The Climber/Chapter 8

by Edward Frederic Benson

CHAPTER VIII

Lucia sat up in bed on hearing the noise of the retreating wheels of the carriage, and cast the clothes from her. The plan had gone quite excellently up till now, and under the same inspiring hand it would no doubt continue to prosper. Aunt Cathie and Maud, of course, had come tip-toeing into her bedroom to ask how she was, and to suggest putting off the expedition, and she had had a perfectly sound reply. The expedition could not be put off, since the old English fair was on this day and no other, and as for herself, she begged nobody to worry. It was just a headache: quite horrid, but the only plan was to let her lie quiet, to turn her face to the wall, like Hezekiah, and wait till it was better. It was a bore—oh yes, a dreadful, dreadful bore, and it could not have come on a more inconvenient day; but as it was there, there it was, and the thought of anybody waiting behind and not going to Trew made it feel worse. They must all go and enjoy themselves, and tell her about it in the evening. Probably her head would be all right by then. She only insisted that they should all go, and not attempt to return early in order to keep her company. When her head was like this, she did not want company. She just wanted to shut her eyes, and wait till it was better. Yes; she thought it was coming on last night, when she did not want any dinner. "No, darling Aunt Cathie, if you talk of lunch," she said, "I shall be sick. Please just leave me alone. I am so sorry for being so unfriendly, but I only want to lie still. Oh, and I do hope you will have a nice day. Good-bye!"

So before very long the carriage wheels crunched the ground, and Lucia sat up. Then she got out of bed and bolted her door in case of surprises. It was all dreadfully mean and infinitesimal, but she never neglected details. Then she put on a dressing-gown, ate the breakfast she had not yet touched, and carefully pulled a chair out on her balcony, where, under the sunblinds, she could sit unobserved.

By midday (this was part of her plan) she felt rather hotter, and lunched downstairs. As a matter of fact, she was extremely hungry, and it required all her self-control not to eat largely. But she exercised it, left the greater part of her cold lamb on her plate, and cut and swallowed a very large slice of cheese, during the interval when stewed plums were left with her. Then, when her coffee came in, she announced she was much, much better, and soon after went ostentatiously out of the house. It was all well done: obviously she ate little lamb; obviously she left the stewed plums alone (though certainly there were many stones in the small flower-bed below the window), and nobody knew of the cheese, which had been on the sideboard, and had not even been offered her.

She took up her place on the beach just in front of the house. That was not the delectable sandy beach to the east, and it consisted of large round stones, and a cloak was necessary to make sitting on it possible. She took with her the later edition of Omar Kayyám, sat with her back to the houses, and her face to the sea, and smoked two cigarettes, the stumps of which she threw far away from her. Then, from not far off, she heard the whistle of a train, and a minute or so afterwards saw a solitary figure coming straight down the road from the station to the beach. Just on his left was Sea View; just in front of Sea View was herself.

The day was dry and windless, and the steps of this solitary passenger were defined. She never looked round, but heard them pause at the corner, and then come straight on. From the pause (and the instructions in her letter), it was clear that he knew where Sea View was; from the pause and the advancing steps, it was clear that he had seen her.

The large round stones slipped and grated below his foot: she heard all that. Then, when the slipping and the grating were close at hand, she turned lazily, as if to see the stranger who was passing. Then she got up quickly, and Omar fell face downward.

"Lord Brayton!" she said in excellent surprise. "How are you? But—but to-day is Thursday, is it not? I—I expected you—but how nice to see you! How quick of you to notice me! I had just come out from lunch. Thursday—yes, Thursday, of course."

There was an undercurrent of embarrassment in her tone that he could scarcely miss.

"But it was Thursday you said?" he asked.

Lucia had got up to shake hands with him. Then, still embarrassed, she suddenly burst into a peal of laughter.

"Somehow, by your mistake or mine," she said, "and it doesn't really matter whose it is, the most awful thing has happened that ever happened. No doubt it was mine, but I thought I suggested Friday. And to-day, Thursday, the state of affairs is this: We were all going on a picnic to Trew this morning, and I had a headache—but a headache—and the others, all of them, went without me. I lay in bed all morning; felt better, and came on to the beach."

Lucia seemed to abandon herself to these embarrassing reflections for a moment; then she pulled herself together, and entirely cast them off.

"But supposing I hadn't had a headache, supposing I had gone with the others, it would have been even worse. You would have come here and found nobody at all. What would you have thought of me?"

"That you had made a mistake merely," he said. "But I should have been very sorry for the results of that mistake."

He laid just the faintest stress on "that," enough to make the inference clear.

She burst out with sudden delicious laughter again. "I think it would kill Aunt Elizabeth if she knew," she faltered between her ripples of laughter. "She would die of the infamy of it. So we must never say you have been. But let us settle whose mistake it was; I promise to forgive you if it proves to be yours, and you must try to forgive me if it has been mine. Surely I said Friday. Ah! your engagement book is no evidence; you may have put it down wrong."

In point of fact, he had taken his engagement book out of his pocket. But that was only to expedite his search, and immediately he produced Lucia's note to him. There was Thursday, as plain as need be.

"Condemned!" she said, "without any recommendation to mercy. But I am so sorry, Lord Brayton. Let me say that once for all. I don't desire, anyhow, to wriggle out of it. Besides, there is no way of escape. Now be kind, please. No; I know what you are thinking of—there isn't a train back before the six something, and even if there was it would be very rude of you to go by it."

Lucia's swift mind made a sudden excursion round all the angles of her scheme. All were safe except one. She must make it appear to him that her aunts expected him to-morrow, and at the same time he must not come.

"Ah! and one more thing," she said, "you must send me a telegram, please, to-morrow morning, saying you can't come, owing to some brilliant excuse which you will invent. You see, we thought it was to-morrow, owing to my mistake."

"But let me come to-morrow, too, then," he asked.

This was extremely awkward. Though Lucia highly approved the feeling that made him want to come, it would never do if he came. It would be known that she had asked him.

"Ah! no, no," she cried. "It would be delightful, I needn't say, but much, much too risky. You would betray some familiarity with the house, or I should allude to something that happened to-day. It would all come out. How horrid and inhospitable it sounds of me!"

There was good sense in this, as there was in all that Lucia did, and the danger was averted. But it had been quite a close shave: she might have been unable to think of an excuse.

"Ah, how quick you are!" he said admiringly. "You make me feel so slow and heavy witted."

She picked up her Omar.

"It is an impression that is confined to yourself, then," she said. "It is—what do Christian Scientists call it?—a false claim. Now, Lord Brayton, do not let us stand here. What would you like to do?

"'The bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter—and the bird is on the wing,'"

she quoted. "Shall we walk along the beach? Shall we sit and talk? Oh, good gracious!" she added suddenly.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I can hardly tell you. Oh, but I think I must: it will make you laugh. I've sent the parlourmaid out for the afternoon, and who will get tea ready for us? Isn't it funny? In the course of your varied life were you ever asked anywhere to get a reception the least like this?"

Then, like two children, they just stood and laughed.

"I have never enjoyed a reception more," he said at length, with perfect truth.

"Oh, how nice of you to say that! You know I am glad to see you, if that helps. Let us walk. There is a heavenly sandy beach a little farther on, quite, quite empty—nothing but sand and the tent I put up to bathe from. And Aunt Cathie wades. You saw her at Brixham, you remember. Did you ever hear of anything so darling? Now you shall talk a little, if you like. I'm afraid I haven't allowed you to speak much yet. Tell me about Brixham. How are things going? Did you have a pleasant party in your house?"

"I really haven't been into Brixham since the day I lunched with you," he said. "My party? No; to speak quite frankly, I thought it was rather dull."

She laughed very genuinely, for she was delighted.

"What a dismal tale!" she said; "and to cheer you up, I take you to this large and desolate beach. But you must like my beach; I can't bear that people should not like what I like. It's so big, and empty, and clean. I should like a room as big, and I should put three chairs in it, and one small table, and have no carpets and no pictures."

"And would you have all the rooms in your house like that?" he asked.

"Ah! no, but one, into which I should go when I found myself getting funny and stuffy and microscopical. Dear me! I'm not letting you talk, as I promised. I assure you I don't always monopolize conversation. I think it's your fault, Lord Brayton."

"I am quite willing to bear both the blame and the conversation," he said. "But why my fault?"

Lucia turned and faced him with the frankness of a boy.

"Because there is something in you that makes me want to talk to it. Oh, there are people who make me feel as if I was talking to a large lump of damp dough. I dare say they are really full of beautiful thoughts and delightful feelings, poor dears! but they are embedded in dough. Or perhaps it is I—probably I."

Again he found that he was scarcely attending to what she said, so absorbed was he in her who said it. And never, so he thought, had her charm appeared so brilliant, as when she stood here on the empty golden sands, in the blaze of this shining afternoon. Truly and faithfully did her noble beauty reflect the splendid spirit that dwelt within; meet was the house from which her soul looked forth, so generously, so warmly on the world. As he looked his heart rose within him: the fire kindled, and he spoke.

"The empty beach, do you say?" he asked quickly. "Lucia, it is full—full. From end to end of it, it is you—you and my love for you."

Lucia stood quite silent a moment, looking at him with mouth a little open, startled and surprised. Cool and calculating as she had been throughout, yet when this came, there was something deadly serious about it. Often she had imagined to herself what she would say when the much-to-be-desired moment came, and she had in these sketches of her fancy been quite up to the mark. But now, though what he felt was unintelligible to her, she knew that to him it was something tremendous; the hurried, stammered words showed her that, and it a little frightened her. It was not smooth and romantic and polished; there was something fierce and elemental in it.

"Oh, Lord Brayton!" she said very feebly.

He took hold of both her hands, grasping them hard.

"I can't do without you," he said; "it's no use. You are for me; do you understand?"

Lucia was furious with herself; she had not foreseen that it would be like this. All that he felt was leagues above her head, since, for the time, anyhow, he had got completely outside himself, and she had no idea what to say. The softly murmured "yes," the averting of the head, the faint blush, and the gradually growing radiant smile, all of which she could have managed beautifully, she knew to be so utterly off the point as to be ludicrous, and she simply stood there mute and helpless. She did not know her part, and her heart, which was the only possible prompter, appeared not to be in its place. It struck her that her assurance that she did not always monopolize the conversation was being most inconveniently demonstrated. She had expected (and had provided for) some declaration which would be cultivated and decorous, and perhaps a little self-centred, with an allusion as to how wonderfully she would further and assist the aims which they had talked over together; but instead of this he told her that she was his with a suppressed violence which the suppression made more potent.

"Lucia, you know it too," he said, still savagely; "I swear you know it too. There is no separate existence possible for either of us."

But Lucia just made a gesture of appeal to him.

"Ah, don't, don't!" she said. "I am frightened."

Somewhere deep inside her she knew that if she only had passion on her side to meet his, the whole thing would be the simplest, most natural, most divine thing in the world. But she had none, and the vehemence of his was unintelligible, and in so far as it was understood, it was terrifying. By her spells she had raised something over which she had no control, and though distantly, so to speak, she could just hear the ecstatic shouts with which she—the worldly, calculating she—welcomed her own triumph, in the foreground there stood this alarming genie which she had raised. Then, to her immense relief, the genie showed another aspect.

"Ah, what a rough brute I am!" he said. "I am sorry, my dearest—I am sorry. But your beauty—your 'you' drove me mad."

That was much better: her triumph-song sounded suddenly louder.

"You startled me a little," said Lucia; "it—it was very stupid of me, Lord Brayton; will you be very kind? Will you——"

Then all her courage returned. She had won; she had accomplished what she had set herself to do, had captured this huge prize—had captured, also, a man she liked, with whom she was in sympathy. There was no need for her to say what she had meant to—to ask him to wait for her answer. So, with shining eyes and outstretched hands that still trembled a little with that curious spasm of fear which was as real an emotion as any she had ever felt, she advanced a step to him.

"Oh, Edgar," she said, "there is no need for me to ask you to be kind. I am not frightened any more: I can't think why I was frightened. It is 'yes,' my darling, it is 'yes.'"

The sea and the empty sands were witness. Lucia had put a high price on herself, and it was paid. But the price she received was immeasurable in terms of what she asked, for she was given love. And she did not know what that strange coin was; she had never paid it out of her own self. It was scarcely her fault; simply the mint of her personality, the currency by which she was individual in the world, had not coined it. But she was quite willing to entrust all that she knew of herself to him.

She was not frightened any longer, and it was with complete self-possession that she received his kiss on her lips. Indeed, she was on the other side of calm, and what frightened her before was welcome now. It was even more than welcome, she felt more than kindly towards it. He was a dear to love her like that; she would do her very best to deserve and to meet and to honour that which was symbolized thus. And since to be the self which he had known and fallen in love with was most likely to satisfy him still, with all the intimacy added which that which had happened demanded, she was herself again.

"There! there!" she said. "Oh, we mustn't be 'Arry and 'Arriet at Margate! I must sit down, I think; I am yes, what 'Arriet would call 'all of a tremble.' Do you think being happy makes you tremble, as being frightened does? Oh, Edgar, it was the empty beach to which I brought you."

"Never empty," he said. "You were there."

"The full beach then. Oh, it is full! You see, I never saw you here before. Look at the little bathing-tent! Was it lonely, do you think, before you came? Was it waiting? Was the sea waiting, and the sands? Oh, did God make this big shining place just for this?"

It was quite easy to her, now that the savageness had gone from him, to say things like these. She was not consciously deceiving him; she was engaged to him, and merely said what her brain told her was natural to say. Ignorant though she was of love, she guessed its language very well. He listened like one entranced; and he had never looked so handsome.

"Yes, that was so," he said. "Oh, Lucia, tell me more of the world and of you."

She let her eyes dwell on him for a moment, then sighed and looked largely round. And she spoke, smiling.

"But we have to see the world with our own eyes, when all is said. Things are as they are to us: our consciousness of them is the final appeal. Whether you ask me of the world or of me, it is your estimate of them you want to have told you."

He laid his hand on her knee.

"No, not so at all," he said. "It is your eyes I must see with. You know, I began to see with your eyes the very first day, when I had tea with you alone at your house. You made me see my aims with your eyes, and now I must see everything with your eyes."

This, again, was quite in her grasp; the conversation had become a philosophical discussion, intimate, it is true, but comprehensible again to her. She felt she might even introduce a humorous touch into it—a thing that a few minutes ago would have been dreadfully incongruous.

"Ah, I understand," she said mischievously; "I must tell you about yourself, is it not so, because you are me? And I must tell you about the world as I see it, because that is how you really see it? Oh, it is a beautiful world, and it has all been kindled to-day. It is more vivid. Oh, Edgar, I have it now! We, you and I separate, looked at life with one eye each, as through a telescope. Now that this this has happened, we are like the two eyes of one person: what we see is solid, instead of being flat. What do they call it? Binocular! And I began to see for you, did I, when first you saw me——?"

"No, not the first time," he said. "I met you in London, do you remember? Your friend Miss Eddis introduced me to you."

"But it was then that you began for me," said Lucia softly.

"I did not guess it," said he.

"Nor I, then."

The sea was very still; now and then a wavelet hissed on the sand as if it had fallen on molten gold; the wild birds of ocean wheeled round them, a red sail smouldered against the blue. And Lucia tried to feel more than she felt, and could not; but his cup of feeling was full.

There was a long silence; each was looking at the other, Lucia smiling, he very grave. Then her smile broadened into a laugh.

"We must be sensible again," she said, "sensible, I mean, in the practical sense. Oh, how prosaic it is! But please look at your watch."

"It doesn't tell the time any more," he said. "It is now. There is no more than that."

Lucia leaned towards him, and pulled it out of his waistcoat pocket.

"Oh, it is now," she said. "I know that, do I not? But what particular bit of now is it? Ah, it is five o'clock—now. You will just have time to let me give you some tea before——"

"Before what?" he asked. "Who cares?"

Lucia sighed.

"It is very tiresome being sensible," she said; "but hadn't we better let it be tiresome? Besides, I—I want to do something for you——"

"When you have done all?"

"Yes, I want to boil some water for you, and give you some tea. I do really. How silly of me, as if it mattered!"

"Nothing matters so much as what you want," he said.

"Then I want you to get up, and take my hands in yours, and pull me to my feet. Oh, Edgar, this full happy beach! It was so empty!"

"But I never saw it without you," he said.

They walked for some fifty yards back towards the single line of houses in silence. After climax there is always anti-climax, since human life has the deplorable effect of never remaining on a permanent top note, and to each came anti-climax. To him it came naturally and gently; he had always been intent on what seemed to him the worthy things in life, and he thought of them again in the new light that Lucia shed on them. For a few minutes, or for more than that, all his life, all himself had been absorbed in her. It was no less absorbed perhaps now, but it looked out from inside her, and saw the aims, the scope of life, again. Those things were there still, the same in themselves, but with a new and wonderful light thrown on to them. But they were there, and it was possible for him to regard them again. It would have been unnatural if he had not done so, for no nature becomes suddenly different from that which it has always been, however vivid and astonishing is any new experience. He had fallen in love with the girl weeks ago, and his outlook was not radically altered because she had accepted his devotion. His nature was not changed because he had the promise of its fulfilment. Whether it was enlarged or not, even, was a question for the future to solve. But the fact that Lucia had accepted his devotion, had confessed to her own devotion for him, did not put a different aspect on what he knew of himself. Intensely happy he certainly was, but he had anticipated this happiness, and thus, though quite unconsciously, he had discounted it. He had not, in fact, proposed to her with any feeling that she would not possibly accept him. He was genuinely in love, but he had not anticipated discouragement. But there was no abatement of bliss; "now" was exquisite, but the future would be more exquisite. The smouldering gold of her hair, the flower-like mouth, would be his, just as her companionship, her stimulus, would be his. He had felt them his already; he was in love with them all. And his love was accepted; it was returned!

Lucia also had her anti-climax. All that had happened had happened to the utmost pitch of her aspirations, and with the exception of her sudden terror, she had done her part with the completeness that her imagination of it all demanded. His love for her was of an ardour she had not contemplated, but the embarrassment of that was past, and she was at this moment on the top step of all that she had planned. Then, with a furious rush, all sorts of infinitesimal inconveniences which must be averted came into her mind. She thought these all over, and then, taking his arm, put them into speech.

"I shall love to show you the dreadful little house," she said. "I shall love to go down to the kitchen and boil the water and cut the bread and butter. No; you shall not come and help. I want to do it for you. You will have just time to eat the bread and butter that I shall cut, and then you shall go to the station. Yes; I will walk as far with you. Oh, how much simpler if you could stop and let us tell Aunt Elizabeth and Aunt Catherine what has—has happened. But you mustn't; I want to be alone with the knowledge for a little—oh, you must really give me that! I want to make it real to me myself, before I tell anybody. Yes; it is real—I know that—but I want to get a little used to it before anybody knows. So—it is hard to say—don't come here to-morrow, even now, when nothing matters except It. I want to sit on the beach again—can you understand, I wonder?—and look at the sea again as I—we saw it, and make all things mine. They are yours just at present: you have taken them from me; and they must be mine again. But not mine any longer, nor yours, but ours."

For one moment Lucia wondered at herself. All that she had felt was that Edgar must go away before they returned from their expedition to Trew, and that he must not come to-morrow, while Maud would be still in the house. That she would be able to explain things to Maud eventually, she did not doubt; but she was not prepared to explain this at once. Things had to be thought over; it was obviously wise to give the best possible aspect to events, especially if they were events that one had caused oneself. And at the present moment their aspect was rather ugly; somehow that aspect must be painted over. She must find a new light to cast on it which should make it appear beautiful. But that she had to think over. It would not do at all if he came again to-morrow in the character of accepted lover.

Her reasons for not wishing to see him the next day enchanted him.

"Yes, yes," he cried. "You make me see. You tell me what I feel also, though I did not know it. I want to be alone with the knowledge for a little—to let it burn in its secret shrine——"

Again she had raised the genie over which she had no control. That which she had suggested for her own petty, paltry reasons appealed to him on another ground, in ways of which she had no conception. Though it was charming to find that her wishes on this subject so mysteriously accorded with his, it was less satisfactory to know that he had arrived at the same goal by some golden aerial route unknown to her. She had quoted, as she knew well, from what Maud had said to her, how that there was something secret about love—some isolating quality. She had extended the principle, it is true, assuming that at the first even lovers themselves wish to be alone, but her extension appeared to be perfectly sound.

The rest of his visit was all it should be. Lucia felt her way with unerring tact and instinct. By a sort of divination she gave him just that which a man naturally self-centred would look for when, for the time, at any rate, he has been hoisted out of himself by love. And, indeed, she did it all with sincerity. Ignorant as she was of passion, she wanted to get as near to it as she could, to understand what he felt, and talk the new language. She was gay and gentle with him, breaking out now and then into childish merriment at this adventure of theirs in having tea in the kitchen. That had been quite unpremeditated on Lucia's part, but it was brilliantly successful, and it was at his suggestion that they had their tea there, rather than carry up the apparatus to the drawing-room. For they found that not only the housemaid but the cook also had gone out; they were quite alone in the house. Then again, even in the middle of her laughter, she would grow tender and grave again in answer to his mood, and let a long silence speak for her. Soon it was necessary to go to the station, and wait till his train went.

"Horrid train!" she said gently, raising her eyes to his, as he stood at the carriage window. "Don't ask why: you know."

Lucia had what she called "a big think" all by herself that night. She had gone upstairs to bed rather early, with a view to "getting over" all fatigue and after-effects of her headache, which she said was quite unnecessary, at the urgent advice of Aunt Elizabeth; and in case of Maud's coming in to see if she was all right, had really gone to bed. But she had been very actively awake for the next hour or two, and when she came downstairs next morning, she had formed a resolution which she knew would require all her, courage to carry out. Sooner or later Maud must know of her engagement, and that being the case, it was much better that she should know at once. How she would take it, Lucia, though she knew her so well, could not guess; but her knowledge of her friend told her that she would be deeply hurt if she found out that Lucia had been engaged without telling her. So she decided, with a view to saving that, to let her know at once, and to tell her herself. It would have avoided an interview which, in anticipation, Lucia almost dreaded, that Maud should learn it as all the rest of the world would learn it; but it would save a far deeper wound to Maud afterwards if she found that she had not been taken into Lucia's confidence. Eleven o'clock had struck before Lucia came to this determination. It took her another hour to think out the manner of what she would say.

The girls went out early after breakfast next morning, before Aunt Elizabeth came down. She came down late to-day, not because she was tired, but because she had been on an expedition the day before, and after expeditions it was usual to come down late. Aunt Cathie waited indoors, to give her breakfast, and so the two were alone.

Lucia was rather silent as they walked, with then: towels and bathing-dresses over their arms, towards the tent, and Maud noticed it. She put her things inside, and then came and sat on the sand by her friend.

"What is it, Lucia?" she said. "Is anything wrong? Have you a headache again?"

Lucia took hold of her courage. Her resolution did not fail her; it had got to be done, and, according to her plan, she was going to do it with utter completeness. Maud was going to be told absolutely everything. Lucia was determined to take no risk of her finding anything out afterwards.

"No," she said, "I have no headache at all. I hadn't one yesterday, either. Maud, I wonder if we shall be friends in half an hour's time."

This bombshell had no effect whatever on Maud. Her serenity was quite undisturbed, so, too, was her faith in Lucia.

"Oh, you must be mistaken about something if you think there is any chance of our not being," she said. "At least, I can only speak from my side of our friendship—no, I speak from yours, too."

"You don't know yet," said Lucia.

"No, but I know you, and I know myself to some extent."

"But what if in half an hour you find yourself saying that you have never known me?" asked Lucia. She felt herself horribly weak in temporizing like this, but it was more difficult to begin than she had anticipated. Anyhow, she was preparing Maud for something dreadful.

But it seemed as if Maud refused to be prepared. She laughed.

"Darling, you look like Lady Macbeth," she said. "Do begin now for the revelations."

Lucia sat straight up and looked Maud full in the face.

"I am engaged to be married," she said—"I am engaged to Edgar Brayton."

For half a second Maud shrank back as if a blow had been aimed at her. But the movement was as instinctive as the wincing from pain; it was not her will that dictated it. Then she took both Lucia's hands in hers.

"Oh, Lucia, Lucia!" she said. "I—I know you will be very happy. Just give me a moment—just five seconds."

Scarcely so many passed, and then Maud drew Lucia's face to hers, and kissed her.

"Ah, my darling, I congratulate you most sincerely," she said. "I was a little brute at first, and found that I couldn't. But I am all right again now. I do congratulate you. I do! Friends, indeed! What would my friendship be worth if I could think—good gracious!"

Lucia's eyes suddenly filled with tears—genuine ones. She was immensely touched.

"Oh, Maud, really, really?" she asked. "Even though I knew all the time what you told me last June?"

Maud smiled—that quiet, serene smile which was so characteristic of her, and lay on her face as sunlight lies on the yellow harvest fields. It lacked the fire and animation that would have been more characteristic of her years, and it had about it the trustful happiness of those to whom experience has brought no unsweetening of their nature. Above all, her smile was full of love rather than enjoyment, of happiness rather than pleasure.

"Yes, but what I told you in June was not my fault," she said; "nor is what you tell me in September yours. Love is like that, I think, Lucia. It comes, it happens."

For one moment Lucia thought of telling Maud all; not only the things that she would certainly find out afterwards, like the fact of her engagement, but the things which, it was to be hoped, nobody would ever find out—namely, the spirit in which she had set out for the capture of this man, from no motive of love, but from simple, sheer ambition, and the triumphant satisfaction of her success. But in a moment that impulse passed; there was no practical end to be served by it, and in truth it was no more than that cheap instinct of honesty, to keep nothing back, that at times assails the most secretive and diplomatic.

"And—and you forgive me?" asked Lucia.

"Oh, my dear, you don't understand; there is no question of forgiveness. It is as I have said. Oh, Lucia——"

Maud stopped a moment, calling to mind the extremely crude things that Lucia had said about love, when they sat in the window-seat of the house in Warwick Square.

"How completely love has turned the tables on you," she said. "Don't you remember the dreadful things you said to me that night—how that all young men were exactly alike, and that you did not like them, but that you could imagine liking an old man most awfully? And all the time, I remember, you thought you were making discoveries about yourself, and getting to know yourself! Now go on quick—quick, dear Lucia! I am dying to hear it all—all from the very beginning down to the fact of your having no headache. I am sure that will be entrancing. I think we will have that first."

Lucia felt much better. Though she had known how devoted Maud was to her, she had not guessed that her devotion went so far as this. But what it had cost Maud to take her revelations in this way, how fierce had been the struggle between all that was best in her and her sense of personal loss and bitter bereavement, she did not think of considering. Maud had done her part heroically, had recited like a creed what she knew to be the truest and the worthiest way of looking at this, and had so stifled all in her that cried out against the cruelty of it that Lucia never suspected that there had been a struggle at all, or that she was struggling now, and would have to struggle long to be true to her best self. She thought it very wonderful of Maud to behave like this, but to Maud it seemed perfectly natural, as if there was no other possible mode of behaviour. And she accepted this incomparable attitude with gratefulness. Indeed, as has been said, she was immensely touched, and proceeded to the recital of the diplomatic headache with composure.

"I wonder if you will think it was too awful of me," she said. "You see, he wrote to say he was staying in a house near, and asked if he might come over. But you were here, and—forgive me, dear—I didn't know how you would take what I have just told you. So I arranged things, as you see. I meant to tell you about it all. I am telling you now."

Lucia had quite recovered her normal vivacity. She sat up, brilliant, bright-eyed, full of the intensest exultation.

"So I wrote to him, asking him to come here yesterday, and then sent you all off for a picnic. I had to have an excuse for not going, hadn't I? So I invented a headache."

Maud's serenity, however, which had vanished but for a moment when Lucia told her the first part of her revelations, seemed quite to have deserted her now. She looked at her friend with puzzled wonder.

"But, Lucia, dear Lucia, what would he think," she asked, "when he found you had invited him over here, and received him alone, without anybody?"

Lucia laughed; she was still too much taken up with the ingenuity of her scheme to notice the change in Maud's face.

"Oh, I thought of that, too," she said. "I allow that I had to sit down and think, so to speak, but when I really sit down to think I generally get it right. He found me seated on the beach, and I was embarrassed. I didn't tell a lie, but I said, 'Didn't I ask you for Friday, not Thursday?' And then I broke to him that I was quite alone and that everybody but me had gone for a picnic. He produced my note to show he hadn't made a mistake, and there, of course, it was: 'Do come on Thursday.' Oh, Maud, the Bismarck of Littlestone! That's me."

Even now the supreme egotism of Lucia's nature blinded her to the effect that this story of successful diplomacy was having on Maud.

She proceeded:

"And then we walked down on this beach, this dear, empty beach, which I told him I was so fond of; and he said it was full—full of me! And so there we were. Oh, I am so happy. I don't think anyone has ever been as happy as I. And as for you, Maud, you're a perfect darling! I don't know which of you I love most—I don't indeed."

Maud sat quite silent, while Lucia babbled on. Before, when Lucia discharged the first bomb of her revelations, her best self was in entire sympathy with her friend: it had only been against what she would have called her selfish self that she had to struggle. But now, in order to be in sympathy with Lucia, she had to struggle against her best self, which was in revolt. This diplomacy, the ingenuity of it, the—the meanness of it, and perhaps, above all, the self-deception of it, when Lucia had proudly announced she had not told a lie, was utterly antagonistic to Maud; she could not praise it, could not rejoice in its success. It seemed to her that to sit down and think out such means and then to employ them, infected and tarnished the love on behalf of which they were employed. If only Lucia had felt the meanness of it, acknowledged it, regretted it, the case would have; been different. But she gloried in it; she laughed with exultation at the thought of its success. And then, without desire or conscious encouragement on her part, there came into her mind other occasions when for a moment (a moment, as it had then appeared, of petty disloyalty and suspicion on her part) she had thought that Lucia had acted in a way that was unworthy, deceitful—in a way that she now saw was entirely in accord with this. She could not bear to think that it was Lucia who had done ythis, or who prided herself on it now. Surely this was not the real Lucia.

"Was it not well thought out?" demanded Lucia in conclusion.

This was a direct question; she paused for a reply.

"Yes, very well thought out," said Maud. "Brilliant, quite brilliant." But cordiality of tone was beyond her; it was as much as she could do to smile in an awkward, distorted way that could not easily escape the notice of the Bismarck of Littlestone.

"Why, what is the matter?" asked Lucia.

Maud looked at her imploringly.

"Oh, Lucia, don't let us talk about it," she said. "It's time to bathe."

Lucia frowned.

"I want to know what is the matter?" she said again.

Maud gave a little groan of despair.

"Oh, don't be cross with me," she said, "but I hate it, you know. I am so sorry you did it. It can't be right, even in things like a picnic and headache, to deceive everyone like that. And to make him think that you had intended to ask him on Friday, when you had so carefully planned Thursday. And—and to do it all for the sake of what is so splendid as love; I think that is the worst part of it. Of course, everybody says 'Not at home,' because that is only a formula, and nothing depends on it. But to deceive people when a lot depends on it——"

Maud looked appealingly at her: if only she would say that she understood, it would be something. But Lucia did nothing of the kind. She replied in a hard, cool voice.

"I see I made a mistake," she said. "I did wrong to tell you. It was a pity."

"No, no; not that!" cried Maud.

"Yes, just that," said Lucia. "I expect it is always a mistake to be absolutely frank with anybody as I have just been with you. Do you remember that I wondered whether in half an hour we should still be friends?"

Lucia suddenly became aware that she had lost her temper, and that, she knew, was never wise, unless something definite was to be got from it. She saw Maud's look of entreaty, of despair almost, and, after all, Maud had behaved quite splendidly about the more important part of her revelations. She instantly did her best to mend matters.

"Oh, I am such a beast," she said; "but, at any rate, I have always told you so, and I have always told you the worst I know about myself. I am a beast—I am. Of course, I shouldn't have done all these things; I know it perfectly well, really; but, darling, what would be the use of the General Confession if we never did what we ought not? We should have to get new Prayer-Books with the General Confession left out. But when I have done a thing, right or wrong, and it comes off the way I meant, I can't help being pleased and calling myself a little Bismarck. I will promise not to be a little Bismarck oftener than I can help. Now, what shall I do? Shall I tell Aunt Elizabeth and Aunt Cathie about my false headache, and the result of it? Maud, I don't believe it would be right. Aunt Elizabeth would certainly expire. That would add murder to my other crimes, which wouldn't mend matters. They might hang me for it."

Maud tried not to laugh, but the effect only made her red in the face first, and then the laugh came next. She knew she ought to have been serious, but she could not. And Lucia proceeded.

"Or ought I to tell him?" she said. "Oh, Maud, don't say 'Yes.' I should feel so unutterably cheap, and when I'm cheap I'm nasty, and he wouldn't like that. What a brute you are, dear! You've spoiled all my pleasure in being Bismarck. Don't speak till you have counted twenty slowly: I want to think."

Maud had only got to "fifteen," when Lucia interrupted.

"I've finished thinking," she said. "And—I'm sorry. And—thank you, you darling. Will you give me a kiss or not?"

There is, doubtless, such a thing as a falling-out that all the more endears; but there is, unfortunately, another sort of falling-out which does not have such happy results. Outwardly the reconciliation was complete, but to Maud it was as if an earthquake—very slight indeed, but perceptible—had made the very foundations of the noble building of her friendship with Lucia to tremble. The building stood there again, fine and beautiful, but there had been those moments of tremor which shook the foundations of it. And Lucia, on her side, said to herself that she must remember to be careful in what she told her friend. Maud was a darling, but she did not always completely understand. If a girl wanted a thing sufficiently, she would take reasonable steps to procure it, though she herself would never have taken these if they were not necessary. And she, Lucia, was the best judge of what steps were necessary in the management of her own affairs.