Second String. Anthony Hope
had sat silent through Wellgood's talk, not keenly interested in the directly political aspect of it, but appreciating the view of human nature and of the way of the world which underlay it. She also was on the side of the efficient—of the people who knew what they wanted and at any rate made a good fight to get it. Yet while she listened to Wellgood, her eyes had often been on Harry; she too was beginning to ask why Harry came so much to Nutley; the obvious answer filled her with a vague stirring of discontent. An ambitious self-confident nature does not like to be "counted out," to be reckoned out of the running before the race is fairly begun. Why was the answer obvious? There was more than one marriageable young woman at Nutley. Her feeling of protest was still vague; but it was there, and when she looked at Harry's comely face, her eyes were thoughtful.
Though Wellgood had business after lunch, Harry stayed on awhile, sitting out on the terrace by the lake, for the day was warm and fine. The coming of spring had mitigated the grimness of Nutley; the water that had looked dreary and dismal in the winter now sparkled in the sun. Harry was excellently well content with himself and his position. He told the two girls that things were shaping very well. Old Sir George Millington had decided to retire. He was to be the candidate; he would start his campaign through the villages of the Division in the late summer, when harvest was over; he could hardly be beaten; and he was "working like a horse" at his subjects.
"The horse gets out of harness now and then!" said Isobel.
"You don't want him to kill himself with work, Isobel?" asked Vivien reproachfully.
"Visits to Nutley help the work; they inspire me," Harry declared, looking first at Vivien, then at Isobel. They were both, in their different ways, pleasant to look at. Their interest in him—in all he said and did, and in all he was going to do—was very pleasant also. "Oh yes, I'm working all right!" he laughed. "Really I have to, because of old Andy Hayes. He's getting quite keen on politics—reads all the evening after he gets back from town. Well, he's good enough to think I've read everything and know everything, and whenever we meet he pounds me with questions. I don't want Andy to catch me out, so I have to mug away."
"That's your friend, Vivien," said Isobel, with a smile and a nod.
"Yes, the solid man."
"Oh, I know that story. Andy told me himself. He thought you behaved like a brick."
"He did, anyhow. Why don't you bring him here, Harry?"
"He's in town all day; I'll try and get him here some Saturday."
"Does he still stay with the—with Mr. Rock?" asked Vivien.
"No; he's taken lodgings. He's very thick with old Jack still, though. Of course it wouldn't do to tell him so, but it's rather a bore that he should be connected with Jack in that way. It doesn't make my mother any keener to have him at Halton, and it's a little difficult for me to press it."
"It does make his position seem—just rather betwixt and between, doesn't it?" asked Isobel.
"If only it wasn't a butcher!" protested Vivien.
"O Vivien, the rules, the rules!" "Nothing against butchers," was one of the rules.
"I know, but I would so much rather it had been a draper, or a stationer, or something—something clean of that sort."
"I'm glad your father's not here. Be good, Vivien!"
"However it's not so bad if he doesn't stay there any more," Harry charitably concluded. "Just going in for a drink with old Jack—everybody does that; and after all he's no blood relation." He laughed. "Though I dare say that's exactly what you'd call him, Vivien."
Just as he made his little joke Vivien had risen. It was her time for "doing the flowers," one of the few congenial tasks allowed her. She smiled and blushed at Harry's hit at her, looking very charming. Harry indulged himself in a glance of bold admiration. It made her cheeks redder still as she turned away, Harry looking after her till she rounded the corner of the house. In answering the call of the voice he had found no disappointment. Closer and more intimate acquaintance revealed her as no less charming than she had promised to be. Harry was sure now of what he wanted, and remained quite sure of all the wonderful things that it was going to do for him and for his life.
Suddenly on the top of all this legitimate and proper feeling—to which not even Mark Wellgood himself could object, since it was straight in the way of nature—there came on Harry Belfield a sensation rare, yet not unknown, in his career—a career still so short, yet already so emotionally eventful.
Isobel Vintry was not looking at him—she was gazing over the lake—nor he at her; he was engaged in the process of lighting a cigarette. Yet he became intensely aware of her, not merely as one in his company, but as a being who influenced him, affected him, in some sense stretched out a hand to him. He gave a quick glance at her; she was motionless, her eyes still aloof from him. He stirred restlessly in his chair; the air seemed very close and heavy. He wanted to make some ordinary, some light remark; for the moment it did not come. A remembrance of the first time that Mrs. Freere and he had passed the bounds of ordinary friendship struck across his mind, unpleasantly, and surely without relevance! Isobel had said nothing, had done nothing, nor had he. Yet it was as though some mystic sign had passed from her to him—he could not tell whether from him to her also—a sign telling that, whatever circumstances might do, there was in essence a link between them, a reminder from her that she too was a woman, that she too had her power. He did not doubt that she was utterly unconscious, but neither did he believe that he was solely responsible, that he had merely imagined. There was an atmosphere suddenly formed—an atmosphere still and heavy as the afternoon air that brooded over the unruffled lake.
Harry had no desire to abide in it. His mind was made up; his heart was single. He picked up a stone which had been swept from somewhere on to the terrace and pitched it into the lake. A plop, and many ripples. The heavy stillness was broken.
Isobel turned to him with a start.
"I thought you were going to sleep, Miss Vintry. I couldn't think of anything to say, so I threw a stone into the water. I'm afraid you were finding me awfully dull!"
"You dull! You're a change from what sometimes does seem a little dull—life at Nutley. But perhaps you can't conceive life at Nutley being dull?" Her eyes mocked him with the hint that she had discovered his secret.
"Well, I think I should be rather hard to please if I found Nutley dull," he said gaily. "But if you do, why do you stay?"
"Perpetual amusement isn't in a companion's contract, Mr. Harry. Besides, I'm fond of Vivien. I should be sorry to leave her before the natural end of my stay comes."
"The natural end?"
"Oh, I think you understand that." She smiled with a good-humoured scorn at his homage to pretence.
"Well, of course, girls do marry. It's been known to happen," said Harry, neither "cornered" nor embarrassed. "But perhaps"—he glanced at her, wondering whether to risk a snub. His charm, his gift of gay impudence, had so often stood him in stead and won him a liberty that a heavy-handed man could not hope to be allowed; he was not much afraid—"Perhaps you'd be asked to stay on—in another capacity, Miss Vintry."
"It looks as if your thoughts were running on such things." She did not affect not to understand, but she was not easy to corner either.
"I'm afraid they always have been," Harry confessed, a confession without much trace of penitence.
"Mine don't often; and they're never supposed to—in my position."
"Oh, nonsense! Really that doesn't go down, Miss Vintry. Why, a girl like you, with such—"
"Don't attempt a catalogue, please, Mr. Harry."
"You're right, quite right. I'm conscious how limited my powers are."
Harry Belfield could no more help this sort of thing than a bird can help flying. In childhood he had probably lisped in compliments, as the poet in numbers. In itself it was harmless, even graceful, and quite devoid