Chapter XII: In Confidence

A silence fell between the pair.

Seton Darville strode across to the long window, his brows knit in thought. What Edris had told him held him for a moment breathless. Then he reflected deeply for a few seconds.

“How long ago was your engagement broken?” he asked at last, turning to where she was still seated by the fire.

“Last August,” she answered hesitatingly.

“You were, I know, awfully fond of Lionel. You must regret it,” he said slowly.

She did not reply. He saw that she was not anxious to discuss the matter, therefore he said:

“It’s a beautiful afternoon. Wouldn’t you like to go for a walk?”

At once she acquiesced, and, jumping up, passed into the bedroom, while he still remained at the window gazing out across the gray sea with dark, wistful eyes. His one thought was of that unexpected truth. Edris was free--free! A thousand times during the summer months that had gone, as he wandered hither and thither about the Continent, his thoughts and longings had reverted to her. But she was engaged, he told himself, therefore there was no hope, even though he was madly in love with her.

But the barrier was now removed, and she was free!

Darville buttoned Bundle into his little coat and put on his harness. Then, having put on his own coat, they descended to the promenade, the tiny Pom yapping with excitement as they strolled across the lawns and along by the sea in the direction of Brighton.

Edris had never been there before, and was delighted with the handsome sea-front of Hove. The afternoon was sunny, with just a keen nip in the wind.

“I love the sea,” she said, pausing to watch the waves beating upon the shingle. “Living in the country as we do, I see so little of it except the Channel when we cross to the Continent,” and she inhaled, to the full, the salt-laden air.

The usual well-dressed crowd of week-enders was passing to and fro as they continued their walk as far as the West Pier, chatting merrily as they went. Darville was absorbed in that announcement she had made, while she, all unsuspicious of the truth that for a whole year he had loved her, even though he had held aloof from her, regarded his distraction with some disappointment. She thought he appeared bored, for sometimes he hardly took notice of her words, his attention, apparently, being centered upon the pet dog he was leading. When at Hove, Seton Darville was never seen without the intelligent Bundle, who was for ever yapping, as Poms do, and straining at his plated chain.

They returned in the falling dusk and found tea laid for them. It proved a cozy meal, for, as she sat in the big arm-chair again, her host waited upon her gallantly, laughing merrily and gossiping about the last season’s winter sports.

“But it’s really too bad of you, Seton,” the girl said at last, as she replaced her cup upon the little inlaid coffee-table at her elbow. “You won’t tell me if you are really going to Wengen or not. So much depends upon you”; and she looked at him wistfully beneath her long, dark lashes.

“Why? Surely I’m not so very indispensable?” he laughed.

“To our party you are,” she declared. “You are perfectly priceless when you try to do stunts ski-ing.”

“And make a silly fool of myself. I suppose they laugh at me?”

“Indeed they don’t. Everybody wonders at your remarkable energy,” she said. “To ski all day and play antics in the ballroom at night with only intervals of a few minutes must be a great strain. You’re wonderful! Everyone says so. You never seem to want sleep.”

Darville laughed as her pretty, gray eyes met his.

“People have told me that before,” he said. “Yes. It is curious how little sleep I want. Often after the dance I work at my table for a couple of hours.”

“And you’re always up the first in the morning. I really don’t know how you do it.”

“The bad habit of late hours,” he declared. “Years ago, when I was younger, I was one of the night-workers of Fleet Street--the Owls they call them.”

“Well, Seton, make up your mind and come to Wengen,” she said in a soft, persuasive voice. “All our friends at the Palace and the Regina will be so delighted to see you.”

But he would give her no definite promise. There was a reason of which she was in entire ignorance. He seemed reluctant to go again to Switzerland. He had been pained at something she had said. She had wondered what could have annoyed him so much as to cause him to suddenly remember that engagement in Paris.

Presently, when the heavy curtains had been drawn and the lights switched on, he ventured to say:

“You spoke of your engagement, Edris. Is it really broken off definitely?” and he looked straight into her great, gray eyes.

“Yes,” she replied. And he thought he detected a slight touch of sorrow in her voice.

“Tell me,” he urged in a low, sympathetic voice, “was it at your request--or his?”

She hesitated.

“At mine,” she responded at last. “I--I could bear his flirtations no longer”; and a blank look of despair crossed her pretty features.

“I’m not altogether surprised,” Darville remarked. “He was young. Most men of his age are more or less fickle in their affections.”

“Yes, I foolishly thought that he loved me, but I’ve learnt a very bitter lesson,” said the disillusioned girl in a hard voice, gazing into the fire. “When he returned from America in February he asked me to forgive him. I did so, and we became reconciled. But very soon I discovered to my dismay that I was not the only woman in his life. For six months I bore it all in patience, until--well, until one day I could no longer tolerate his deception, and I told him what I knew. We quarreled, and--and then we parted,” she blurted forth.

“And I never knew!” Darville exclaimed, holding his breath. “You never told me!”

“No, because you always avoided me. You made excuses not to see me. I longed to tell you about it, for somehow I knew in Wengen that you were my friend, and that you took an interest in my future.”

The man was standing by her, a big, burly, clean-shaven figure in dark blue clothes. Upon her shoulder he placed his hand, so lightly that she scarcely felt it.

“Yes, Edris,” he said at last, “I may have appeared rude and unsympathetic, but I tell you truthfully that I am really your friend--your devoted friend, who is always ready to advise and assist you whenever you are in need.”

Raising her head slowly, she looked up at him.

“Ah! I have often wondered,” she said, with a slight catch in her breath. “Since August I have lived at home in the country, with my dog Lord Simba as companion. I take him for walks in those long, interminable country lanes, and I make him my sole confidant. I tell him everything, and his great big eyes seem to sympathize mutely with me. You, Seton, are the only person, save Lionel and myself, who knows the truth.”

“Edris, I sympathize with you,” he assured her in a low, earnest voice, his hand still upon her shoulder. “Forgive me for not accepting your repeated invitations, but--well, I believed that you were engaged and very happy. I--I thought----”

“What?” she asked, her eyes again fixed upon the dancing flames.

“I thought that you were still engaged to Lionel, and that--well, that I might be _de trop_. That’s all,” he said simply.

“What do you mean?” asked the girl, turning quickly and looking at him. “You know that ever since we first met in Switzerland I have always regarded you as a kind and sympathetic friend. The people who know you are always so loud in your praises.”

“Please don’t flatter me, Edris,” he said seriously. “You have all my sympathy. You know that. You remember that you introduced me to Lionel on that night in London when you both spent the evening with me. I liked him, but I thought he was too young, and perhaps--well, just a trifle too shallow for a girl of your serious nature and high ideals.”

“Yes, my nature has now grown serious,” she admitted. “I have learnt my terrible lesson. Yes, Lionel, whom I trusted and loved, is too young to know his own mind. I admit that I was entirely devoted to him. He was my idol,” she added in a low voice, full of an emotion she strove to repress. “But that idol is now shattered and broken.”

“For ever?” he queried, in almost a whisper.

“Yes, for ever,” was the girl’s hoarse reply.

“Poor child!” he exclaimed, scarcely able to control his words, for he strove to appear merely sympathetic, though his heart was bursting with love for her now that at last he knew the truth. “How you must have suffered. And yet I never knew!”

“No. You did not know. But had you known, what could you have done?”

“Nothing can be done to heal a broken heart,” he said blankly. “I realize now the weeks and months you must have spent in grief and silence.”

“I--I dare not let mother know. She very often asked after Lionel, but I was compelled to make excuses why he did not visit us. She discovered how ill and nervous I had become, and she sent me to Colwyn Bay, with my cousins, because she thought the sea air might do me good”; and she laughed grimly at the thought of sea air as a remedy for a broken heart.

Little Bundle at that moment pawed his master’s leg, an intimation that he wanted to be taken up, so Darville took his tiny black pet under his arm, where he sat contentedly surveying their visitor.

“I know, poor Edris,” he said in that tender, affectionate tone he would adopt towards a child. “I sympathize very deeply with you. I said nothing, but on that night when I met Lionel I realized only too plainly the weakness of his character. Quite a good fellow, but unfortunately lacking in experience of the world and its ways. Like all young fellows of his age and stamp, he believes himself to be strong and well balanced, yet his lack of that wisdom which is only acquired as age creeps on causes him to be unstable--a human sail that drifts upon every wind.”

Then his hand touched her hair ever so lightly, for with the other he was holding his pet.

“Edris!” he continued in a strained voice. “We are friends. My age is such that you might well be my daughter. You are young, smart, vivacious, athletic, with all the world before you. Place a tombstone over this unfortunate love-affair, and rise again to live and to love. Soon you will meet another man who will come into your life--a man far worthier than Lionel, and more stable and reliable. You will love, and you will marry, and I will always be your friend--your adopted uncle, if you wish, or your adopted father.”

The girl said nothing. She placed her chin upon her hands, and with her bare elbows upon her knees sat looking thoughtfully into the flames.

“I shall never love again,” she exclaimed at last, in a low, broken voice. “Lionel has killed all affection within me. I loved him madly. He was my very soul, and yet he only played with me, and I found it out when too late. He--he has broken my heart, Seton!”

And she burst into tears, and, covering her face with her hands, sobbed bitterly.

“No, no, Edris,” said the man, walking to her and placing his hand tenderly upon her bowed head. “You must not give way like this. I know how hard it must be to bear, though I myself have never experienced love. I am one of those hard, bitter men who are proof against your sex. Some people have called me a woman-hater, and----”

“You’re not that, Seton,” she protested amid her tears. “I know you are not.”

“How do you know?” he asked, glad that his remark had caused her sobbing to cease.

“Because you are always so polite and gallant--always so sympathetic and so merry.”

“I enjoy the society of women younger than myself, I admit, but that does not prove that love has ever entered my heart, does it?”

“No. I suppose it doesn’t. But----” And she paused, raised her head, and looked at him with those gray eyes still filled with tears. “But do you remember what you told me one afternoon when we were smoking together on the terrace in Wengen--about Elaine?”

He bit his lip. He had, in a moment of foolishness, told her of his romantic attachment, and he now regretted it. Edris had expressed sympathy with him about quite a trivial matter, and he in turn had given her his confidence. But he had not told her Elaine’s name or rank. He had given Elaine his solemn promise never to mention her name lest gossip should result and it might reach her husband’s ears.

“Yes,” he replied mechanically, “I remember what I told you.”

“And you really deny that after ten years you have never loved her?”

“Edris, I have never loved Elaine. I tell you that frankly,” was his quiet response.

“Surely that would be impossible,” said the girl.

“She was only my dear and devoted friend. Ours was purely a Platonic friendship which--well, which very nearly developed into love, but happily did not.”

“Why?” she asked, keenly interested.

“Because we mutually agreed to part.”

“To part!” she cried. “Have you parted?”

“Yes. Some months ago.”

The girl said nothing for a few moments, and then asked:

“Why?”

“Because we both recognized that our continued association would be dangerous,” he said, though, if the truth were told, the real reason was that great love for the girl before him--a mad passion which had, ever since the previous winter, arisen within his blank and hitherto loveless life.

“And you are really nothing to each other now?”

“We have never been more than true, devoted friends. Ever since her schoolgirl days I have regarded her as my one and only true little friend. She has often borne with me through my troubles, my trials, and my disappointments. I used to regard her, because of her level head and her curious intuition of the future, as one of my own age. Often I awoke to the fact that she was only a girl--as you are----”

He held his breath. He saw that he had committed a _faux pas_.

“I mean that she was so much younger than myself, and--and yet her woman’s brain was more acute than my own. I believed my intuition infallible, but I often had to admit that she was far cleverer than myself. She could scheme and plot and----”

“Plot? What do you mean? Why plot?”

He had trodden upon thin ice, and he knew it instantly. Elaine had often helped him to solve difficult problems in his Secret Service work.

“Oh, well--I--I don’t mean that she could really plot, you know,” he faltered hastily. “Perhaps I myself was the plotter! Who knows?”

And he laughed.