The Hollow of Her Hand

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Sara faced her squarely. "See here, Hetty," she said levelly, "we
have made our bed, you and I. We must lie in it--together. If Leslie
Wrandall chooses to fall in love with you, that is his affair, not
ours. We must face every condition. In plain words, we must play
the game."

"What could be more appalling than to have him fall in love with
me?"

"The other way 'round would be more dramatic, I should say."

"Good God, Sara!" cried the girl in horror. "How can you even speak
of such a thing?"

"After all, why shouldn't--" began Sara, but stopped in the middle
of her suggestion, with the result that it had its full effect without
being uttered in so many cold-blooded words. The girl shuddered.

"I wish, Sara, you would let me unburden myself completely to you,"
she pleaded, seizing her friend's hands. "You have forbidden me--"

Sara jerked her hands away. Her eyes flashed. "I do not want to
hear it," she cried fiercely. "Never, never! Do you understand?
It is your secret. I will not share it with you. I should hate you
if I knew everything. As it is, I love you because you are a woman
who suffered at the hand of one who made me suffer. There is nothing
more to say. Don't bring up the subject again. I want to be your
friend for ever, not your confidante. There is a distinction. You
may be able to see how very marked it is in our case, Hetty. What
one does not know, seldom hurts."

"But I want to justify myself--"

"It isn't necessary," cut in the other so peremptorily that the
girl's eyes spread into a look of anger. Whereupon Sara Wrandall
threw her arm about her and drew her down beside her on the
chaise-longue. "I didn't mean to be harsh," she cried. "We must
not speak of the past, that's all. The future is not likely to hurt
us, dear. Let us avoid the past."

"The future!" sighed the girl, staring blankly before her.

"To appreciate what it is to be," said the other, "you have but to
think of what it might have been."

"I know," said Hetty, in a low voice. "And yet I sometimes wonder
if--"

Sara interrupted. "You are paying me, dear, instead of the law,"
she said gently. "I am not a harsh creditor, am I?"

"My life belongs to you. I give it cheerfully, even gladly."

"So you have said before. Well, if it belongs to me, you might at
least permit me to develop it as I would any other possession. I
take it as an investment. It will probably fluctuate."

"Now you are jesting!"

"Perhaps," said Sara laconically.

The next morning Hetty set forth for her accustomed tramp over the
roads that wound through the estate. Sara, the American, dawdled
at home, resenting the chill spring drizzle that did not in the
least discourage the Englishwoman. The mistress of the house and
of the girl's destiny stood in the broad French window watching her
as she strode springily, healthily down the maple lined avenue in
the direction of the gates. The gardeners doffed their caps to her
as she passed, and also looked after her with surreptitious glances.

There was a queer smile on Sara's lips that remained long after the
girl was lost to view beyond the lodge. It was still on her lips
but gone from her eyes as she paused beside the old English table
to bury her nose in one of the gorgeous roses that Leslie had sent
out to Hetty the day before. They were all about the room, dozens
of them. The girl had insisted on having them downstairs instead of
in her own little sitting-room, for which they plainly were intended.

A nasty sea turn had brought lowering grey skies and a dreary,
enveloping mist that never quite assumed the dignity of a drizzle
and yet blew wet and cold to the very marrow of the bones. Hetty
was used to such weather. Her English blood warmed to it. As she
strode briskly across the meadow-land road in the direction of the
woods that lay ahead, a soft ruddy glow crept up to her cheeks,
and a sparkle of joy into her eyes. She walked strongly, rapidly.
Her straight, lithe young figure was a joyous thing to behold.
High boots, short skirt, a loose jacket and a broad felt hat made
up her costume. She was graceful, adorable; a young, healthy,
beautiful creature in whom the blood surged quickly, strongly: the
type of woman men are wont to classify as "ineffably feminine,"
though why we should differentiate is no small mystery unless
there really is such a thing as one woman possessing an adorably
feminine quality denied to her sisters. Be that as it may, there
IS a distinction and men pride themselves on knowing it. Hetty was
alluringly feminine. Leaving out the matter of morals, whatever
they are, and coming right up to her as an example of her sex, pure
and simple if you please, we are bound to say that she was perfect.
The best thing we can say of Challis Wrandall is that he took the
same view of her that we should, and fell in love with her. He
would have married her if he could, there isn't much doubt as to
that, no matter what she had been before he knew her or what she
was at the time of his discovery. No more is it to be considered
unique that his brother should have experienced a similar interest
in her, knowing even less.

She was the sort of girl one falls in love with and remembers it
the rest of his life.

Take her now, for instance, as she swings along the highway, fresh,
trim and graceful, her chin uptilted, her cheeks warm, her eyes
clear and as blue as sapphires, and we experience the most intense,
unreasoning desire to be near her, at her side, where hands could
touch her and the very spell of her creep out over one to make a
man of him.

The kind of woman one wants to draw close to him because his heart
is sweet.

She had the blood of a fellow creature on her hands--the blood of
one of us--and yet we men will overlook one commandment for another.
It is a matter of choice.

What of her present position in the house and in the heart of the
one woman who of all those we know is abnormally unfeminine in that
she subordinates the natural and instinctive animosity of woman
toward another who robs her of a husband, no matter how unworthy
or how hateful he may have been to her behind the screen with which
she hides her sores from the world. The answer is ready: Hetty
was a slave bound to an extraordinary condition. There had been no
coercion on the part of Challis Wrandall's wife; no actual restraint
had been set upon the girl. The situation was a plain one from every
point of view: Hetty owed her life to Sara, she would have paid
with her life's blood the debt she owed. It had become perfectly
natural for her to consider herself a willing, grateful prisoner--a
prisoner on parole. She would not, could not abuse the parole. She
loved her gaoler with a love that knew no bounds; she loved the
walls Sara had thrown up about her; she was content to live and
die in the luxurious cell, attended by love and kindness and mercy.
After all, Hetty was even more feminine than we seem able to convey
in words.

Not in that she lacked in pride or sensitiveness, but that she
possessed to a self-satisfying degree the ability to subordinate
both of these to a loyalty that had no bounds. There were fine
feelings in Hetty. She was honest with herself. She did not look
beyond her present horizon for brighter skies. They were as bright
as they could ever be, of that she was sure; her hopes lay within
the small circumference that Sara Wrandall made possible for her.
She knew that her peril, her ruin lay in the desire to step outside
that narrow circle, for out there the world was cold and merciless.

She lived as one charmed by some powerful influence, and was content.
Not once had the fear entered her soul that Sara would turn against
her. Her trust in Wrandall's wife was infinite. In her simple,
devoted heart she could feel no prick of dread so far as the present
was concerned. The past was dreadful, but it was the past, and its
loathsomeness was moderated by subtle contrast with the present.
As for the future, it belonged to Sara Wrandall. It was safe.

If Sara were to decide that she must be given up to the law, all
well and good. She could meet her fate with a smile for Sara, and
with love in her heart. She could pay in full if the demand was
made by the wife of the man she had left in the grim little upstairs
room at Burton's Inn on that never-to-be-forgotten night in March.

The one great, inexplicable mystery to her was the heart of Sara
Wrandall. She could not fathom it.

She could understand her own utter subjection to the will of the
other woman; she could explain it satisfactorily to herself, and
she could have explained it to the world. Self-preservation in the
beginning, self-surrender as time went on, self-sacrifice as the
prerogative.

And so it was, on this grey spring day, that she gazed undaunted at
the world, with the shadows all about her, and hummed a sprightly
tune through warm red lips that were kissed by the morning mist.

She came to the bridge by the mill, long since deserted and now
a thing of ruin and decay. A man in knickerbockers stood leaning
against the rail, idly gazing down at the trickling stream below.
The brier pipe that formed the circuit between hand and lips sent
up soft blue coils to float away on the drizzle.

She passed behind him, with a single furtive, curious glance at
his handsome, undisturbed profile, and in that glance recognised
him as the man she had seen the day before.

When she was a dozen rods away, the tall man turned his face from
the stream and sent after her the long-restrained look. There was
something akin to cautiousness in that look of his, as if he were
afraid that she might turn her head suddenly and catch him at it.
Something began stirring in his heart, the nameless something that
awakens when least expected. He felt the subtle, sweet femininity
of her as she passed. It lingered with him as he looked.

She turned the bend in the road a hundred yards away. For many
minutes he studied the stream below without really seeing it.
Then he straightened up, knocked the ashes from his pipe, and set
off slowly in her wake, although he had been walking in quite the
opposite direction when he came to the bridge,--and on a mission
of some consequence, too.

There was the chance that he would meet her coming back.

CHAPTER VII

A FAITHFUL CRAYON-POINT

Leslie Wrandall came out on the eleven-thirty. Hetty was at
the station with the motor, a sullen resentment in her heart, but
a welcoming smile on her lips. The sun shone brightly. The Sound
glared with the white of reflected skies.

"I thought of catching the eight o'clock," he cried enthusiastically,
as he dropped his bag beside the motor in order to reach over and
shake hands with her. "That would have gotten me here hours earlier.
The difficulty was that I didn't think of the eight o'clock until
I awoke at nine."

"And then you had the additional task of thinking about breakfast,"
said Hetty, but without a trace of sarcasm in her manner.

"I never think of breakfast," said he amiably. "I merely eat it.
Of course, it's a task to eat it sometimes, but--well, how are you?
How do you like it out here?"

He was beside her on the broad seat, his face beaming, his gay
little moustache pointing upward at the ends like oblique brown
exclamation points, so expansive was his smile.

"I adore it," she replied, her own smile growing in response to his.
It was impossible to resist the good nature of him. She could not
dislike him, even though she dreaded him deep down in her heart. Her
blood was hot and cold by turns when she was with him, as her mind
opened and shut to thoughts pleasant and unpleasant with something
of the regularity of a fish's gills in breathing.

"I knew you would. It's great. You won't care much for our place,
Miss Castleton. Sara's got the pick of the coast in that place of
hers. Trust old Sebastian Gooch to get the best of everything. If
my dad or my grand-dad had possessed a tenth of the brain that that
old chap had, we'd have our own tabernacle up there on the point,
instead of sulking at his back gate. That's really where we're
located, you know. His back gate opens smack in the face of our
front one. I think he did it with malice aforethought, too. His
back gate is two miles from the house. It wasn't really necessary
to go so far for a back gate as all that, was it? To make it worse,
he put a big sign over it for us to read: 'NO TRESPASSING. THIS
MEANS YOU.' Sara took it down after the old boy died."

"I suppose by that time the desire to trespass was gone," she said.
"One doesn't enjoy freedom of that sort."

"I've come to believe that the only free things we really covet
are passes to the theatre. We never get over that, I'm sure. I'd
rather have a pass to the theatre than a ten dollar bill any time.
I say, it was nice of you to come down to meet me. It was more than
I--er--expected." He almost said "hoped for."

"Sara was too busy about the house to come," she explained quickly.
"And I had a few errands to do in the village."

"Don't spoil it!"

"I am a horribly literal person," she said.

"Better that than literally horrible," he retorted, rather proud
of himself for it. "It's wonderful, the friendship between you two
girls--Sara's not much more than a girl, you see. You're so utterly
unlike in every way."

"It isn't strange to me," said she simply, but without looking at
him.

"Of course, I can understand it," he went on. "I've always liked
Sara. She's bully. Much too good for my brother, God rest his soul.
He never--"

"Oh, don't utter a thing like that, even in jest," she cried,
shocked by his glib remark.

He flushed. "You didn't know Challis," he said almost surlily.

She held her breath.

After a moment, the points of his little moustache went up again
in the habitual barometrical smile. Rather a priggish, supercilious
smile, she thought, taking a glance at his face.

"I say I can understand it, but mother and Vivian will never be
able to get it through those tough skulls of theirs. They really
don't like Sara. Snobs, both of 'em--of the worst kind, too. Why,
mother has always looked upon Sara as a--e---a sort of brigandess,
the kind that steals children and holds them for ransom. Of
course, old man Gooch was as common as rags--utterly impossible,
you know--but that shouldn't stand against Sara. By the way, her
father called her Sallie. Her mother was a very charming woman,
they say. We never knew her. For that matter, we never knew the
old man until he became prominent as a father-in-law."

The girl was silent. He went on.

"Mother likes you. She doesn't say it in so many words, but I
can see that she wonders how you can have anything in common with
Sara. She prides herself on being able to distinguish blue blood
at a glance. Silly notion she's got, but--"

"Please don't go on, Mr. Wrandall," cried Hetty in distress.

"I'm not saying she isn't friendly to Sara nowadays," he explained.
"She's changed a good deal in the last few months. I think she's
broadening out a bit. Since that visit to Nice, she's been quite
different. As a matter of fact, she expects to see a good bit of
Sara and you this summer. It's like a spring thaw, by Jove, it is."

"When does she come to the country?" asked Hetty, bent on breaking
his train of confidence.

"In three or four weeks. But, as I was saying, the mater has taken
a great fancy to you. She--"

"It's very nice of her."

"She prides herself, as I said before, but she always makes sure
by asking questions."

"Questions?"

"Yes. Although she could see through you as if you were plate glass,
she made it a point to ask Sara all the questions she could think
of. Over in Nice, you know. Of course Sara told her everything,
and now she's quite sure she can't be mistaken in people. Really,
Miss Castleton, she's very amusing sometimes, mother is."

Hetty was looking straight ahead, her face set.

"What did Sara tell her about me?"

"Oh, all that was necessary to prove to mother that she was right.
As if it really made any difference, you know."

"Please explain."

"What is there to explain? She merely gave your pedigree, as we'd
say at the dog show, begging your pardon, ma'am. Pedigrees are a
sort of hobby with the mater. She collects 'em wherever she goes."

He gave his moustache a little twist.

"Then my references are satisfactory, so to speak," said she, with
a wry little smile.

"Perfectly," said he, with conviction; "if we are to put any
dependence in the intelligence office."

"Doesn't it stagger Mrs. Wrandall somewhat to reconcile my pedigree
to the position I occupy in Sara's household--that of companion,
so to say?" asked Hetty, a slight curl to her lip.

He looked rather blank. "I don't believe she looks at you in just
that light," said he uncomfortably.

"I fancy you'd better enlighten her."

"Let well enough alone," quoted he glibly.

"But I AM a companion," insisted Hetty, a little spot of red in
each cheek.

"In a sense, I suppose," said he affably. "Of course, Sara puts
you down as a friend."

"I think you'd better understand my real position, Mr. Wrandall,"
said she firmly.

"I do," said he. "You are Sara's friend. That's enough for me.
The fact that your father was or is a distinguished English army
officer, and some sort of a cousin to a lord, and that you have
the entre to fashionable London drawing-rooms, is quite enough for
mother. That qualifies you to be companion to anybody, she'd say.
And there's the end to it."

She was looking at him in amazement. Her lips were slightly parted
and her eyes were wide. For a moment she was puzzled. Then a swift
smile illumined her face. She understood.

"Of course, in London, it really isn't anything to boast about,
getting into drawing-rooms," she said, vastly amused.

"Well, it is over here," said he promptly.

"And it isn't always open sesame to be related to a peer."

"I suppose not."

"Nevertheless, I am glad that your mother and Miss Vivian take
me for what I am. Do you, by any chance, go in for pedigree, Mr.
Wrandall?"

The shaft of irony sped over his head.

"Only in dogs and horses," he replied promptly. "It means a lot
when it comes to buying a dog or a horse."

"How do you feel when you've been sold?"

"I take my medicine."

"As a good sportsman should."

"I dare say you think I'm a deuce of a prig for saying the things--"

"On the contrary, I appreciate your candour."

"Don't hesitate to say it. I'm used to being called a prig. My
brother Challis always considered me one. I think he meant snob.
But that was because our ideals weren't the same. By the way, you
ought to like Vivian."

"That depends."

"On Vivian, I suppose?"

"Not precisely. I should say it depends on your sister's attitude
toward Sara."

"Oh, she likes Sara well enough. Viv's not particularly narrow,
Miss Castleton."

Hetty bestowed a smile upon him.

"That's comforting, Mr. Wrandall," she said, and he was silent for
a moment, reflecting.

"Do you know," said he, as if a light had suddenly burst in upon
him, "you've got more poise than any girl I've ever seen?"

"It's my bringing up, sir," she said mockingly.

"Ancestral habit," he explained, with a polite bow.

"Pedigreeable manners, perhaps."

"I wish the mater could have heard you say that." admiringly.

"Don't you adore the country at this time of the year?"

"When I get to heaven I mean to have a place in the country the
year round," he said conclusively.

"And if you don't get to heaven?"

"I suppose I'll take a furnished flat somewhere."

Sara was waiting for them at the bottom of the terrace as they
drove up. He leaped out and kissed her hand.

"Much obliged," he murmured, with a slight twist of his head in
the direction of Hetty, who was giving orders to the chauffeur.

"You're quite welcome," said Sara, with a smile of understanding.
"She's lovely, isn't she?"

"Enchanting!" said he, almost too loudly.

Hetty walked up the long ascent ahead of them. She did not have
to look back to know that they were watching her with unfaltering
interest. She could feel their gaze.

"Absolutely adorable," he added, enlarging his estimate without
really being aware that he voiced it.

Sara shot a look at his rapt face, and turned her own away to hide
the queer little smile that flickered briefly and died away.

Hetty, pleading a sudden headache, declined to accompany them later
on in the day when they set forth in the car to "pick up" Brandon
Booth at the inn. They were to bring him over, bag and baggage, to
stay till Tuesday.

"He will be wild to paint her," declared Leslie when they were
out of sight around the bend in the road. He had waved his hat to
Hetty just before the trees shut off their view of her. She was
standing at the top of the steps beside one of the tall Italian
vases.

Sara did not respond.

"By the way, Sara, is she the niece or the grand-daughter of old
Lord Murgatroyd? I'm a bit mixed."

"Her father is Colonel Castleton, of the Indian Army, and he is the
eldest son of a second son, if you don't find that too difficult
to solve. The second son aforesaid mentioned, so to speak, was the
brother of Lord Murgatroyd. That would make Colonel Castleton his
Lordship's nephew, but utterly without prospects of coming into a
title, as there are several healthy British obstacles in the way.
I suppose one would call Hetty a grand-niece."

"Mother wasn't quite certain whether you said niece or grand-daughter,"
explained Leslie. "Her mother's dead, I take it. Who was she?"

"Why are you so curious?"

"Isn't it quite natural?"

"Her mother was a Glynn. You have heard of the Glynns, of course?"
She trusted to his vanity and was rewarded. The question was a sort
of reproach.

"Certainly," he replied, without hesitation. The mere fact that she
spoke of them as "THE Glynns" was sufficient. It was proof enough
that they were people one ought to know, by name at least, if one
were to profess intelligence regarding the British aristocracy. As
a matter of fact, he had not heard of the Glynns, but that didn't
matter. "The Irish Glynns, you mean?" he ventured, taking a chance
at hitting the mark. He had a faint recollection of hearing her
say that Hetty was part Irish.

"You have only to look into her eyes to know she's Irish," she said
diplomatically.

"I've never seen such eyes," he exclaimed.

"She's a darling," said Sara and changed the subject, knowing full
well that he would come back to it before long. "Is it true that
Vivian and Mr. Booth are interested in each other?"

"Yes and no," he replied, with a profound sigh. "That is to say,
she's interested in him and he isn't interested in her--in the way
I take you to mean it. I suspect it's an easy matter for a girl to
fall in love with Brandy. He's a corking fine chap."

"Then it would be very nice for Vivian, eh?"

"Oh, quite so--quite so. His forbears came over with Noah, according
to mother. You know mother, Sara."

"Indeed I do," said she with conviction.

He laughed without restraint. "Mother can rattle off the best
families in the Bible without missing a name, beginning with the
Honourable Adam. Of course, she knows the Glynns and the Castletons
and the Murgatroyds, although I dare say they haven't had much to
do with the Bible. Come to think of it, she did go to the trouble
of looking up the Castleton family in the Debrett."

"She did?" exclaimed Sara, with a slight narrowing of the eyes.

"Yes. She established the connection all right enough. She's keen
for Miss Castleton."

"Oh," said she, relieved. After a moment: "And you?"

"I'm mad about her," he said simply, and then, for some unaccountable
reason, gave over being loquacious and lapsed into a state of almost
lugubrious quiet.

She glanced at his face, furtively at first, as if uncertain of
his mood, then with a prolonged stare that was frankly curious and
amused.

"Don't lose your head, Leslie," she said softly, almost purringly.

He started. "Oh, I say, Sara, I'm not likely to--"

"Stranger things have happened," she interrupted, with a shake of
her head. "I can't afford to have you making love to her and getting
tired of the game, as you always do, dear boy, just as soon as you
find she's in love with you. She is too dear to be hurt in that
way. You mustn't--"

"Good Lord!" he cried; "what a bounder you must take me for! Why,
if I thought she'd--But nonsense! Let's talk about something else.
Yourself, for instance."

She leaned back with a smile on her lips, but not in her eyes; and
drew a long, deep breath. He was hard hit. That was what she wanted
to know.

They found Booth at the inn. He was sitting on the old-fashioned
porch, surrounded by bags and boys. As he climbed into the car after
the bags, the boys grinned and jingled the coins in their pockets
and ventured, almost in unison, the intelligence that they would
all be there if he ever came back again. Big and little, they had
transported his easel and canvases from place to place for three
weeks or more and his departure was to be regarded as a financial
calamity.

"I could go to ten circuses this summer if that many of 'em was
to come to town," said one small citizen as Croesus rode away in
a cloud of village dust.

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