The Obstacle Race - Ethel May Dell (mobi reader android TXT) 📗

his face. He threw back his head with a smile, and looked the squire in the face.
"You haven't left me a leg to stand on, sir," he said. "But all the same--I stand. There's nothing more to be said except--may I pay for the window?"
Fielding's hand dropped from his shoulder. He flung round fiercely and tramped to the window, swearing inarticulately.
Dick's black brows went up again to a humorous angle. He pursed his lips, but he did not whistle.
"Do you realize that my wife might have been killed?" Fielding growled at last.
"Oh, quite," said Dick. "I'm glad she wasn't. Ought I to congratulate her?"
"Oh, don't be so damn funny!" Fielding jingled the money in his pocket irritably. "You won't laugh when I turn you out."
"I wonder," said Dick.
Fielding turned sharply round upon him. "You behave as if you don't care what I do," he said, an ugly scowl on his face. "Or perhaps you think I won't or can't--do it."
"No, sir," Dick spoke deliberately, and though he still smiled his eyes held the squire's with unmistakable determination. "I'm sure you can do it. I'm equally sure you won't. And I'm surest of all that I shouldn't care a damn if you did."
"You wouldn't care!" The squire looked furious for a moment, then he sneered. "Oh, wouldn't you, my friend? We shall see. You'd better go now--before I have you kicked out."
Dick's shoulders jerked with a swift tightening of the muscles. His eyes gleamed with a fierce light though his smile remained. "I'll lay you even odds," he said, "that if you want that done, you'll have to do it yourself."
"I'm equal to it!" flashed the squire. "You'd better not try me too far!"
"I won't try you at all, sir," Dick suddenly relaxed again. He went to him with a pacific hand held out. "Good-bye! I'm going--now."
Fielding looked at him, looked at the extended hand, paused for a long moment, finally took it.
"Don't want to quarrel with me, eh?" he said.
"Not without cause," said Dick.
Fielding gripped the firm, lithe hand, looking at him hard and straight. "You're very cussed," he said slowly. "I wish I'd had the upbringing of you."
Dick laughed. "Well, you've meddled in my affairs as long as I can remember, sir. I don't know anyone who has had as much to do with me as you have."
"And precious little satisfaction I've got out of it," grumbled the squire. "You've always been a kicker." He broke off as a knock came at the door, and turned away with an impatient fling. "Who is it? Come in!"
The door opened. Juliet stood on the threshold. The evening light fell full upon her. She was dressed in cloudy grey that fell about her in soft folds. Her face was flushed, but quite serene.
"Mrs. Fielding wants to know if you have forgotten dinner," she said.
The squire's face changed magically. He smiled upon Juliet. "Come in, Miss Moore! You've met this pestilent pedagogue before, I think."
"Just once or twice," said Juliet, coming forward.
"How is the ankle?" said Green.
She smiled at him without embarrassment. "Oh, better, thank you. It was only a wrench."
"Hurt yourself?" questioned Fielding.
"No, no. It's really nothing. I slipped in the park and nearly sprained my ankle--just not quite," said Juliet. "And Mr. Green very kindly helped me into shelter before the storm broke."
"Did he?" said the squire and looked at Green searchingly. "Well, Mr. Green, you'd better stay and dine as you are here."
"You're very kind," Dick said. "I don't know whether I ought. I'm not dressed."
"Of course you ought!" said Fielding testily. "Come on and wash! Your clothes won't matter--we're alone. That is, if Miss Moore doesn't object to sitting down with blue serge."
"I have no objection whatever," said Juliet. She was looking from one to the other with a slightly puzzled expression.
"What is it?" said Fielding, pausing.
His look was kindly. Juliet laughed. "I don't know. I feel as I felt that day you caught me trespassing. Am I trespassing, I wonder?"
"No!" said Fielding and Green in one breath.
She swept them a deep Court courtesy.
"Thank you, gentlemen! With your leave I will now withdraw."
The squire was at the door. He bowed her out with ceremony, watched her cross the hall, then sharply turned his head. Green was watching her also, but, keen as the twist of a rapier in the hand of a practised fencer, his eyes flashed to meet the squire's.
Fielding smiled grimly. He motioned him forward, gripped him by the arm, and drew him out of the ream. They mounted the shallow oak stairs side by side.
At the top in a tense whisper Fielding spoke. "Don't you be a fool, Richard! Don't you be a damn' fool!"
Dick's laugh had in it a note that was not of mirth. "All right, sir, I'll do my best," he said.
It was a drawn battle, and they both knew it. By tacit consent neither referred to the matter again.


CHAPTER IV
A POINT OF HONOUR

"How like my husband!" said Mrs. Fielding impatiently, fidgeting up and down the long drawing-room with a fretful frown on her pretty face. "Why didn't you put a stop to it, Miss Moore? You might so easily have said that the storm had upset me and I wasn't equal to a visitor at the dinner-table to-night." She paused to look at herself in the gilded mirror above the mantel-piece. "I declare I look positively haggard. I've a good mind to go to bed. Only if I do--" she turned slowly and looked at Juliet--"if I do, he is sure to be brutal about it--unless you tell him you persuaded me."
Juliet, seated in a low chair, with a book on her lap, looked up with a gleam of humour in her eyes. "But I am afraid I haven't persuaded you," she said.
Mrs. Fielding shrugged her white shoulders impatiently. "Oh, of course not! You only persuade me to do a thing when you know that it is the one thing that I would rather die than do."
"Am I as bad as that?" said Juliet.
"Pretty nearly. You're coming to it. I know you are on his side all the time. He knows it too. He wouldn't tolerate you for a moment if you weren't."
"What a horrid accusation!" said Juliet, with a smile.
"The truth generally is horrid," said Mrs. Fielding. "How would you like to feel that everyone is against you?"
"I don't know. I expect I should find a way out somehow. I shouldn't quarrel," said Juliet. "Not with such odds as that!"
"How--discreet!" said Mrs. Fielding, with a sneer.
"Discretion is my watchword," smiled Juliet.
"And very wise too," said Green's voice in the doorway. "How do you do, Mrs. Fielding? As I can't dress, I've been sent down to try and make my peace with you for showing my face here at all. I hope you'll be lenient for once, for really I've had a thorough bullying for my sins."
He came forward with the words. His bearing was absolutely easy though neither he nor his hostess seemed to think of shaking hands.
She looked at him with a disdainful curve of the lips that could scarcely have been described as a smile of welcome. "I imagine it would take a good deal of that sort of thing to make much impression upon you, Mr. Green," she said.
Green's eyes began to shine. He glanced at Juliet. "Really I am much more inoffensive than you seem to think," he said. "I hope you are not going to repeat the dose. I was hoping to secure your forgiveness for what happened this afternoon. Believe me, no one regrets it more sincerely than I do."
Mrs. Fielding drew herself together with a gesture of distaste. "Oh, that! I have no desire whatever to discuss it with you. I have long regarded your half-witted brother as a disgrace to the neighbourhood, and my opinion is scarcely likely to be modified by what happened this afternoon."
"How unfortunate!" said Green.
Again he glanced at Juliet. She lifted her eyes to his. "I am afraid I haven't taken my share of the blame," she said. "But I think you know that I am very sorry for Robin."
"You are always kind," he rejoined gravely.
"How could you be to blame, Miss Moore?" asked Mrs. Fielding.
Juliet turned towards her. "Because Robin and I are friends," she explained simply. "He came here to look for me, and Jack ordered him off. That was the origin of the trouble. And so--" she smiled--"Mr. Green tells me it was my fault."
"He would," commented Mrs. Fielding.
She turned with the words as if Green's proximity were an offence to her, and walked away to the window at the further end of the room.
In the slightly strained pause that followed, Juliet bent to fondle Columbus who was sitting pressed against her and her book slid from her lap to the ground. Green stooped swiftly and picked it up.
"What is it? May I look?"
She held out her hand for it. "It is _Marionettes_,--Dene Strange's latest. Mrs. Fielding lent it to me."
He kept the book in his hand. "I thought you said you wouldn't read any more of that man's stuff."
She knitted her brows a little. "Did I say so? I don't remember."
He looked down at her keenly. "You said you hated the man and his work."
She began to smile. "Well, I do--in certain moods. But I've got to read him all the same. Everyone does."
"Surely you don't follow the crowd!" he said.
She laughed--her sweet, low laugh. "Surely I do! I'm one of them."
He made a sharp gesture. "That's just what you are not. I say, Miss Moore, don't read this book! It won't do you any good, and it'll make you very angry. You'll call it cynical, insincere, cold-blooded. It will hurt your feelings horribly."
"I don't think so," said Juliet. "You forget,--I am no longer--a marionette. I have come to life."
Again she held out her hand for the book. He gave it to her reluctantly.
"Don't read it!" he said.
She shook her head, still smiling. "No, Mr. Green, I'm not going to let you censor my reading. I will tell you what I think of it next time we meet."
"Don't!" he said again very earnestly.
But Juliet would not yield. She stooped again over Columbus and fondled his ear.
Green stood looking down at her, his dark face somewhat grim, his eyes extremely bright.
"I believe he's cross with us, Christopher," murmured Juliet. "Never mind, old thing! We shall get over it if he doesn't. Being cross always hurts oneself the most. We're--never cross, are we, Christopher? We please ourselves and we please each other--always."
Columbus grunted appreciatively and leaned harder against her. He liked to be included in the conversation.
Green suddenly bent and pulled the other ear. "You're a jolly lucky chap, Columbus," he said. "I'll change places with you any day in the week."
Columbus smiled at him indulgently, and edged his nose onto his mistress's knee. He knew his position was secure.
"Don't you listen to him, Christopher!" said Juliet. "He wouldn't be in your place two minutes. If I dared to thwart him in anything, he'd turn and rend me."
"He wouldn't," said Green decidedly. "Anyone else--perhaps, but his mistress--never."
Columbus yawned. The topic did not interest him. But Juliet laughed again, and for a moment her eyes glanced upwards, meeting the man's look.
"Is that a promise?" she asked lightly.
"My word of honour," he said.
"How generous!" said Juliet. "And how rash!"
Mrs. Fielding looked round from the window and spoke fretfully. "The storm seems to have