The Way of an Eagle by Ethel May Dell (list of e readers .TXT) 📖

eyes at least he was a man of honour. It had been in his mind to tell her the simple truth, just so far as he himself was concerned, and thereafter to place himself at her disposal to act exactly as she should desire. But suddenly this was an impossibility to him. He realised it with desperate self-loathing. She trusted him. She looked to him for protection. She leaned upon his strength. She needed him. He could not--it almost seemed as if in common chivalry he could not--reveal to her the contemptible weakness which lay like a withering blight upon his whole nature. To own himself the slave of a married woman, and that woman her closest friend, would be to throw her utterly upon her own resources at a time when she most needed the support and guidance of a helping hand. Moreover, the episode was over; so at least both he and Daisy resolutely persuaded themselves. There had been a lapse--a vain and futile lapse--into the long-cherished idyll of their romance. It must never recur. It never should recur. It must be covered over and forgotten as speedily as might be. They had come to their senses again. They were ready, not only to thrust away the evil that had dominated them, but to ignore it utterly as though it had never been.
So, rapidly, the man reasoned with himself with the girl's hands clasping his arm in earnest entreaty, and her eyes of innocence raised to his.
His answer when it came was slow and soft and womanly, but, in her ears at least, there was nothing wanting in it. She never dreamed that he was reviling himself for a blackguard even as he uttered it.
"My dear little girl, there is nothing whatever for you to be afraid of. You're a bit overstrung, aren't you? The man isn't living who could take you from me."
He patted her shoulder very kindly, soothing her with a patient, almost fatherly tenderness, and gradually her panic of fear passed. She leaned against him with a comforting sense of security.
"I can't think how it is I'm so foolish," she told him. "You are good to me, Blake. I feel so safe when I am with you."
His heart smote him, yet he bent and kissed her. "You're not quite strong yet, dear," he said. "It takes a long time to get over all that you had to bear last year."
"Yes," she agreed with a sigh. "And do you know I thought I was so much stronger than I am? I actually thought that I shouldn't mind--much--when he came. And yet I did mind--horribly. I--I--told him about our engagement, Blake."
"Yes, dear," said Blake.
"Yes, I told him. And he laughed and offered his congratulations. I don't think he cared," said Muriel, again with that curious, inexplicable sensation of pain at her heart.
"Why should he?" said Blake.
She looked at him with momentary irresolution. "You know, Blake, I never told you. But I was--I was--engaged to him for about a fortnight that dreadful time at Simla."
To her relief she marked no change in Blake's courteously attentive face.
"You need not have told me that, dear," he said quietly.
"No, I know," she answered, pressing his arm. "It wouldn't make any difference to you. You are too great. And it was always a little bit against my will. But the breaking with him was terrible--terrible. He was so angry. I almost thought he would have killed me."
"My dear," Blake said, "you shouldn't dwell on these things. They are better forgotten."
"I know, I know," she answered. "But they are just the very hardest of all things to forget. You must help me, Blake. Will you?"
"I will help you," he answered steadily.
And the resolution with which he spoke was an unspeakable comfort to her. Once more there darted across her mind the wonder at her father's choice for her. How was it--how was it--that he had passed over this man and chosen Nick?
Blake's own explanation of the mystery seemed to her suddenly weak and inadequate. She simply could not bring herself to believe that in a supreme moment he could be found wanting. It was unthinkable that the giant frame and mighty sinews could belong to a personality that was lacking in a corresponding greatness.
So she clung to her illusion, finding comfort therein, wholly blind to those failings in her protector which to the woman who had loved him from her earliest girlhood were as obvious and well-nigh as precious as his virtues.


CHAPTER XXIX
OLD FRIENDS MEET

"I must be getting back," said Nick.
He was sprawling at ease on the sofa in Jim's study, blinking comfortably at the ceiling, as he made this remark.
Jim himself had just entered the room. He drew up a chair to Nick's side.
"You will be doing nothing of the sort to-night," he returned, with a certain grimness. "The motor has gone back to Redlands for your things. I saw to that an hour ago."
"The deuce you did!" said Nick. He turned slightly to send a shifting glance over his brother. "That was very officious of you, Jimmy," he remarked.
"Very likely," conceded the doctor. "I have to be officious occasionally. And if you think that I mean to let you out of my sight in your present state of health, you make a big mistake. No, lie still, I tell you! You're like a monkey on wires. Lie still! Do you hear me, Nick?"
Nick's feet were already on the ground, but he did not rise. He sat motionless, as if weighing some matter in his mind.
"I can't stay with you, Jimmy," he said at last. "I'll spend to-night of course with all the pleasure in the world. But I'm going back to Redlands to-morrow. I have a fancy for sleeping in my own crib just now. Come over and see me as often as you feel inclined, the oftener the better. And if you care to bring your science to bear upon all that is left of this infernally troublesome member of mine, I shall be charmed to let you. You may vivisect me to your heart's content. But don't ask me to be an in-patient, for it can't be done. There are reasons."
Jim frowned at him. "Do you know what will happen if you don't take care of yourself?" he said brusquely. "You'll die."
Nick burst into a laugh, and lay back on the cushions. "I was driven out of India by that threat," he said. "It's getting a bit stale. You needn't be afraid. I'm not going to die at present. I'll take reasonable precautions to prevent it. But I won't stay here, that's flat. I tell you, man, I can't."
He glanced again at Jim, and, finding the latter closely watching him, abruptly shut his eyes.
"I'm going to open Redlands," he said, "and I will have Olga to come and keep house for me. It'll be good practice for her. I'll take her back with me to-morrow, if you have no objection."
"Fine mischief you'll get up to, the pair of you," grumbled Jim.
"Very likely," said Nick cheerily. "But we shan't come to any harm, either of us. To begin with, I shall make her wait on me, hand and foot. She'll like that, and so shall I."
"Yes, you'll spoil her thoroughly." said Jim. "And I shall have the pleasure of breaking her in afterwards."
Nick laughed again. "What an old tyrant you are! But you needn't be afraid of that. I'll make her do as she's told. I'm particularly good at that. Ask Muriel Roscoe."
Jim's frown deepened. "You know of that girl's engagement to Grange, I suppose?"
Nick did not trouble to open his eyes. "Oh, rather! She took care that I should. I gave her my blessing."
"Well, I don't like it," said Jim plainly.
"What's the matter with him?" questioned Nick.
"Nothing that I know of. But she isn't in love with him."
Nick's eyelids parted a little, showing a glint between. "You funny old ass!" he murmured affectionately.
Jim leaned forward and looked at him hard.
"Quite so," said Nick in answer, closing his eyes again. "But you don't by any chance imagine she's in love with me, do you? You know how a woman looks at a worm she has chopped in half by mistake? That's how Muriel Roscoe looked at me to-day when she expressed her regret for my mishap."
"She wouldn't do that for nothing," observed Jim, with a hint of sternness.
"She wouldn't," Nick conceded placidly.
"Then why the devil did you ever give her reason?" Jim spoke with unusual warmth. Muriel was a favourite of his.
But he obtained scant satisfaction notwithstanding.
"Ask the devil," said Nick flippantly. "I never was good at definitions."
It was a tacit refusal to discuss the matter, and as such Jim accepted it.
He turned from the subject with a grunt of discontent. "Well, if I am to undertake your case, you had better let me look at you. But we'll have a clean understanding first, mind, that you obey my orders. I won't be responsible otherwise."
Nick opened his eyes with a chuckle. "I'll do anything under the sun to please you, Jimmy," he said generously. "When did you ever find me hard to manage?"
"You've given me plenty of trouble at one time and another," Jim said bluntly.
"And shall again before I die," laughed Nick, as he submitted to his brother's professional handling. "There's plenty of kick left in me. By the way, tell me what you think about Daisy. I must call on her to-morrow before I leave."
This intention, however, was not fulfilled, for Daisy herself came early to the doctor's house to visit him. Far from well though she was, she made the effort as a matter of course. Nick was too near a friend to neglect. Blake did not accompany her. He was riding with Muriel.
She found Nick stretched out in luxurious idleness on a couch in the sunshine. He made a movement to spring to meet her, but checked himself with a laugh.
"This is awfully good of you, Daisy. I was coming to see you later, but I'm nailed to this confounded sofa for the next two hours, having solemnly sworn to Jim that nothing short of battle, murder or sudden death should induce me to move. I'm afraid I can't reasonably describe your coming as any of these, so I must remain a fixture. It's Jimmy's rest cure."
He reached out his hand to Daisy, who took it in both her own. "My poor dear Nick!" she said, and stooping impulsively kissed him on the forehead.
"Bless you!" said Nick. "I'm ten times better for that. Sit down here, won't you? Pull up close. I've got a lot to say."
Of sympathy for her recent bereavement, however, he said no word whatever. He only held her hand.
"There's poor old Will," he said: "I spent the night with him on my way down. He's beastly homesick--sent all sorts of messages to you. You'll be going out in the winter?"
"It depends," said Daisy.
"He's breaking his heart for you, like a silly ass," said Nick. "How long has Muriel been engaged to Grange?"
Daisy started at the sudden question.
"It's all right," Nick assured her. "I'm not a bit savage. It'll be a little experience for her. When did it begin?"
Daisy hesitated. "Some weeks ago now."
Nick nodded. "Exactly. As soon as she heard I was coming. Funny of her. And what of Grange? Is he smitten?"
Daisy flushed painfully, and tried to laugh. "Don't be so cold-blooded, Nick. Of course he--he's fond of her."
"Oh, he--he's fond of her, is he?" said Nick. He looked at her suddenly, and laughed with clenched teeth.