_ PART I CHAPTER XI. OLYMPUS
All through that afternoon Dinah and Billy played like cubs in the snow. They were very inexperienced in the art of luging, but they took their spills with much heartiness and a total disregard of dignity that made for complete enjoyment.
When the sun went down they forsook the sport, and joined in a snowballing match with a dozen or more of their fellow-visitors. But Dinah proved herself so adroit and impartial at this game that she presently became a general target, and found it advisable to retreat before she was routed. This she did with considerable skill and no small strategy, finally darting flushed and breathless into the hotel, covered with snow from head to foot, but game to the last.
"Well done!" commented a lazy voice behind her. "Now raise the drawbridge and lower the portcullis, and the honours of war are assured."
She turned with the flashing movement of a bird upon the wing, and found herself face to face with Sir Eustace.
His blue eyes met hers with deliberate nonchalance. "Sit down," he said, "while I fetch you some tea!"
Her heart gave an odd little leap that was half of pleasure and half of dread. She stammered incoherently that he must not take the trouble.
But he was evidently bent upon so doing, for he pressed her into the seat which he had just vacated. "Keep the place in the corner for me!" he commanded, and lounged away upon his errand with imperial leisureliness.
Dinah watched his tall figure out of sight. The encounter both astounded and thrilled her. She wondered if she were cheapening herself by meekly obeying his behest, wondered what Rose--that practised coquette--would have done under such circumstances; but to depart seemed so wholly out of the question that she dismissed the wonder as futile. She could only wait for the play to develop, and trust to her own particular luck, which had so favoured her the night before, to give her a cue.
He returned with tea and cake which he set before her on a little table that he had apparently secured beforehand for the purpose. "I am sure you must be ravenous," he said, in those high-bred, somewhat insolent accents of his.
"I am," Dinah admitted frankly.
"Then let me see you satisfy your hunger!" he said, seating himself in the corner he had reserved.
"Oh, but not alone!" she protested. "You--you must have some too."
He laughed. "No. I am going to smoke--with your permission. It will do me more good."
"Oh, pray do!" said Dinah, embarrassed still but strangely elated. "It makes me feel rather greedy, that's all."
"I am greedy too," he told her, his blue eyes still upon her vivid, sparkling face. "And--always with your permission--I am going to indulge my greed."
She did not understand him, but prudence restrained her from telling him so. Seated as she was he was the only person in the vestibule whom she could see, her back being turned to all beside. She wondered, again with that delightful yet half-startled thrill, if his meaning were in any way connected with this fact. He certainly absorbed the whole of her attention, if that were what he wanted. Her hunger faded completely into the background.
He lighted a cigarette and began to smoke. The space beyond them was full of moving figures and laughing voices; but the turmoil scarcely reached Dinah. An invisible barrier seemed to shut them off from all the rest. They were not merely aloof; they were alone, and a curiously intimate touch pervaded their solitude. She felt her spirit start in quivering response to the call of his, just as the night before when she had floated with him above the clouds. What was happening to her she had not the least idea, but the consciousness of his near presence pulsed magnetically through and through her. Scott's brief advice of the morning was scattered from her memory like feathers before the wind. She had no memory. She lived only in this burning splendid ardour of a moment.
She drank her tea mechanically, finding nothing enigmatic in his silence. The direct look of his blue eyes discomfited her strangely, but it was a sublime discomfiture--the discomfiture of the moth around the flame. She longed to meet it, but did not wholly dare. With veiled glances she yielded to the attraction, not yet bold enough for complete surrender.
He spoke at last, and she started.
"Well? Am I forgiven?"
The nonchalant enquiry sent the blood in another hot wave to her cheeks. Had she ever presumed to be angry with this godlike person?
"For what?" she asked, her voice very low.
He leaned towards her. "Did I only fancy that by some evil chance I had offended you?"
She kept her eyes lowered. "I thought you were the offended one," she said.
"I?" She caught the note of surprise in his voice, and it sent a very curious little sense of shame through her.
With an effort she raised her eyes. "Yes. I thought you were offended. You went by me this morning without seeing me."
His look was very intent, almost as if he were searching for something; but it did not disconcert her as she had half-expected to be disconcerted. His eyes were more caressing than dominant just then.
"What if I didn't see you because I didn't dare?" he said.
That gave her confidence. "I should think you couldn't be so silly as that," she said with decision.
He smiled a little. "Thank you, _miladi_. Then wasn't it--almost equally silly--your word, not mine!--of you to be afraid of me last night?"
She felt the thrust in a moment, and went white, conscious of the weak sick feeling that so often came over her at the sound of her mother's step when she was in disgrace.
He saw her distress, but he allowed several moments to elapse before he came to the rescue; Then lightly, "Pray don't let the matter disturb you!" he said. "Only--for your peace of mind--let me tell you that you really have nothing to fear. Out here we live in fairyland, and no one is in earnest. We just enjoy ourselves, and Mrs. Grundy simply doesn't exist. We are not ashamed of being frivolous, and we do whatever we like. And there are no consequences. Always remember that, Miss Bathurst! There are never any consequences in fairyland."
His eyes suddenly laughed at her, and Dinah was vastly reassured. Her dismay vanished, leaving a blithe sense of irresponsibility in its place.
"I shall remember that," she said, with her gay little nod. "I dreamt last night that we were in Olympus."
"We?" he said softly.
She nodded again, flushed and laughing, confident that she had received her cue. "And you--were Apollo."
She saw his eyes change magically, flashing into swift life, and dropped her own before the mastery that dawned there.
"And you," he questioned under his breath, "were Daphne?"
"Perhaps," she said enigmatically. After all, flirting was not such a difficult art, and since he had declared that there could be no consequences, she did not see why she should bury this new-found talent of hers.
"What a charming dream!" he commented lazily. "But you know what happened to Daphne when she ran away, don't you?"
She flung him a laughing challenge. "He didn't catch her anyway."
"True!" smiled Sir Eustace. "But have you never wondered whether it wouldn't have been more sport for her if he had? It wouldn't be very exciting, you know, to lead the life of a vegetable."
"It isn't!" declared Dinah, with abrupt sincerity.
"Oh, you know something about it, do you?" he said. "Then the modern Daphne ought to have too much sense to run away."
She laughed with a touch of wistfulness. "I wonder how she felt about it afterwards."
"I wonder," he agreed, tipping the ash off his cigarette. "It didn't matter so much to Apollo, you see. He had plenty to choose from."
Dinah's wistfulness vanished in a swift breath of indignation. "Really!" she said.
He looked at her. "Yes, really," he told her, with deliberation. "And he didn't need to run after them either. But, possibly," his gaze softened again, "possibly that was what made him want Daphne the most. Elusiveness is quite a fascinating quality if it isn't carried too far. Still--" he smiled--"I expect he got over it in the end, you know; but in her case I am not quite so sure."
"I don't suppose he did get ever it," maintained Dinah with spirit. "All the rest must have seemed very cheap afterwards."
"Perhaps he was more at home with the cheap variety," he suggested carelessly.
His eyes had wandered to the buzzing throng behind her, and she saw a glint of criticism--or was it merely easy contempt?--dispel the smile with which he had regarded her. His mouth wore a faint but unmistakable sneer.
But in a moment his look returned to her, kindled upon her. "Are you for the ice carnival to-night?" he asked.
She drew a quick, eager breath. "Oh, I do want to come! But I don't know--yet--if I shall be allowed."
"Why ask?" he questioned.
She hesitated, then ingenuously she told him her difficulty. "I got into trouble last night for dancing so late with you. And--and--I may be sent to bed early to make up for it."
He frowned. "Do you mean to say you'd go?"
She coloured vividly. "I'm only nineteen, and I have to do as I'm told."
"Heavens above!" he said. "You belong to the generation before the last evidently. No girl ever does as she is told now-a-days. It isn't the thing."
"I do," whispered Dinah, in dire confusion. "At least--generally."
"And what happens if you don't?" he queried. "Do they whip you and put you to bed?"
She clenched her hands hard. "Don't!" she said. "You're only joking, I know. But--I hate it!"
His manner changed in a moment, became half-quizzical, half-caressing. "Poor little brown elf, what a shame! Well, come if you can! I shall look out for you. I may have something to show you."
"May you? Oh, what?" cried Dinah, all eagerness in a moment.
He laughed. There was a provoking hint of mystery in his manner. "Ah! That lies in the future, _miladi_."
"But tell me!" she persisted.
"Will you come then?" he asked.
"Perhaps," she said. "If I can!"
"Ah! And perhaps not!" he said. "What then?"
Dinah's mouth grew suddenly firm. "I will come," she said.
"You will?" His keen eyes held hers with smiling compulsion.
"Yes, I will."
He made a gesture as if he would take her hand, but restrained himself, and paused to tip the ash once more off his cigarette.
"Now tell me!" commanded Dinah.
"I don't think I will," he said deliberately.
"But you must!" said Dinah.
His eyes sought hers again with that look which she found it impossible to meet. She bent over her cup.
"What will you show me?" she persisted. "Tell me!"
"I didn't say I would show you anything," he pointed out. "I said I might."
"Tell me what it was anyhow!" she said.
He leaned nearer to her, and suddenly it seemed to her that they were quite alone, very far removed from the rest of the world. "It may not be to-night," he murmured. "Or even to-morrow. But some day--in this land where there are no consequences--I will show you--when the fates are propitious, not before--some of the things that Daphne missed when she ran away."
He ceased to speak. Dinah's face was burning. She could not look at him. She felt as if a magic flame had wrapped her round. Her whole body was tingling, her heart wildly a-quiver. There was a rapture in that moment that was almost too intense, too poignant, to be borne.
He was the first to move. Calmly he leaned back, and resumed his cigarette. Through the aromatic smoke his voice came to her again.
"Are you angry?"
Her whole being stirred in response. She uttered a little quivering laugh that was near akin to tears.
"No--of course--no! But I--I think I ought to go and dress! It's getting late, isn't it? Thank you for giving me tea!" She rose, her movements quick and dainty as the flight of a robin. "Good-bye!" she murmured shyly.
He rose also with a sweeping bow. "_A bientot_,--Daphne!" he said.
She gave him a single swift glance from under fluttering lashes, and turned away in silence.
She went up the stairs with the speed of a bird on the wing, but she could not outpace the wonder and the wild delight at her heart. As she entered her own room at length, she laughed, a breathless, rippling laugh. How amazing--and how gorgeous--was this new life! _