"I didn't!" she protested. But she coloured brightly as she spoke, remembering certain remarks of Nora's. "I thought--yes I did think--you cared too much about being rich--and a great swell--and all that. But so did I!" She sprang up. "What right had I to talk? When I think how I patronised and looked down upon everybody!"

"You!" his tone was pure scorn. "You couldn't do such a thing if you tried for a week of Sundays."

"Oh, couldn't I? I did. Oxford seemed to me just a dear, stupid old place--out of the world,--a kind of museum--where n.o.body mattered.

Silly, wasn't it?--childish?" She drew back her head fiercely, as though she defied him to excuse her. "I was just amusing myself with it--and with Otto--and with you. And that night, at Magdalen, all the time I was dancing with Otto, I was aiming--abominably--at you! I wanted to provoke you--to pay you back--oh, not for Otto's sake--not at all!--but just because--I had asked you something--and you had refused. That was what stung me so. And do you suppose I should have cared twopence, unless--"

Her voice died away. Her fingers began fidgeting with the arm of the chair, her eyes bent upon them.

He looked at her a moment irresolute, his face working. Then he said huskily--

"In return--for that--I'll tell you--I must tell you the real truth about myself. I don't think you know me yet--and I don't know myself.

I've got a great brutal force in me somewhere--that wants to brush everything--that hinders me--or checks me--out of my path. I don't know that I can control it--that I can make a woman happy. It's an awful risk for you. Look at that poor fellow!" He flung out his hand towards that distant room whence came every now and then a fresh wave of music. "I didn't intend to do him any bodily harm--"

"Of course not! It was an accident!" cried Connie pa.s.sionately.

"Perhaps--strictly. But I did mean somehow to crush him--to make it precious hot for him--just because he'd got in my way. My will was like a steel spring in a machine--that had been let go. Suppose I felt like that again, towards--"

"Towards me?" Connie opened her eyes very wide, puckering her pretty brow.

"Towards some one--or something--you care for. We are certain to disagree about heaps of things."

"Of course we are. Quite certain!"

"I tell you again"--said Falloden, speaking with a strong simplicity and sincerity that was all the time undoing the impression he honestly desired to make--"It's a big risk for you--a temperament like mine--and you ought to think it over seriously. And then"--he paused abruptly in front of her, his hands in his pockets--"why should you--you're so young!--start life with any burden on you? Why should you? It's preposterous! I must look after Otto all his life."

"So must I!" said Connie quickly. "That's the same for both of us."

"And then--you may forget it--but I can't. I repeat--I'm a pauper. I've lost Flood. I've lost everything that I could once have given you. I've got about four thousand pounds left--just enough to start me at the bar--when I've paid for the Orpheus. And I can't take a farthing from my mother or the other children. I should be just living upon you. How do I know that I shall get on at the bar?"

Connie smiled; but her lips trembled.

"Do think it over," he implored; and he walked away from her again, as though to leave her free.

There was a silence. He turned anxiously to look at her.

"I seem"--said Connie, in a low voice that shook--"to have kissed somebody--for nothing."

That was the last stroke. He came back to her, and knelt beside her, murmuring inarticulate things. With a sigh of relief, Connie subsided upon his shoulder, conscious through all her emotion of the dear strangeness of the man's coat against her cheek. But presently, she drew herself away, and looked him in the eyes, while her own swam.

"I love you"--she said deliberately--"because--well, first because I love you!--that's the only good reason, isn't it; and then, because you're so sorry. And I'm sorry too. We've both got to make up--we're going to make up all we can." Her sweet face darkened. "Oh, Douglas, it'll take the two of us--and even then we can't do it! But we'll help each other."

And stooping she kissed him gently, lingeringly, on the brow. It was a kiss of consecration.

A few minutes more, and then, with the Eighth Prelude swaying and dancing round them, they went hand in hand down the long approach to the music-room.

The door was open, and they saw the persons inside. Otto and Sorell were walking up and down smoking cigarettes. The boy was radiant, transformed. All look of weakness had disappeared; he held himself erect; his shock of red-gold hair blazed in the firelight, and his eyes laughed, as he listened silently, playing with his cigarette. Sorell evidently was thinking only of him; but he too wore a look of quiet pleasure.

Only Mrs. Mulholland sat watchful, her face turned towards the open door. It wore an expression which was partly excitement, partly doubt.

Her snow-white hair above her very black eyes, and her frowning, intent look, gave her the air of an old Sibyl watching at the cave's mouth.

But when she saw the two--the young man and the girl--coming towards her, hand in hand, she first peered at them intently, and then, as she rose, all the gravity of her face broke up in laughter.

"Hope for the best, you foolish old woman!" she said to herself--"'Male and female made He them!'--world without end--Amen!"

"Well?" She moved towards them, as they entered the room; holding out her hands with a merry, significant gesture.

Otto and Sorell turned. Connie--crimson--threw herself on Mrs.

Mulholland's neck and kissed her. Falloden stood behind her, thinking of a number of things to say, and unable to say any of them.

The last soft notes of the Prelude ceased.

It was for Connie to save the situation. With a gentle, gliding step, she went across to Otto, who had gone very white again.

"Dear Otto, you told me I should marry Douglas, and I'm going to. That's one to you. But I won't marry him--and he agrees--unless you'll promise to come to Algiers with us a month from now. You'll lend him to us, won't you?"--she turned pleadingly to Sorell--"we'll take such care of him. Douglas--you may be surprised!--is going to read law at Biskra!"

Otto sank into a chair. The radiance had gone. He looked very frail and ghostly. But he took Connie's outstretched hand.

"I wish you joy," he said, stumbling painfully over the words. "I do wish you joy!--with all my heart."

Falloden approached him. Otto looked up wistfully. Their eyes met, and for a moment the two men were conscious only of each other.

Mrs. Mulholland moved away, smiling, but with a sob in her throat.

"It's like all life," she thought--"love and death, side by side."

And she remembered that comparison by a son of Oxford, of each moment, as it pa.s.ses, to a watershed "whence equally the seas of life and death are fed."

But Connie was determined to carry things off with a laugh. She sat down beside Otto, looking businesslike.

"Douglas and I"--the name came out quite pat--"have been discussing how long it really takes to get married."

Mrs. Mulholland laughed.

"Mrs. Hooper has been enjoying Alice's trousseau so much, you needn't expect she'll let you get through yours in a hurry."

"It's going to be my trousseau, not Aunt Ellen's," said Connie with decision. "Let me see. It's now nearly Christmas. Didn't we say the 12th of January?" She looked lightly at Falloden.

"Somewhere near it," said Falloden, his smile at last answering hers.

"We shall want a fortnight, I suppose, to get used to each other," said Connie coolly. "Then"--she laid a hand on Mrs. Mulholland's knee--"you bring him to Ma.r.s.eilles to meet us?"

"Certainly--at your orders."

Connie looked at Otto.

"Dear Otto?" The soft tone pleaded. He started painfully.