And then her thoughts turned involuntarily to Brett Forrester. He was not unlike the sea, she reflected, in his sudden, unexpected changes of mood—with the buoyant charm he could exert when he chose, and that contrasting turbulence of his which left whoever ventured to oppose him feeling altogether breathless and battered.
Latterly, Ann had been finding it very difficult to understand him. Since the night of the dinner on board the Sphinx he had studiously refrained from the slightest attempt to make love to her. Sometimes, indeed, she was almost tempted to ask herself if that violent scene on the yacht could really have occurred between them or whether she had only dreamt it. It seemed so entirely incompatible with the easy attitude of friendliness which he had adopted towards her ever since. She would have liked to interpret this as signifying that he had accepted her refusal as final, but some inward prompting warned her that Brett was not the man to be so easily turned aside from his purpose. Meanwhile, however, it was a relief to be free from the subtle sense of importunity, of imperious demand, of which, when he chose, he could make her so acutely conscious.
Thinking over all that had passed between them on the yacht, she wondered curiously why he had so persistently referred to Tony. It seemed almost as though he were jealous of the boy—regarded him as some one who might prove an obstacle to the accomplishment of his own desires. Yet she could not recall anything which might have given him that impression. There had been nothing in the least loverlike in Tony’s attitude towards her during his visit to the Cottage.
On the contrary, she had been inwardly congratulating herself upon the fact that he had evidently determined to abide by the answer she had given him that night in Switzerland, as they came down from the Roche d’Or—although she would not have been the true woman she was if she had not secretly wondered a little at the apparent ease with which he had adapted himself to the altered relations between them! Pride had counted for a good deal. That she guessed. But, since Tony’s departure, she had begun to speculate whether there might not perhaps be some other reason which would better account for his submitting without further protest to her decision. And in a brief sentence, contained in a letter she had received from him only that morning, she thought she had discovered the key to the mystery.
“Uncle Philip and I depart to Mentone next week,” he had written.
“Naturally, he hates the idea of my being anywhere in the vicinity
of Monte Carlo, but as he doesn’t seem able to throw off the
effects of a chill he caught out shooting, our local saw-bones—in
whom, he has the most touching faith—has decreed Mentone. So
Mentone it is. Lady Doreen Neville and her mother will also be
there, at their villa, as Lady Doreen is ordered to winter in the
south of France. Afterwards the doctors hope she will be quite
strong.”
It was in the name Neville that Ann thought she detected a clue to Tony’s altered demeanour. She recollected having met Lady Doreen on one occasion, about a year ago, when she herself had been paying a flying visit to the Brabazons at their house in Audley Square—a frail slip of a girl with immense grey eyes and hair like an aureole of reddish gold. She had been barely seventeen at that time, slim and undeveloped, and her delicacy had added rather than otherwise to her look of extreme youth. Ann had regarded her as hardly more than a child. But she knew that a year can effect an enormous alteration in a girl in her late teens—sometimes seeming to transform her all at once from immature girlhood into gracious and charming womanhood. Lady Doreen had “come out” since Ann had met her, made her curtsy at Court and taken part in her first London season, and it was not difficult to imagine her, delicate though she might be, as extremely attractive and invested with a certain ethereal grace and charm peculiarly her own.
And that Tony had seen a good deal of her in town last July Ann was aware. He had mentioned her name more than once during his visit to the Cottage, and it seemed to Ann quite likely that, sore because of her own definite refusal of him, he had sought and found consolation in the company of Lady Doreen.
Looking back, she fancied she remembered a certain shy embarrassment in Tony’s manner when he had spoken of her. She had thought nothing about it at the time, being preoccupied with her own affairs, but now, in the light of this new idea which had presented itself to her, she felt convinced that there was something behind the slight hesitation Tony had evinced when referring to the Nevilles.
A little smile, almost maternal in its tenderness, curved her lips. She had always hoped that Tony’s love for her might prove to be only a red-hot boyish infatuation, grounded on propinquity and friendship, which the passage of time would cure, and if, now, man’s love was being born in him and she could keep the old friendship, it would give her complete happiness. But she questioned rather anxiously whether Doreen Neville was possessed of a strong enough character to keep him straight. She was so sweet and fragile—the kind of woman to be petted and cossetted and taken care of by some big, kind-hearted man, not in the least the type to steady a headstrong young fool, bent upon blundering on to the rocks.
Tony’s letter was in the pocket of her coat, and, pulling it out, she ran through it again. There was no further mention of Doreen Neville, but she found that there was a postscript scribbled in a corner, in Tony’s most illegible scrawl, which she had overlooked when reading the letter at breakfast time.