II
An excited rush of puppies—fat, bouncing, lolloping puppies; a stern order: “Heel, you young blighters, heel!” in a pleasant, cheerful voice; a laughing greeting from Ada Laverton, and Lady Cynthia Stockdale found herself shaking hands with the Hermit. She shook hands as a man shakes hands, with a firm, steady grasp, and she looked the person she was greeting straight in the eyes. To her that first handshake meant, more often than not, the final estimate of a stranger’s character; it always meant the first. And her first estimate of Desmond Brooke was good. She saw a man of clear skin and clear eye. He wore no hat, and his brown hair, curling a little at the temples, was slightly flecked with grey. His face was bronzed and a faint smile hovered in the corners of the eyes that met hers fair and square. His shirt was open at the neck; the sleeves were rolled up, showing a pair of muscular brown arms. He was clean-shaven, and his teeth were very white and regular. So much, in detail, she noticed during that first half-second; then she turned her attention to the puppies.
“What toppers!” she remarked. “What absolute toppers!”
She picked a fat, struggling mixture of legs and ecstatically slobbering tongue out of the mêlée at her feet, and the Hermit watched her gravely. It struck him that in the course of a fairly crowded life he had never seen a more lovely picture than the one made by this tall slender girl with the wriggling puppy in her arms. And another thing struck him also, though he said nothing. Possibly it was accidental, but the puppy she had picked up, and which was now making frantic endeavours to lick her face, was out and away the best of the litter. Almost angrily he told himself that it was an accident, and yet he could not quite banish the thought that it was an accident which would happen every time. Thoroughbred picks thoroughbred; instinctively the girl would pick the best. His mouth set a little, giving him a look of sternness, and at that moment their eyes met over the puppy’s head.
“Is he for sale?” asked the girl.
Undoubtedly he was for sale; Desmond Brooke, though he was in no need of money, did not believe in running anything save on business lines. But now something that he did not stop to analyse made him hesitate. He felt a sudden inconsequent distaste against selling the puppy to her.
“You’ve picked the best, I see,” he said quietly.
“Of course,” she answered, with the faintest trace of hauteur. Insensibly she felt that this man was hostile to her.
“I am afraid that that one is not for sale,” he continued. “You can have any of the others if you like.”
Abruptly she restored the puppy to its mother.
“Having chosen the best, Mr. Brooke,” she said, looking him straight in the face, “I don’t care about taking anything second-rate.”
For a second or two they stared at one another. Ada Laverton had wandered away and was talking shop to the gardener; the Hermit and Lady Cynthia were alone.
“You surprise me,” said the Hermit, calmly.
“That is gratuitously rude,” answered the girl quietly. “It is also extremely impertinent. And lastly it shows that you are a very bad judge of character.”
The man bowed.
“I sincerely hope that your ‘lastly’ is true. Am I to understand, then, that you do not care to buy one of the other puppies?”
And suddenly the girl laughed half-angrily.
“What do you mean by daring to say such a thing to me? Why, you haven’t known me for more than two minutes.”
“That is not strictly true, Lady Cynthia. Anyone who is capable of reading and takes in the illustrated papers can claim your acquaintance weekly.”
“I see,” she answered. “You disapprove of my poor features being reproduced.”
“Personally not at all,” he replied. “I know enough of the world, and am sufficiently broadminded, I trust, to realise how completely unimportant the matter is. Lady Cynthia Stockdale at Ascot, at Goodwood, in her motor-car, out of her motor-car, by the fire, by the gas stove, in her boudoir, out of her boudoir, in the garden, not in the garden—and always in a different frock every time. It doesn’t matter to me, but there are some people who haven’t got enough money to pay for the doctor’s bill when their wives are dying. And it’s such a comfort to them to see you by the fire. To know that half the money you paid for your frock would save the life of the woman they love.”
“You’re talking like a ranting tub-thumper,” she cried, furiously. “How dare you say such things to me? And, anyway, does breeding dogs in the wilderness help them with their doctors’ bills?”
“Touché,” said the man, with a faint smile. “Perhaps I haven’t expressed myself very clearly. You can’t pay the bills, Lady Cynthia—I can’t. There are too many thousands to pay. But it’s the bitter contrast that hits them, and it’s all so petty.” For a while he paused, seeming to seek for his words. “Come with me, Lady Cynthia, and I’ll show you something.”
Almost violently he swung round on his heel and strode off towards the house. For a moment she hesitated, then she followed him slowly. Anger and indignation were seething in her mind; the monstrous impertinence of this complete stranger was almost bewildering. She found him standing in his smoking-room unlocking a drawer in a big writing-desk.
“Well,” she said uncompromisingly from the doorway.
“I have something to show you,” he remarked quietly. “But before I show it to you, I want to tell you a very short story. Three years ago I was in the back of beyond in Brazil. I’d got a bad dose of fever, and the gassing I got in France wasn’t helping matters. It was touch and go whether I pulled through or not. And one day one of the fellows got a two-month-old Tatler. In that Tatler was a picture—a picture of the loveliest girl I have ever seen. I tore it out, and I propped it up at the foot of my bed. I think I worshipped it; I certainly fell in love with it. There is the picture.”
He handed it to her, and she looked at it in silence. It was of herself, and after a moment or two she raised her eyes to his.
“Go on,” she said gently.
“A few months ago I came back to England. I found a seething cauldron of discontent; men out of work—strikes—talk of revolution. And this was the country for which a million of our best had died. I also found—week after week—my picture girl displayed in every paper, as if no such thing as trouble existed. She, in her motor-car, cared for none of these things.”
“That is unjust,” said the girl, and her voice was low.
“I knew it was unjust,” answered the man, “but I couldn’t help it. And if I couldn’t help it—I who loved her—what of these others? It seemed symbolical to me.”
“Nero fiddling,” said the girl, with a faint smile. “You’re rather a strange person, Mr. Brooke. Am I to understand that you’re in love with me?”
“You are not. I’m in love with the you of that picture.”
“I see. You have set up an image. And supposing that image is a true one.”
“Need we discuss that?” said the man, with faint sarcasm.
The girl shrugged her shoulders.
“The supposition is at least as possible as that you are doing any vast amount of good for the seething cauldron of discontent, I think you called it, by breeding Aberdeens in the country. I’m afraid you’re a crank, Mr. Brooke, and not a very consistent one at that. And a crank is to my mind synonymous with a bore.”
The man replaced the picture in his desk.
“Then perhaps we had better join Mrs. Laverton,” he remarked. “I apologise for having wearied you.”
In silence they went out into the garden, to find Ada Laverton wandering aimlessly round looking for them.
“Where have you two been?” she demanded, as she saw them approaching.
“Mr. Brooke has been showing me a relic of his past,” said Lady Cynthia. “Most interesting and touching. Are you ready to go, Ada?”
Mrs. Laverton gave a quick glance at their two faces, and wondered what had happened. Not much, surely, in so short a time—and yet with Cynthia you never could tell. The Hermit’s face, usually so inscrutable, showed traces of suppressed feeling; Cynthia’s was rather too expressionless.
“Are you coming to the ball to-morrow night, Hermit?” she asked.
“I didn’t know there was one on, Mrs. Laverton,” he answered.
“The cricket ball, my good man,” she exclaimed. “It’s been advertised for the last month.”
“But surely Mr. Brooke doesn’t countenance anything so frivolous as dancing?” remarked Lady Cynthia. “After the lecture he has just given me on my personal deportment the idea is out of the question.”
“Nevertheless I propose to come, Lady Cynthia,” said Brooke quietly. “You must forgive me if I have allowed my feelings to run away with me to-day. And perhaps to-morrow you will allow me to find out if the new image is correct—or a pose also.”
“What do you mean?” asked the girl, puzzled.
“ ‘Lady Cynthia Stockdale—possibly the best dancer in London,’ ” he quoted mockingly; “I forget which of the many papers I saw it in.”
“Do you propose to pass judgment on my dancing?” she asked.
“If you will be good enough to give me a dance.”
For a moment words failed her. The cool, the sublime impertinence of this man literally choked her. Then she nodded briefly.
“I’ll give you a dance if you’re there in time. And then you can test for yourself, if you’re capable of testing.”
He bowed without a word, and stood watching them as they walked down the lane.
“I think, Ada, that he’s the most detestable man I’ve ever met,” remarked Lady Cynthia furiously, as they turned into the main road.
And Ada Laverton said nothing, but wondered the more.