The Vision of Desire
behind all the gossip, and her anger against Eliot knew no bounds. But once
she had given characteristic expression to her opinion of men in general,
and of Eliot in particular, she promptly set to work to try and mend
matters.
"_I_ can explain to Eliot how you came to be at the Hotel de Loup that
night," she asserted. "He won't presume to doubt me!"
"No. But he _has_ presumed to doubt me," replied Ann bitterly. "So it
wouldn't help in the least if you explained all day."
"How do you mean--wouldn't help?"
"Because what matters is whether Eliot himself trusts me--not whether he
has everything explained to him," said Ann. "He must trust me because I'm
trustworthy--not because you guarantee me."
"My dear--that's the ideal attitude. But"--Lady Susan sighed and smiled in
the same breath--"we've got to make allowances for poor human nature. We're
all so very far from being ideal in this sinful old world. Be sensible, Ann
darling," she coaxed, "and let me assure Eliot you were up at the Hotel de
Loup alone."
Ann shook her head.
"You can't, dear Lady Susan. Because--I wasn't alone. Tony and I were there
together."
Lady Susan turned on her a face of blank astonishment.
"You weren't alone?" she exclaimed. "But--I don't understand. Philip told
me that Tony ran over to Geneva that day and stayed the night there!"
"Did he?" Ann's heart grew very soft at the thought of Tony's boyishly
crude effort to protect her from the possible consequence of their night's
sojourn at the hotel. "I'm afraid Tony let him think that on my account--in
order to shield me.... I should have told you all about it at the time,"
she went on, "only--don't you remember--you had sprained your ankle, and
you were in so much, pain that I just didn't want to bother you with the
matter."
Lady Susan looked distressed.
"But, my dear, what possessed you to stay the night up there--with Tony?
You must have known people would talk if it ever became known."
"Well, it was just a sheer bit of bad luck," explained Ann, and forthwith
proceeded to recount the whole adventure which had befallen her and Tony at
the Dents de Loup. "We _had_ to stay there," she wound up. "We'd absolutely
no choice. But we met no one. Not a soul. And I can't conceive how the
story has got out."
"And now there's all this wretched tittle-tattle about you!" chafed Lady
Susan. "My poor little Ann, it really is a stroke of the most fiendish
ill-luck."
Ann nodded.
"Yes. Don't you see how impossible it is for me to clear myself? We _were_
there. It's true."
"I do see," replied Lady Susan in a worried tone. "It's just the kind
of coil that's hardest of all to straighten out. A lot of untrue gossip
founded upon actual fact--and there's nothing more difficult to combat than
a half-truth."
"Oh, well"--Ann jumped up restlessly out of her chair. "It's smashed up
everything for me. And when you've crashed I don't suppose a little
ill-natured gossip more or less matters very much. Did you know Mrs.
Carberry cut me this morning in the village high-street?" she added with
a smile.
"Did she indeed?" said Lady Susan, a grim note in her usually pleasant
voice. "Of course, the whole business is nuts to her--she's aching to plant
that prunes-and-prisms daughter of hers on Eliot Coventry. Well, I think
I carry weight enough in the neighbourhood to put a stop to that kind of
insolence." She paused reflectively. "I shall open my campaign with a
big dinner-party--and you and Robin will come to it. I'll shoot off the
invitations to-morrow. Don't worry, Ann. If, between us, your friends can't
manage to scotch this kind of dead-set some people are making at you,
my name's not Susan Hallett." She rose and slipped her arm round Ann's
shoulders in a gesture of unwonted tenderness. "And for the rest, my
dear--try and believe things will come straight in the end. You're in the
long lane, now--but you'll find the turning some day, I feel sure."
The following morning Brian Tempest arrived at the Cottage. Ann greeted him
with a smile, half sad, half bitter.
"Have you come to call down fulminations of wrath on my devoted head?" she
asked.
The rector's kind eyes were puckered round with little creases of distress.
"Did you think that?" he asked.
She smiled--and there was less of bitterness in the smile this time.
"No," she answered frankly. "I didn't. I thought you'd come to pay a kindly
visit to the outcast."
"I came," he said simply, "to tell you--if you need telling--that I don't
believe one word of this ridiculous story which is flying round, and that
I'm going to fight it with every bit of influence I can bring to bear."
"You dear!" replied Ann softly. A wan gleam of amusement flitted across her
face. "But it's true, you know--Tony and I did stay at the Hotel de Loup
together."
No remotest glimmer of doubt, or even of astonishment, showed itself in the
steady glance of Tempest's "heather mixture" eyes.
"Did you?" he returned placidly. "Well, I suppose neither of you has the
sole monopoly of any hotel in Europe."
"Then you're not shocked?"
"Not in the least. I conjecture that some accidental happening drove you
both into an awkward predicament. Feel like telling me about it all?"--with
a friendly smile.
Ann felt exactly like it. There was something in Brian Tempest--in
his absolute sincerity and his broad, tolerant, humorous outlook on
things--which attracted confidence as a magnet attracts steel, and before
long he was in possession of the skeleton facts of the story, and had
himself, out of his own gifts of observation and sympathetic intuition,
clothed those bare bones with tissue.
"And what do you propose to do?" he asked, when Ann ceased speaking.
"Stick it out," she returned briefly.
Tempest watched the brave fire gather and glow in the golden-brown eyes. He
nodded contentedly.
"I was sure you would," he said. "And don't worry overmuch. _Think_ that it
will come right. Even"--with a kindly significance--"the part that hurts
you most--and I know that's not the general gossip. Don't let your thoughts
waver. There's no limit to the force of thought, you know."
"You believe that, too, then?" said Ann quickly.
"I'm sure of it," he answered quietly. "Thought is the one great
miracle-worker. Why"--with a laugh--"if you want immediate proof, it was
a bad thought, some one thinking wrongly, that started all this present
trouble. So that the right thought--the thought that it will all work out
straight, held by you and by all of us who are your friends--is the obvious
antidote. God never made a law that only works one-sidedly. If thought
forces can work evil, they can assuredly work infinite good."
"You're an excellent 'cheerer-up,'" said Ann, later on, when he was going.
"You _have_ cheered me, you know," she added gratefully.
"Have I? I'm glad. And now, I want you to cheer me."
"You?" Her voice held surprise.
"Yes, me." He hesitated a moment. "Ann, I'm going to throw myself on your
mercy. I know--to my deep shame I know that my sister has been one of the
people who have helped to circulate this unfounded story about you. I want
you, if you can, to try and forgive her--and me."
"There's nothing to forgive you for," protested Ann.
"She's my sister. Part of her burden must be mine. Nor have I any excuse to
offer for her. Some people look through a window and see God's sunshine,
while others see only the spots on the window-pane. We are as we're made,
they say--but some of us have got a deal of re-making to do before we're
perfected."
"Don't worry." Unconsciously Ann sought to comfort him in the same
familiar, everyday language which he himself had used to her. "Don't worry
one bit. I've no feeling of ill-will towards Miss Caroline. It's just her
way--one can't help one's way of looking at things, you know"--quaintly.
"And I'm quite, quite sure she never meant any harm."
"So that's the way _you_ look at things?" He smiled down at her, his
eyes very luminous and tender. "Thank you, Ann, for the way you look at
things--the plucky, generous, splendid way."
And when he had gone Ann was conscious of a warm glow round about her
heart--that gladdening glow of comfort and thanksgiving which the
spontaneous, ardent loyalty of real friends can bring even to the heaviest
heart.
CHAPTER XXVI
ENLIGHTENMENT
"I've turned up again like a bad penny, you see."
Brett, ushered into the living-room at the Cottage by a very
depressed-looking Maria, made the announcement with his usual debonair
assurance.
"So I see," replied Ann, shaking hands without enthusiasm. "How are you?"
He looked at her critically--at her face, paler than its wont, her shadowed
eyes, the slight lines of her figure--grown slighter even during the brief
span of a week.
"_I'm_ all right," he returned pointedly. "But I can't say as much for you.
What have you been doing in my absence? Pining?"--quizzically.
"Not exactly," she answered dryly. "I've had--oh, various worries. Nothing
to do with you, though."
"I'm not so sure," replied Brett, with a flash of sardonic humour, the
significance of which was lost on Ann.
"Then I'm afraid you'll have to take my word for it," she responded
indifferently.
"Are you worrying about this slur on your fair name?" he demanded next, as
airily as though he were inquiring if she was worrying about the trimming
of a new hat. "My revered aunt has told me all the news, you see."
Ann winced.
"Brett, how can you speak like that?" Her voice trembled. "It--it isn't
anything to laugh at. It's horrible!"
He regarded her in silence. Then:
"No. It isn't anything to laugh at," he said suddenly. "It's my chance."
He took a quick step towards her and she retreated involuntarily.
"Your chance?" she replied. "What do you mean?"
"My chance to prove that I'm a better lover than Coventry. I understand
he's so shocked that he's bolted out of England"--sneeringly. "Well, I'm
not. I've come back to ask you to marry me."
Ann quivered at his mention of Eliot's name, but with an effort she forced
herself to answer him composedly.
"I can only give you the same answer as before--no, Brett."
"Do explain why," he returned irrepressibly. "I don't care tuppence what
people say. In fact, if they dared to say anything after we were married I
should jolly well break their heads for them. So that's that. But surely
I'm as good a fellow as Coventry--who's apparently cried off at the first
sign of storm. I suppose that's what's happened, isn't it?"
She turned and faced him, a spark of anger in her eyes.
"Whatever it is that has happened between Eliot and me, it has nothing to
do with you," she said haughtily.
His eyes flickered over her face.
"But I can guess!" he replied imperturbably.
"You?--Guess? How--" She broke off, shaken, as so often before, by his air
of complete assurance.
He looked at her with quizzical eyes.
"Shall I tell you?" he said tantalisingly. "Yes, I think I will." He
paused, then finished quietly: "I happened to be in Switzerland last
spring--when you were."
There was no misunderstanding the intentional significance with which he
spoke--no evading the impression that some definitely evil menace lay
behind the brief statement of commonplace fact. To Ann it seemed as though
some horror, lurking in the shadows of the fire-lit room, had suddenly
stirred and were creeping stealthily towards her--impalpable but deadly,
nauseous as the poisonous miasma rising from some dark and fetid pool. She
shrank back, instinctively putting out her hand as though to ward off
whatever threatened.
"You--you?" she stammered.
"Even I"--blandly. His gaze fastened on her face. "I spent a couple of
nights--at the Hotel de Loup." Then, as she shrank still further away from