Greatheart

  CHAPTER XII

  THE WINE OF THE GODS

  The rink was ablaze with fairy-lights under the starry sky. Rose deVigne, exquisitely fair in ruby velvet and ermine furs paused on theverandah, looking pensively forth.

  Very beautiful she looked standing there, and Captain Brent of theSappers striding forth with his skates jingling in his hand stopped asone compelled.

  "Are you waiting for someone, Miss de Vigne? Or may I escort you?"

  She looked at him with a faint smile as if in pity for hisdisappointment. "Too late, I am afraid, Captain Brent. I have promisedSir Eustace to skate with him."

  "Who?" Brent glanced towards the rink. "Why, he's down there alreadydancing about with your little cousin. That's her laugh. Don't you hearit?"

  Dinah's laugh, clear and ringing, came to them on the still air. Rose'sslim figure stiffened very slightly, barely perceptibly, at the sound."Sir Eustace has forgotten his engagement," she said icily. "Yes, CaptainBrent, I will come with you."

  "Good business!" he said heartily. "It's a glorious night. Somebody saidthere was a change coming; but I don't believe it. Maddening if a thawcomes before the luging competition. The run is just perfection now. I'mgoing up there presently. It's glorious by moonlight."

  He chattered inconsequently on, happy in the fact that he had secured theprettiest girl in the hotel for his partner, and not in the leastdisturbed by any lack of response on her part. To skate with her hand inhand was the utmost height of his ambition just then, his brain not beingof a particularly aspiring order.

  Down on the rink all was gaiety and laughter. The lights shone ruby,emerald, and sapphire, upon the darting figures. The undernote of therushing skates made magic music everywhere. The whole scene wasfantastic--a glittering fairyland of colour and enchantment.

  "Each evening seems more splendid than the last," declared Dinah.

  "They always will if you spend them in my company," said Sir Eustace. "Doyou know I could very soon teach you to skate as perfectly as you dance?"

  "I believe you could teach me anything," she answered happily.

  "Given a free hand I believe I could," he said. "But the gift is yours,not mine. You have the most wonderful knack of divining a mood. You adaptyourself instinctively. I never knew anyone respond so perfectly to theunspoken wish. How is it, I wonder?"

  "I don't know," she answered shyly. "But I can't help understanding whatyou want."

  "Does that mean that we are kindred spirits?" he asked, and suddenly theclasp of his hands was close and intimate.

  "I expect it does," said Dinah; but she said it with a touch ofuneasiness. The voice that had spoken within her the night before,warning her, urging her to be gone, was beginning to murmur again,bidding her to beware.

  She turned from the subject with ready versatility, obedient to thedanger-signal. "Oh, there is Rose! I am afraid I ran away from her afterdinner. They went upstairs for coffee, but I was so dreadfully afraid ofbeing stopped that I hung behind and escaped. I do hope the Colonel won'tbe in a wax again. But I don't see that there was anything wicked in it;for Lady Grace herself is coming to look on presently."

  "I skated with Miss de Vigne nearly all the afternoon," observed SirEustace. "But she is a regular ice-maiden. I couldn't get any enthusiasmout of her. Tell me, is she like that all through? Or is it just a pose?"

  "Oh, I don't know," Dinah said. "I've never got through the outer crust.But then of course I'm far beneath her."

  "How so?" asked Sir Eustace.

  She laughed up at him with the happy confidence of a child. "Can't yousee it for yourself? I--I am a mere guttersnipe compared to the deVignes. They live in a great house with lots of servants and cars. Theynever do a thing for themselves. I don't suppose Rose could do her hairto save her life. While we--we live in a tumble-down, ramshackle oldplace, and do all the work ourselves. I've never been away from home inmy life before. You see, we're poor, and Billy's schooling takes up a lotof money. I had to leave school when he first went as a boarder. And thatis three years ago now. So I have forgotten all I ever learnt."

  "Except dancing," he suggested.

  "Oh, well, that's born in me. I couldn't very well forget that. Mymother--" Dinah hesitated momentarily--"my mother was a dancer before shemarried."

  "And she taught you?" asked Sir Eustace.

  "No, no! She never taught me anything except useful things--like cookingand sewing and house-work. And I detest them all," said Dinah frankly. "Ilike sweeping the garden and digging the potatoes far better."

  "She keeps you busy then," commented Sir Eustace, with semi-humorousinterest.

  "Busy isn't the word for it," declared Dinah. "I'm going from morningtill night. We do the washing at home too. I get up at five and go to bedat nine. I make nearly all my own clothes too. That's why I haven't gotany," she ended naively.

  He laughed. "Not really! But what makes you work so hard as that? You'rewasting all your best time. You'll never be so young again, you know."

  "I know!" cried Dinah, and suddenly a wild gust of rebellion wentthrough her. "It's hateful! I never knew how hateful till I came here.Going back will be--too horrible for words. But--" her voice fellabruptly flat--"what am I to do?"

  "I should go on strike," he said lightly. "Tell your good mother that shemust find someone else to do the work! You are going to take it easy andenjoy yourself."

  Dinah uttered a short, painful laugh.

  "Wouldn't that do?" he asked.

  "No."

  "Why not?" he questioned with indolent amusement. "Surely you're notafraid of the broomstick!"

  Dinah gave a great start, and suddenly, as they skated, pressed close tohim with the action of some small, terrified creature seeking shelter."Oh, don't--don't let us spoil this perfect night by talking of my homeaffairs!" she pleaded, her voice quick and passionate. "I want to puteverything right away. I want to forget there is such a place as home."

  His arm was around her in a moment. He held her caught to him. "I cansoon make you forget that, my Daphne," he said. "I can lead you throughsuch a wonderland as will dazzle you into complete forgetfulness ofeverything else. But you must trust me, you know. You mustn't be afraid."

  He was drawing her away from the glare of coloured lights as he spoke,drawing her to the further end of the rink where stood a tiny, rusticpavilion.

  She went with him with a breathless sense of high adventure, skimming theice in time with his rhythmic movements, mesmerized into an enchantedquiescence.

  They reached the pavilion, and he paused. The other skaters were leftbehind. They stood as it were in a magic circle all their own. And onlythe moon looked on.

  "Ah, Daphne!" he said, and took her in his arms.

  There came to Dinah then a wild and desperate sense of fear, fear thatwas coupled with a wholly unreasoning and instinctive shame. She strainedback from him. "Oh no! Oh no!" she gasped. "I mustn't! I'm sure it'swrong!"

  But he mastered her very slowly, wholly without violence, yet whollyirresistibly. His dark face with its blue, compelling eyes dominated her,conquered her. And all her life resistance had been quelled in her. Herwill wavered and was down.

  "Why should it be wrong?" he whispered. "I tell you that nothingmatters--nothing matters. We take our pleasures, and we tell no one. Itis no one's business but our own, sweetheart. And nothing is wrong, if noharm is done to anyone."

  Subtle, alluring, half-laughing, half-relentless, he drew her closer yet,he bent and pressed his lips upon her upturned face. But she quiveredstill and shrank, though unresisting. She could not give her lips to his.His kiss burned through and through her, so that she longed to flee awayand hide.

  For though that kiss sent a thrill of wild ecstasy through her, there wasanguish mingled therewith. Even while she exulted over her unexpectedvictory, she was smitten with the thought that it had cost her too dear.Had she told him too much about herself that he held her thus cheaply?Would he--however urgent his desire to do so--would he have dreamed oftreating
Rose thus? Or any other girl of his own standing?

  The thought went through her like a dagger. She bent herself back overhis arm avoiding his lips a second time. That one kiss had opened hereyes.

  "Oh, let me go!" she said, her voice muffled and tremulous. "Youmustn't--ever--do it again."

  "Why not?" he whispered softly. "What does it matter? This is the land ofno consequences."

  "I can't help it," she whispered back. "It may not mean anything to you.But--but--it makes me feel--wicked."

  He laughed at her with tender ridicule. His arms still held her, but nolonger closely.

  "Don't be afraid, my elf of the mountains!" he said. "I won't do itagain--yet. But there is nothing in it I tell you. And what does itmatter if no one knows? Why shouldn't you have all the fun you can get?"

  Dinah straightened herself, and passed her hands over her face with anoddly childish gesture. He behaved as though he had conferred a favourupon her; but yet the horrible feeling of shame lingered. Her mother'smost drastic punishments had never humbled her more completely.

  She drew herself from his hold. "I feel it does matter," she said, hervoice pathetically small and shy. "But--I know you didn't mean to--tooffend me. So let's forget it, please! Let's go back!"

  She gave him her hand with a timid gesture, and he took it with a smilethat held arrogance as well as amusement. "We will go back certainly," hesaid. "But we shall not forget. We have tasted the wine of the gods, myDaphne, and there is magic in the draught. Those who drink once are boundto come again for more."

  "Oh no! Oh no!" said Dinah.

  But even as she said it, she felt herself to be battling against destiny.

  In that moment she knew beyond all doubting that by some means of whichshe had no understanding he had caught her will and made it captive.Elude him though she might for a time, she was bound to be his helplessprisoner at the last.

  Yet his magnetism was such that she yielded herself to him almostmechanically as they went back into the giddy vortex of the carnival.Even in the midst of her dismay and uncertainty, she was strangely,almost deliriously happy.

  Romance with gold-tipped wings unfurled had suddenly descended from thehigh heavens and flitted before her, luring her on.