第15章 HOLIDAY(7)

'I will, by Jove!' he said within himself at last. 'Just to prove I have complete command of myself. It's to be a display of strength, not weakness.'

At the house door he inquired for Mr Alfred Yule. That gentleman had gone in the carriage to Wattleborough, half an hour ago, with his brother.

'Miss Yule?'

Yes, she was within. Jasper entered the sitting-room, waited a few moments, and Marian appeared. She wore a dress in which Milvain had not yet seen her, and it had the effect of making him regard her attentively. The smile with which she had come towards him passed from her face, which was perchance a little warmer of hue than commonly.

'I'm sorry your father is away, Miss Yule,' Jasper began, in an animated voice. 'I wanted to say good-bye to him. I return to London in a few hours.'

'You are going sooner than you intended?'

'Yes, I feel I mustn't waste any more time. I think the country air is doing you good; you certainly look better than when Ipassed you that first day.'

'I feel better, much.'

'My sisters are anxious to see you again. I shouldn't wonder if they come up this afternoon.'

Marian had seated herself on the sofa, and her hands were linked upon her lap in the same way as when Jasper spoke with her here before, the palms downward. The beautiful outline of her bent head was relieved against a broad strip of sunlight on the wall behind her.

'They deplore,' he continued in a moment, 'that they should come to know you only to lose you again so soon.

'I have quite as much reason to be sorry,' she answered, looking at him with the slightest possible smile. 'But perhaps they will let me write to them, and hear from them now and then.'

'They would think it an honour. Country girls are not often invited to correspond with literary ladies in London.'

He said it with as much jocoseness as civility allowed, then at once rose.

'Father will be very sorry,' Marian began, with one quick glance towards the window and then another towards the door. 'Perhaps he might possibly be able to see you before you go?'

Jasper stood in hesitation. There was a look on the girl's face which, under other circumstances, would have suggested a ready answer.

'I mean,' she added, hastily, 'he might just call, or even see you at the station?'

'Oh, I shouldn't like to give Mr Yule any trouble. It's my own fault, for deciding to go to-day. I shall leave by the 2.45.'

He offered his hand.

'I shall look for your name in the magazines, Miss Yule.'

'Oh, I don't think you will ever find it there.'

He laughed incredulously, shook hands with her a second time, and strode out of the room, head erect--feeling proud of himself.

When Dora came home at dinner-time, he informed her of what he had done.

'A very interesting girl,' he added impartially. 'I advise you to make a friend of her. Who knows but you may live in London some day, and then she might be valuable--morally, I mean. For myself, I shall do my best not to see her again for a long time; she's dangerous.'

Jasper was unaccompanied when he went to the station. Whilst waiting on the platform, he suffered from apprehension lest Alfred Yule's seamed visage should present itself; but no acquaintance approached him. Safe in the corner of his third-class carriage, he smiled at the last glimpse of the familiar fields, and began to think of something he had decided to write for The West End.