The expression of her face checked him; her eyes were still starry from tears. The dewy loveliness of them, the soft shyness born of knowledge, the new charm of her left him silent and surprised. He had supposed that she was rather low in her mind. Also he became aware that something about her familiar to him had gone, that he was confronted by something in her hitherto unsuspected and undetected — something subtly experienced and unexpectedly mature. But that a new intelligence, made radiant by the consciousness of power, had suddenly developed and enveloped this young girl, and was now confronting him he did not comprehend at first.
And yet, in her attitude, in the poise of the small head, in the slight laugh parting her lips, in every line of her supple figure, every contour, every movement, he was aware of a surety, a self-confidence, a sort of serene authority utterly unfamiliar to him in her personality.
Gone was the wistfulness, the simplicity, the indecision of immaturity, the almost primitive candour that knows no art. Here was complexity looking out of eyes he scarcely knew, baffling him with a beauty indescribable.
“Karen — dear?” he said unsteadily, “have you nothing to say to me?”
There was laughter and curiosity in her eyes, and a hint of mockery.
“Yes,” she said, “I have a great deal to say to you. In the first place we must not be silly any more — —”
“Silly!”
She seemed surprised at his emphatic interruption.
“Yes, silly,” she repeated serenely; “foolish, inconsequential. I admit I made a goose of myself, but that is no excuse for you to do it, too. You are older and more experienced and so much wiser — —”
“Karen!”
“Yes?” she said innocently.
“What has happened to you?” he asked, disturbed and bewildered.
She opened her eyes at that:
“Nothing has happened, has it? Is my gown torn?” — bending over to survey her skirt and waist— “Oh, I forgot that the famous robbery occurred without violence — —”
He reddened: “I don’t understand you, Karen. Why do you fence this way with me? Why do you speak this way to me? What has suddenly changed you — totally altered you — altered your attitude toward me, your point of view, your disposition — your very character apparently — —”
“My character?” she repeated with a gay little laugh which seemed to him irresponsible, and confused him exceedingly.
“No,” he said, troubled, “that couldn’t change so suddenly. But I never before saw this side of your character. I didn’t know it existed — never supposed — dreamed — —”
“Speaking of dreams,” she interrupted with calm irrelevance, “I never told you that I finally did cross that frontier. Shall I tell you about it while we are walking back?”
“If you choose,” he said, almost sullenly.
“Don’t you care to hear about my dream? As I made a pillow of you during the process, I really think you are entitled to hear about it—” She broke off with a quick, involuntary laugh: “Why do you look hurt, Kervyn?”
At that he became serious to the verge of gloom.
“Come,” she said sweetly, slipping her hand through his arm, “I want to tell you how I crossed that wonderful frontier — —”
“I told you,” he said gravely, “that I love you. Am I not entitled to an answer?”
“Entitled, Kervyn? I don’t know to how many things you are en-titled. All I know is that you are titled — several times — aren’t you?”
He reddened and bit his lip.
“Because,” she went on gaily, “you served your time in the Guides. That is a very natural deduction, isn’t it?”
He said nothing; he was very seriously upset. His stern mouth and darkened face betrayed it. And deep in Karen’s heart the little imps of laughter danced to its mischievous beating.
After they had walked through the forest for a while in silence, she halted and withdrew her arm.
“You know,” she said, “we are not nearly well enough acquainted for you to be moody and unamiable.”
“I did not mean to be either,” he said. “What is it that has come between us, Karen?”
“Why, nothing I hope,” she said fervently.
“I hope so, too.... You have been different since—” He hesitated, and she turned her head carelessly and looked back at the little brook they had crossed. When her blush had cooled she resumed her leisurely walk and glanced up at him inquiringly:
“Since when have you thought me different?”
“Since we — kissed — —”
“Please, Kervyn! Not we. I think it was you who performed that very childish rite.”
“Is that the way you regarded it?”
“Didn’t you?”
“No.”
“You didn’t take it seriously!” she exclaimed with an enchanting laugh. “Did you really? I’m so dreadfully sorry!”
The dark flush on his face frightened her. It was her first campaign and she was easily alarmed. But she was wise enough to say nothing.
“Yes,” he said with an effort, “I did take it very seriously. And I took you seriously, too. I don’t understand your new attitude toward me — toward life itself. Until today I had never seen any lightness in you, any mockery — —”
“Lightness? You saw plenty in me. I was not very difficult, was I? — on the train? Not very reticent about my views concerning friendship and my fears concerning — love. Why should you be surprised at the frivolity of such a girl? It has taken so many years for me to learn to laugh. Nineteen, I think. Won’t you let me laugh a little, now that I know how?”
“Have I any influence at all with you?” he asked. “I thought I had.”
“I thought so, too,” she mused, innocently.
“What has happened to destroy it?”
“Why, nothing, Kervyn!” opening her eyes.
“Does any of my influence with you remain?”
“Loads of it. Oceans! Bushels!”
“Do you care for me?”
“Of course! The silly question.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, but I don’t wish to weep because I care for you.”
“Could you learn to love me?”
“Learn? I don’t know,” she mused aloud, apparently much interested in the novelty of the suggestion. “I learn some things easily; mathematics I never could learn. Why are you scowling, Kervyn?”
“Could you ever love me?” he persisted, doggedly.
“I don’t know. Do you desire to pay your court to me?”
“I — yes — —”
“You appear to be uncertain. It seems to me that a man ought to know whether or not he desires to pay his addresses to a girl.”
“Can’t you be serious, Karen!”
“Indeed I can. You ought to know it, too. I was serious enough over you, once. I followed you about so faithfully and persistently that even when you took a nap I did it too — —”
“Karen, do you love me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Will you try?”
“I’m always willing to try anything — once.”
“Then suppose you try marrying me, once!” he said, bluntly.
“But oughtn’t a girl to be in love before she tries that? Besides, before I am quite free to converse with you on that subject I must converse with someone else.”
“What!”
“Had you forgotten?”
“Do you mean the — —”
“Yes,” she said hastily— “you do remember. That is a prior engagement.”
“Engagement!”
“An engagement to converse on the subject of engagements. I told you about it — in the days of my communicative innocence.”
He was patient because he had to be.
“After you have made your answer clear to him, may I ask you again?”
“Ask me what?”
“To marry me.”
“Wouldn’t that pe
rmission depend upon what answer I may give him?”
“Good Heavens!” he exclaimed, “is there any doubt about your answer to him?”
She lifted her eyebrows: “You are entirely too confident. Must I first ask your permission to fulfill my obligations and then accomplish them in a manner that suits your views? It sounds a little like dictation, Kervyn.”
He walked beside her, cogitating in gloom and silence. Was this the girl he had known? Was this the same ungrateful and capricious creature upon whom he had bestowed his protection, his personal interest, his anxious thoughts?
That he had fallen in love with her had surprised him, but it did not apparently surprise her. Had she instinctively foreseen what was going to happen to him? Had she deliberately watched the process with wise and feminine curiosity, coolly keeping her own skirts clear?
And the more he cogitated, the deeper and more complex appeared to him her intuitive and merciless knowledge of man.
Never had he beheld such lightning change in a woman. It couldn’t be a change; all this calm self-possession, all the cool badinage, all this gaiety, this laughing malice, this serene capacity for appraising man and his motives must have existed in her — hidden, not latent; concealed, not embryotic!
He was illogical and perfectly masculine.
She was only a young girl, awakened, and making her first campaign.
CHAPTER XVIII
LESSE FOREST
As they came out of the forest and crossed the grassy circle where the fountain was splashing they saw an automobile standing in the drive by the front door.
“What does that mean?” exclaimed Guild, under his breath.
Both had halted, checked by the same impulse.
“Is it likely to be Baron von Reiter?” he asked, coldly.
She said, with admirable composure: “Whoever it is, we shall have to go in.”
“Yes, of course.... But if it happens to be the Baron — —”
“Well?” she asked, looking away from him.
“In that event, have you nothing to say to me — now?”
“Not now.”
“Haven’t you, Karen?”
She shook her head, gazing steadily away from him.
“All right,” he said, controlling his voice; “then I can make my adieux to you indoors as well as here.”
“Are you leaving immediately?”
“Yes. I should have left this morning.”
After a moment’s silence: “Shall I hear from you?”
“Have I your permission to write — if I can do so?”
“I don’t know yet. I shall write you first. Are you to be at Lesse Forest for a few days?”
“Yes. A note will reach me in care of Mrs. Courland.”
Her pretty head was still averted. “We ought to go in now,” she said.
Guild glanced sharply at the car as they passed it, and the chauffeur touched his cap to them. It was a big, dark blue, three-seated touring car, and there seemed to be nothing at all military in its appointments or in the chauffeur’s livery.
He opened the front door for Karen, and they walked into the hall together.
A man rose quickly from a leather chair, as though he were a little lame. “Hello, Kervyn!” he said gaily, advancing with hand extended. “How are you, old top!”
“Harry!” exclaimed Guild; “I’m terribly glad to see you!”
They stood for a moment smiling at each other, hand clasped in hand. Then Darrel said:
“When your note came this morning, we decided to motor over, Miss Courland and I—” He turned toward a brown-eyed, blond young girl: “Valentine, this is the celebrated vanishing man I’ve been worrying over so long. You may not think he is worth worrying over, now that you see him, and maybe he isn’t; but somehow or other I like him.”
Miss Courland laughed. “I think I shall like him, too,” she said, “now that I know he isn’t merely a figment of your imagination—” She turned her brown eyes, pleasantly and a trifle curiously, toward Karen, who had paused beside the long table — a lithe and graceful figure in silhouette against the brilliancy of the sun-lit doorway.
“Karen,” said Guild, “this is Miss Courland who extends her own and Mrs. Courland’s charity to me—” He checked himself, smiling. “Do you still extend it, Miss Courland?”
Valentine had come forward and had offered her hand to Karen, and retaining it for a second, she turned to answer Guild:
“Of course! We came to take you back with us.” And, to Karen: “It isn’t a very gracious thing for us to do — to steal a guest from Quellenheim — and I am afraid you do not feel very grateful toward me for doing it.”
Their hands parted and their eyes rested on each other for a second’s swift feminine appraisal.
“Baron von Reiter has not yet arrived,” said Karen, “so I do not think Mr. Guild has had a very interesting visit. I feel as though I ought to thank you for asking him to Lesse.”
Guild, who was talking to Darrel, heard her, and gave her a rather grim look.
Then he presented Darrel; and the light, gossipy conversation became general.
With one ear on duty and one listening to Darrel, Guild heard Karen giving to Valentine a carelessly humorous outline of her journey from England — caught the little exclamations of interest and sympathy from the pretty brown-eyed American girl, and still was able to sketch for Darrel the same theme from his own more sober point of view.
Neither he nor Karen, of course, spoke of the reason for Guild’s going to England, nor that the journey had been undertaken on compulsion, nor, indeed, did they hint at anything concerning the more sinister and personal side of the affair. It merely appeared that a German general, presumably a friend of Guild, not being able to get his daughter out of England after hostilities had commenced, had confided the task to a man he trusted and who was able to go unquestioned into a country at war with his own. But it all seemed quite romantic enough, even under such circumstances, to thrill Valentine Courland.
“Do come back to Lesse with us, won’t you?” she asked Karen. “My mother and I would love to have you. You’d be bored to distraction here with only the housekeeper. Do come!”
“I haven’t any clothes,” said Karen frankly.
“I have loads of them! We’d be so glad to have you at Lesse. Won’t you come back with us?”
Karen laughed, enchanted. She could see Guild without looking at him. His attitude was eloquent.
“If you really do want me, I’ll come,” she said. “But you and Mr. Darrel will remain to luncheon, won’t you? I’ll speak to the Frau Förster — if I may be excused—” She fell for a moment again, unconsciously, into her quaint schoolgirl manner, and dropped them a little curtsey.
Guild opened the pantry door for her and held it.
“May I explain to them a little more clearly who you are, Karen?” he asked in a low voice.
“Yes, please.”
He came back into the hall where Miss Courland and Darrel were talking. Valentine turned swiftly.
“Isn’t she the sweetest thing!” exclaimed the girl warmly.
“She is really very wonderful,” said Guild; “let me tell you a little about her accomplishments and herself.”
They were still listening to Guild, with an interest which absorbed them, when Karen returned.
“The few clothes I have,” she said, “are being repacked by Frau Bergner. Kervyn, shall she repack your sack?”
“No, I’ll do that,” he said, turning away with the happiest face he had worn that morning. And the girl knew that it was because they were going away together again — taking life’s highway once more in each other’s company. Involuntarily she looked after him, conscious for a second, again, of new and powerful motives, new currents, new emotions invading her; and she wondered how vitally they concerned this man who had so suddenly destroyed a familiar world for her and as suddenly was offering her as substitute a new and strange one.
Emerging from he
r brief abstraction she looked across the hall at Valentine Courland, who, seated on the oak table, chatted animatedly with Darrel. The girl was exceedingly attractive; Karen realized that at once. Also this pretty American had said very frankly that she was certain to like Guild. Karen had heard her say it.
“Miss Girard,” said Darrel, “is the shooting good at Quellenheim? I imagine it must be, judging from these trophies.” He waved a comprehensive hand toward the walls of the room.
Karen came slowly over to Valentine: “I really don’t know much about shooting. There are boar and deer here. I suppose at Lesse Forest you have really excellent sport, don’t you?”
“Our guests seem to find the shooting good,” replied Valentine. “My mother and I go out with them sometimes. I don’t know whether we shall be able to offer anybody any shooting this autumn. We are exceedingly worried about Lesse Forest. You see, every autumn we renew the lease, but our lease expired last week, and we can’t renew it because nobody seems to know where our landlord is or where to find him.”
“Is your landlord Belgian?”
“Yes. He is a wealthy brewer at Wiltz-la-Vallée. And the Germans bombarded and burnt it — everything is in ruins and the people fled or dead. So we are really very much concerned about the possible fate of our landlord, Monsieur Paillard, and we don’t exactly know what to do.”
Guild returned, coming downstairs two at a time, his attractive features very youthful and animated. And Karen, discreetly observing him and his buoyant demeanour, felt a swift and delightful confusion in the knowledge of her power to make or unmake the happiness of a grown man.
Frau Bergner appeared with cloth and covers, beaming, curtseying to all; and very soon they were at luncheon — a simple but perfectly cooked luncheon, where everything was delectable and there did not seem to be very much of any particular variety, yet there was just a trifle more than enough for everybody. Which is the real triumph of a good German, French, or Belgian housekeeper’s calculations.
And when luncheon was ended the luggage already had been placed in the car; the chauffeur emerged from the kitchen where Frau Bergner had been generous to him; and in a few moments the big blue machine was whirring smoothly on its way to Lesse, through the beautiful Ardennes forests over smooth, well-cared-for roads, the sun shining in a cloudless sky, and four young people making rapid headway in a new acquaintanceship which seemed to promise everything agreeable and gay.
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 765