The Keeper of the Door. Ethel M. Dell
in a yacht with those two—my dear, it would be unspeakable! I should simply leap overboard, I know I should, and I told him so. He has sulked ever since."
"Ah well, you are coming to us," said Olga consolingly. "So he can go without you now with a clear conscience."
"So he can. Mrs. Bruce will be enchanted. She hates me, though she pretends not to and thinks I don't know. Isn't it funny of her? Allegro, you're a darling!" Impulsively she whizzed round and kissed her friend. "You are the one person in the world who loves me, and the only one I love!"
"Violet dearest, how can you say so?"
"The truth, dear, I assure you. I fell in love last winter when we were at Nice with a boy with the most romantic, heavenly eyes you ever saw—an Italian. And then he went and spoilt everything by falling in love with me. I hated him then. He became cheap and very nasty. He only liked my outer covering too, and was not in the least interested in the creature that lived inside."
"You apparently only cared for his eyes," observed Olga.
"Yes, exactly, dear. How clever you are! I should like to have brought them away with me as trophies. But he didn't love me enough for that, and nothing else would have satisfied me. Have you put that hateful, revolting book quite out of reach? I think you had better. If I get it again, you won't take it away so easily a second time."
"I can't think what makes you like such beastly things," said Olga, sitting down upon it firmly.
"Nor I, dear. It's just the way I'm made. I don't like them either. I hate them. That's where the fascination comes in. There! Let me put on my hat, and I am ready. I suppose I must veil myself? We mustn't dazzle the impressionable Max, must we? He must accustom his sight to me gradually. Never mind the rest of those things, Allegro! Françoise can finish, and send them on by the luggage-cart in the evening. Come along, let us face the dragon and get it over."
She linked her arm in Olga's once more, and drew her to the door. Olga carried the book with her for safety, determined that her friend should feast no more on horrors.
"What a little tyrant you are!" laughed Violet. "I am coming to protect you from the dragon, but I shall probably end by protecting the dragon from you. Do you keep a censorious eye upon the literature he reads also?"
"I leave him quite alone," said Olga, "unless he interferes with me."
"Ah! And then, I suppose, you scratch him heartily Poor young man! But I should imagine he is quite capable of clipping your claws if they get in his way. My dear, your fate will be no easy one. I should begin to treat him kindly if I were you."
"I shall never do that," said Olga with conviction.
She was somewhat dismayed as they passed through the archway into the hall to find Max and his host still there; but as they were at the further end and apparently deeply engrossed in conversation, she decided that Violet's gay remarks were scarcely likely to have made any impression, even if they had penetrated so far.
Both men looked up at their entrance, and Max at once moved to meet them.
"I've turned up again at risk of boring you, Miss Campion," he observed. "I chanced to find myself in this direction, so had to yield to the temptation of coming here."
"Oh, don't apologize!" laughed Violet, giving him two fingers. "Of course, I know that it's Bruce you come to see. I wish you would prescribe him a temper tonic. He needs one badly, don't you, Bruce? So Granny Stubbs has given you the slip, has she? How impertinent of her! Aren't you very angry?"
Max shrugged his shoulders with a glance at Olga's tight lips. "I never expend my emotions in vain," he said. "It's a waste of time as well as energy, and I have other purposes for both."
"Then you are never angry?" enquired Violet.
"Never, unless I can punish the offender," smiled Max.
"How frightfully practical! Dear me! I shall have to be exceedingly careful not to offend you. I wonder what form your punishments usually take. Are they made to fit the crime?"
"Usually," said Max, and again he glanced at Olga.
Her eyelids flickered as though she were aware of his look, but she did not raise them.
"You make me quite nervous," declared Violet. "Do you know I have actually promised to come and help keep house for you and the redoubtable Captain Ratcliffe? I'm beginning to think I've been rather rash."
"On the contrary," said Max. "It was quite a wise move on your part, and it shall be mine to see that you do not regret it."
Her gay laugh rang through the old hall. "Bruce is looking quite scandalized, and I don't wonder. Will you and Adelaide be able to support life without me, Bruce? It's a purely formal question, so you needn't answer it if you don't wish. Oh, do let us have some tea! I'm so thirsty. Please ring the bell, Dr. Wyndham! It's close to you. Look at Olga cuddling that naughty book of mine! Don't you think you ought to take it away from her? It's not fit for an innocent maiden to handle even with gloves on."
"What book is it?" It was Colonel Campion who spoke in the harsh tone of one issuing a command.
Olga coloured fierily. "I was taking it away with me to burn on the garden bonfire," she said.
"Give it to me!" he said.
"No, don't, Allegro! It isn't yours to give. You may give it to Dr.
Wyndham if you like, but not to Bruce."
"I am not going to give it to anyone," Olga said rather shortly.
"Pardon!" said Max, holding out his hand. "I should like to sample Miss
Campion's taste in literature."
She drew back, but his hand remained outstretched. After a moment, reluctantly, she surrendered the book. He took it, and began to turn the pages.
"Nothing ever shocks a medical man," observed Violet. "He is inured to the worst. Come along, dear! This place is like a vault. Let us get into the sunshine and leave him to wallow till tea appears."
They went out together to Olga's immense relief, and spent the next ten minutes in playing with the motor, in the driving of which Violet had lately developed a keen interest.
When they returned, the book had disappeared and the incident was apparently forgotten. They had tea to the accompaniment of much light-hearted chatter on the parts of Violet and Max Wyndham. Colonel Campion sat in heavy silence, and Olga instinctively held aloof. There was something in Max's attitude that puzzled her, but it was something so intangible that she could not even vaguely define it to herself. All his careless banter notwithstanding, she was fully convinced in her own mind that he was not in the smallest degree dazzled or so much as attracted by the brilliant beauty that so dominated her own imagination. Though he laughed and joked in his customary cynical strain, she had a feeling that his mental energies were actually employed elsewhere. He was like a man watching behind a mask. Watching—for what?
Suddenly she remembered again the tragedy she had witnessed in the glen that afternoon, and her heart recoiled.
Was it the atmosphere of the place that made her morbid? Or was there indeed some evil influence at work in her friend's life which she by her headlong action had somehow rendered active?
Before they left the Priory, she had begun to repent almost passionately the impulse that had taken her thither. But wherefore she thus repented she could not have explained.
CHAPTER V
THE CHAPERON
"It's very kind of Olga to provide us with distractions," said Nick, as he dropped into an arm-chair, with a cigar, "but I almost think we are better off without them. If I see much of that girl, it will upset my internal