"Which we have supposed--"

"Would make you my mother-in-law?"

"Well, your stepmother-in-law. That doesn't sound quite so oppressive, I hope?"

"They both sound to me considerably absurd."

"I really can't see why they should."

Their eyes met in confidence, mirthful and defiant. They fought their duel now, forgetful of everybody except themselves. His old spirit had seized on Harry; it carried him away. She gave herself up to the delight of her triumph and to the pleasure that his challenge gave her. Out of sight, out of mind, were Vivien and Andy.

"But relationship has its consolations, its privileges," said Harry, leaning towards her, his face alight with mischievous merriment. He offered her his hand. "At all events, accept my congratulations."

She gave him her hand. "You're premature, both with congratulations and with relationship."

"Oh, I'm always in a hurry about things," laughed Harry, holding her hand. He leant closer yet; his face was very near hers now--his comely face with its laughing luring eyes. She did not retreat. Harry saw in her eyes, in her flushed cheeks and quickened breath, in her motionlessness, the permission that he sought. Bending, he kissed her cheek.

She gave a little laugh, triumphant, yet deprecatory and nervous. Her face was all aflame. Harry's gaze was on her; slowly he released her hand. She stood an instant longer, then, with a shrug of her shoulders, walked across the room towards the windows. Harry stood watching her, exultant and merry still.

Suddenly she came to a stand. She spoke without looking round. "Vivien's shawl was on that chair."

The words hardly reached his preoccupied brain. "What? Whose shawl?"

She turned round slowly. "Vivien's shawl was on that chair, and it's gone," she said.

Harry darted past her to the window, and looked out. He came back to her on tiptoe and whispered, "Andy! He's about two-thirds of the way across the terrace with the thing now."

"He must have come in just a moment ago," she whispered in return.

Harry nodded. "Yes--just a moment ago. I wonder--!" He pursed up his lips, but still there was a laughing devil in his eye. "Lucky she didn't come for it herself!" he said. "But--well, I wonder!"

She laid her finger on her lips. They heard steps approaching, and Vivien's merry voice. Harry made a queer, half-puzzled, half-amused grimace. Isobel walked quickly on to the terrace. Inside the light fell too mercilessly on her cheeks; she would meet them beneath the friendly cover of the night.

Chapter XII.

CONCERNING A STOLEN KISS.

A stolen kiss may mean very different things--almost nothing (not quite nothing, or why steal it?), something yet not too much, or well-nigh everything. The two parties need not give it the same value; a witness of it is not, of necessity, bound by the valuation of either of them. It may be merely a jest, of such taste as charity can allow in the circ.u.mstances; it may be the crown and end of a slight and pa.s.sing flirtation; it may be the first visible mark of a pa.s.sion destined to grow to fierce intensity. Or it may seem utterly evasive in its significance at the moment, as it were indecipherable and imponderable, waiting to receive from the future its meaning and its weight.

The last man to find his way through a maze of emotional a.n.a.lysis was Andy Hayes; his mind held no thread of experience whereby to track the path, his temperament no instinct to divine it. He could not a.s.sign a value--or values--to the incident of which chance had made him a witness; what Harry's impulse, Isobel's obvious acceptance of it, the intensity and absorption that marked the bearing of the two in the brief moment in which he saw them as he lifted Vivien's shawl, stood looking for a flash of time, and quickly turned away--what these things meant or amounted to he could not tell. But there was no uncertainty about his feelings; he was filled with deep distaste. He was not a man of impracticable ideals--his mind walked always in the mean--but he was naturally averse from intrigue, from underhand doings, from the playing of double parts. They were traitors in this thing; let it mean the least it could, even to mere levity or unbecoming jocularity (their faces rose in his mind to contradict this view even as he put it), still they were so far traitors. The first brunt of his censure fell on Isobel, but his allegiance to Harry was also so sorely shaken that it seemed as though it could never be the same again. The engagement had been to Andy a sacrosanct thing; it was now sacrilegiously defaced by the hands of the two most bound to guard it. "Very low-down!" was Andy's humble phrase of condemnation--at least very low-down; how much more he knew not but that in the best view of the case. At the moment his heart had gone out to Vivien in a great pang of compa.s.sion; it seemed such a shame to tamper with, even if not actually to betray, a trust like hers. His face, like Isobel's, had been red--but red with anger--under the cover of the night. He was echoing the Nun's "Poor girl!" which in loyalty to his friend he had before resented.

His first impulse had been to shield Vivien from any suspicion; it taught him a new cunning, an hypocrisy not his own. If Isobel delayed their return to the brightly lighted room, he did not hurry it--let all the faces have time to recover! But his voice was calm and unmoved; for him he was even talkative and exuberant. When they went in, he met Harry with an unembarra.s.sed air. Relief rose in Isobel; yet Harry doubted. So far as Harry could reason, he must have all but seen, probably had actually seen. And in one thing there was significance. He went on devoting himself to Vivien; he did not efface himself in Harry's favour, as his wont was. He seemed to make his presence a fence round her, forbidding her lover's approach. Harry, now talking trifles to Isobel, watched him keenly, hardly doubting, hardly venturing to hope.

"Till lunch to-morrow, Harry," said Vivien gaily, when the time for good-night came. "You'll come too, won't you, Mr. Hayes?"

"Thanks awfully, but I'm off for a big tramp."

"To dinner then?" asked Isobel very graciously.

"Thanks awfully, but I--I really must sup with old Jack."

The quickest glance ran from Harry to Isobel.

What was to be done? Take the chance--the bare chance--that he had not seen anything, or not seen all? Or confess the indiscretion and plead its triviality--with a vow of penitence, serious if Andy must be serious over such a trifle, light if he proved man of the world enough to join in laughing it off? No, Harry would take the chance, poor as it was.

Even if Andy had seen, how could he interfere? To confess, however lightly, would be to give him a standing in the case, a right to put his oar in. It would be silly to do that; as matters stood now, his t.i.tle could be denied if he sought to meddle. He knew Andy well enough to be sure that he would do nothing against him without fair warning. If he meant to tell tales to Vivien or to Wellgood, he would warn Harry first.

Time enough to wrestle with him then! Meanwhile they--he was coupling Isobel with himself--would stand on the defensive; nothing should be admitted, everything should be ignored.

So much for Andy! He was a.s.sessed--a possible danger, a certain cause for vigilance, also, it must be confessed, rather an uncomfortable presence, an embarra.s.sing witness of his friend's orthodox love-making, as he had been an unwilling one of his heterodox. Meanwhile Harry's tact was equal to the walk back to Meriton, Andy proving inclined to silence but not unfriendly or morose, still less actively aggressive or reproachful. And he would not be at Meriton to-morrow. The word could be pa.s.sed to Isobel--be careful but say nothing! Very careful in Andy's presence--but no admissions to be made!

Aye, so much for Andy! But besides the witness there are the parties.

Besides the person who catches you kissing, there is the person you kiss. There is also you, who kiss. All questions of value are not decided by the impression you chance to make on the witness. The bystander may see most of the game; the players settle the stakes.

"Perverse!" was Harry's verdict on the whole affair, given from his own point of view; not only perverse that he should have been caught--if he had been--but no less perverse that he should have done the thing, that he should have wanted to do it, and that he should feel as he now did about it. Perhaps the last element was really the most perverse of all, because it set up in his mind an opposition to what was plainly the only course open to him from Isobel's point of view. (Here the question of the third value came in.) That was surely open and avowed penitence--a sincere apology, as serious or as light as was demanded or would be accepted. She could not pretend that she felt outraged. In truth they had shared in the indiscretion and been partners in the peccadillo. An apology not too abject, a hint at the temptation, gracefully put, to serve for excuse, a return to the safe ground of friendship--and a total oblivion of the incident! Or, if they must think of it at all, it would be without words--with a smile, maybe, in a few days' time; that is how we feel about some not serious, by no means unpleasant, little sc.r.a.pe that is well over. Harry had been in a good many such--perverse but not fatal, annoying at the time, not necessarily things on which the memory dwelt with pain in after days; far from it sometimes, in fact.

That was the right thing to do, and the right way to regard the episode.

But Harry was conscious of a complication--in the circ.u.mstances and in his own feelings. Owing to his engagement with Vivien he must go on frequenting Isobel's society; owing to the memory of his kiss the necessity was not distasteful. Well, these little complications must be unravelled; the first difficulty faced, the second ignored or overcome.

He arrived at so clear, sound, and prudent a resolution thus to minimise the effects of his indiscretion that he felt almost more virtuous than if he had been discreet.

So the parties, as well as the witness, were a.s.sessed. But who had put into his hand the standard whereby to a.s.sess Isobel? She might measure by another rule.

The confession--and absolution--thus virtuously and comfortably planned did not take place the next day, for the simple reason that Miss Vintry afforded no opportunity for them; she was ill and invisible. On the following day she was on a sofa. Immediately on his appearance, Harry was sent home again, Vivien declaring that she must be in unremitting attendance on her friend. The third day matters seemed back on their usual footing; but still he got no private word with Isobel. Once or twice he caught her looking at him in what seemed a thoughtful way; when observed, she averted her glance, but without embarra.s.sment. Perhaps this avoidance of all chance of private talk--of all possibility of referring to the incident--was her way of treating it; perhaps she meant to dispense with apology and go straight to oblivion. If that were her intention, she misjudged Harry's feelings. He felt baulked of his scheme of confession and absolution--baulked and tantalized. He felt almost insulted--did she not think him gentleman enough to apologise? He felt curious--did she not feel the desire for an apology herself? He felt amazed--had she no anxiety about Andy? The net result was that he could think of little else than of her and of the incident. And under these circ.u.mstances he had to carry on his orthodox love-making! The way of trangressors is said to be hard; at moments Harry felt his worse than that; it had a tendency to become ridiculous.

Against this abhorred peril he struck back vigorously and instinctively on effective lines. He could hold his own in a duel of the s.e.xes. His court of Vivien not only seemed but became more ardent--in these matters the distinction between being and seeming runs very thin, since the acting excites the reality. If one woman teased him, occupying his thoughts without satisfying his desire, he turned to the adoration of another, and gave her of his own that hers might be more complete.

Adoring Vivien found herself adored; Harry's worship would break out even in Isobel's presence! He who had been rather too content to accept now asked; she could not do enough to witness her love.

Half-unconsciously fighting for a victory he less than consciously desired, he struck at Isobel through Vivien--and made Vivien supremely happy. Happiness gave her confidence; confidence gave her new charm, a new vivacity, a daring to speak her gay and loving thoughts. Who should not listen if Harry loved to hear? Her growth in power to allure made Harry wonder that he could not love single-heartedly, why his recollection of the incident remained so fresh and so ever-present. If Isobel would give him a chance to wind it up! It was troublesome now only because it hung in a mystery created by her silence, because the memory of it was irritated by a curiosity which her evasion of him maintained. Did she think it nothing? Or could she not bear to speak of it, because it was so much more? At any rate she should see how he loved Vivien!

The three had this week to themselves--Andy engulfed in town and Gilbert Foot and Co., Wellgood not due back till the Sat.u.r.day. So they pa.s.sed it--Vivien in a new ecstasy; Harry ardent, troubled, wondering; Isobel apart, thoughtful, impossible to read. Thus they came to the Friday.

To-morrow Wellgood would be back. Harry, thinking on this, thought suddenly of what had led up to the incident--what had been the excuse, the avenue, for his venture. It had been absorbed in the incident itself. Wellgood's coming gave it back to independent life. If what Isobel had said were true, another lover entered on the scene--Isobel's!

That night--when Harry had gone--Vivien came to Isobel and kissed her, saying, "It's wonderful, but to-night I'm sure!"

Isobel was looking at an ill.u.s.trated paper. She let her hand rest in Vivien's, but she did not raise her eyes from the pictures. "Silly child, you've been sure all along!"

"Not as I am to-night. I've been sure I pleased him, that he liked me, that he liked my love. I've never been sure that he really wanted it till the last two or three days." She paused a moment, and added softly, "Never sure he must have it, as much as I must have his!"

Isobel's paper slipped from her knees on to the floor, but still she did not look at Vivien.

"It's a wonderful feeling that," the girl went on; "to feel he must have it--that he must have my love as I must have his. Before he seemed to be doing all the giving--and I could hardly believe! Now I'm giving too--we're sharing. Somehow it makes a woman of me." She playfully caressed Isobel's hand, running fingers lightly over fingers. "I don't believe I'm afraid even of you any more!" Her tone was gay, affectionately bantering.

Now Isobel looked up at her as she leant over her shoulder. "It makes you look very pretty."

"It makes me feel prettier still," laughed Vivien. She put her face close to her friend's and whispered, blushing, "He kisses me differently now."

Isobel Vintry sharply drew her hand away. Vivien's blush grew painfully bright.