CHAPTER VIII
LUCY VANE
Bright sunshine streamed down out of a cloudless sky one afternoon shortly after the ascent of the Pike. Vane stood talking with his sister upon the terrace in front of the Dene. He leaned against the low wall, frowning, for Lucy hitherto had avoided a discussion of the subject which occupied their attention, and now, as he would have said, he could not make her listen to reason.
She stood in front of him, with the point of her parasol pressed firmly into the gravel and her lips set, though in her eyes there was a smile which suggested forbearance. Lucy was tall and spare of figure; a year younger than her brother; and of somewhat determined and essentially practical character. She earned her living in a northern manufacturing town by lecturing on domestic economy, for the public authorities. Vane understood that she also received a small stipend as secretary to some women's organization and that she took a part in suffrage propaganda. She had a thin, forceful face, seldom characterized by repose.
"After all," Vane broke out, "what I'm urging is a very natural thing. I don't like to think of your being forced to work as you are doing, and I've tried to show you that it wouldn't cost me any self-denial to make you an allowance. There's no reason why you should be at the beck and call of those committees any longer."
Lucy's smile grew plainer.
"I don't think that quite describes my position."
"It's possible," Vane agreed with a trace of dryness. "No doubt, you insist that the chairman or lady president give way to you; but this doesn't affect the question. You have to work, anyway."
"But I like it; and it keeps me in some degree of comfort."
The man turned impatiently and glanced about him. The front of the old gray house was flooded with light, and the mossy sward below the terrace glowed luminously green. The shadows of the hollies and cypresses were thin and unsubstantial, but where a beech overarched the grass, Evelyn and Mrs. Chisholm. attired in light draperies, reclined in basket chairs. Carroll, in thin gray tweed, stood near them, talking to Mabel, and Chisholm sat on a bench with a newspaper in his hand. He looked half asleep, and a languorous stillness pervaded the whole scene. Beyond it, the tarn shone dazzlingly, and in the distance ranks of rugged fells towered, dim and faintly blue. All that the eye rested on spoke of an unbroken tranquillity.