The Strange Attraction/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X
I
D ane had not ridden more than a quarter of a mile away from her when he pulled up his horse and turned off in a northerly direction. He crossed the Kaihu road and found his way down to the river road leading to his home.
He could not put Valerie out of his mind, and he knew now what he was coming to with her. He knew he could not be with her again, as they had been down in the sand-hills, without kissing her. He was not in love with her yet, but he wanted to be in love with her. He wanted her to make life vivid and positive again, just once, just once more. She had made him painfully aware of his loneliness.
And yet he had sworn that never again would he become mixed up with any woman. For a man who loved women it was an absurd resolve, and he had as he rode now a full sense of its absurdity. And then, Valerie was different from all the women he had known. She stood apart. She seemed fine and sincere. But he knew it was not her character that attracted him. What did a man ever think about a woman’s character? He ought to emphasize it, but he never did. No, it was her vividness, her vitality, the suggestion of softness and allurement deep within her, the tones in her voice when she lowered it, her mischievous desirous eyes and her tantalizing mouth; these were the things about her that beguiled him.
He pulled his horse to a standstill on the hill above his house. He often paused there to look down upon it. It gave him a feeling of peace. He loved to come back to its scented splendour after the dry bareness about the tent. These contrasts intensified his sense of life. He wondered what it would be like to have Valerie there filling the house with her music. He could see himself lying in the hammock listening.
He rode down and went in, hushing his dogs. He slept better than he expected and woke to a fine cool late May day. He ate his breakfast outside and settled down in his hammock afterwards to smoke. But he could not keep his thoughts on the thing he had meant to write.
He kept seeing Valerie, not as he had seen her the night before, but as he had seen her the first time in the office, and then again as she lay unconscious in the yard. And he wondered if she were seriously interested in him. He never over-emphasized the importance of sentimental moods. It did not occur to him that because she had put her hand on his head the night before it was an indication that she was in love with him. He knew now she was not the child he had first thought her. She had probably been kissed by many men.
Well, what of it all? He had not followed all his impulses with her. Something had held him back. A tangle of inhibitions, indeed. He could not tell which of them was the stronger, but he thought of Davenport Carr first. He knew well enough what that social autocrat would think of his association with his daughter in any way whatsoever. And he was deeply indebted to Davenport Carr. And he simply must keep away front his daughter.
And if he went on how would it end, anyway? Just as it had always ended. With him love had always destroyed itself. And he felt he could never hold Valerie. She was set for so much more in life than love. For one thing, she would never stay here with him by the river. And he would want to stay by the river.
He thought back over his life. He knew he had packed into fifteen years the intensities that stronger men spread over forty. He had lived with a reckless disregard of health or old age. He had never seen any good reason for living long, for living past the summit of one’s powers. He loathed the thought of a nerveless, loveless, ravaged old age, and so he had flung roses riotously with the throng till he had broken down. Then, forced to face alternatives, to estimate his spiritual assets and liabilities, he had been surprised to find that he cared to live on a basis of revaluation. He laid most of the world away, and came back to concentrate his forces on his work and on such beauty as he could find there within reach of his old place.
And he told himself that he, a clouded and despairing spirit, had no business to snatch at the brightness of untarnished youth going by, had no business to impose the moods and habits of a reckless life upon the fine hope and gaiety of a purposeful one. He saw it all very clearly that May morning.
The next day it turned cold and rained and there followed a week of early winter weather that depressed him. He did not go into Mac’s at all. It was too cold to enjoy his launch. After two bad nights he came to a decision. He ordered his tent and its belongings brought home. He packed into chests and locked up the smaller and more valuable of his things, and leaving his boys as he had before to look after them and his house till he should return, he slipped away to Auckland and to Sydney for the winter. He knew what he was doing. For the first time in his experience he was running away from life.
II
He was gone for nearly two weeks before Valerie knew it. She had thought of him a good deal in the wet days following the night on the sand-hills, and supposed he was keeping in out of the unpleasant weather. She had spent her idle moments speculating as to what turn their next meeting would take. Then in a letter from her father she learned that he had lunched with Dane the day he left for Sydney. She was hurt and angry, without reason, as she admitted to herself. He was in no way committed to telling her of his doings. And then she began to wonder if he had run away from her, and why.
But as the days went by she had less and less time to indulge in her own thoughts. She was drawn and willingly enough into the burning issues of that memorable campaign when the old Liberal Party that Dick Seddon led triumphantly into battle and victory for fifteen odd years crumbled before that mysterious force in the world that brings about a change. The little office became a more strenuous place than ever. Two local girls had been added to the typesetting staff. One of the book-keepers from Roger’s store had been transferred to help Valerie for half his time. The jobbing work was mounting up every day. As Bob was away a good deal now with Roger, the running of the office single-handed was a considerable job for Valerie. She now began at eight in the morning, and was often there till ten at night. But she revelled in these swift days, and had many a thrill over obstacles overcome. She was a person who was warmed by many fires and able to make many burn for her. She got increasing pleasure out of the devotion of Jimmy and Miss Hands, and out of the cooperation of Roger’s committee. She even discovered likeable qualities in Bolton and Allison, who were at least devoted backers of their political party, and able to admire the work she was doing for it. Her favourite on the committee was the lawyer, George Rhodes, who was doing fine work digging into the past history of the enemy and bringing into the clear light of day the things it most wished to have buried forever. But Valerie liked working with all of them. She liked the mysterious change that was wrought in people who were working for a common cause, the sense of fraternity that developed among them.
But even in this exhilarating hustle the thought of Dane lay slumbrous ever at the back of Valerie’s mind, and when at the end of five weeks she got a letter from him she was amazed at the feeling it roused in her. It came to the office with the mail from the steamer about five o’clock, but when she saw it was seven closely written pages she had to put it aside till she should be finished for the day. And that was not till half-past ten that night. Then by the light of two candles she read it in her room. It was a delightful letter, intimate and impersonal, saying nothing and everything. And it filled her with questions as to what she was going to do with herself and him when he came back.
As he had given her no address she wondered if he were about to return, but at the end of a week she wrote to him care of the Sydney Bulletin, wrote as impersonally as he had written to her, of the progress of the campaign and the humours of the day. Then she began to look for the Australian mail, but she heard no more of him till, well on in August, Father Ryan mentioned casually one morning at breakfast that Dane had been a passenger with him on the steamer from Auckland the day before.
III
Late one afternoon in the last week in the month Dane sat playing and singing to himself in his study. He had on a dull red lounging robe and gay soft slippers. Behind him at the end of the room a log fire was burning low, the intermittent flames casting spurts of light across the polished case of the piano, and glittering for a second on brass candlesticks and picture glass. There were no other lights in the room.
This had been the parlour of the old mission station, but when Dane had reconstructed the house he had extended it by some eight feet, so that it was now roomy enough to contain without overcrowding a varied collection of furniture, in spite of the fact that the entire available wall space was given up to shelves of books. Against the front window, which he had had widened for the sake of light, stood an old Italian table and cabinet, the former littered with manuscript paper, a bronze ink set of curious English workmanship, a jade brush pot full of penholders, an enamel jar for tobacco, a carved red lacquer cigarette box, several pipes, a pile of paper-backed French novels, some disreputable pieces of blotting-paper, and a little ivory box in which he kept stamps. The chair here was Italian, remodelled with a soft seat of old tapestry for comfort.
There were several tables, English and Italian, littered with books, and a fine old English oak chest standing at the end of the piano. Before the fire were two chairs of the low leather smoking-room variety, and near one of them a table covered with smoking apparatus. Above the bookshelves which did not go beyond six feet up the walls were water colour and oil sketches, and black and white drawings by Australian artists. Among them were two heads of Dane himself, one the much-reproduced pen and ink drawing by Norman Lindsay, a wonderful piece of work, and a fine sketch in oils by Sid Long.
The one French door opening onto the verandah, and the front window were curtained with silken stuff, the colour of burnished copper, which carried on the tint in the unpolished rimu walls. There were brilliant spots of colour here and there along the tops of the bookshelves in bits of Chinese porcelain, and there was colour in three Persian rugs on the floor, and in the books, but after coming out of the other this looked a very quiet room, and in spite of its diverse objects it was a homogeneous whole.
Dane lifted his hands from the keyboard on hearing his dogs bark outside.
“Mr. Benton coming in,” said Lee from the doorway.
“All right. Bring him in here.”
Rather glad of a diversion he got up and turned to meet Roger, who came in mud-spattered as from a long ride.
“Heard yesterday you were back, Barrington. I’m pretty grubby.” Roger looked doubtfully at his elegant host and at the room, now coming to light, as Lee lit lamps and candles.
“You won’t hurt anything. Sit down.” Dane indicated one of the leather chairs, and took the other himself. “How’s the campaign going?”
“All right till yesterday, curse it!”
“What happened yesterday? I haven’t been in to the town for days.”
“Lorrimer went to the hospital, down with pneumonia.”
Dane looked into the light of the match he had just lit. “That’s hard luck, certainly,” he said sympathetically.
“It’s the very devil,” said Roger gloomily.
Lee came through the door with a tray and put it on a small table.
“Wine or whisky, Meester Benton?”
“Whisky; yes, some water, thanks.”
“Meester Barrington, what for you?”
“Whisky, please.”
When the boy had gone out Roger went on. “He was doing fine in the electorate, popular everywhere, and sending good stuff to the paper. Now it will be a month at least before he is fit for anything. Miss Carr can run the office all right. She’s a wonder, that girl. But she can’t do the leaders and the political stuff.”
Dane looked hard into the fire. “What kind of a start have you made?”
“Quite hopeful, I think. In fact, I’ve been surprised at some of the places support has come from. Of course we have the farmers. They have always been for Massey. But it looks as if we might get some of the transient vote, the gumdiggers, bush fellers. There’s a change in the feeling, talk of the swing in the country to Massey, and it is a good thing to cultivate. I know I’ll carry most of Dargaville, and there’s never been anyone who could do that before. Mobray, of course, will carry Te Koperu. But I find he’s more unpopular than I thought he was.”
“Still he will be a hard man to beat. And what about the prohibition issue?”
“That’s the devil of it. It isn’t certain yet whether Dodge will stand. If he does, the damned fool, he will split the votes, and then nobody can guess the result. If it is clear cut between Mobray and me I’ve a fighting chance ———”
“Then, my dear Roger, Dodge must be bought. Has anybody thought of that?”
“Well, yes. I’ve put Rhodes on to it. But Dodge is a slippery customer.”
“The more slippery he is the more certain it is that he will stand to be bought. Name a figure and don’t budge from it.”
“Yes, that’s the idea, I know. And with him out that leaves us both liquor men. I’ve been approached to stand for prohibition, but I’d lose more than I’d gain by that.”
Dane smiled at him. “No labour man mentioned?”
“No. I wish there were. He’d draw from Mobray, not me. Barrington, I wonder if you could find out where Townshend stands. He’s given us his jobbing, but I don’t lean on that. He’s always been for Mobray, but he’s been very amiable to me since I came out. Only he won’t talk politics, and that’s a bad sign. He holds the election in his hands if his men are solid.”
“They won’t be solid.”
“No, that’s the funny part of politics in this country. You can’t count on anything.”
“That looks as if the voters did a little thinking. What is your war cry? Justice for the North?”
“Yes, and it’s the best we could have. It’s high time the Government paid some attention to us. Seddon never did, and neither has Ward. They have lived for the South. And we mean to see that if Massey gets the lead he will take some notice of us up here. If I get in for Waitemata, and Haines gets in again for Marsden, and Sloan goes in for the Bay of Islands, we can do more than talk about the main trunk line and the opening up of the North.”
“Yes, you really have an issue, Roger. I was amazed at the possibilities of the North when I went over it, and at the little that had been done for it. Not a decent road anywhere. And it has the finest climate in the country. Well, here’s your chance, old man. You will go down in history as the man who made the Government make the North, that is, if you don’t get swallowed up like the rest of them.”
“Indeed, I will not,” retorted Roger with a fine show of decision.
Dane smiled at him again, but the other man subsided gloomily.
“Well, I’m not in. If labour is solid against me I won’t get in. And now with Lorrimer ill—curse it!” He stared into the fire.
In the pause that followed Dane wondered if they were both thinking the same thing.
Roger turned abruptly to him. “I say, Barrington, would you help us out with leaders and some articles? You can have any price you want.”
Dane felt the hand of fate upon him. Why ever run away from life when it was the relentless tracker it was? But he turned quiet eyes upon the instrument of the gods.
“I’ll think about it, Benton. But I don’t want any price. I don’t need the money. You will go on paying Lorrimer, won’t you?”
“Oh, yes, yes, of course. But will you really do it, Barrington? I would prefer to pay ———”
Dane waved his hand at him. “It’s not a question of money at all. I’d like the fun of being in the game. And my knowledge of the North would be useful. Are you going to be around to-morrow?”
“Yes, I have a conference with the committee in Dargaville in the morning. By God, Barrington, do say you will get in on it.” There was no mistaking Roger’s anxiety in the matter.
“I’d like to think about it to-night a little. I would go in under Miss Carr, of course. I’ve no desire to run the News. The idea is that I would simply send in the stuff?”
“That’s it.”
“I’ll tell you definitely in the morning, Benton, how much I will do. You can count on me for something, anyway.”
“By Jove, Barrington, I am grateful to you. But I really do not wish to impose on your good nature.”
“My good nature ———” Dane looked past him at Lee who stood in the doorway signalling with his eyes. “Will you dine with me, Benton?” he added.
“Oh, thanks, no, I can’t. Is it as late as that?” He got to his feet. “I must be getting along. Don’t get up, old chap. You look darned comfortable down there.” Roger beamed upon him almost affectionately.
But Dane did get up, and led the way through the hall to the front door.
“See you in the morning then, at the store. Will eleven suit you?”
“Admirably. Good-night.”
Roger clinked down the front steps feeling he had been very clever. If he could only secure Dane for the News he knew he would have the most potent and penetrating pen the elections would know.
Dane paced back and forth on his front verandah till his dinner should be ready. He paused now and then to look up at pallid gray clouds gathering density every minute in a bottle-green sky that was clearing a little after rain. Mingling with the mist that rose from the soaked earth he felt for the first time the stealthy approach of invisible things feeling their mysterious ways towards birth and their little measure of the spring. From the delicate tassels fringing the ferns by the river up to the dusted fresh green of the kauri saplings on the skyline another surge of life was vibrating all about him in the dusk. The night was closing down on an air sweetened with the violets and jonquils and primroses that carpeted the shaded recesses of his garden. It was all very lovely. And he felt unaccountably happy and unaccountably sad.
Then Lee called him and he went in.
IV
Valerie had been deeply concerned when after a week’s absence Bob walked into the office looking gray and ill. He threw a packet of notes and manuscript on her desk and said he must get to bed. It was eight o’clock, and she begged him to get the doctor as soon as he got to the hotel. But when she got home at eleven, after going over his papers, she found he had not done anything for himself. Alarmed by his appearance she had Michael hunt up Doc Steele, who had left the house an hour before. The doctor stayed by Bob most of the night, and the first thing in the morning ordered his removal to the hospital. He was wrapped out of sight in rugs and run down in one of Mac’s launches. While it was still dark Valerie went to the house of the postmaster and woke him. If she could get on the line with Auckland at once Mrs. Lorrimer might be able to get that day’s boat. The official managed it for her, and she got the Bishop’s family out of bed.
She tried to eat a breakfast that might be adequate for the day she knew was ahead of her. She got sandwiches from Lizzie to take to the office, foreseeing that a lunch time might be merely a matter of imagination. It proved, indeed, to be one of those days when capricious circumstances collaborate to drive mortals mad. For some reason the minds that decided the allotment of cables and telegrams to little papers almost doubled her usual allowance. There was a bad accident up the line about which conflicting accounts were received every hour. The committee dropped in unexpectedly in the morning to be uselessly sympathetic about Bob, and she had to tell them as good-humourediy as she could that they had more time to think about him than she had. The printing press chose the occasion to break down in the middle of the afternoon just as the paper was going on, and Valerie had to leave the situation and run, when she heard the steamer whistle, to meet Mrs. Lorrimer, who had sent a telegram to say she was on the way. She had to forget the work while she tried to comfort Bob’s anxious mother. She had a buggy ready for her, and explained as kindly as she could why she could not possibly go on to the hospital with her, seeing perfectly well that Mrs. Lorrimer did not believe a word she said. Back to the office she went to meet an up-river man who wanted quotations on prices for a large job. He had been sent by Townshend. From half-past five to half-past six she read the benumbing pages of a spring show catalogue. She hurried home, took a hot bath, tried to make her mind a blank for a quarter of an hour, and went down to dinner feeling as if she had been through a war. Fortified by a bottle of wine from Mac, she ate a restrained meal and went back to the office to work till eleven.
The second day was an excellent likeness of the first, except that it was the jobbing machine that broke down instead of the printing press, and that, in addition, one of the girls was away ill. Again she ate her lunch in the office as she edited the cables. And the rushed day was coloured throughout by the news that Bob had a temperature of 104 and was at death’s door.
At six o’clock Valerie dropped back in her chair and went limp. The staff had gone and only Jimmy was to come back that night to help her on the catalogue proofs. Somehow they had cleaned up the formidable pile of the morning. Everything had got into the paper. But what was to be done about the leaders? Roger had left her half an hour before saying they would have to get somebody from Auckland. She had resented that idea. She did not want a stranger there. Curiously enough, though she knew Dane was back, and though a part of her intensity was due to the fact that she kept expecting him to appear without warning, it never occurred to her that he might be the way out.
She gave herself a little more time for dinner that night, and found Jimmy, as usual, waiting for her. They had been reading proofs for about an hour when a noise in the composing-room disturbed them.
“Sounds like a rat, Miss Carr,” whispered Jimmy excitedly. He got up and stole to the composing-room door. They had had two rat hunts in the place that winter and the sport had proved absurdly thrilling.
“Yes, miss,” hissed Jimmy in a loud whisper. “A big one; I saw it.”
Valerie bounded out of her chair, forgetting for the moment that Bob might die that night. She darted after Jimmy and closed behind her the composing-room door.
V
Dane ran his launch into the bank opposite the News office, and anchored it in the fringe of rushes where he could step out a foot or two from the path. He swung across the street, tapped on the door, opened it and went in. Over the counter he saw Valerie’s hat and coat hung on a corner nail. But he could see nobody. Then he heard the extraordinary sounds that were proceeding from behind the closed door. He listened in a startled amazement. His first thought was that somebody was being murdered.
“Now’s your chance! Get him! Oh, golly, missed him! Now here! There you are! Oh crums! Look out! He’s getting fierce!” These words were hurled about in tones of bloodthirsty fury by a hoarse voice he did not know, and then came shouts from Valerie. “Go it, Jimmy. Oh, you idiot! That was easy.”
Dane could curb his curiosity no longer. He opened the door and looked through. An amazing spectacle met his eyes. The composing-room was in wild disarray. Sacks and furniture and packages had been pulled away from the walls, and there was litter everywhere. He could see Valerie on her hands and knees with her back turned to him waving a dangerous rod of iron, part of the make-up frame, to be exact.
“Here you!” roared Jimmy, who did not at the moment recognize him, and who was beside himself with excitement. “Shut the door!”
Dane shut it instantly, sliding through it like a shadow. Then he saw the rat dart squealing in his direction. “Here. This way,” he called, momentarily caught himself by the fight, as he stamped to turn it back.
At the sound of his voice Valerie swung round and leapt to her feet, and for a moment she stood almost transfixed at the sight of him, while Jimmy made a lunge downwards at the hunted beast. Dane stood against the door, almost enveloped in a gray ulster, a tweed cap in one hand. He smiled engagingly at Valerie across the body of Jimmy, who was sprawling on the floor after losing his balance in a resultless plunge.
As for her, she stood like Diana flushed with the lust of the chase, her eyes brilliant, her hair tumbling down. The plain dress of warm blue woollen stuff she wore set off the life and colour in her head. It struck Dane with the force of a revelation that she was wonderful, and that, more wonderful still, she cared for him.
Trying to cover her first confusion, she ran to him, holding out her hand. She remembered that Jimmy’s sharp eyes would be upon them.
“It’s a rat. Do wait till we get it,” she said excitedly.
He made a face. “You’re going to kill it?”
They both spoke as if they had seen each other the day before.
“Oh, yes, a rat, yes.”
Seeing it run across the room she darted from him. Just for a minute he was annoyed that after his absence he should be ignored for a rat. Then watching her he was amused. He heard Jimmy yell as the beast turned on her. It sprang onto her shoulders and ran down her back. But she made no sound. She turned with an extraordinarily swift spin and, catching it wavering, despatched it with a deadly blow.
Jimmy leapt into the air with a shout, and then gazed at Valerie with adoration. A girl who was not afraid of a rat—he nearly burst as he thought of it. But she was looking at the dead beast and at the trickle of blood that came from its crushed head. And she knew that Dane was looking down at her.
She got slowly to her feet, and ignoring Dane for the moment, looked round the room as Jimmy picked up the body of the rat.
“I’ll clean it up, Miss Carr,” said the boy, divining her thoughts.
“Well, I guess it will have to be done, Jimmy,” she smiled, and then she turned and walked to the door where Dane still stood with his eyes on her.
A fresh flush burned her face as her eyes met his and fell before them.
“I know I’m ridiculous,” she began, a little nervously, “but you know, I just needed that. We’ve had two wild days, and I had to have something.”
He opened the door, and she went through holding up her hair. She dropped into her chair and swung it round, and without any apology let down the dishevelled gold about her head, and then firmly wound and pinned the coils up again, talking as she did so.
“How are you?” she began.
“Very well, I think, thank you.” He leaned against the high counter opposite her.
She thought he looked better than she had ever seen him. At least he had not spent his winter in dissipation, as she had feared he might have done.
“It was nice of you to write to me, but it was very rude of you to go off like that without letting me know.” As she was not looking at him she did not see the flash that went across his eyes as she said that.
“I’m sorry I was rude,” he said repentantly
“You’re not a bit sorry,” she retorted pertly. “Did you get my letter?”
“I did, thank you.”
She had finished pinning her hair. She felt hot and confused. He had evidently come in to say something, and was waiting for Jimmy to get out.
“Won’t you take off your coat?”
It seemed to her that he emerged out of it like a radiant creature out of a utilitarian chrysalis. She felt the beauty of his head again as if she were seeing it for the first time.
He was more warmly dressed than she had ever seen him in a square-cut suit of dark blue cloth, with a vest over the white silk shirt, and a very calm gray-blue tie. His shoes were heavier than usual. She caught a whiff of some delicate scent, as if his clothes were kept with it.
He perched up on the high stool and looked down on her.
“May I smoke?”
“Of course.” Then for the first time since he had come in she thought of Bob. “Have you heard about Mr. Lorrimer?” Her voice and mood changed as she asked it.
“Yes. How is he to-day?” His face sobered too.
“Oh, very ill, I’m afraid. Heavens! I was forgetting all about him. Doc Steele is there with him now. He may not live through the night.” She was ashamed to think how completely she had forgotten her old friend Bob in the last half hour, and determined now to be more loyal in her mind.
Dane felt the change in her at once and divined the reason for it, and he told himself this was no time to put any emotional pressure upon her, and that he must discipline himself till this tension was over.
“I did not realize he was as ill as that, Miss Carr. I’m very sorry. Benton dropped in and told me on his way home that he had been taken to the hospital.”
“Oh, did he?” And the possibility dawned on her mind.
“Yes,” he went on, without looking at her. “He asked me if I would do the leaders and political stuff for the News till Lorrimer was better.”
She said nothing for a minute, but he felt her sudden quickening to life. “What did you say?”
“I said I would.” Again he did not look at her. He did not need to.
“You did! You would work for this little paper?”
“Why not? It has just as much power as any other paper for getting a man in.”
She was about to speak when Jimmy came through the door. Shooting an unfriendly glance at Dane he walked up to Valerie with a comical air of possession and sat down in the chair beside her. She looked at him. “Oh, the proofs, Jimmy? Well, we were nearly through them. We will finish them in the morning. You go now.”
Jimmy understood perfectly that he was being dismissed, and he was resentful against the man who had come in. He knew who he was, and he had overheard Bob say he did not want him to have anything to do with the office. It disturbed him that Valerie should let him stay there, especially with Bob ill in the hospital. She saw he was put out.
“Thanks for what you’ve done, Jimmy. Mr. Benton has sent Mr. Barrington in to see about helping us out, so I won’t read any more proofs to-night. Go on home.”
That made the boy feel a little better. He took up his cap and went out saying good-night to her. Then she saw him peeping through the window. She waved him away and they both heard his steps going off.
Dane’s eyes were fixed steadily on her again, and they compelled her to look up at him. “Hero worship?” he smiled, nodding his head in the direction of the departing Jimmy.
“As you see, and a bad case. I have to be careful of him. They are so confused and so sensitive at that age ———” She stopped for he had slipped off the stool and was standing in front of her, and something about him lifted her to her feet.
“We never get over it, Valerie dear,” he said, very softly.
He felt her tremble and then make a desperate effort to stand still, and the shadow of the dying Bob fell between them.
“I’m sorry. I forgot. I looked at you and forgot. I will be good. But tell me one thing. You won’t expect me to be good for very long, will you?”
She looked at him and her eyes answered, and forgetting Bob and the window and the peep-hole their arms swept about each other. But because he was far more sensitive than she, and possibly because he had drunk deep from cups she had but touched the edges of, he drew away from her lips after a few fierce possessive kisses, seeing that if he went on he would submerge her more deeply than he had any intention of doing that night. For him the office was no fit setting for abandonment to her.
They stood for a moment shaken by that unleashing of the forces they had been trying to hold back, and something in the very violence of their relaxation startled them into self-discipline. Valerie dropped down into her chair breathing hard and trying to remember Bob, the work, the next morning.
Dane stood still for a minute amazed that he had let the situation run away from him in this manner. He had not come to the office with the remotest intention of kissing her. And here they were, for he had seen in her eyes the enchantment that he could never resist.
He sat down in the chair beside her and took her hands. She misunderstood his intention.
“Oh, please, we can’t really. You don’t know what this work is. And I must do it. I have no time to play till it is over.” She spoke as if she were afraid of him, but she was just as afraid of herself.
He dropped her hands, feeling the intensity that was burning her.
“Please don’t be afraid of me,” he pleaded softly. “I’m sorry I let go like that. I won’t do it again till you wish it. I promise.”
He sat very still wondering how the devil they were to go on without explosions now that they had put the spark to the powder. He had a fierce craving to carry her out to the launch and take her home with him.
Presently her eyes fell on the neglected proofs. They stimulated her to come back to earth and the compelling present.
“You must go, please. I have an hour’s work at least, and it cannot wait till the morning. I should have let Jimmy stay.”
“I’m Jimmy for the rest of the evening. Yes, come on, dear. I’ll read them with you. No, you must not look at me like that. I can’t stand it. What the devil do you think a man is? If I’m to stay good you’ve got to be an angel too.”
And then Valerie laughed.
And never in the history of spring show catalogues were dull pages of entries for sheep and cattle, and dairy produce and vegetables, and home-made cakes and jams and fancy-work treated with such alternate absorption and indifference as they were in the office of the News that night. And it must be confessed that the resolutions with which they began the proof-reading suffered considerably from lack of nourishment in the following hour. But with each pause, with each kiss, with each wondering gaze eye to eye they grew gayer, and laughed more at themselves and each other. Without putting it into words they took this evening as they felt it knowing they would come to sober ways upon the morrow.
It was nearly eleven when they finished the proofs. Valerie looked at her watch, and thought again of Bob, and wondered with a little catch at her breath if he were still upon the earth. And she had a sudden revulsion of feeling against the mad happiness of the last hour.
“What is it?” asked Dane.
But she did not wish to put any shades on his face, or bring any pain back to his eyes.
“I must get home, dear. I have to be here at eight.”
“Eight!”
“Oh yes, eight, every morning now. You see?” She shook her head decidedly at him.
“I see.” He helped her on with her coat, and then before she put on her hat he drew her to him and looked into her face. She could not keep her eyes open against that frightening clutch. What did this man expect of her, want of her, when he looked at her like that? Then she felt her lips being very delicately pressed.
“You don’t know when I first kissed you,” he said softly.
She opened her eyes widely upon him. “I certainly do. That morning when you came into my room?”
“Oh, no. Before that.” He smiled at the expression on her face.
“I kissed you the night before as you lay unconscious in the office yard.”
“Why, you preposterous perfidious villain,” she said delightedly.
“I couldn’t help it.”
She tried to frown at him, but she could not.
After they had kissed each other again she put out the light and they went to the door. Hearing no one about she walked to the river’s edge and stood there while he went off and disappeared in the shadows.