The Vision of Desire
if you had." Then, with a strange intensity, he went on: "I shouldn't let
anything that had happened in the past stand between me and the woman I
wanted--if I wanted her badly enough."
Ann stiffened.
"I think you're talking very funnily," she observed. "I don't understand
you at all."
"Don't you?" Once more that swift, searching glance of the brilliant blue
eyes. "In plain English, then, it wouldn't matter in the slightest to me
what the woman I loved had done in the past. She may have sown her little
crop of wild oats if she likes. The past is hers. The future would be mine.
And I'd take care of that"--grimly.
"This is all very interesting, of course," said Ann repressively. "But I
don't see how it affects me."
"Do you really mean that?" He rapped out the question sharply--so sharply
that she almost jumped.
"Certainly, I mean it," she replied with a slight accession of hauteur that
sat rather charmingly upon her. She rose quickly, as a sound of voices
heralded the return of the rest of the party. "And I'd prefer you not to
talk to me any more--like that," she added.
Forrester's eyes followed her as she moved back into the room and began
chatting pleasantly with her returning guests. There was a look of
amusement in them mingled with a certain unqualified admiration.
"Game little devil!" he muttered to himself.
Soon afterwards the M.F.H.'s wife rose to go, and, graciously offering the
Tempests a lift home in her car, swept them away with her. When they had
taken their departure Lady Susan declared that Ann was looking tired and
that it was high time she and Brett started on their homeward tramp.
"You'll be feeling quite yourself again by next week, my dear," she said.
"Just in time for Brett's party on the _Sphinx_," she added, smiling.
A faint look of hesitation crossed Ann's face. Brett saw it instantly.
"You promised to come," he said swiftly, almost as though he dared her to
retract her acceptance.
Ann forced herself to meet his glance. She was conscious of an inward qualm
of fear and wished to heaven that she had never accepted the invitation
to dine on board his yacht. But she was determined not to show the white
feather and faced him coolly. After all, in these enlightened days a man
couldn't very well carry you off by force and _compel_ you to marry him!
Though she reluctantly conceded that if any man in the world were likely to
attempt such a thing it would be some primitive, lawless male of the type
of Brett Forrester.
"Certainly I promised," she told him. "And I've every intention of keeping
my promise."
Lady Susan glanced quickly from one to the other of them and her dark brows
puckered up humorously.
"What have you been doing to her, Brett?" she demanded, as she and her
nephew trudged homeward side by side. "Have you quarrelled?"
"Quarrelled? Certainly not. I've only"--smiling reminiscently--"been giving
her a peep into the future. It will be less of a shock when it comes," he
added matter-of-factly.
If he had wished to establish himself in Ann's thoughts he had certainly
succeeded. Odd snatches of his conversation kept recurring to her mind--his
coolly possessive: "_I don't like losing my belongings_," followed by that
equally significant: "_The future would be mine_." It was outrageous!
Apparently Brett Forrester had never got beyond the primitive idea of the
cave-man who captured his chosen mate by force of his good right arm and
club, and subsequently kept her in order by an elaboration of the same
simple methods.
No question of other people's rights and privileges ever seemed to enter
his head. Splendidly unmoral, he had gone through life driving straight
ahead for whatever he wanted, without a back thought as to whether it might
be right or wrong. That aspect of the matter simply did not enter into his
calculations. And because there was still a great deal of the "little boy"
in him--that "little boy" who never seems to grow up in some men--women had
always found excuses and forgiveness for him, and probably always would.
Even Ann could not feel as offended at his audacity as she would like to
have done. There was something disarming in the very fact that he never
seemed to expect you to feel offended. And though, on that first afternoon
she had been allowed downstairs, he had shaken her nerve somewhat, she
was inclined to attribute this to the circumstance that she was still
physically a little weak--not quite her usual buoyant self. The impression
of sheer dynamic force which he had left with her was very vivid, and might
have lingered with her longer, troubling her peace of mind, but for an
unexpected happening which served to direct her thoughts into another
channel.
It was one afternoon a day or two later, and Ann, was sitting in a sunny
corner of the garden, idly dipping into the books which Cara had lent her.
The previous day the weather had been cloudy and rather cool, and Maria,
the martinet, had sternly vetoed Ann's modest suggestion that she was now
sufficiently recovered to go outdoors again.
"My dear life! And take your death of cold 'pon top of bein' near drowned?"
Maria had demanded witheringly. "I wish the Almighty had weighed you in
a bit more common sense when He set about making you, Miss Ann--and no
disrespect intended to Him!"
She flounced away indignantly. But on this balmy summer's afternoon not
even the kindly old despot of the Cottage could find any objections to such
a mild form of dissipation, and accordingly Ann was basking contentedly in
the hot sun, thankful at last to be released from the devoted but somewhat
exacting ministrations of Maria.
She felt deliciously lazy--too lazy even to concentrate on any of the
novels which Cara had brought her. She had no particular craving at the
moment either to be thrilled by adventures or harrowed by the partings of
lovers. But a slim volume of verse held her attention intermittently. It
was more suited to her idle humour, she reflected. You could read one of
the brief lyrics and let the book slide down on to your knee and enjoy the
quivering blue and gold, and soft, murmurous, chirruping sounds of the
summer's day, while your mind played round the idea embodied in the poem.
She turned the pages idly, skimming desultorily through the verses till
she came to a brief two-verse lyric which caught and held her interest.
It was a very simple little song, but it appealed to the shining optimism
and belief which was a fundamental part of her own nature--to that brave,
sturdy confidence which had brought her, still buoyant and unspoiled and
sweet, through the vicissitudes of a girlhood that might very easily have
cradled an embittered woman.
"Beyond the hill there's a garden,
Fashioned of sweetest flowers,
Calling to you with its voice of gold,
Telling you all that your heart may hold,
Beyond the hill there's a garden fair--
My garden of happy hours.
"Dream-flowers grow in that garden,
Blossom of sun and showers,
There, withered hopes may bloom anew,
Dreams long forgotten shall all come true,
Beyond the hill there's a garden fair--
My garden of happy hours!"
[Footnote: This song, "Dream-Flowers," has been set to music by Margaret
Pedler. Published by Edward Schuberth & Co., 11 East 22nd Street,
New York.]
Ann's thoughts turned towards Eliot Coventry, the man who had told her he
was "old enough to have lost all his illusions." Need one ever be as old as
that, she wondered rather wistfully? Surely for each one of us there should
be a garden where our dream-flowers grow--dream-flowers which one day we
shall pluck and find they have become beautiful realities.
She was reading the verses through for the second time when a shadow seemed
to move betwixt her and the sun, darkening the page. She glanced up quickly
to find Coventry himself standing beside her.
"I hope I haven't startled you," he said. "Maria told me you were in the
garden and left me to find my own way here. I think"--smiling--"some cakes
were in imminent danger of burning if she took her eye off them, so to
speak."
Ann shook hands and hospitably indicated a garden chair.
"Won't you sit down?" she said, though a trifle nervously. "Or are you in a
hurry?" It had startled her to find the man of whom she had at that moment
been thinking close beside her.
"I'm in no hurry," he said, sitting down. "I came to inquire how you were
getting on."
A spark lit itself in her eyes.
"I wonder you didn't send your groom instead," she flashed out quickly.
"It would have saved you the trouble."
Coventry was silent a moment, while a slow flush rose under his sun-tanned
skin.
"I think perhaps I deserved that," he admitted at last. His glance met and
held hers. "Will you at any rate try to believe I had a good reason for
doing what I did?"
She hesitated.
"But--then why have you come now? What's happened to the 'good reason'?"
"I've scrapped it," he said tersely. Then, almost as though he were
arguing the matter out with himself, he added: "A man can take risks
if he likes--if the game's worth the candle."
"And--is this particular game--worth the candle?"
A sudden smile broke up the gravity of those deep, unhappy eyes of his.
"I can't answer that question--yet."
Ann was silent. The sense of constraint left her and an odd feeling of
contentment took its place. He was no longer cold and distant and aloof--in
the mood to dispatch a groom with a message of inquiry! The friend in him
was uppermost.
"I think you deserve a thorough good scolding," he went on presently.
"What possessed you to attempt bathing in a rough sea like that?
Seriously"--speaking more earnestly. "It was a most foolhardy thing to do."
Ann's eyes, goldenly clear in the sunlight, met his frankly.
"I think I went--partly because I was told not to," she acknowledged,
smiling.
His lips twitched in spite of himself.
"Good heavens! What a woman's reason!"
She nodded.
"I suppose it was. But I never dreamed the waves could be as strong as they
were. I felt absolutely helpless to stand up against them, and the ground
seemed to be slipping away under my feet all the time, dragging me with
it--oh, it was horrible!"--with a shiver of recollection. "And I have to
thank you--again--for coming to the rescue!" she resumed more lightly after
a moment. "I think I must really be destined to end my days in Davy Jones's
locker--and you keep frustrating the designs of fate!"
"Well, don't trouble to go out of your way to give me another opportunity,"
he advised dryly.
Ann laughed.
"I won't," she promised. "Especially as it must go against all your
principles to have to take so much trouble over a woman."
He made no answer, and, fearing she had unwittingly wounded him in some
way, she hastened to change the conversation. She had instinctively
come to know that beneath his brusque exterior he concealed a curious
sensitiveness, and, remembering all that Cara had told her of the man's
history she regretted her insouciant speech as soon as it was spoken.
"Are you going to the dinner-party on board the _Sphinx_?" she asked,
grasping hurriedly at the first topic that presented itself.
A quick ejaculation escaped him.
"I'd clean forgotten all about it," he replied. "No, I didn't intend going.
I must send along a refusal, I suppose."
"Why?"
"Why?" He looked at her rather blankly. The monosyllabic question, uttered
so naturally, seemed to take him aback. "Why? Oh"--with a shrug--"these
social gatherings don't appeal to me. I prefer my own company."
"It's very bad for you," observed Ann.
"What is? My own company?"
"Yes"--simply.
He was silent a moment. Then he asked abruptly:
"Will you be there--on the yacht, I mean?"