiful for twenty."
His laugh was reluctant; the mention of the proper appliances jarred on him a little. She saw it in an instant and answered with a defiance: "I rouge now when I want it."
"Are you rouged to-day?"
"You can look and see."
"I can look, but perhaps I can't see."
She rubbed her cheek hard with her hand and then showed him the palm.
"I hope that's proof," he said, "but these contrivances are so cunning now-a-days."
"Men think them even more cunning than they are," laughed Ora. "And what have you done?" she went on. "What's your life been?"
"The deplorably usual—preparatory school, public school, Oxford, Bar. I'm a full-blown specimen of the ordinary Englishman of the professional classes."
"And what are you going to do?"
"Oh, I'm sure I don't know. As little work as I must and as little harm as I can, I suppose."
She laughed as she said: "At any rate you aren't doing much work to-day, are you? And no harm at all! But you've left out what you put in for me—a certain step."
"Well, you've taken it, and I haven't."
"You will. Oh, Irene Kilnorton has told me all about it. It seems you can't help it, Mr. Mead. I liked her; I asked her to come and see me, but she's never been."
He made a little grimace, wrinkling brow and nose. Ora laughed again. "You won't be able to help it," she declared, nodding her head. "And then no more Sundays out with actresses!"
"Even as matters stand, it's not a habit of mine," he protested.
She smoked a cigarette of his, investing the act of luxury with a grace which made it meritorious; as she blew out the last of the smoke, she sighed, saying,
"I wish to-day would last for ever."
"Do you?" he asked in a low voice. The tone startled her to a sudden quick glance at his face. Her words had given expression to his longing that this simple perfection of existence should never pass.
"Just the meadows, and the river, and the sunshine."
"You leave me out?"
"No," she said, "you may be somewhere in it, if you like. Because if nothing was going to change, I shouldn't change either; and