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

her! She has her points."
She laid her hand quickly on his arm. "Don't try to defend her! She is quite despicable. I have done with her."
His hand was instantly on hers. He laughed into her eyes. "I'll wager you have a lingering fellow-feeling for her even yet."
"Not since she was reported to have run away with you," countered Juliet.
He laughed aloud. "Ah! She forfeited your sympathy there, did she? _Mais, Juliette_--" his voice sank suddenly upon a caressing note, "there are few women to whom I could not give happiness--for a time."
"I know," said Juliet, and drew her hand away. "That is why we all admire you so. But even you, most potent Charles, couldn't satisfy a woman who was wanting--some one else."
"You don't think I could make her forget?" he said.
She shook her head, smiling. "When the real thing comes along, all shams must go overboard. It's the rule of the game."
"And this is the real thing?" he questioned.
She made a little gesture as of one who accepts the inevitable. "_Je le crois bien_," she said softly.
Lord Saltash made a grimace. "And I am to give you up without a thought to this bounder?"
"You would," she replied gently, "if I were yours to give."
"If you were Lady Jo for instance?" he suggested.
"Exactly. If I were Lady Jo." She looked at him with the faint smile still at her lips. "It won't cost you much to be generous, Charles," she said.
"How do you know what it costs?" He frowned at her suddenly. "You'll accuse me of being benevolent next. But I'm not benevolent, and I'm not going to be. I might be to Lady Jo, but not to you, _ma cherie_,--never to you!" His grin burst through his frown. "Come! Sit down! I'll get you a drink."
She turned to the deep settee, and sank down among tigerskins with a sigh. He opened a cupboard in the panelling of the wall, and there followed the chink of glasses and the cheery buzz of a syphon. In a few moments he came to her with a tall glass in his hand containing a frothy drink. "Look here, _Juliette_!" he said. "Come to France with me in the _Night Moth_, and we'll find Lady Jo!"
She accepted the drink and lay back without looking at him. "You always were an eccentric," she said. "I don't want to find Lady Jo."
He sat on the head of the settee at her elbow. "It's quite a fair offer," he said, as if she had not spoken. "You will--eventually--return from Paris, and no one will ever know. In these days a woman of the world pleases herself and is answerable to none. _Mais, Juliette_!" He reached down and coaxingly held her hand. "_Pourquoi pas_?"
She lifted her eyes slowly to his face. "I have told you," she said.
"You're not in earnest!" he protested.
She kept her look steadily upon him. "Charles Rex, I am in earnest."
His fingers clasped hers more closely. "But I can't allow it. We can't spare you. And you--yourself, _Juliette_--you will never endure life in a backwater. You will pine for the old days, the old friends, the old lovers,--as they will pine for you."
"No, never!" said Juliet firmly.
He leaned down to her. "I say you will. This is--a midsummer madness. This will pass."
She started slightly at his words. The sparkling liquid splashed over. She lifted the glass to her lips, and drank. When she ceased, he took it softly from her, and put it to his own. Then he set down the empty glass and slipped his arm behind her.
"_Juliette_, I am going to save you," he said, "from yourself."
She drew away from him. "Charles, I forbid that!"
She was breathing quickly but her voice was quiet. There was indomitable resolution in her eyes.
He paused, looking at her closely. "You deny--to me--what you were permitting with so much freedom barely half-an-hour ago to the village schoolmaster?" he said.
Her face flamed. "I have always denied you--that!" she said.
He smiled. "Times alter, Juliette. You are no longer in a position to deny me."
She kept her eyes upon him. "You mean I have trusted you too far?" she said, a deep throb in her voice. "I might have known!"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Life is a game of hazard, is it not? And you were always a daring player. But, Juliette, you cannot always win. This time the luck is against you."
She was silent. Very slowly her eyes left his. She drooped forward as she sat.
He leaned down to her again, his face oddly sympathetic. "After all,--you claimed my protection," he said.
She made a sudden movement. She turned sharply, almost blindly. She caught him by the shoulders. "Oh, Charles!" she said. "Charles Rex! Is there no mercy no honour--in you?"
There was a passion of supplication in her voice and action. As she held him he could have clasped her in his arms. But he did not. He sat motionless, looking at her, his expression still monkey-like, half-wicked, half-wistful.
"Well, you shouldn't tempt me, Juliette," he said. "It isn't fair to a miserable sinner. You were always the cherry just out of reach. Naturally, I'm inclined to snatch when I find I can."
Juliet was trembling, but she controlled her agitation.
"No, that isn't allowed," she said. "It isn't the game. And you never--seriously--wanted me either."
"But I'm never serious!" protested Saltash. "Neither are you. It's your one solid virtue."
"I am serious now," she said.
He looked at her quizzically. "Somehow it suits you. Well, listen, _Juliette_! I'll strike a bargain with you. When you are through with this, you will come with me for that cruise in the _Night Moth_. Come! Promise!"
"But I am not--quite mad, Rex!" she said.
He lifted his hands to hers and lightly held them. "It is no madder a project than the one you are at present engaged upon. What? You won't? You defy me to do my worst?"
"No, I don't defy you," she said.
He flashed a smile at her. "How wise! But listen! It's a bargain all the same. You put me on my honour. I put you on yours. Go your own way! Pursue this bubble you call love! And when it bursts and your heart is broken--you will come back to me to have it mended. That is the price I put upon my mercy. I ask no pledge. It shall be--a debt of honour. We count that higher than a pledge."
"Ah!" Juliet said, and suppressed a sudden tremor.
He stood up, gallantly raising her as he did so. "And now we will go and look for your friends," he said. "Is all well, _ma cherie_? You look pale."
She forced herself to smile. "You are a preposterous person, Charles Rex," she said. "Yes, let us go!"
She turned with him towards the panelling, but she did not see by what trick he opened again the door by which they had entered. She only saw, with a wild leap of the heart, Dick Green, upright, virile, standing against the dark hangings of the passage beyond.


CHAPTER IV
KISMET

He was breathing hard, as if he had been hurrying. He spoke to her exclusively, ignoring the man at her side.
"Will you come at once? Mrs. Fielding has been taken ill."
She started forward. "Dick! Where is she?"
"Downstairs." Briefly he answered her. "She collapsed in one of the tents. They brought her into the house. She is in the library."
Juliet hastened along the passage. Like Dick, she seemed no longer aware of Saltash's presence. He came behind, a speculative expression on his ugly face.
"Let me go first!" Dick said, as they reached the head of the winding stairs.
Juliet gave place to him without a word. They descended rapidly.
At the foot the door stood open to the terrace. They came again into the blazing sunshine, and here Juliet paused and looked back at Saltash.
He came to her side. "Don't look so alarmed! It's probably only the heat. Do you know the way to the library? Through that conservatory over there is the shortest cut. I suppose I may come with you? I may be of use."
"Of course!" said Juliet. "Thank you very much."
Dick barely glanced over his shoulder. He was already on his way.
They entered the Castle again by the conservatory that Saltash had indicated. It was a mass of flowers, but the public were evidently not admitted here, for it was empty. In the centre a nymph hung over a marble basin under a tinkling fountain. They passed quickly by to an open glass door that led into the house. Here Dick stopped and drew back, looking at Juliet.
"I will wait here," he said.
She nodded and went swiftly past him into the room.
It was a dark apartment, book-lined, chill of atmosphere, with heavy, ancient furniture, and a sense of solitude more suggestive of some monastic dwelling than any ordinary habitation. The floor was of polished oak that shone with a sombre lustre.
Juliet paused for a moment involuntarily upon entering. It was as if a sinister hand had been laid upon her, arresting her. The gloom blinded her after the hot radiance outside. Then a voice--Fielding's voice--spoke to her, and she went forward gropingly.
He met her, took her urgently by the shoulder. "Thank heaven, you're here at last!" he said.
Looking at him, she saw him as a man suddenly stricken with age. His face was grey. He led her to a settee by the high oak fireplace, and there--white, inanimate as a waxen figure--she found Vera Fielding.
Fear pierced her, sharp as the thrust of a knife. She freed herself from Fielding's grip, and knelt beside the silent form. For many awful seconds she watched and listened, not breathing.
"Is she gone?" asked Fielding in a hoarse whisper at last.
She looked up at him. "Get brandy--hot bottles--quick! Send Dick--he's in the conservatory. No, stay! Send Saltash! He's there too. He'll know where to find things. Tell Dick to come here! Have you sent for a doctor?"
"There's been no one to send," he answered frantically. "Some man helped to bring her in here, but she didn't faint till after we got in, and then I couldn't leave her. He went off to look after the crowd going round the Castle."
"All right," Juliet said. "Lord Saltash will see to that. Ask them to come in!"
She was unfastening the filmy gown with steady fingers. Whatever the dread at her heart there was no sign of it apparent in her bearing. She moved without haste or agitation.
At a touch on her shoulder she looked up and saw Dick at her side. "Ah, there you are!" she said. "We want a doctor. Will you see to it? No doubt there's a telephone somewhere. Ask Lord Saltash!"
"In the gun-room," said Saltash. "Door next to this on the left. Name of Rossiter. Shall I see to it?"
"No--no," she said. "You get some brandy, please--at once!"
They obeyed her orders with promptitude. Dick went straight from the room. Saltash turned to the fireplace, and pressed an electric bell three times very emphatically.
Then he came to Juliet's side. "You ought to lay her flat, _Juliette_. I know this sort of seizure. Heart of course! My mother died of it."
"Help me to lift her!" said Juliet.
They raised her between them with infinite care and flattened the cushions beneath her. Then Saltash, his queer face full of the most earnest concern began to chafe one of the nerveless hands.
Fielding tramped ceaselessly up and down the room, his head on his chest. Every time he drew near his wife he glanced at her and swung away again,