_ PART III CHAPTER XXII. AN OLD STORY
Jim Ratcliffe was in the drawing-room with Daisy when they returned. He scrutinised them both somewhat sharply as they came in, but he made no comment upon their preference for the garden. Very soon he rose to take his leave.
Grange accompanied him to the door, and Muriel, suddenly possessed by an overwhelming sense of shyness, bent over Daisy and murmured a hasty goodnight.
Daisy looked at her for a moment. "Tired, dear?"
"A little," Muriel admitted.
"I hope you haven't been catching cold--you and Blake," Daisy said, as she kissed her.
Muriel assured her to the contrary, and hastened to make her escape. In the hall she came face to face with Blake. He met her with a smile.
"What! Going up already?"
She nodded. Her face was burning. For an instant her hand lay in his.
"You tell Daisy," she whispered, and fled upstairs like a scared bird.
Grange stood till she was out of sight; then turned aside to the drawing-room, the smile wholly gone from his face.
Daisy, from her seat before the fire, looked up with her gay laugh. "I'm sure there is a secret brewing between you two," she declared. "I can feel it in my bones."
Grange closed the door carefully. There was a queer look on his face, almost an apprehensive look. He took up his stand on the hearthrug before he spoke.
"You are not far wrong, Daisy," he said then.
She answered him lightly as ever. "I never am, my dear Blake. Surely you must have noticed it. Well, am I to be let into the plot, or not?"
He looked at her for a moment uneasily. "Of course we shall tell you," he said. "It--it's not a thing we could very well keep to ourselves for any length of time."
A sudden gleam of understanding flashed into Daisy's upturned face, and instantly her expression changed. With a swift, vehement movement she sprang up and stood before him.
"Blake!" she exclaimed, and in her voice astonishment, dismay, and even reproach were mingled.
He averted his eyes from hers. "Won't you congratulate me, Daisy?" he said, speaking almost under his breath.
Daisy had turned very white. She put out both hands, and leaned upon the mantelpiece.
"But, my dear Blake," she said, after a moment, "she is not for you."
"What do you mean?" Grange's jaw suddenly set itself. He squared his great shoulders as if instinctively bracing himself to meet opposition.
"I mean"--Daisy spoke very quietly and emphatically--"I mean, Blake, that she is Nick's property. She belonged to Nick before ever you thought of wanting her. I never dreamed that you would do anything so shabby as to step in at the last moment, just when Nick is coming home, and cut him out. How could you do such a thing, Blake? But surely it isn't irrevocable? You can't have said anything definite?"
Grange's face had become very stern. He no longer avoided her eyes. For once he was really angry, and showed it.
"You make a mistake," he told her curtly. "I have done nothing whatever of which I am ashamed, or of which any man could be ashamed. Certainly I have taken a definite step. I have proposed to her, and she has accepted me. With regard to Nick Ratcliffe, I believe myself that the fellow is something of a blackguard, but in any case she both fears and hates him. He can have no shadow of a right over her."
"You forget that he saved her life," said Daisy.
"Is she to hold herself at his disposal on that account? I must say I fail to see the obligation."
There was even a hint of scorn in Grange's tone. At sound of it, Daisy turned round and laid her hand winningly upon his arm.
"Dear old boy," she said gently, "don't be angry. I'm not against you."
He softened instantly. It was not in him to harbour resentment against a woman. He took her hand, and heaved a deep sigh.
"No, Daisy," he said half sadly, "you mustn't be against me. I always count on you."
Daisy laughed a little wistfully. "Always did, dear, didn't you? Well, tell me some more. What made you propose all of a sudden like this? Are you--very much in love?"
He looked at her. "Perhaps not quite as we used to understand the term," he said, seeming to speak half-reluctantly.
"Oh, we were very extravagant and foolish," rejoined Daisy lightly. "I didn't mean quite in that way, Blake. You at least are past the age for such feathery nonsense, or should be. I was--aeons and aeons ago."
"Were you?" he said, and still he looked at her half in wonder, it seemed, and half in regret.
Daisy nodded at him briskly. The colour had come back to her face. "Yes, I have arrived at years of discretion," she assured him. "And I quite agree with Solomon that childhood and youth are vanity. But now let us talk about this. Is she in love with you, I wonder? I must be remarkably blind not to have seen it. How in the world I shall ever face Nick again, I can't imagine."
Grange frowned. "I'm getting a bit tired of Nick," he said moodily. "He crops up everywhere."
Daisy's face flushed. "Don't you ever again say a word against him in my hearing," she said. "For I won't bear it. He may not be handsome like you; but for all that, he's about the finest man I know."
"Good heavens!" said Blake. "As much as that!"
She nodded vehemently. "Yes, quite as much. And he loves her, too, loves her with his whole soul. Perhaps you never knew that they would have been married long ago in Simla if Muriel hadn't overheard some malicious gossip and thrown him over. How in the world she made him let her go I never knew, but she did it, though I believe it nearly broke his heart. He came to me afterwards and begged me to keep her with me as long as I could, and take care of her."
"All this," broke in Grange, "is what you promised never to speak of?"
"Yes," she admitted recklessly. "But it is what you ought to know--what you must know--before you go any further."
"It will make no difference to me," he observed. "It is quite obvious that she never cared for him in the smallest degree. Why, my dear girl, she hates the man!"
Daisy gave vent to a sigh of exasperation. "When you come to talk about women's feelings, Blake, you make me tired. You will never be anything but a great big booby in that respect as long as you live."
Grange became silent. He never argued with Daisy. She had always had the upper hand. He watched her as she sat down again, her pretty face in the glow of the fire; but though fully aware of the fact, she would not look at him.
"She is a dear girl, and you are not half good enough for her," she said, stooping a little to the blaze.
"I know that," he answered bluntly. "I wasn't good enough for you, either, but you would have had me--once."
She made a dainty gesture with one shoulder. "That also was aeons ago. Why disturb that poor old skeleton?"
He did not answer, but he continued to watch her steadily with eyes that held an expression of dumb faithfulness--like the eyes of a dog.
Daisy was softly and meditatively poking the fire. "If you marry her, Blake," she said, "you will have to be enormously good to her. She isn't the sort of girl to be satisfied with anything but the best."
"I should do my utmost to make her happy," he answered.
She glanced up momentarily. "I wonder if you would succeed," she murmured.
For a single instant their eyes met. Daisy's fell away at once, and the firelight showed a swift deepening of colour on her face.
As for Blake, he stood quite stiff for a few seconds, then with an abruptness of movement unusual with him, he knelt suddenly down beside her.
"Daisy," he said, and his voice sounded strained, almost hoarse, "you're not vexed about it? You don't mind my marrying? It isn't--you know--it isn't--as if--"
He broke off, for Daisy had jerked upright as if at the piercing of a nerve. She looked at him fully, with blazing eyes. "How can you be so ridiculous, Blake?" she exclaimed, with sharp impatience. "That was all over and done with long, long ago, and you know it. Besides, even if it hadn't been, I'm not a dog in the manger. Surely you know that too. Oh, go away, and don't be absurd!"
She put her hand against his shoulder, and gave him a small but vehement push.
He stood up again immediately, but he did not look hurt, and the expression of loyalty in his eyes never wavered.
There was a short pause before Daisy spoke again.
"Well," she said, with a brief sigh, "I suppose it's no good crying over spilt milk, but I wish you had chosen any girl in the world but Muriel, Blake; I do indeed. You will have to write to Sir Reginald Bassett. He is her guardian, subject to his wife's management. Perhaps she will approve of you. She hated Nick for some reason."
"I don't see how they can object," Grange said, in the moody tone he always used when perplexed.
"No," said Daisy. "Nor did Nick. But Lady Bassett managed to put a spoke in his wheel notwithstanding. Still, if Muriel wants to marry you--or thinks she does--she will probably take her own way. And possibly regret it afterwards."
"You think I shall not make her happy?" said Grange.
Daisy hesitated a little. "I think," she said slowly, "that you are not the man for her. However,"--she rose with another shrug--"I may be wrong. In any case you have gone too far for me to meddle. I can't help either of you now. You must just do what you think best." She held out her hand. "I must go up now. Baby is restless to-night, and may want me. Good-night."
Blake stooped, and carried her hand softly and suddenly to his lips. He seemed for an instant on the verge of saying something, but no words came. There was a faint, half-mocking smile on Daisy's face as she turned away. But she was silent also. It seemed that they understood each other. _