Henry Van Dyke - "The White Bees"

Martin van Buren - "State of the Union Addresses of Martin van Buren"

Unknown - "Construction and Operation"

Peter B. Kyne - "The Valley of the Giants"

Winding Paths

G >> Gertrude Page >> Winding Paths




"I wonder who we both are?" he said.

"I can easily tell you who I am, as I'm so comfortably of no account.
My name is Harriet Pritchard, and my friends call me Hal. I live with
Brother Dudley, who is an architect; and if the world isn't any the
better for me, I hope it is sometimes a little gayer, that's all."

"And are you engaged to the young man whose steering gear went wrong?"

"No; I am not engaged to any one at all."

"Very nearly perhaps?"

"No; not even within sight of it. Being engaged, and always having to
go out with the same pal, would bore me to tears."

"I see." There was a note of satisfaction in his voice. In the
brighter lights he had observed that the warm ulster clung to a very
shapely figure, and covered a pair of fine shoulders, and even if she
was not pretty, for he could not be quite sure on the point, she was
certainly very attractive, and had a delightfully engaging smile.

"I wonder if there is room for another in the ranks."

Something a little condescending in the way he made the suggestion
nettled Hal.

"Aren't you a rather old?" she asked.

Again his ready laugh rang out.

"I'll give frankness for frankness. I am forty-eight."

"Goodness!... and I am twenty-five."

"Is that all? Then allow me to say you are a remarkably clever young
woman."

"A good many breadwinners are; they have to be. Some of them are too
clever even for Cabinet Ministers," and she chuckled joyfully.

In the darkness, she did not see the quick gleam in his eyes, as he
retorted:

"I don't think many Cabinet Ministers have the luck to meet a
breadwinner who is as attractive as she is clever."

"And if the did," sarcastically, "I suppose they would drop the
notoriety yarn and find time to consider whether the working woman is
treated fairly or not. The weakness in her defence at present seems
solely that not enough pretty women make up her defenders. Bah! You
all ought to have kittens to play with, and nanny goats and woolly
lambs."

"I don't know why you include me. What have I done?"

"Well, if you're going to Downing Street?"

"Why shouldn't I be going to a dinner-party?"

She turned and glanced up with a daredevil light in her eyes that
delighted him.

"I not only think you a member of Parliament, but, judging by your
fatuous air of superiority, I should imagine you are positively a
full-blown Cabinet Minister."

He busied himself with his steering wheel, while little chuckles of
enjoyment came out of his muffler.

"And supposing I were?" he said at last.

"Goodness!... I hope you're not?... " in quick alarm.

"Why do you hope so?"

"Oh, I don't know, except that I've never known a Cabinet Minister in
my life, and I never expected, if I met one, to treat him like... like
-"

"An old and fatuous lump of superiority!" with a gay laugh. "Well,
little woman, you needn't be in the least sorry. I don't know that
I've ever enjoyed a motor ride more. When will you come again?"

"_Are_ you a Cabinet Minister?..." she asked helplessly.

"Well, I hope you won't disapprove, for I have to plead guilty to being
Sir Edwin Crathie."

"Sir Edwin Crathie?" in abashed tones.

"They called me Squib at school." He said it in a whimsical, humorous
voice, looking down at her with very friendly eyes.

But Hal had grown silent.

"I'm afraid by your manner you do disapprove?"

"It is certainly embarrassing. I would rather you had been... well,
just any one."

"You'll get used to it," still with the twinkle in his eyes. "In the
meantime you haven't answered my question. When will you come for
another ride?"

She did not reply, and he leaned a little closer.

"You will come again?"

"I'm afraid Brother Dudley wouldn't like it"; and then they both
laughed.

"Will you come in?" as they drew up before her door.

"I'm afraid I haven't time; and besides, I'm a little afraid of Brother
Dudley. I only feel equal to the Prime Minister this evening."

She held out her hand.

"Well, thank you ever so much. You saved me from a dreadfully tight
corner."

"The thanks should be all mine; you saved me from unmitigated boredom.
I curses my chauffeur for going down with 'flu' to-day, but now I fee
ready to raise his salary for it."

He had pulled of his thick motoring-glove, and was holding her hand in
a firm, lingering clasp, which she quickly cut short, tucking both her
hands into her ulster pockets, and standing up very straight and slim
in the lamplight.

"I'll have to go though the confessional now," she told him, "and sit
on the stool of repentance for supper."

"No; don't repent; come again." He moved nearer.

"I'm naturally a very busy man, and I can't make engagements offhand,
but I can easily get at you on the telephone. Will you come some
afternoon, about half-past four?"

"I think you are very rash. How do you know I shall not bring the
colours, and wave them wildly down the street, shouting 'Votes for
Women'?"

"I'll risk it. Will you come?"

She moved away, latch-key in hand.

"I don't know. I won't promise, anyway. Good-bye, and my best thanks."

There was a rush of light through an open door, a last bright smile,
and he found himself alone in the street.





CHAPTER XIII


When Hal entered the sitting-room and met Dudley's eyes she felt, as
she afterwards described it to Lorraine, that she was in for it. Yet
it was not so very late, barely half-past nine. On the table her
supper was still waiting for her.

"We've had a slight accident," she said, taking the bully by the horns;
"something went wrong with the steering gear, and it delayed us. Have
you had supper?" noticing the table was still laid for two.

"I always have supper at eight on Sundays, because Mrs. White has to
clear it away herself, as you know. Isn't Dick coming in?"

"No. He's -" Hall stopped short, considering the advantages of
prevarication.

"I wanted to see him," testily. "He said he would give me a particular
address to-night. Why is he in such a hurry?"

"It wasn't Dick who brought me."

She took off her motor-bonnet and threw it on the sofa, running her
hands through her bright hair, and rubbing her cheeks, which were a
little cold.

"Not Dick?..." Dudley looked up from his book peremptorily. "Who did
bring you?"

Hal took her seat at the table.

"Well, you see, we had a slight accident. We had just stopped to
examine the steering gear, when another car came round a curve and
crashed into us. Dick's car was damaged, and..." she reached across
for the salad, and helped herself with as unconcerned an air as she
could muster... "Oh!... onions!... how scrumptious!... Mrs. White
always remembers my plebeian tastes, but not my patrician ones."

"Well!" he suggested coldly. "Dick's car was damaged, and -"

"Dick had to stay and nurse it."

"Then dit you come home by train?"

"There was no train. There was nothing else."

"Nothing else than what?"

"Nothing but the car that run into us, or going to an inn for the night
with Dick. I was afraid you wouldn't like that," with a mischievous
gleam.

"My likes and dislikes are not, apparently, of the smallest moment to
you, or you would not have been motoring late on Sunday at all."

"Dick can't go other days."

"Who was in this other car?"

"A man."

Again he glanced up quickly.

"Any one else?"

"No. His chauffeur is down with 'flu'."

"Was it some one you knew, then?"

"No. He told me on the way in."

"Am I to gather that you returned to London alone, in a motor-car, with
a perfect stranger?"

"I'm afraid you are."

"Why didn't Dick come with you? Surely if he takes you out for the day
he might at least see you safely home. I never heard of such
proceedings in my life. The man might have been a positive blackguard.
Had you any idea who he was?"

"No, none; but what's the use of making a fuss! It's all right now,
and I'm safely at home; which is surely better than being in some weird
village all night, and you wondering what on earth had become of me."

"That is not the question. It's the whole circumstance from beginning
to end. I consider Dick's behaviour most reprehensible."

"He couldn't leave his car alone there in the middle of a Kentish high
road. He had to stay somewhere near."

"I think he should have considered you of more importance than the car.
To let you return alone, at that hour, with a perfect stranger, is the
most unheard of proceeding. I shall certainly tell Dick what I think
of him."

"It wasn't Dick's fault," loyally. "I just took the matter into my own
hands and came. Dick had nothing to do with it. In fact, I insisted
upon his remaining behind."

"Oh, of course you would. You only seem to be happy when you are
flying in the face of some convention or other. But Dick is older than
you, and he knows my views on these matters. He owed it to me to see
you safely home."

"But since I am safely home!..." obstinately.

"You very well might not have been. What the stranger himself must
think of you I don't know. Have you any idea who he was?"

"Yes. Sir Edwin Crathie?"

"Sir Edwin Crathie! Do you mean the Cabinet Minister?"

"So he said."

"And did you tell him who you were?"

Again there was a gleam under the lowered lashes.

"I did; but I can't say he either recognised our historie name or
seemed much impressed. I really don't believe he had ever heard of me."

Dudley refused to smile. Instead the frown deepened on his face.

"That is probably just as well. Your actions of late cannot be said to
be entirely to your credit. What is this tale about Thursday night? I
met St. Quintin's father with Uncle Bruce this morning in the Park.
You told me Quin's aunt was going to chaperone you. Did she or did she
not?"

"I told you Lady Bounce was going to chaperone me. Lady Bounce _did_
chaperone me."

"Is Lady Bounce Quin's aunt?"

"That depends." Hal pushed away her chair, wishing vaguely that
fathers and uncles would mind their own business. Either incident
alone she could have coped with, but it was a distinct imposition to
expect her to manage both at once, and on Sunday night into the bargain.

"I can only presume you lent yourself to such a vulgar proceeding as
Quin dressing up as a woman and acting chaperone. Is that the truth?"

"Not entirely. You see, he wasn't an ordinary woman. He went as his
aunt, Lady Phyllis Fenton. His personification was a masterpiece."

Dudley began to pace the room. His thin lips were compressed into a
straight line, and his whole air distincly worried.

"What you seem quite unable to perceive is the way in which these
incidents reflect upon your good taste and upon my guardianship."

Hal grew suddenly nettled.

"It is nonsense to talk of guardianship now. I am twenty-five, and I
earn my own living. I am perfectly well able to take care of myself."

"No; that is just what you are not. You are so rash and inconsequent."

"Well, anyhow I get a good deal out of my life, while you -"

He remembered his own Thursday evening and intercepted:

"It is possible to get a great deal out of life without outraging every
convention. Do you imagine either Ethel or Doris Hayward would do the
wild things you do?"

"Ethel Hayward is a brick. She couldn't be straitlaced anyhow, nor
narrow-minded. Doris would do anything under the sun that suited her
own ends."

She got up, and turned away without perceiving his frown, beginning to
gather up her paraphernalia. He stopped short in his walk.

"If it really was Sir Edwin Crathie who brought you home, I must write
and thank him, I think."

"I shouldn't bother; probably it wasn't him at all; only some
third-rate actor."

Dudley tried to see her face, not sure if she was serious or not, but
she kept her head averted as she added:

"Quite possibly it was Lord Bounce."

"You are always treating a serious subject with levity," he complained.
"What am I to think? Do you or do you not believe your escort was Sir
Edwin Crathie?"

"Well, as he was awfully afraid I might be a militant suffragette, I
think he really was a Cabinet Minister."

"I hope you entirely undeceived him on that score," drily.

"Not at all. I told him I was tingling to scratch him and bite him,"
and the ghost of a smile crossed her lips.

Dudley relapsed into silent displeasure, and for a few moments neither
spoke. Then Hal, with her garments on her arm, came round to him with
a frank, affectionate air.

"Dudley, don't make mountains out of molehills over nothing. I know I
am a little wild. I can't help it - we seem to have got mixed up
somehow. You've got all the decorum and nice, refined feelings of a
charming woman, and I've got the enterprise and 'don't-care' spirit of
a man. It isn't any use fighting against facts. You must take me as I
am, and make the best of it. I can't change now; and I don't know that
I would if I could."

"I don't suppose you would. You positively glory in the very traits
that I deplore"; but his voice sounded mollified.

"Oh well, old man, you wouldn't like me to be helpless, and foolish,
and woolly-lambified, would you? It wouldn't be half so interesting.
Just fancy if you had a sister like Doris Hayward, can you imagine
anything tamer?"

He stiffened again, but she did not notice it.

"As for Thursday night, you never ought to have heard about it, and you
never would have done if Uncle Bruce had not been such an old telltale.
Just wait till I get him alone; that's all. Anyhow, he didn't think
it a heinous crime did he ? I expect he gave a great laugh that
startled every one within hearing."

As that was exactly what had happened, Dudley made no comment.

"And Sir Edwin Crathie would only have thought me a fool if I had been
afraid to come back with him. These things will happen occasionally.
They are not worth worrying about. You are too anxious over trifles,
Dudley." She moved away towards the door. "Well, good-night, don't
forget to return thanks that anyhow I am not in a hospital, generally
smashed up."

She left him, and retired to bed, feeling a little depressed. Of
course he had not forgiven her, nor would he see things from her point
of view. She almost wished he did not mind; but all her life she had
had an affection that was almost adoration for her one brother, and it
always depressed her to displease him, however indifferent she might
seem.

She awoke next morning with the sense of depression still lingering,
and set off for the City in far from her usual spirits. The office
seemed dingy and dull, and the routine wearisome. It felt like ages
and ages since she had driven home through the darkness in Sir Edwin's
beautiful car. She wondered if it was real at all; only what else
should make all the old friends at the office appear so uninteresting
and commonplace.

She speculated a little forlornly as to whether she would ever be
likely to see him again, and decided it was most unlikely, and that
probably he had already forgotten the whole incident.

And just when she had reached that point in her meditations, the
telephone boy came to tell her some one was asking for her. She asked
him dispiritedly who it was, and he replied that the gentleman had
declined to give a name.

Hal shut herself into the case, took down the receiver, and, still
dispiritedly, asked: "Hullo! Are you there?"

"Is that Miss Pritchard?" asked a voice that made her pulses hasten.

"Yes? Who is that?"

"The mere worm," came back the cheery answer.

"What's the matter? You sound somewhat funereal. Was Brother Dudley
very angry?"

"Terrible. I am still recovering. He seemed to have grave doubts as
to whether you really were the eminent person you professed to be!"

"Oh, he did, did he? And what did you say?"

"That it was quite possible you were only a third-rate actor all the
time."

"Thanks. I shall not grow vain on your compliments. Have you any
grave doubts yourself?"

"I don't mind either way."

"Thanks again. Well, I am speaking to you from my own private sanctum
at the House of Commons; and if you want to make sure, you can take my
number, and ring up the Exchange and inquire."

"I'll take your word for it."

"Good girl. You don't sound quite so obstreperous as you were last
night. What's the matter?"

"I'm only Mondayfied. The office is always boring on a Monday."

"I'm sorry I can't suggest a spin this afternoon, but I'm too much
engaged until Wednesday. Will you come on Wednesday? Well?" as Hal,
appeared to be meditating.

"Where do you propose going?" she asked.

"Anywhere you like. I'd better not fetch you from the office though.
I'll pick you up just casually in St. Jame's Park. Will you be there
at five, near the Archway?"

"All right, if I can get away. How shall I let you know if I change my
mind?"

"Don't do anything so childish. The run will do you good after a
stuffy office. I'll be there to the minute. Good-bye," and he rang
off without waiting for a reply.

Hal went back to her work, with a pleasurable sensation that instead of
grey stuffiness there was joyful sunshine. She had never imagined for
a moment het would actually carry out his suggestion of a meetingt; and
here they were with an actual appointment.

It was so odd, too, that they had not properly seen each other yet;
only having met in the light of street lamps; and she fell to wondering
eagerly what he was like in broad daylight. A voice whispered,
"Perhaps you won't like him at all, and will wish you had not gone";
but her love of adventure easily silenced it, and she looked forward to
her outing without any misgivings.

Once she thought she would go an tell Lorraine about it first, but
later decided it would be more enjoyable to to so afterwards, and kept
her own counsel; which perhaps was not entirely wise, seeing how much
more cause Lorraine had to know the world than she had.





CHAPTER XIV


Sir Edwin Crathie had come to the front very rapidly under the auspices
of the Liberal Government. Without having any special worth, he was
sufficiently brilliant and unscrupulous to brush obstacles aside
without compunction, and assert himself in a manner that impressed his
hearers with the notion that he was very clever, very thorough, and
very reliable.

Those who knew him superficially believed him extra-ordinarily clever.
Those who knew him intimately sometimes shrugged their shoulders. He
was possessed undoubtedly of a certain flashy sort of cleverness, but
some of his greatest skill existed in imposing it upon others as
strenght and insight.

As may be imagined, such a man was not much troubled with principles.
If a step was likely to help him forward with his ambitions, he took it
without considering the moral aspect. If no help was likely to follow,
he only took it if it happened to please his fancy. To say that he had
climbed by women was to put it mildly.

Many of his steps he had taken on women's hearts, trampling them
mercilessly in the process. And since he was admittedly unscrupulous,
it was not surprising, for he was possessed not only of an attractive
appearance, but of great personal magnetism when he chose to exert it.

He was a bachelor because so far he had considered the single state
best forwarded his aims, but a growing and imperative need for money
was now causing him to look round among the richest heiresses for some
one to pay his debts in consideration of being made Lady Crathie.

In the meantime Hal's independent spirit and freshness suggested an
entertaining interlude; and as she attracted him more strongly than any
woman had done of late, he decided to follow up their chance friendship
just for the amusement of it.

In consequence, he felt quite boyishly eager for the hours to pass on
Wednesday, and when at last it was time to start, dismissed his
chauffeur with a curt sentence, and started off alone. The chauffeur,
it may be mentioned, merely glanced after him, and with a shrug of his
shoulders wondered "what the master was up to now."

When Sir Edwin reached the meeting-place he was not particularly
surprised to find no signs of Hal. He believed she would come; but
evidently she liked being perverse, and would purposely keep him
waiting. He ran the car slowly back again, scanning each pedestrian
ahead with a certain anxious eagerness, wondering how he would like her
in broad daylight.

On returning to the Archway, and still finding no one waiting, he
alighted with a pretence of examining some part of the car, and looked
back over the paths leading down from Piccadilly.

And something in his mental regions felt rather foolishly glad when he
recognised her afar off.

He had never seen her walk, but his instinct told him Hal would move
with just the graceful, swinging stride of the tall, slim figure coming
towards him, and carry her head and shoulders with just such a
dauntless, grenadier attitude.

He found himself standing quite still, with his hands deep in his
overcoat pockets, watching her. Her costume, too, pleased his
fastidious taste. Of course a first-class tailor had cut a coat and
skirt with a fit and hang like that; and the small hat, if it had
nothing Parisian about it, anyhow suited the wearer and dress to
perfection.

He noted with quiet pleasure that she showed no signs of embarrassment
when she met his watching gaze, merely crossing the road with the same
jaunty, upright walk, and a gleam of fun in her eyes.

"Hullo!" was her greeting. "Hope I haven't kept you waiting. I've had
a busy afternoon helping my chief to give you and The Right Honourable
Hayes Matheson a good slanging."

"Oh, you have, have you?"

The grey eyes were growing more and more approving, as he noted each
detail most likely to appeal to a man who had made a study of women for
many years. The shapely little ears with the glossy hair curling round
them, the full, rounded throat, the determined little chin, the frank,
fearless eyes.

He still hardly knew whether she was pretty or not, but he discerned
wery quickly that she was amply blessed with that rare gift of
personality and humour that is so much more durable than a pretty face.

Hal, for her part, was no less interested in him, but she found little
else than that she had already seen: humorous, quizzical grey eyes, a
face a good deal lined, and a mouth and chin suggesting a nature fond
of enjoyment and self-indulgence, which it had never seen any cause to
deny itself. She saw that he was very grey about the temples, and a
trifle inclined to stoutness, but tall enough and broad enough to carry
it off.

A fine figure of a man, though one, she felt instinctively, belonging
to a very different world to hers. Because she felt his careful
scrutiny, and because she wanted to assert her indifference to it, she
remarked suddenly, after a moment:

"Well, how do you like me by daylight?"

"How do you like me?" he retorted, and laughed.

She shook her head, and her eyes grew mischievous.

"Old," she said; "quite old and grey."

"Old be damned! Forty-eight is the prime of life."

She was taking her seat, and gave a low chuckle of enjoyment at having
drawn him.

"Ah, you may laugh now," he said, "but I'll soon show you forty-eight
is far more attractive than twenty-eight. Where shall we go?"

"I don't mind in the least, but I should prefer to steer for tea and
buns."

"Tea and buns!... how like a woman!... How can you expect to get the
vote on tea and buns?"

They were spinning along the Broughton Road now, heading for Putney and
Richmond, and Hal felt her spirits rising momentarily with the joy of
the motion and comfort and fresh air.

"We don't expect to get in on tea and buns; we expect to get it on
whisky and beer. That is to say, we expect the course of events to
prove that tea and buns conduce to a frame of mind better able to cope
with the questions of the day than the whisky and beer drained in such
quantities by men."

"And when you've got it you'll all vote for the man who happens to be
good-looking, and who can pay you the prettiest compliments."

"A few will vote that way, no doubt, but not the majority. Women are
not so fond of pretty men as they were"; and her lips curled
significantly.

"Pretty men!..." he echoed, with enjoyment.

"Little woman, you have a neat way of putting things."

He was silent a few minutes, then added:

"I suppose, down at that office they are all in love with you?"

"I don't know. I haven't asked them," with twinkling eyes. "I'm a bit
in love with the chief myself."

"Oh, your are, are you? And what aged man might he be?"

"Oh, he's quite old," she laughed; "somewhere about forty-eight."

"And is he in love with you?"

"It just depends. Sometimes he's rather fond of me on a Saturday; but
on Mondays he loathes me."

"I see. And are you as changeable?"

"No, I love him always; but on Mondays it's mostly from habit. On
Saturdays it's from choice."

He looked down at her, and it was on the tip of his tongue to state
some commonplace about being jealous. Then suddenly he looked back to
his steering wheel, and the commonplace sentence died unspoken. Quite
unaccountably he felt less inclined to flirt and more inclined to be
really friendly, and for some distance they skimmed along in silence.

Copyright (c) 2007. topbookz.net. All rights reserved.