The dangerous game
lay a streak of winter sunshine from across the sea. In the center was
a large, round antique table of carved walnut, whereon stood a big
bowl of apricot-colored glass filled with pink tulips. Upon the dark
oak Jacobean sideboard stood several pieces of antique silver, while a
long, low bookcase, taking up two of the walls, was filled with works
of reference and volumes of travel. On one side of the big fireplace,
where the flames danced merrily, stood a deep, easy-chair covered in
bright cretonne, while opposite was a great roomy settee covered with
the same cretonne, while upon the carved marble over-mantel stood
several choice Chinese vases on stands, together with a small snapshot
in a silver frame.
Edris recognized it as a picture of herself in her ski-ing kit taken
by Seton at Wengen during the previous season.
Next moment a neat, rather elderly maid appeared and conducted her to
the adjoining room, a large bedroom, almost as large as the
sitting-room, Darville’s room being on the other side of the tiny
hall.
In a few moments the girl, having discarded her hat and coat,
reappeared, whereupon he drew up the big arm-chair to the fire for
her, and she half shyly seated herself in silence.
It was the first time she had been alone with him in his house, and
she now rather wished she had not thrown the _convenances_ to the
winds as she had done. To be a man’s guest alone in his rooms was, to
say the least, a rather unconventional proceeding.
Darville’s eyes fell upon the pretty face, with its dark, shingled
hair, which had long ago filled him with such great admiration. He
noticed that in her pull-over jumper of jazz colorings she wore the
brooch he had bought her one day in Wengen, a little golden ski. She
was wearing his present. Was it done deliberately, to remind him of
those delightful days which had ended so abruptly, days which, he had
since determined within himself, should never be lived over again?
They looked into each other’s faces without uttering a word, and then
they both laughed.
“Well. It’s awfully good of you to come down here and see me,” the man
remarked awkwardly, for want of something to say.
“I’m delighted,” she replied. “I was so afraid I’d have to go back
home without seeing you, and I should have been so disappointed. You
never come and see us, though I’ve so constantly asked you,” she
added, placing her feet upon the fender and lying back in the big
chair. He noticed how smart were her shoes and how pretty her ankles,
facts that he had before realized in the ballroom of the great hotel
in the Alps.
“Well, you see, I’m so constantly abroad,” he replied, with a smile.
“That’s a very poor excuse,” she laughed.
“I had to leave Wengen suddenly,” he protested, “as I had an
appointment in Paris.”
“Ah, that’s all very well! Why are you traveling so constantly?
Novelists have no need to move about Europe as quickly as you do.”
“They are the stay-at-homes. I’m always gathering fresh local color
for my books, and that necessitates constant travel, for I never write
about any place I have not seen.”
She regarded him from beneath her long, dark lashes, and wondered if
he was telling the truth. His secretiveness, his long journeys, and
his constant changes of address, puzzled her, as it did so many who
knew him. There was some hidden motive in his changeful, adventurous
life, the truth of which was never guessed even by his most intimate
friends.
“Well, I think you might spare a week-end and come to us sometimes,”
the girl said with a pout. “Father is constantly asking after you, and
a visit from you would cheer him up.”
“Ah, I’m sorry!” he said quickly. “I never thought of that. Your
father must find it very dull living in the country, after the active
life he has hitherto led. It must be very boring for him.”
“It is, Seton,” the girl declared. “Do come and see him soon.”
Darville looked across at her, and, wondering whether or not she was
making her father an excuse for his visit, promised that he would
accept the next invitation she sent him, providing that he was in
England.
After they had smoked cigarettes the maid served a dainty little
lunch, and, as they sat _tête-à-tête_, there crept over Darville
that same fascination which he had experienced nearly a year before
amid the snows of the high-up Bernese Oberland. Her every movement was
full of grace; the poise of that dark, shingled head, the contour of
her white arms with the golden slave bangle, the pretty mouth made for
passionate kisses--all were perfect and adorable, while her smiles, as
they chatted, entranced him.
He preserved a gay exterior, as he usually did, but, within, his heart
was terribly heavy and overburdened. He knew that two great barriers
lay between them. First, the fact that she was engaged, the discovery
of which had caused him to so suddenly part from her. The second was
the difference in their ages. It was true that Darville was old only
in years. Only when he looked at his reflection in the mirror he
realized that his hair was gray and that crow’s-feet showed around his
eyes, and he sighed when he realized his real age. Yet, after all, he
was strong both mentally and physically; he had a grip of iron and a
never-tiring energy equal to that of a man of twenty-five. He knew not
fatigue; he could write and travel the whole twenty-four hours round
without requiring rest, and he possessed that peculiar faculty,
possessed by some outstanding men, of sleeping at once at any hour, or
in any place that best suited him. He was ageing, his iron-gray hair
was slowly blanching, but his heart and spirit remained youthful, in
spite of the strenuous, adventurous life he led.
Upon those ski-ing slopes at Wengen, and at night amid the merriment
of the ballroom, he had allowed himself to become fascinated by Edris
Temperley, but now, as she sat there at his own table, he fully
realized the extreme folly of it all, and began to vaguely regret that
he had invited her. He had done so only after months of reflection and
of longing, for ever since previous February, when he had left the
Palace Hotel so suddenly, descended to Interlaken, and taken the night
express to Paris, her sweet face, with those merry, dancing, gray
eyes, had haunted him. For months her memory had lived with him,
though he had done his very utmost to tear it out of his heart. He had
sought the society of other women he knew in London and in foreign
capitals in the hope of forgetting her, but it had all been useless.
Her letters and her pressing invitations had kept alive the great
passion which he had conceived for her, and which he had always so
cleverly concealed that she had not the slightest suspicion of it.
The man seated alone with his girl visitor was of a strange, complex
nature. He had never loved, and through all his years had jeered at
those who became mutually attracted to each other. He was, _par
excellence_, a ladies’ man, and counted dozens of pretty and high-born
women among his friends. They petted him, sent him cards of
invitation, asked him to all sorts of parties, and voted him a real
good sport.
He had, however, in secret, one particular friend. She, as a flapper
schoolgirl, had taken a great liking to him, he being a friend of her
family. She was now twenty-seven, married to a well-known peer, and
the leader of a very smart set. Her pretty face looked out at readers
of the picture papers very often, for she stayed everywhere as the
seasons came and went--Christmas in Egypt; February at her glorious
villa near Antibes; April cruising on their great white steam yacht in
the Adriatic or the Mediterranean; May on the Italian lakes; June for
the London season; July at Aix; August at the Normandie at Deauville;
September and October entertaining great shooting parties at
Lyddington Castle in Perthshire; November to sunshine in Southern
Spain; and then on to Egypt to commence the round again.
For many years they had, in secret, been fast friends. Society never
dreamed of their close association, though more than one of her
relations entertained shrewd suspicions. Before her marriage they used
to meet openly for Darville was often her father’s guest at their
ancient castle in Cumberland, but since her marriage three years ago
their meetings had been clandestine ones. Elaine was her name, wife of
the Earl of Lyddington, who was ten years her senior, and one of the
wealthiest men in the peerage. Lyddington Castle, with its wide
estates, its grouse moors, known to be the best in the Highlands, its
salmon fishing on the Tay; Reddingbridge, the great family mansion
twenty miles from York; the big, gloomy house in Grosvenor Square; and
the beautiful villa above the rocks at Biarritz were part of the
earl’s vast possessions, the villa at Antibes as well as Blacklands in
Hampshire being Elaine’s own property, her private income being about
twenty-five thousand a year.
Pretty, vivacious, and humorous, she was _chic_ to a degree. For years
she had directed Darville’s erratic life. Ever since her schooldays at
Roedean he had become devoted to her, as men of his age so often are
towards young girls. She had become part of his life, until she had
married, and then it was only in secret and at odd, infrequent times
that they met, sometimes at country houses in England, and at others
in foreign towns, where they would spend stolen days of happiness
together. She had been the one bright spot in his otherwise loveless
life, and often he waited in quiet patience for months before their
next meeting. At last, however, after those years, he had seen that he
might arouse the jealousy of Lyddington, her husband. He had told her
so one night when they were dining together surreptitiously at a
little restaurant at Soho, which they patronized because she would
never be recognized. She had burst into tears. Next day he took her
down to Skindle’s to lunch, and afterwards they strolled along the
river-bank, where he pointed out the folly and danger of their further
intimate friendship. Darville, because of his continual journeys and
his gay, careless air, had earned the reputation of being fast, yet
just the contrary was the case. No woman save Elaine held any
attraction for him--and when he searched his heart he was compelled to
admit within himself that Edris Temperley, though he might try and
ignore the fact, and laugh to scorn his own foolishness, had taken her
place.
He had not seen Elaine for many months. It was in her car during an
evening run to Hatfield and back that he had taken farewell of her, a
painful and pathetic leave-taking, and next day she had gone with her
mother to Deauville to try and forget amid the vortex of summer gaiety
and the crowd of her gay friends there, while he had gone back to
Hove, and there shut himself up for weeks alone with his writing.
Constantly within him there had arisen thoughts of Edris, until he
felt himself impelled to see her. Yet his strong will had prevailed,
and he had not allowed himself to act in contradiction to his natural
hesitation in meeting her again--not until that day.
As she sat there, laughing and chatting over their meal, so
sweet-faced and happy, he realized for the first time that he had
really acted rightly in bidding farewell to Elaine. Fortunately there
had never been any love on either side; only a deep Platonic
friendship which had more than once threatened to develop into
something more. But it was now all over, and they had agreed not to
meet again.
After the table had been cleared Edris sat again in the big chair with
her feet upon the fender and smoked a cigarette, while Darville’s
miniature black Pomeranian, Bundle, entered, sniffed her approvingly,
and then promptly made friends with her.