The Vision of Desire
like a flotilla of Thames boats on a summer's day awaiting the opening of
the lock gates. Half unconsciously she heard the approaching chug-chug of
an engine mingling with the sound of voices singing lustily--the hilarious
chorus of a crew of roysterers who had been celebrating not wisely but too
well.
... It all happened with appalling suddenness. One moment she was watching
the fairy fleet that glittered on the lake, the next a hubbub of hoarse,
warning shouts filled the air, the throb of an engine pulsed violently in
her ears, and a motor-boat, overloaded by half-tipsy revellers and
travelling too fast for safety, drove past the bows of the sailing vessel
and veered drunkenly towards her. Instinctively she clutched at her oars.
But they were useless, pinned to the sides of her boat by the press of
others round it. Then, from almost immediately above her, it seemed, a
terse voice--curiously familiar--rapped out a command.
_"Stand up!"_
Hardly knowing what she did, she obeyed, yielding blindly to the peremptory
order. She felt her frail barque rock beneath her feet, then strong arms
grasped her--strong as tempered steel--and lifted her clean up out of the
lurching boat and over its side into another.
Almost before she had time to realise that she was safe, the motor-boat
crashed, head on, into the empty _Rêve_, staving in her side so that in an
instant she had filled with water, her gunwale level with the lake. Then,
as though some ghoulish hand had clutched at her from the depths below, she
sank suddenly out of sight.
Staring with horrified eyes at the swift and utter destruction of the
_Rêve_, Ann shuddered uncontrollably. But for the unknown deliverer who had
snatched her bodily from the doomed boat she herself would be struggling in
that almost fathomless depth of water or, stunned by the savage drive of
the motor-boat's prow, sinking helplessly down to the bottom like a stone.
"Don't be afraid. You're all right." Again that strangely familiar note in
the reassuring voice.
Ann twisted round within the circle of the arms which held her and peered
up at the face of their owner. A flickering gleam of light revealed a small
white scar high up on the left cheek-bone.
"You!" she exclaimed under her breath. "Is it you?"
"Yes." She could detect a note of amusement in the voice that came to her
through the dusk. "Your creed has proved false, you see. I expected
nothing--and here I am with an altogether charming adventure."
"I shouldn't describe it quite like that," she answered ruefully.
"No? But then you've lost a boat, whereas I've gained a passenger. Our
points of view are different."
The arms which held her had not relaxed their hold, and she stirred
restlessly, suddenly acutely conscious of their embrace. Instantly she felt
herself released.
"Will you be all right?" came in a cool voice.
"Oh, yes--yes." Ann stammered a little. "This is a very steady boat, isn't
it?"--wonderingly.
"It's a motor-boat, that's why."
Now that the uproar occasioned by the accident had died away, she could
hear the soft purring of an engine forward.
"Still, you'd better sit down," resumed the Englishman. "The Bacchanalian
gentlemen in the boat which ran you down are still blundering about, and
may quite probably cannon into us. And you don't want to take a second
chance of being shot out into the lake."
"Indeed I don't." She sat down hastily. "I--I don't really know how to
thank you," she began haltingly, after a moment. Somehow she felt curiously
shy and tongue-tied with this man.
"Then don't try," he replied ungraciously.
This was hardly encouraging, but Ann returned to the charge with
determination.
"I must," she said. "If it hadn't been for you I should certainly have been
drowned."
"Rather improbable," he answered--as indifferently as though it really
mattered very little whether she were or not. "With so many people close at
hand, some one would have been sure to fish you out. You'd have got a
wetting--and so would your unfortunate rescuer. That's all. Still, I'm just
as glad I saw what was going to happen. I prefer to keep a dry skin
myself."
"Oh! Then you would have jumped in after me?" asked Ann, with interest.
He sat down in the stern of the boat, his arm on the tiller, and regarded
her contemplatively.
"I suppose so. A man has no choice when a woman chooses to go monkeying
about in a boat and gets herself into difficulties."
"'Monkeying about in a boat!'" repeated Ann indignantly. "I suppose you'll
say next that I rammed my own boat and sank it!"
"You certainly put yourself in the way of danger," he retorted. "Who in the
name of Heaven allowed you to go out on the lake alone on a fête night like
this? Isn't there any one to look after you?"
"I look after myself," she replied shortly. "I'm not a child."
He laughed.
"Not much more, surely. How old are you? Seventeen? Eighteen?"
"Add four," said Ann, "and you'll be nearer it."
"So much?" He fell silent. There had been genuine surprise in his voice.
Perhaps he was recalling her as he had seen her at the Kursaal--boyishly
slender, her eager, pointed face alight with gay enthusiasm and amusement.
_One, two, three_--nine strokes. The sound of a clock striking came wafted
faintly across from the shore. Ann started up.
"I must get back!" she exclaimed. "I'd forgotten all about the time."
A brief smile crossed the man's dark face.
"So had I," he said. And there was something in the quality of his voice
which sent the colour flying up into her face.
"Why must you go back in such a hurry?" he resumed composedly. "One can
watch the fête very well here."
"I'm going to a dance--at the Gloria," said Ann. "Some one--they are coming
to fetch me, and if I'm not there--"
"'They' will be disappointed," he finished for her, a veiled irony in his
voice. "What time do your friends expect you?"
"At ten."
"And it is now only nine. If you care to watch the fête a little longer, I
can land you wherever you wish and you would still be in good time. I will
guarantee your safety," he added with a smile.
Ann hesitated. On the one hand she was thoroughly enjoying the water-fête
as viewed from the security of the Englishman's motor-boat, and the
unconventionality of the circumstances added a spice of adventure to the
situation. On the other, like every properly brought up young woman, she
was quite aware of what would be Mrs. Grundy's pronouncement on such a
matter.
"You'll stay?" said the Englishman.
It savoured more of a command than a question. Metaphorically Ann threw
Mrs. Grundy overboard into the lake.
"Yes, I'll stay," she answered.
He accepted her decision without any outward sign of satisfaction, and she
experienced a slight chill of disappointment. Perhaps, after all, he had
only asked her to remain a little longer, not because he really desired the
pleasure of her company, but merely in order that he might not be
inconvenienced by the necessity of taking her back to Montricheux before he
himself was ready to go. She had all the sensitiveness of youth and, once
this idea had presented itself to her, she felt self-conscious and ill at
ease, only anxious for the moment to arrive when she need no longer
trespass on his hospitality.
And then, just as though some secret wireless had acquainted him of her
discomfort, he held out his hand with a sudden smile that softened the
harsh lines of his face extraordinarily.
"Thank you," he said quietly. "When you go to bed to-night you'll be able
to feel you've done your 'kind deed' for to-day."
Half reluctantly, yet unable to do otherwise, Ann laid her hand in the one
he held out to her. His strong fingers closed round it possessively and she
was aware of a queer, breathless feeling of captivity. She drew her hand
sharply away.
"Is it a 'kind deed'?" she asked lightly, for the sake of saying
something--anything--which should break the tension of the silence which
had followed.
"Is it not? To bestow a charming half-hour of your companionship on the
loneliest person in Montricheux? Oh, I think so."
"You didn't look at all lonely this afternoon," flashed back Ann,
remembering the pretty woman with whom she had seen him driving.
"At the Battle of Flowers, you mean? No." He turned the conversation
adroitly. "But I only won third prize, so I'm still in need of sympathy.
Taking the third prize is rather my _métier_ in life."
"Perhaps it's all you deserve," she suggested unkindly. "Anyway, you've
nothing to grumble at. _We_ didn't win anything. We weren't elaborately
enough decorated to compete."
"Yet you looked as if you were enjoying it all," he hazarded. "Did you?"
"Yes, of course I did. Didn't you?"
"Not particularly--till some one threw me a rose."
Ann decided to ignore the latter part of this speech.
"You're such a confirmed cynic that I wonder you condescended to take part
in anything go frivolous as the fête," she observed.
He shrugged his shoulders.
"When in Rome--Besides, it reminded me of my young days."
"You talk as if you were a close relation of Methuselah. You're not so very
old."
"Am I not?" He paused a moment. "Old enough, at any rate, to have lost all
my illusions."
There was an undercurrent so bitter in the curtly uttered speech that Ann's
warm young sympathies responded involuntarily.
"I wish I could bring them back for you," she said impulsively.
Through the flickering luminance of the lights rimming the boat's gunwale
he looked at her with an odd intensity.
"That's just what I'm afraid of," he said. "That you might bring them back.
Fortunately, I'm leaving Montricheux to-morrow."
Ann was silent. She was vibrantly conscious of the man's strange, forceful
personality. His brusque, hard speeches fell on her like so many blows, and
yet behind them she felt as though there were something that
appealed--something hurt and seeking to hide its hurt behind an armour of
savage irony.
His voice, coolly indifferent once more, broke across her thoughts.
"Would you like to go back now?"
He spoke as though he were suddenly anxious to be rid of her as quickly as
possible, and she assented hastily. His abrupt changes of mood disconcerted
her. There seemed no accounting for what he might say next. He tossed a
curt order to a man whom she could discern crouching forward near the
engine.
"_Bien, m'sieu_," came the answer, and presently the motor-boat was
dexterously edging her way through the throng till she emerged into a clear
space and purred briskly towards the shore.
Once more the Englishman's hand closed firmly round Ann's as he helped her
out on to the little landing-stage.
"Good-bye," she said, a trifle nervously. "And thank you so much for coming
to my rescue."
Still retaining her hand in his, he stared down at her with those queerly
compelling eyes of his. She felt her breath coming and going unevenly. For
a moment he hesitated, as though deliberating some point within himself.
Then:
"Good-bye," he said. And his voice was utterly expressionless. It held not
even cordiality.
CHAPTER VIII
A LETTER FROM ENGLAND
The postman, entering through the garden gate which opened on to the
street, found Ann busily engaged in cutting flowers. He greeted her with a
smile, pleased to be saved the remainder of the distance to the house.
"_Bonjour, mademoiselle_. Only one letter for the villa this morning." He
handed her the solitary missive which the mail had brought and departed,
whistling cheerfully, on his way down the street.
Ann fingered the bulky envelope with satisfaction. It was addressed in
Robin's handwriting, and she carried it off to a sunny corner of the garden
to enjoy its contents at leisure.