CHAPTER XI
OLYMPUS
All through that afternoon Dinah and Billy played like cubs in the snow.They were very inexperienced in the art of luging, but they took theirspills with much heartiness and a total disregard of dignity that madefor complete enjoyment.
When the sun went down they forsook the sport, and joined in asnowballing match with a dozen or more of their fellow-visitors. ButDinah proved herself so adroit and impartial at this game that shepresently became a general target, and found it advisable to retreatbefore she was routed. This she did with considerable skill and no smallstrategy, finally darting flushed and breathless into the hotel, coveredwith snow from head to foot, but game to the last.
"Well done!" commented a lazy voice behind her. "Now raise the drawbridgeand lower the portcullis, and the honours of war are assured."
She turned with the flashing movement of a bird upon the wing, and foundherself face to face with Sir Eustace.
His blue eyes met hers with deliberate nonchalance. "Sit down," he said,"while I fetch you some tea!"
Her heart gave an odd little leap that was half of pleasure and half ofdread. She stammered incoherently that he must not take the trouble.
But he was evidently bent upon so doing, for he pressed her into the seatwhich he had just vacated. "Keep the place in the corner for me!" hecommanded, and lounged away upon his errand with imperial leisureliness.
Dinah watched his tall figure out of sight. The encounter both astoundedand thrilled her. She wondered if she were cheapening herself by meeklyobeying his behest, wondered what Rose--that practised coquette--wouldhave done under such circumstances; but to depart seemed so wholly out ofthe question that she dismissed the wonder as futile. She could only waitfor the play to develop, and trust to her own particular luck, which hadso favoured her the night before, to give her a cue.
He returned with tea and cake which he set before her on a little tablethat he had apparently secured beforehand for the purpose. "I am sure youmust be ravenous," he said, in those high-bred, somewhat insolent accentsof his.
"I am," Dinah admitted frankly.
"Then let me see you satisfy your hunger!" he said, seating himself inthe corner he had reserved.
"Oh, but not alone!" she protested. "You--you must have some too."
He laughed. "No. I am going to smoke--with your permission. It will do memore good."
"Oh, pray do!" said Dinah, embarrassed still but strangely elated. "Itmakes me feel rather greedy, that's all."
"I am greedy too," he told her, his blue eyes still upon her vivid,sparkling face. "And--always with your permission--I am going to indulgemy greed."
She did not understand him, but prudence restrained her from telling himso. Seated as she was he was the only person in the vestibule whom shecould see, her back being turned to all beside. She wondered, again withthat delightful yet half-startled thrill, if his meaning were in any wayconnected with this fact. He certainly absorbed the whole of herattention, if that were what he wanted. Her hunger faded completely intothe background.
He lighted a cigarette and began to smoke. The space beyond them was fullof moving figures and laughing voices; but the turmoil scarcely reachedDinah. An invisible barrier seemed to shut them off from all the rest.They were not merely aloof; they were alone, and a curiously intimatetouch pervaded their solitude. She felt her spirit start in quiveringresponse to the call of his, just as the night before when she hadfloated with him above the clouds. What was happening to her she had notthe least idea, but the consciousness of his near presence pulsedmagnetically through and through her. Scott's brief advice of the morningwas scattered from her memory like feathers before the wind. She had nomemory. She lived only in this burning splendid ardour of a moment.
She drank her tea mechanically, finding nothing enigmatic in his silence.The direct look of his blue eyes discomfited her strangely, but it was asublime discomfiture--the discomfiture of the moth around the flame. Shelonged to meet it, but did not wholly dare. With veiled glances sheyielded to the attraction, not yet bold enough for complete surrender.
He spoke at last, and she started.
"Well? Am I forgiven?"
The nonchalant enquiry sent the blood in another hot wave to her cheeks.Had she ever presumed to be angry with this godlike person?
"For what?" she asked, her voice very low.
He leaned towards her. "Did I only fancy that by some evil chance I hadoffended you?"
She kept her eyes lowered. "I thought you were the offended one," shesaid.
"I?" She caught the note of surprise in his voice, and it sent a verycurious little sense of shame through her.
With an effort she raised her eyes. "Yes. I thought you were offended.You went by me this morning without seeing me."
His look was very intent, almost as if he were searching for something;but it did not disconcert her as she had half-expected to bedisconcerted. His eyes were more caressing than dominant just then.
"What if I didn't see you because I didn't dare?" he said.
That gave her confidence. "I should think you couldn't be so silly asthat," she said with decision.
He smiled a little. "Thank you, _miladi_. Then wasn't it--almost equallysilly--your word, not mine!--of you to be afraid of me last night?"
She felt the thrust in a moment, and went white, conscious of the weaksick feeling that so often came over her at the sound of her mother'sstep when she was in disgrace.
He saw her distress, but he allowed several moments to elapse before hecame to the rescue; Then lightly, "Pray don't let the matter disturbyou!" he said. "Only--for your peace of mind--let me tell you that youreally have nothing to fear. Out here we live in fairyland, and no oneis in earnest. We just enjoy ourselves, and Mrs. Grundy simply doesn'texist. We are not ashamed of being frivolous, and we do whatever we like.And there are no consequences. Always remember that, Miss Bathurst! Thereare never any consequences in fairyland."
His eyes suddenly laughed at her, and Dinah was vastly reassured. Herdismay vanished, leaving a blithe sense of irresponsibility in its place.
"I shall remember that," she said, with her gay little nod. "I dreamtlast night that we were in Olympus."
"We?" he said softly.
She nodded again, flushed and laughing, confident that she had receivedher cue. "And you--were Apollo."
She saw his eyes change magically, flashing into swift life, and droppedher own before the mastery that dawned there.
"And you," he questioned under his breath, "were Daphne?"
"Perhaps," she said enigmatically. After all, flirting was not such adifficult art, and since he had declared that there could be noconsequences, she did not see why she should bury this new-found talentof hers.
"What a charming dream!" he commented lazily. "But you know what happenedto Daphne when she ran away, don't you?"
She flung him a laughing challenge. "He didn't catch her anyway."
"True!" smiled Sir Eustace. "But have you never wondered whether itwouldn't have been more sport for her if he had? It wouldn't be veryexciting, you know, to lead the life of a vegetable."
"It isn't!" declared Dinah, with abrupt sincerity.
"Oh, you know something about it, do you?" he said. "Then the modernDaphne ought to have too much sense to run away."
She laughed with a touch of wistfulness. "I wonder how she felt about itafterwards."
"I wonder," he agreed, tipping the ash off his cigarette. "It didn'tmatter so much to Apollo, you see. He had plenty to choose from."
Dinah's wistfulness vanished in a swift breath of indignation. "Really!"she said.
He looked at her. "Yes, really," he told her, with deliberation. "And hedidn't need to run after them either. But, possibly," his gaze softenedagain, "possibly that was what made him want Daphne the most. Elusivenessis quite a fascinating quality if it isn't carried too far. Still--" hesmiled--"I expect he got over it in the end, you know; but in her case Iam not quite so sure."
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br /> "I don't suppose he did get ever it," maintained Dinah with spirit. "Allthe rest must have seemed very cheap afterwards."
"Perhaps he was more at home with the cheap variety," he suggestedcarelessly.
His eyes had wandered to the buzzing throng behind her, and she saw aglint of criticism--or was it merely easy contempt?--dispel the smilewith which he had regarded her. His mouth wore a faint but unmistakablesneer.
But in a moment his look returned to her, kindled upon her. "Are you forthe ice carnival to-night?" he asked.
She drew a quick, eager breath. "Oh, I do want to come! But I don'tknow--yet--if I shall be allowed."
"Why ask?" he questioned.
She hesitated, then ingenuously she told him her difficulty. "I got intotrouble last night for dancing so late with you. And--and--I may be sentto bed early to make up for it."
He frowned. "Do you mean to say you'd go?"
She coloured vividly. "I'm only nineteen, and I have to do as I'm told."
"Heavens above!" he said. "You belong to the generation before the lastevidently. No girl ever does as she is told now-a-days. It isn't thething."
"I do," whispered Dinah, in dire confusion. "At least--generally."
"And what happens if you don't?" he queried. "Do they whip you and putyou to bed?"
She clenched her hands hard. "Don't!" she said. "You're only joking, Iknow. But--I hate it!"
His manner changed in a moment, became half-quizzical, half-caressing."Poor little brown elf, what a shame! Well, come if you can! I shall lookout for you. I may have something to show you."
"May you? Oh, what?" cried Dinah, all eagerness in a moment.
He laughed. There was a provoking hint of mystery in his manner. "Ah!That lies in the future, _miladi_."
"But tell me!" she persisted.
"Will you come then?" he asked.
"Perhaps," she said. "If I can!"
"Ah! And perhaps not!" he said. "What then?"
Dinah's mouth grew suddenly firm. "I will come," she said.
"You will?" His keen eyes held hers with smiling compulsion.
"Yes, I will."
He made a gesture as if he would take her hand, but restrained himself,and paused to tip the ash once more off his cigarette.
"Now tell me!" commanded Dinah.
"I don't think I will," he said deliberately.
"But you must!" said Dinah.
His eyes sought hers again with that look which she found it impossibleto meet. She bent over her cup.
"What will you show me?" she persisted. "Tell me!"
"I didn't say I would show you anything," he pointed out. "I said Imight."
"Tell me what it was anyhow!" she said.
He leaned nearer to her, and suddenly it seemed to her that they werequite alone, very far removed from the rest of the world. "It may not beto-night," he murmured. "Or even to-morrow. But some day--in this landwhere there are no consequences--I will show you--when the fates arepropitious, not before--some of the things that Daphne missed when sheran away."
He ceased to speak. Dinah's face was burning. She could not look at him.She felt as if a magic flame had wrapped her round. Her whole body wastingling, her heart wildly a-quiver. There was a rapture in that momentthat was almost too intense, too poignant, to be borne.
He was the first to move. Calmly he leaned back, and resumed hiscigarette. Through the aromatic smoke his voice came to her again.
"Are you angry?"
Her whole being stirred in response. She uttered a little quivering laughthat was near akin to tears.
"No--of course--no! But I--I think I ought to go and dress! It's gettinglate, isn't it? Thank you for giving me tea!" She rose, her movementsquick and dainty as the flight of a robin. "Good-bye!" she murmuredshyly.
He rose also with a sweeping bow. "_A bientot_,--Daphne!" he said.
She gave him a single swift glance from under fluttering lashes, andturned away in silence.
She went up the stairs with the speed of a bird on the wing, but shecould not outpace the wonder and the wild delight at her heart. As sheentered her own room at length, she laughed, a breathless, ripplinglaugh. How amazing--and how gorgeous--was this new life!
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