"No," she said, more steady herself. "I am not thinking of you at all."
The inane voices of the Fyne girls were heard over the sombre fields
calling to each other, thin and clear. He muttered: "You could try to.
Unless you are thinking of somebody else."
"Yes. I am thinking of somebody else, of someone who has nobody to think
of him but me."
His shadowy form stepped out of her way, and suddenly leaned sideways
against the wooden support of the porch. And as she stood still,
surprised by this staggering movement, his voice spoke up in a tone quite
strange to her.
"Go in then. Go out of my sight--I thought you said nobody could love
you."
She was passing him when suddenly he struck her as so forlorn that she
was inspired to say: "No one has ever loved me--not in that way--if
that's what you mean. Nobody would."
He detached himself brusquely from the post, and she did not shrink; but
Mrs. Fyne and the girls were already at the gate.
All he understood was that everything was not over yet. There was no
time to lose; Mrs. Fyne and the girls had come in at the gate. He
whispered "Wait" with such authority (he was the son of Carleon Anthony,
the domestic autocrat) that it did arrest her for a moment, long enough
to hear him say that he could not be left like this to puzzle over her
nonsense all night. She was to slip down again into the garden later on,
as soon as she could do so without being heard. He would be there
waiting for her till--till daylight. She didn't think he could go to
sleep, did she? And she had better come, or--he broke off on an
unfinished threat.
She vanished into the unlighted cottage just as Mrs. Fyne came up to the
porch. Nervous, holding her breath in the darkness of the living-room,
she heard her best friend say: "You ought to have joined us, Roderick."
And then: "Have you seen Miss Smith anywhere?"
Flora shuddered, expecting Anthony to break out into betraying
imprecations on Miss Smith's head, and cause a painful and humiliating
explanation. She imagined him full of his mysterious ferocity. To her
great surprise, Anthony's voice sounded very much as usual, with perhaps
a slight tinge of grimness. "Miss Smith! No. I've seen no Miss Smith."
Mrs. Fyne seemed satisfied--and not much concerned really.
Flora, relieved, got clear away to her room upstairs, and shutting her
door quietly, dropped into a chair. She was used to reproaches, abuse,
to all sorts of wicked ill usage--short of actual beating on her body.
Otherwise inexplicable angers had cut and slashed and trampled down her
youth without mercy--and mainly, it appeared, because she was the
financier de Barral's daughter and also condemned to a degrading sort of
poverty through the action of treacherous men who had turned upon her
father in his hour of need. And she thought with the tenderest possible
affection of that upright figure buttoned up in a long frock-coat, soft-
voiced and having but little to say to his girl. She seemed to feel his
hand closed round hers. On his flying visits to Brighton he would always
walk hand in hand with her. People stared covertly at them; the band was
playing; and there was the sea--the blue gaiety of the sea. They were
quietly happy together . . . It was all over!