The Keeper of the Door. Ethel M. Dell
was in obvious confusion. "I didn't mean to mention it," she said. "It just slipped out. I was really thinking of—what happened last night."
He frowned instantly. "Who told you anything about it?"
"Nick."
"I should like to wring his skinny little neck," said Max.
"How dare you?" said Olga indignantly.
"You don't think I'm afraid of you, do you?" he said, with a smile.
"No," she admitted rather grudgingly. "I don't think you are afraid of anyone or anything. But it is a pity you spoil things by being so—unfriendly."
"Are you speaking on Mrs. Briggs's behalf or your own?" asked Max.
She met his eyes with a feeling of reluctance. "Well, I do hate quarrelling," she said.
"I never quarrel," said Max placidly.
"Oh, but you do!" she exclaimed. "How can you say such a thing?"
"No, I don't!" said Max. "I go my own way, that's all. If anyone tries to stop me, well, they get knocked down and trampled on. I don't call that quarrelling. It simply happens in the natural course of things."
"No wonder people don't like you!" said Olga.
"Don't you like me?" said Max.
He put the question with obvious indifference, yet his green eyes still studied her critically. Olga poured out some water with a hand so shaky that it splashed over. He reached forward and dabbed it up with his table-napkin.
"Well?" he said.
"I don't know," she murmured somewhat incoherently.
"Don't know! But you knew this morning!" The green eyes suddenly laughed at her. "I say, don't try to drink that yet!" he said. "You'll choke if you do. Go on! Tell me some more about Mrs. Briggs! Did she give you any of that filthy concoction she calls rhubarb wine?"
"It isn't filthy! It's delicious," declared Olga. "You can't have tasted it."
"Oh, yes, I had some the day the old woman died. In fact, I was trying to sleep off the effects that afternoon, when you caught me in Uncle Nick's library. It's horribly strong stuff. I suppose that is what made you so late for luncheon?"
"Indeed, it wasn't! We went to the Priory before coming home."
"Oh! What for?"
"Some things Violet wanted."
"What things?" said Max.
She looked at him in surprise. "I'm sure I don't know. I'm not so inquisitive as you are. You had better ask Violet."
"Ask me what?" said Violet, detaching her attention from Major
Hunt-Goring for a moment.
"Nothing," said Max. "I was only wondering how many glasses of rhubarb wine you had at 'The Ship.'"
Carelessly he rallied her on the subject, carelessly let it pass. And Olga was left with a newly-awakened doubt at her heart. What was the reason for the keen interest he took in her friend? Had he really told her the truth when repudiating the possibility of his falling in love with her? She fancied he had; and if so, why was he so anxious to inform himself of her most trivial doings? It was a puzzle to Olga—a puzzle that for some reason gave her considerable uneasiness. Against her will and very deep down within her, she was aware of a lurking distrust that made her afraid of Max Wyndham. She felt as if he were watching to catch her off her guard, ready at a moment's notice to turn to his own purposes any rash confidence into which she might be betrayed. And she told herself with passionate self-reproach that she had already been guilty of disloyalty to her friend.
During the rest of luncheon she exerted herself to keep the conversation general, Max seconding her efforts as though unconscious of her desire to avoid him. In fact, he seemed wholly unaware of any change in her demeanour, and Olga noted the fact with relief, the while she determined to exclude him rigidly for the future from anything even remotely approaching to intimacy. Watch as they might, the shrewd green eyes should never again catch her off her guard.
CHAPTER VIII
THE ELASTIC BOND
Major Hunt-Goring was quite obviously in his element. To Olga's dismay he showed no disposition to depart when they rose from the luncheon-table. Violet suggested a move to the garden, and he fell in with the proposal with a readiness that plainly showed that he had every intention of inflicting his company upon them for some time longer.
"It's confoundedly lonely up at The Warren," he remarked pathetically, as he lounged after her into the sunshine.
Violet laughed over her shoulder, an unlighted cigarette between her teeth. "You're hardly ever there."
"No. Well, it's a fact. I can't stand it. I'm a sociable sort of chap, you know. I like society."
"Why don't you marry?" laughed Violet.
"That's a question to which I can find no answer," he declared.
"Why—why, indeed!"
"Hateful man!" murmured Olga, looking after them. "How I wish he would go!"
"Leave them alone for a spell," advised Max. "Go and mend your stockings in peace! Miss Campion is quite equal to entertaining him unassisted."
But Olga hesitated to pursue this course, and finally collected her work and followed her two guests into the garden.
Max departed upon his rounds, and a very unpleasant sense of responsibility descended upon her.
She took up a central position under the lime-trees that bordered the tennis-court, but Major Hunt-Goring and Violet did not join her. They sauntered about the garden-paths just out of earshot, and several times it seemed to Olga that they were talking confidentially together. She wondered impatiently how Violet could endure the man at such close quarters. But then there were many things that Violet liked that she found quite unbearable.
Slowly the afternoon wore away. The young hostess still sat under the limes, severely darning, but Violet and her companion had disappeared unobtrusively into a more secluded part of the garden. For nearly half an hour she had heard no sound of voices. She wondered if she ought to go in search of them, but her pile of work was still somewhat formidable and she was both to leave it. She continued to darn therefore with unflagging energy, till suddenly a hand touched her shoulder and a man's voice spoke softly in her ear.
"Hullo, little one! All alone? What has become of the fiery-headed assistant?"
She flung his hand away with a violent gesture. So engrossed had she been with getting through her work that she had not heard his step upon the grass.
"Are you just off?" she asked him frigidly. "Will you have anything before you go?"
Hunt-Goring laughed—a soft, unpleasant laugh. "Many thanks!" he said. "I was just asking myself that question. Generous of you to suggest it though. Perhaps you—like myself—are feeling bored."
He lowered himself on to the grassy bank beside her chair, smiling up at her with easy insolence. Olga did not look at him. Handsome though he undoubtedly was, he was the one man of her acquaintance whose eyes she shrank from meeting. His very proximity sent a shiver of disgust through her. She made a covert movement to edge her chair away.
"Where is Miss Campion?" she said.
He laughed again, that hateful confidential laugh of his. "She has gone indoors to rest. The heat made her sleepy. I suggested the hammock, but she wouldn't run the risk of being caught napping. I see that there is small danger of that with you."
Olga stiffened. She was putting together her work with evident