Chapter THE TENTH: Lady Harman comes out (6)

She came up to him so lightly as to be noiseless. He did not move, and for a moment she remained looking at him.

Then she said once more, and very gently—

“Mr. Brumley.”

He started, listened for a second, turned over, sat up and stared at her. His face was flushed and his hair extremely ruffled. And a slight moisture recalled his weeping.

“Mr. Brumley,” she repeated, and suddenly there were tears of honest vexation in her voice and eyes. “You _know_ I cannot do without you.”

He rose to his knees, and never, it seemed to him, had she looked so beautiful. She was a little out of breath, her dusky hair was disordered, and there was an unwonted expression in her eyes, a strange mingling of indignation and tenderness. For a moment they stared unaffectedly at each other, each making discoveries.

“Oh!” he sighed at last; “whatever you please, my dear. Whatever you please. I’m going to do as you wish, if you wish it, and be your friend and forget all this”—he waved an arm—“loving.”

There were signs of a recrudescence of grief, and, inarticulate as ever, she sank to her knees close beside him.

“Let us sit quietly among these hyacinths,” said Mr. Brumley. “And then afterwards we will go back to the house and talk ... talk about our Hostels.”

He sat back and she remained kneeling.

“Of course,” he said, “I’m yours—to do just as you will with. And we’ll work——. I’ve been a bit of a stupid brute. We’ll work. For all those people. It will be—oh! a big work, quite a big work. Big enough for us to thank God for. Only——.”

The sight of her panting lips had filled him with a wild desire, that set every nerve aquivering, and yet for all that had a kind of moderation, a reasonableness. It was a sisterly thing he had in mind. He felt that if this one desire could be satisfied, then honour would be satisfied, that he would cease grudging Sir Isaac—anything....

But for some moments he could not force himself to speak of this desire, so great was his fear of a refusal.

“There’s one thing,” he said, and all his being seemed aquiver.

He looked hard at the trampled bluebells about their feet. “Never once,” he went on, “never once in all these years—have we two even—once—kissed.... It is such a little thing.... So much.”

He stopped, breathless. He could say no more because of the beating of his heart. And he dared not look at her face....

There was a swift, soft rustling as she moved....

She crouched down upon him and, taking his shoulder in her hand, upset him neatly backwards, and, doing nothing by halves, had kissed the astonished Mr. Brumley full upon his mouth.

THE END

The following pages contain advertisements of Macmillan books by the same author, and new fiction.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

The War in the Air

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Metzel Changes His Mind

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