The Hollow of Her Hand

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Sara swished her gown about and rose gracefully from the chaise-longue.
Extending her hand to him she said, and he was never to forget the
deep thrill in her voice:

"Well, I wish you good luck, Leslie. Don't take no for an answer."

"Lord, if she SHOULD say no," he gasped, confronted by the possibility
of such stupidity on Hetty's part. "You don't think she will?"

Her answer was a smile of doubt, the effect of which was to destroy
his tranquillity for hours.

"It is time for luncheon. I suppose we'll have to interrupt them.
Perhaps it is just as well, for your sake," she said tauntingly.

He grinned, but it was a sickly effort.

"You're the one to spoil anything of that sort," he said, with some
ascerbity.

"I?"

"Certainly," he said with so much meaning in the word that she
flushed.

"Oh, I see," she mused, with understanding. "Can't you trust Vivian
to do that for you?" There was intense irony in the question.

He laughed disdainfully. "Vivvy wouldn't stand a ghost of a chance
with you, take it from me." He stopped abruptly at the doorway, a
frown of recollection creasing his seamless brow. "Oh, that reminds
me, there is something else I want to discuss with you, Sara. After
luncheon will be time enough. Remind me of it, will you?"

"Not if it is to be unpleasant," she replied, with a sudden chill
in her heart.

"It's this, in a word: Viv would like to have Miss Castleton over
to spend a month or so with her after the--well, after the house
is open." He came near to saying after the engagement was announced.

Sara's decision was made at once. Her face hardened.

"That is quite out of the question, Leslie," she said.

"We can discuss it, can't we?" he demanded loftily.

She did not condescend to reply. They were now in the wide hallway,
and she was a step or two ahead of him. Voices could be heard
in the recess at the lower end of the hall, beyond the staircase,
engaged in what appeared to be a merry exchange of opinions. He
caught the sound of a low laugh from Booth. There was something
acutely subdued about it, as if a warning had been whispered by
some one. Leslie's sensitive imagination pictured the unseen girl
with her finger to her lips.

He caught up with Sara, and, curiously red in the face, snapped
out with dogged insistence:

"Mother is set on having her come, Sara. Can't you see the way the
land lays? They--"

Hetty and Booth came into view at that instant, and his lips were
closed. The painter was laying a soft, filmy scarf over the girl's
bare shoulders as he followed close behind her.

"Hello!" he cried, catching sight of Wrandall. "Train late, old
chap? We've been expecting you for the last hour. How are you?"

He came up with a frank, genuine smile of pleasure on his lips,
his hand extended. Leslie rose to the occasion. His self-esteem was
larger than his grievance. He shook Booth's hand heartily, almost
exuberantly.

"Didn't want to disturb you, Brandy," he cried, cheerily. "Besides,
Sara wouldn't let me." He then passed on to Hetty, who had lagged
behind. Bending low over her hand, he said something commonplace in
a very low tone, at the same time looking slyly out of the corner
of his eye to see if Booth was taking it all in. Finding that his
friend was regarding him rather fixedly, he obeyed a sudden impulse
and raised the girl's slim hand to his lips. As suddenly he released
her fingers and straightened up with a look of surprise in his eyes;
he had distinctly heard the agitated catch in her throat. She was
staring at her hand in a stupefied sort of way, holding it rigid
before her eyes for a moment before thrusting it behind her back as
if it were a thing to be shielded from all scrutiny save her own.

"You must not kiss it again, Mr. Wrandall," she said in a low,
intense voice. Then she passed him by and hurried up the stairs,
without so much as a glance over her shoulder.

He blinked in astonishment. All of a sudden there swept over him
the unique sensation of shyness--most unique in him. He had never
been abashed before in all his life. Now he was curiously conscious
of having overstepped the bounds, and for the first time to be
shown his place by a girl. This to him, who had no scruples about
boundary lines!

All through luncheon he was volatile and gay. There was a bright
spot in his cheek, however, that betrayed him to Sara, who already
suspected the temper of his thoughts. He talked aeroplaning
without cessation, directing most of his conversation to Booth, yet
thrilled with pleasure each time Hetty laughed at his sallies. He
was beginning to feel like a half-baked schoolboy in her presence,
a most deplorable state of affairs he had to admit.

"If you hate the trains so much, and your automobile is out
of whack, why don't you try volplaning down from the Metropolitan
tower?" demanded Booth in response to his lugubrious wail against
the beastly luck of having to go about in railway coaches with a
lot of red-eyed, nose-blowing people who hadn't got used to their
spring underwear as yet.

"Sinister suggestion, I must say," he exclaimed. "You must be eager
to see my life blood scattered all over creation. But, speaking
of volplaning, I've had three lessons this week. Next week Bronson
says I'll be flying like a gull. 'Gad, it's wonderful. I've had two
tumbles, that's all,--little ones, of course,--net result a barked
knee and a peeled elbow."

"Watch out you're not flying like an angel before you get through
with it, Les," cautioned the painter. "I see that a well-known
society leader in Chicago was killed yesterday."

"Oh, I love the danger there is in it," said Wrandall carelessly.
"That's what gives zest to the sport."

"I love it, too," said Hetty, her eyes a-gleam. "The glorious feel
of the wind as you rush through it! And yet one seems to be standing
perfectly still in the air when one is half a mile high and going
fifty miles an hour. Oh, it is wonderful, Mr. Wrandall."

"I'll take you out in a week or two, Miss Castleton, if you'll
trust yourself with me."

"I will go," she announced promptly.

Booth frowned. "Better wait a bit," he counselled. "Risky business,
Miss Castleton, flying about with fledgelings."

"Oh, come now!" expostulated Wrandall with some heat. "Don't be a
wet blanket, old man."

"I was merely suggesting she'd better wait till you'ye got used to
your wings."

"Jimmy Van Wickle took his wife with him the third time up," said
Leslie, as if that were the last word in aeroplaning.

"It's common report that she keeps Jimmy level, no matter where
she's got him," retorted Booth.

"I dare say Miss Castleton can hold me level," said Leslie, with
a profound bow to her. "Can't you, Miss Castleton?"

She smiled. "Oh, as for that, Mr. Wrandall, I think we can all
trust you to cling pretty closely to your own level."

"Rather ambiguous, that," he remarked dubiously.

"She means you never get below it, Leslie," said Booth, enjoying
himself.

"That's the one great principle in aeroplaning," said Wrandall,
quick to recover. "Vivian says I'll break my neck some day, but
admits it will be a heroic way of doing it. Much nobler than pitching
out of an automobile or catapulting over a horse's head in Central
Park." He paused for effect before venturing his next conclusion.
"It must be ineffably sublime, being squashed--or is it squshed?--after
a drop of a mile or two, isn't it?"

He looked to see Miss Castleton wince, and was somewhat dashed to
find that she was looking out of the window, quite oblivious to
the peril he was in figuratively for her special consideration.

Booth was acutely reminded that the term "prig" as applied
to Leslie was a misnomer; he hated the thought of the other word,
which reflectively he rhymed with "pad."

It occurred to him early in the course of this rather one-sided
discussion that their hostess was making no effort to take part
in it, whether from lack of interest or because of its frivolous
nature he was, of course, unable to determine. Later, he was struck
by the curious pallor of her face, and the lack-lustre expression
of her eyes. She seldom removed her gaze from Wrandall's face,
and yet there persisted in the observer's mind the rather uncanny
impression that she did not hear a word her brother-in-law was
saying. He, in turn, took to watching her covertly. At no time did
her expression change. For reasons of his own, he did not attempt
to draw her into the conversation, fascinated as he was by the
study of that beautiful, emotionless face. Once he had the queer
sensation of feeling, rather than seeing, a haunted look in her eyes,
but he put it down to fancy on his part. Doubtless, he concluded,
the face or voice or manner of her husband's brother recalled
tragic memories from which she could not disengage herself. But
undoubtedly there was something peculiar in the way she looked at
Leslie through those dull, unblinking eyes. It was some time before
Booth realised that she made but the slightest pretence of touching
the food that was placed before her by the footman.

And Leslie babbled on in blissful ignorance of, not to say disregard
for, this strange ghost at the feast, for, to Booth's mind, the
ghost of Challis Wrandall was there.

Turning to Miss Castleton with a significant look in his eyes, meant
to call her attention to Mrs. Wrandall, he was amazed to find that
every vestige of colour had gone from the girl's face. She was
listening to Wrandall and replying in monosyllables, but that she
was aware of the other woman's abstraction was not for an instant
to be doubted. Suddenly, after a quick glance at Sara's face, she
looked squarely into Booth's eyes, and he saw in hers an expression
of actual concern, if not alarm.

Leslie was in the middle of a sentence when Sara laughed aloud,
without excuse or reason. The next instant she was looking from one
to the other in a dazed sort of way, as if coining out of a dream.

Wrandall turned scarlet. There had been nothing in his remarks to
call for a laugh, he was quite sure of that. Flushing slightly,
she murmured something about having thought of an amusing story,
and begged him to go on, she wouldn't be rude again.

He had little zest for continuing the subject and sullenly disposed
of it in a word or two.

"What the devil was there to laugh at, Brandy?" he demanded of his
friend after the women had left them together on the porch a few
minutes later. Hetty had gone upstairs with Mrs. Wrandall, her arm
clasped tightly about the older woman's waist.

"I dare say she was thinking about you falling a mile or two," said
Booth pleasantly.

But he was perplexed.

CHAPTER XI

MAN PROPOSES

The young men cooled their heels for an hour before word was
brought down to them that Mrs. Wrandall begged to be excused for
the afternoon on account of a severe headache. Miss Castleton was
with her, but would be down later on. Meanwhile they were to make
themselves at home, and so on and so forth.

Booth took his departure, leaving Leslie in sole possession of
the porch. He was restless, nervous, excited; half-afraid to stay
there and face Hetty with the proposal he was determined to make,
and wholly afraid to lorsake the porch and run the risk of missing
her altogether if she came down as signified. Several things
disturbed him. One was Hetty's deplorable failure to hang on his
words as he had fondly expected her to do; and then there was that
very--disquieting laugh of Sara's. A hundred times over he repeated
to himself that sickening question: "What the devil was there to
laugh at?" and no answer suggested itself. He was decidedly cross
about it.

Another hour passed. His heels were quite cool by this time, but
his blood was boiling. This was a deuce of a way to treat a fellow
who had gone to the trouble to come all the way out in a stuffy
train, by Jove, it was! With considerable asperity he rang for a
servant and commanded him to fetch a time table, and to be quick
about it, as there might be a train leaving before he could get
back if it took him as long to find it as it took other people to
remember their obligations! His sarcasm failed to impress Murray,
who said he thought there was a schedule in Mrs. Wrandall's room,
and he'd get it as soon as the way was clear, if Mr. Wrandall didn't
mind waiting.

"If I minded waiting," snapped Leslie, "I wouldn't be here now."

"It's the thing most people object to in the country, sir," said
Murray consolingly. "Waiting for trains, sir."

"And the sunset," added Mr. Wrandall pointedly, with a westward
glare.

"We don't mind that, sir. We rather look forward to it. It means
one day less of waiting for the trains." It was rather cryptic,
but Leslie was too deeply absorbed in self-pity to take account of
the pathos in Murray's philosophy.

"What time is it, Murray?"

"Five-twenty, Mr. Wrandall."

"That's all, Murray."

"Thank you, sir."

As the footman was leaving, Sara's automobile whirled up to the
porte-cochere.

"Who is going out, Murray?" he called in surprise.

"Miss Castleton, sir. For the air, sir."

"The deuce you say!" gasped the harassed Mr. Wrandall. It was a
pretty kettle of fish!

Hetty appeared a few minutes later, attired for motoring.

"Oh, there you are," she said, espying him. "I am going for a spin.
Want to come along?"

He swallowed hard. The ends of his moustache described a pair of
absolutely horizontal exclamation points. "If you don't mind being
encumbered," he remarked sourly.

"I don't in the least mind," said she sweetly.

"Where are you going?" he asked without much enthusiasm. He wasn't
to be caught appearing eager, not he. Besides, it wasn't anything
to be flippant about.

"Yonder," she said, with a liberal sweep of her arm, taking in the
whole landscape. "And be home in time to dress for dinner," she
added, as if to relieve his mind.

"Good Lord!" he groaned, "do we have to eat again?"

"We have to dress for it, at least," she replied.

"I'll go," he exclaimed, and ambled off to secure a cap and coat.

"Sara has planned for a run to Lenox to-morrow if it doesn't rain,"
she informed him on his return.

"Oh," he said, staring. "Booth gets a day off on the portrait then."

"Being Sunday," she smiled. "We knock off on Sundays and bank
holidays. But, after all, he doesn't really get a holiday. He is
to go with us, poor fellow."

He looked as though he expected nothing. He could only sit back
and wonder what the deuce Sara meant by behaving like this.

It was not by way of being a profitable excursion, if we are to
judge by the amount of pleasure Leslie derived from the two hours'
spin through the cool, leafy byways of the forest with the obj ect
of his heart's desire on the seat beside him. He tried to screw up
his courage to the point of asking her why he shouldn't kiss her
band, which might have opened the way to more profound interrogations,
but somehow he felt unable to cope with the serenity that confronted
him. Moreover, he had a horrible conviction that the chauffeur
was a brute with abnormally long ears and a correspondingly short
sense of honour. No, it was not the time or the place for love-making.
He would have to be content to bide his time till after dinner,
which now began to lose some of its disadvantages. There was a most
engaging nook, he remembered, in the corner of the garden facing
the Sound, where the shadows were deep; where sentiment could thrive
on its own ecstasy; where no confounded menial dared to show his
face--although he had to admit that the chauffeur was most punctilious
in that respect.

And so he was satisfied to sit back in the corner of the seat and
feed his senses on the lovely creature before him. He had never seen
her so beautiful, so utterly worth having as now. He was conscious
of a great, overwhelming sense of pride, somewhat smothering in
its vastness. She was a creature to be proud of! His heart was very
full.

They returned at seven. Dinner was unusually merry. Sara appeared
to have recovered from her indisposition; there was colour in her
cheeks and life in her smile. He took it to be an omen of good
fortune, and was immeasurably confident. The soft cool breezes of
the star-lit night blew visions of impending happiness across his
lively imagination; fanned his impatience with gentle ardour; filled
him with surpressed sighs of contentment, and made him willing to
forego the delight of conquest that he might live the longer in
serene anticipation of its thrills.

Ten o'clock came. He arose and stretched himself in a sort of
ecstasy. His heart was thumping loudly, his senses swam. Walking
to the verandah rail he looked out across the moonlit Sound, then
down at the selected nook over against the garden wall--spot to
be immortalised!--and actually shivered. In ten minutes' time, or
even less, she would be down there in his arms! Exquisite meditations!

He turned to her with an engaging smile, in which she might have
discerned a prophecy, and asked her to come with him for a stroll
along the wall. And so he cast the die.

Hetty sent a swift, appealing look at Sara's purposely averted
face. Leslie observed the act, but misinterpreted its meaning.

"Oh, it is quite warm," he said quickly. "You won't need a wrap,"
he added, and in spite of himself his voice trembled. Of course
she wouldn't need a wrap!

"I have a few notes to write," said Sara, rising. She deliberately
avoided the look in Hetty's eyes. "You will find me in the library."

She stood in the doorway and watched them descend to the terrace,
a sphinx-like smile on her lips. Hetty seemed very tall and erect,
as one going to meet a soldier's fate.

Then Sara entered the house and sat down to wait.

A long time after a door closed stealthily in a distant part of
the house--the sun-parlour door, she knew by direction.

A few minutes later an upstairs door creaked on its hinges. Some
one had come in from the mellow night, and some one had been left
outside.

Many minutes passed. She sat there at her father's writing table
and waited for the other to come in. At last quick, heavy footfalls
sounded on the tiled floor outside and then came swiftly down the
hall toward the small, remote room in which she sat. She looked up
as he unceremoniously burst into the room.

He came across and stood over her, an expression of utter bewilderment
in his eyes. There was a ghastly smile on his lips.

"Damn it all, Sara," he said shrilly, "she---she turned me down."

He seemed incapable of comprehension.

She was unmoved. Her eyes narrowed, but that was the only sign of
emotion.

"I--I can't believe--" he began querulously. "Oh, what's the use?
She won't have me. 'Gad! I'm trembling like a leaf. Where's Watson?
Have him get me something to drink. Never mind! I'll get it from
the sideboard. I'm--I'm damned!"

He dropped heavily into a chair at the end of the table and looked
at her with glazed eyes. As she stared back at him she had the
curious feeling that he had shrunk perceptibly, that his clothes
hung rather limply on him. His face seemd to have lost all of its
smart symmetry; there was a looseness about the mouth and chin that
had never been there before. The saucy, arrogant moustache sloped
dejectedly.

"I fancy you must have gone about it very badly," she said, pursing
her lips.

"Badly?" he gasped. "Why--why, good heavens, Sara, I actually pleaded
with her," he went on, quite pathetically. "All but got down on my
knees to her. Damn me, if I can understand myself doing it either.
I must have lost my head completely. Begged like a love-sick school-boy!
And she kept on saying no--no--no! And I, like a blithering ass,
kept on telling her I couldn't live without her, that I'd make her
happy, that she didn't know what she was saying, and--But, good
Lord, she kept on saying no! Nothing but no! Do--do you think she
meant to say no? Could it have been hysteria? She said it so often,
over and over again, that it might have been hysteria. I never
thought of that. I--"

"No, Leslie, it wasn't hysteria, you may be sure of that," she said
deliberately. "She meant it, old fellow."

He sagged deeper in the chair.

"I--I can't get it through my head," he muttered.

"As I said before, you did it badly," she said. "You took too much
for granted. Isn't that true?"

"God knows I didn't EXPECT her to refuse me," he exclaimed, glaring
at her. "Would I have been such a fool as to ask her if I thought
there was the remotest chance of being--" The very thought of the
word caused it to stick in his throat. He swallowed hard.

"You really love her?" she demanded.

"Love her?" There was a sob in his voice. "I adore her, Sara. I
can't live without her. And the worst of it is, I love her now more
than I did before, Oh, it's appalling! It's horrible! What am I to
do, Sara? What AM I to do?"

"Be a man for a little while, that's all," she said coolly.

"Don't joke with me," he groaned.

"Go to bed, and when you see her in the morning tell her that you
understand. Thank her for what she has done for you. Be--"

"Thank her?" he almost shouted.

"Yes; for destroying all that is detestable in you, Leslie,--your
self-conceit, your arrogance, your false notions concerning
yourself,--in a word, your egotism."

He blinked incredulously. "Do you know what you're saying?" he
gasped.

She went on as if she hadn't heard him.

"Assure her that she is to feel no compunction for what she has
done, that you are content to be her loyal, devoted friend to the
end of your days."

"But, hang it, Sara, I LOVE her!"

"Don't let her suspect that you are humiliated. On the contrary,
give her to understand that you are cleansed and glorified."

"What utter tommy--"

"Wait! Believe me, it is your only chance. You will have to learn
some time that you can't ride rough-shod among angels. Think it
over, old fellow. You have had a good lesson. Profit by it."

"You mean I'm to sit down and twirl my thumbs and let some other
chap snap her up under my very nose? Well, I guess not!"

"Not necessarily. If you take it manfully, she may discover a new
interest in you. Don't breathe a word of love to her. Go on as if
nothing had happened. Don't forget that I told you in the beginning
not to take no for an answer."

He drooped once more, biting his lip. "I don't see how I can ever
tell mother that she refused--"

"Why tell her?" she inquired, rising.

His eyes brightened. "By Jove, I shan't," he exclaimed.

"I am going up to the poor child now," she went on. "I dare say
you have frightened her almost to death. Naturally she is in great
distress. I shall try to convince her that her decision does not
alter her position in this house. I depend on you to do your part,
Leslie. Make it easy for her to stay on with me."

He mellowed to the verge of tears.

"I can't keep on coming out here after this, as I've been doing,
Sara."

"Don't be silly! Of course you can. This will blow over."

"Blow over?" he almost gasped.

"I mean the first effects. Try being a martyr for a while, Leslie.
It isn't a bad plan, I can assure you. It may interest you to know
that Challis proposed to me three times before I accepted him, and
yet I--I loved him from the beginning."

"By Jove!" he exclaimed, coming to his feet with a new light in
his eyes. The hollows in his cheeks seemed to fill out perceptibly.

"Good-night!"

"I say, Sara dear, you'll--you'll help me a bit, won't you? I mean,
you'll talk it over with her and--"

"My sympathy is entirely with Miss Castleton," she said from the
doorway. His jaw dropped.

He was still ruminating over the callousness of the world in respect
to lovers when she mounted the stairs and tapped firmly on Hetty's
door.

His hopes began to revive. A new thought had entered in and lodged
securely among them, bracing them up amazingly. "By Jove," he said
to himself, staring hard at the floor, "I dare say I did go about
it badly. Sara was clever enough to see it. I must have taken her
off her feet with my confounded earnestness. Girls do lose their
heads, bless 'em, if you go at them with a rush. I'm sure she'll
look at it differently when she's had time to compose herself."
He was perplexed, however, over something he had not revealed to
Sara, and his sudden frown proved that it was still disturbing him.
"I can't for the life of me understand why she should have been so
damned horrified at the idea."

He started for the dining-room, recalling his need of a drink,
but changed his mind in the hall. Grabbing up his hat and stick,
he darted out of the house and was soon swinging briskly down the
moonlit avenue. He had come to the conclusion that a long walk
would prove settling; and moreover it wasn't a stupid idea to go
over and have his drink with Brandon Booth. The longer he walked,
the more springy his stride. Sara was quite right; he HAD gone
about it badly. He'd go about it differently next time.

Half way to Booth's cottage his pace slackened. A disconcerting
thought struck him, almost like a dash of cold water in the face:
Was she in love with Booth? He sat down on the rugged stone fence
to ponder. A cold perspiration broke out all over him. When he
next resumed his walk, his back was towards Booth's cottage. He
attributed the perspiration to the violence of his exercise.

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