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the dress. The poor child was in a panic."
The poor child! Christopher spoke the words with a lingering, melancholy tenderness.
Would he never be done with speaking of Leone? Carline withdrew her arm from his
clasp, and they walked along in silence until they came to a seat. Here Chris paused.
"I have something to tell you," he said, as if he had not already told her enough, much
more than enough. "Shall we sit down?"
It was one of the old hill seats, no more than a plank of wood fixed upon two supports,
polished and then re-polished a thousand times by the hill lovers who had rested there
to enjoy the view. The seat was set in a niche cut from the hill and shored up by a
stone wall. This protected users from the wind and it also gave them the pleasant
sensation of being in a small, private hill room of their own.
"Aldin rang me up at tea-time yesterday," Chris began conversationally. "He wanted
me to go down to Richmond with him, for a cocktail party."
"Did you go?" asked Carline.
"Not likely," said Christopher. "It came to me on the instant that if Aldin was going to a
party at Richmond, he wasn't here in Hilltown with you. I've practised going up the
stairs at the Terrace often enough, Carline, as you know, but I don't think I've ever
done it faster than yesterday. I flung some things into a bag, and I put the bag and
myself into the car and here I am. I came because I wanted a piece of information from
you."
It was evident that he wished her to ask him what the information was, but she did not
oblige him.
"I wanted to know Carline, it may be frightful cheek on my part, but I wanted to know
if you'd made up your mind to marry Aldin. Everyone says it's a certainty, but he hadn't
said a word to me and I I wondered. . ."
"I made up my mind last weekend," said Carline.
"Did you?"
The dejection in his voice made her turn to look at him.
"I couldn't marry him, Chris," she said. "I like Aldin. I like him immensely, but I couldn't
love him."
"Would I do instead?" said Chris quickly.
"I'd prefer you not to joke about it."
Carline tried to smile and had to turn her head away because the smile was not very
successful. The next moment, Chris was close beside her, casting his arms about her,
his lips upon her hair and his voice speaking into her ear.
"Do you think this is a joke?" he muttered, and tightened his clasp and held her closely,
almost fiercely. "I owe you everything that makes life worth living. I'm not at all sure
that I don't owe you my life itself."
Carline stiffened herself. Chris was still straightening the debt side of his ledger, she
thought. Not content with offering her the ten pounds for the dress, he was now
offering her, as in duty bound, that which remained of himself, after Leone, in return for
her services as a physiotherapist.
She shook her head, very slightly. Chris released her instantly, and moved himself
away from her and sat watching her intently. Carline did not want to be watched. The
touch of his lips on her hair and the clasp of his arms had stirred her profoundly. She
did not know how she had resisted the temptation to cast reason aside and melt into
his arms.
Presently he spoke again, tenderly.
"Such beautiful eyes," he said. "Such lashes to dream upon. It's a pity those wonderful
lashes should have to carry tears. What's the great grief, Carline? Couldn't you tell
me?"
He waited.
"Tell me," he said again. "Tell me, darling. . . ."
"It's Leone," she said at last. "Mrs. Burdock
told me how things were between you and I saw I
saw with my own eyes, time and time again. I saw your ring on her finger, before the
ball."
"Carline, I'm obliged to tell you that Leone took the ring from my desk. She was
listening outside that evening when I told you where it was. I have it back again now.
That was the evening when I told you I had made my will, in your favor. I thought I'd
given myself away completely then. When I said I had left my money to the girl I loved,
I was sure you knew I meant you and that you wouldn't let me say any more because
you wanted to let me down lightly, and didn't want to tell me that there wasn't any hope
for me, because of Aldin. I wanted to be sure you were all right for money if anything
happened to me, even if you did marry Aldin."
Carline turned her head and looked at him.
"When you were as you were when I first knew you, on the island, your only thought
was to send the ring home to Leone," she said. "I can't believe you've finished with
loving Leone."
"Carline," he said very gently. "I couldn't be finished with a thing I never began. I never
loved Leone. Years ago, some silly story got around that there was something
between me and Leone, but if Emily gave you the impression there was anything in it,
she was greatly mistaken. I don't want to say anything hard about Emily because she's
had a tough time. And Leone always was given to to demonstrations of affection. I
found that a bit tiresome at times.
"As for the ring, Leone had plagued my father, often, to give her the ring, but he
wouldn't do so, because it came down from my great-grandmother and he had given it
to my mother for her engagement ring. My father handed it over to me to keep, and
Leone made such a gefuffle that before I went overseas I promised her it should be
hers if I never married, meaning of course if I never came home. That day you came
along the hospital ward, on the island, I was convinced that I never should come home,
so I asked you to take the ring to Leone. I
should never have taken the thing out of England
it was mere family sentiment that made me do so."
Christopher put his hand into the inside pocket of his coat.
"Do you remember what you said to me that day in hospital, Carline? You said I ought
to bring the ring home myself, and put it on the finger of the girl I loved. Please, may I
do just that?"
He took her left hand and bent his head and set his lips to it. The next moment the opal
ring was on her finger, and the moment after that she was in his arms and he was
kissing her as if life had just begun. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]