The Keeper of the Door. Ethel M. Dell
Is she real by any chance?"
"Haven't you ever seen her before?" asked Max.
"Several times, but never for long together. Jove! What a face she has!" He turned his head sharply, and looked up at Max who stood on the hearth-rug. "You're not wildly enthusiastic over her anyhow," he observed. "Are you really indifferent or only pretending?"
"I?" The corners of Max's mouth went down. He stuffed his pipe into one of them and said no more.
Nick continued to regard him with interest for some seconds. Suddenly he laughed. "Do you know, Wyndham," he said, "I should awfully like to give you a word of advice?"
"What on?" Max did not sound particularly encouraging. He proceeded to light his pipe with exceeding deliberation. He despised cigars.
Nick closed his eyes. "In my capacity of chaperon," he said. "It's a beastly difficult position by the way. I'm weighed down by responsibility."
"So I've noticed," remarked Max drily.
"Well, you haven't done much to lighten the burden," said Nick. "I suppose you haven't realized yet that I am one of the gods that control your destiny."
"Well, no; I hadn't." Max leaned against the mantelpiece and smoked, with his face to the ceiling. "I knew you were a species of deity of course. I've been told that several times. And I humbly beg to offer you my sympathy."
"Thanks!" Nick's eyes flashed open as if at the pulling of a string. "If it isn't an empty phrase, I value it."
"I don't deal in empty phrases as a rule," said Max.
"Quite so. Only with a definite end in view? I hold that no one should ever do or say anything without a purpose."
"So do I," said Max.
Nick's eyes flickered over him and closed again. "Then, my dear chap," he said, "why in Heaven's name make yourself so damned unpleasant?"
"So what?" said Max.
"What I said." Coolly Nick made answer. "It's not an empty phrase," he added. "You will find a meaning attached if you deign to give it the benefit of your august consideration."
Max uttered a grim, unwilling laugh. "I suppose you are privileged to say what you like," he said.
"I observe certain limits," said Nick.
"And you never make mistakes?"
"Oh, yes, occasionally. Not often. You see, I'm too well-meaning to go far astray," said Nick, with becoming modesty. "You must remember that I'm well-meaning, Wyndham. It accounts for a good many little eccentricities. I think you were quite right to make her extract that needle. I should have done it myself. But you are not so wise in resenting her refusal to kiss the place and make it well. I speak from the point of view of the chaperon, remember."
"Who told you anything about a needle?" demanded Max, suddenly turning brick-red..
"That's my affair," said Nick.
"And mine!"
"No, pardon me, not yours!" Again his eyes took a leaping glance at his companion.
Doggedly Max faced it. "Did she tell you?"
"Who?" said Nick.
"Olga." He flung the name with half-suppressed resentment. His attitude in that moment was aggressively British. He looked as he had looked to Olga that afternoon, undeniably formidable.
But Nick remained unimpressed. "I shan't answer that question," he said.
"You needn't," said Max grimly.
"That's why," said Nick.
"Oh! I see." Max's eyes searched him narrowly for a moment, then returned to the ceiling. "Does she think I'm in love with her?" he asked rather curtly.
"Well, scarcely. I shouldn't let her think that at present if I were you. In my opinion any extremes are inadvisable at this stage."
"I suppose you know I am going to marry her?" said Max.
"Yes, I've divined that."
"And you approve?"
"I submit to the inevitable," said Nick with a sigh.
Max smiled, the smile of a man who faces considerable odds with complete confidence. "She doesn't—at present."
Nick's grin of appreciation flashed across his yellow face and was gone. "No, my friend. And you'll find her very elusive to deal with. You will never make her like you. I suppose you know that."
"I don't want her to," said Max.
"You make that very obvious," laughed Nick. "It's a mistake. If you keep bringing her to bay, you'll never catch her. She's always on her guard with you now. She never breathes freely with you in the room, poor kid."
"What is she afraid of?" growled Max.
"You know best." Nick glanced up again with sudden keenness. "Don't harry the child, Wyndham!" he said, a half-whimsical note of pleading in his voice. "If you know you're going to win through, you can afford to let her have the honours of war. There's nothing softens a woman more."
"I don't mean to harry her." Max turned squarely round upon him. "But neither have I the smallest intention of fetching and carrying for her till she either kicks me or pats me on the head. I shouldn't appreciate either, and it's a method I don't believe in."
"There I am with you," said Nick. "But for Heaven's sake, man, be patient! It's no joke, I assure you, if the one woman takes it into her head that you are nothing short of a devouring monster. She will fly to the ends of the earth to escape you sooner than stay to hear reason."
Max smiled in his one-sided fashion. "Has that been your experience?"
Nick nodded. There was a reminiscent glitter in his eyes. "My courtship represented two years' hard labour. It nearly killed me. However, we've made up for it since."
"I don't propose to spend two years over mine," said Max.
Nick's eyes flashed upwards, meeting those of the younger man with something of the effect of a collision. His body however remained quite passive, and his voice even sounded as if it had a laugh in it as he made response.
"I think you're a decent chap," he said, "and I think you might make her happy; but I'm damned if she shall marry any man—good, bad, or indifferent—before she's ready."
"You also think you could prevent such a catastrophe?" suggested Max cynically.
Nick grinned with baffling amiability. "No, I don't think. I know. Quite a small spoke is enough to stop a wheel—even a mighty big wheel—if it's going too fast."
And again, more than half against his will, Max laughed. "You make a very efficient chaperon," he said.
"It's my speciality just now," said Nick.
He closed his eyes again peaceably, and gave himself up to his cigar.
Max, his rough red brows drawn together, leaned back against the mantelpiece and smoked his pipe, staring at the opposite wall. There was no strain in the silence between them. Both were preoccupied.
Suddenly through the open window there rippled in the fairy notes of a mandolin, and almost at once a voice of most alluring sweetness began to sing:
"O, wert thou in the cauld blast,
On yonder lea, on yonder lea,
My plaidie to the angry airt,
I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee.
Or did misfortune's bitter storms
Around thee blaw, around thee blaw,
Thy bield should be my bosom,
To share it a', to share it a'."
"Or were I in the wildest waste,