The Top of the World - Ethel May Dell (read novels website txt) 📗

him at the moment. She was still somewhat agitated, and she wished with all her heart that he would go and leave her alone.
She almost said as much in the next, breath as he did not remove his hand. "Why don't you go and shoot something? There's plenty of time before supper."
"What's the matter?" said Burke.
"Nothing," she returned, trying to remove her work from his grasp.
"Nothing!" he echoed. "Then why am I told not to be silly, not to hinder you, and to go and shoot something?"
Sylvia sat up in her chair, and faced him. "If you must have it--I think you've been--rather brutal," she said, lifting her clear eyes to his. "No doubt you had plenty of excuse, but that doesn't really justify you. At least--I don't think so."
He met her look in his usual direct fashion. Those eagle eyes of his sent a little tremor through her. There was a caged fierceness about them that strangely stirred her.
He spoke after the briefest pause with absolute gentleness. "All right, little pal! It's decent of you to put it like that. You're quite wrong, but that's a detail. You'll change your views when you've been in the country a little longer. Now forget it, and come for a ride!"
It was disarmingly kind, and Sylvia softened in spite of herself. She put her hand on his arm. "Burke, you won't do it again?" she said.
He smiled a little. "It won't be necessary for some time to come. If you did the same to Fair Rosamond now and then you would marvellously improve her. Idle little cuss!"
"I never shall," said Sylvia with emphasis.
He heaved a sigh. "Then I shall have to kick her out I suppose. I can see she is wearing your temper to a fine edge."
She bit her lip for a second, and then laughed. "Oh, go away, do? You're very horrid. Rose may be trying sometimes, but I can put up with her."
"You can't manage her," said Burke.
"Anyway, you are not to interfere," she returned with spirit. "That's my department."
He abandoned the discussion. "Well, I leave it to you, partner. You're not to sit here mending shirts anyhow. I draw the line at that."
Sylvia's delicate chin became suddenly firm. "I never leave a thing unfinished," she said. "You will have to ride alone this evening."
"I refuse," said Burke.
She opened her eyes wide. "Really"--she began.
"Yes, really," he said. "Put the thing away! It's a sheer fad to mend it at all. I don't care what I wear, and I'm sure you don't."
"But I do," she protested. "You must be respectable."
"But I am respectable--whatever I wear," argued Burke. "It's my main characteristic."
His brown hand began to draw the garment in dispute away from her, but Sylvia held it tight.
Burke, don't--please--be tiresome! Every woman mends her husband's clothes if there is no one else to do it. I want to do it. There!"
"You don't like doing it!" he challenged.
"It's my duty," she maintained.
He gave her an odd look. "And do you always do--your duty?"
"I try to," she said.
"Always?" he insisted.
Something in his eyes gave her pause. She wanted to turn her own aside, but could not. "To--to the best of my ability," she stammered.
He looked ironical for an instant, and then abruptly he laughed and released her work. "Bless your funny little heart!" he said. "Peg away, if you want to! It looks rather as if you're starting at the wrong end, but, being a woman, no doubt you will get there eventually."
That pierced her. It was Guy--Guy in the flesh--tenderly taunting her with some feminine weakness. So swift and so sharp was the pain that she could not hide it. She bent her face over her work with a quick intake of the breath.
"Why--Sylvia!" he said, bending over her.
She drew away from him. "Don't--please! I--I am foolish. Don't--take any notice!"
He stood up again, but his hand found her shoulder and rubbed it comfortingly. "What is it, partner? Tell a fellow!" he urged, his tone an odd mixture of familiarity and constraint.
She fought with herself, and at last told him. "You--you--you were so like--Guy--just then."
"Oh, damn Guy!" he said lightly. "I am much more like myself at all times. Cheer up, partner! Don't cry for the moon!"
She commanded herself and looked up at him with a quivering smile. "It is rather idiotic, isn't it? And ungrateful too. You are very good not to lose patience."
"Oh, I am very patient," said Burke with a certain grimness. "But look here! Must you mend that shirt? I've got another somewhere."
Her smile turned to a laugh. She sprang up with a lithe, impulsive movement, "Come along then! Let's go! I don't know why you want to be bothered with me, I'm sure. But I'll come."
She took him by the arm and went with him from the room.
They rode out across Burke's land. The day had been one of burning heat. Sylvia turned instinctively towards the _kopje_ that always attracted her. It had an air of aloofness that drew her fancy. "I must climb that very early some morning," she said, "in time for the sunrise."
"It will mean literal climbing," said Burke. "It's too steep for a horse."
"Oh, I don't mind that," she said. "I have a steady head. But I want to get round it tonight. I've never been round it yet. What is there on the other side?"
"_Veldt_," he said.
She made a face. And then _veldt_--and then _veldt_. Plenty of nice, sandy karoo where all the sand-storms come from! But there are always the hills beyond. I am going to explore them some day."
"May I come too?" he said.
She smiled at him. "Of course, partner. We will have a castle right at the top of the world, shall we? There will be mountain gorges and great torrents, and ferns and rhododendrons everywhere. And a little further still, a great lake like an inland sea with sandy shores and very calm water with the blue sky or the stars always in it."
"And what will the castle be like?" he said.
Sylvia's eyes were on the far hills as they rode. "The castle?" she said. "Oh, the castle will be of grey granite--the sparkling sort, very cool inside, with fountains playing everywhere; spacious rooms of course, and very lofty--always lots of air and no dust."
"Shall I be allowed to smoke a pipe in them?" asked Burke.
"You will do exactly what you like all day long," she told him generously.
"So long as I don't get in your way," he suggested.
She laughed a little. "Oh, we shall be too happy for that. Besides, you can have a farm or two to look after. There won't be any dry watercourses there like that," pointing with her whip. "That is what you call a '_spruit_,' isn't it?"
"You are getting quite learned," he said. "Yes, that is a _spruit_ and that is a _kopje_."
"And that?" She pointed farther on suddenly. "What is that just above the watercourse? Is it a Kaffir hut?"
"No," said Burke.
He spoke somewhat shortly. The object she indicated was undoubtedly a hut; to Sylvia's unaccustomed eyes it might have been a cattle-shed. It was close to the dry watercourse, a little lonely hovel standing among stones and a straggling growth of coarse grass.
Something impelled Sylvia to check her horse. She glanced at her companion as if half-afraid. "What is it?" she said. "It--looks like a hermit's cell. Who lives there?"
"No one at the present moment," said Burke.
His eyes were fixed straight ahead. He spoke curtly, as if against his will.
"But who generally--" began Sylvia, and then she stopped and turned suddenly white to the lips.
"I--see," she said, in an odd, breathless whisper.
Burke spoke without looking at her. "It's just a cabin. He built it himself the second year he was out here. He had been living at the farm, but he wanted to get away from me, wanted to go his own way without interference. Perhaps I went too far in that line. After all, it was no business of mine. But I can't stand tamely by and see a white man deliberately degrading himself to the Kaffir level. It was as well he went. I should have skinned him sooner or later if he hadn't. He realized that. So did I. So we agreed to part."
So briefly and baldly Burke stated the case, and every sentence he uttered was a separate thrust in the heart of the white-faced girl who sat her horse beside him, quite motionless, with burning eyes fixed upon the miserable little hovel that had enshrined the idol she had worshipped for so long.
She lifted her bridle at last without speaking a word and walked her animal forward through the sparse grass and the stones. Burke moved beside her, still gazing straight ahead, as if he were alone.
They went down to the cabin, and Sylvia dismounted. The only window space was filled with wire-netting instead of glass, and over this on the inside a piece of cloth had been firmly fastened so that no prying eyes could look in. The door was locked and padlocked. It was evident that the owner had taken every precaution against intrusion.
And yet--though he lived in this wretched place at which even a Kaffir might have looked askance--he had sent her that message telling her to come to him. This fact more than any other that she had yet encountered brought home to her the bitter, bitter truth of his failure. Out of the heart of the wilderness, out of desolation unspeakable, he had sent that message. And she had answered it--to find him gone.
The slow hot tears welled up and ran down her face. She was not even aware of them. Only at last she faced the desolation, in its entirety, she drank the cup to its dregs. It was here that he had taken the downward road. It was here that he had buried his manhood. When she turned away at length, she felt as if she had been standing by his grave.
Burke waited for her and helped her to mount again in utter silence. Only as she lifted the bridle again he laid his hand for a moment on her knee. It was a dumb act of sympathy which she could not acknowledge lest she should break down utterly. But it sent a glow of comfort to her hurt and aching heart. He had given her a comrade's sympathy just when she needed it most.


CHAPTER II
THE VISITORS

It was after that ride to Guy's hut that Sylvia began at last to regard him as connected only with that which was past. It was as if a chapter in her life had closed when she turned away from that solitary hut in the wilderness. She said to herself that the man she had known and loved was dead, and she did not after that