“Oh, hang it,” he suddenly exclaimed, “it’s the best thing that’s ever happened to me, anyhow!”
The next day was even better. He felt, and knew she felt, that they had reached a clearer understanding of each other. It was as if, after a swim through bright opposing waves, with a dazzle of sun in their eyes, they had gained an inlet in the shades of a cliff, where they could float on the still surface and gaze far down into the depths.
Now and then, as they walked and talked, he felt a thrill of youthful wonder at the coincidence of their views and their experiences, at the way their minds leapt to the same point in the same instant.
“The old delusion, I suppose,” he smiled to himself. “Will Nature never tire of the trick?”
But he knew it was more than that. There were moments in their talk when he felt, distinctly and unmistakably, the solid ground of friendship underneath the whirling dance of his sensations. “How I should like her if I didn’t love her!” he summed it up, wondering at the miracle of such a union.
In the course of the morning a telegram had come from Owen Leath, announcing that he, his grandmother and Effie would arrive from Dijon that afternoon at four. The station of the main line was eight or ten miles from Givre, and Anna, soon after three, left in the motor to meet the travellers.
When she had gone Darrow started for a walk, planning to get back late, in order that the reunited family might have the end of the afternoon to themselves. He roamed the country- side till long after dark, and the stable-clock of Givre was striking seven as he walked up the avenue to the court.
In the hall, coming down the stairs, he encountered Anna. Her face was serene, and his first glance showed him that Owen had kept his word and that none of her forebodings had been fulfilled.
She had just come down from the school-room, where Effie and the governess were having supper; the little girl, she told him, looked immensely better for her Swiss holiday, but was dropping with sleep after the journey, and too tired to make her habitual appearance in the drawing-room before being put to bed. Madame de Chantelle was resting, but would be down for dinner; and as for Owen, Anna supposed he was off somewhere in the park–he had a passion for prowling about the park at nightfall…
Darrow followed her into the brown room, where the tea-table had been left for him. He declined her offer of tea, but she lingered a moment to tell him that Owen had in fact kept his word, and that Madame de Chantelle had come back in the best of humours, and unsuspicious of the blow about to fall.
“She has enjoyed her month at Ouchy, and it has given her a lot to talk about–her symptoms, and the rival doctors, and the people at the hotel. It seems she met your Ambassadress there, and Lady Wantley, and some other London friends of yours, and she’s heard what she calls ‘delightful things’ about you: she told me to tell you so. She attaches great importance to the fact that your grandmother was an Everard of Albany. She’s prepared to open her arms to you. I don’t know whether it won’t make it harder for poor Owen…the contrast, I mean…There are no Ambassadresses or Everards to vouch for HIS choice! But you’ll help me, won’t you? You’ll help me to help him? To-morrow I’ll tell you the rest. Now I must rush up and tuck in Effie…”
“Oh, you’ll see, we’ll pull it off for him!” he assured her; “together, we can’t fail to pull it off.”
He stood and watched her with a smile as she fled down the half-lit vista to the hall.
Chapter XIV
If Darrow, on entering the drawing-room before dinner, examined its new occupant with unusual interest, it was more on Owen Leath’s account than his own.
Anna’s hints had roused his interest in the lad’s love affair, and he wondered what manner of girl the heroine of the coming conflict might be. He had guessed that Owen’s rebellion symbolized for his step-mother her own long struggle against the Leath conventions, and he understood that if Anna so passionately abetted him it was partly because, as she owned, she wanted his liberation to coincide with hers.