CHAPTER XVII
DROP-SCENE
"There is no man that imparteth his griefs to his friend but he grieveth the less."
Bacon.
Mrs. Cartwright went up to her room, but she did not pack those bags ofhers at once.
Instead, she put on her coat, tied a scarf over her head, changed hershoes, and went for a walk.
She knew that she must tire herself out. She had thought she was rathertired already from her tussle with the waves that afternoon, but thatwasn't enough. She must be more exhausted before she could sleep for afew hours. She would order them to call her very early in the morning,so that she could be packed and off before any of the other visitors hadleft their rooms.
She set out, and she couldn't have told anybody in what direction. Apath was soft--probably with pine-needles--beneath her feet. Before hereyes there was a striping of light on darkness; still a moon between thetrees.
She walked. She could not have said off-hand what she thought about asshe swung along. Not many definite thoughts filled her mind. Only a verydefinite picture of young Awdas's fair eaglet face, looking withstartled and pleased surprise into the face of that beautiful girl. Onelook; the boy had just been taken aback at the sight of a stranger, andsuch an unusually pretty one. Then and there Claudia Cartwright didn'therself know _why_ she knew that this, the look that did not seem tomean anything, meant ... everything.
It meant that she, the woman at her last love affair who had been withinan inch of accepting the proposal of that boy, must begin to pay,already, for her one moment of ecstasy.
The coming of that girl had stopped not one, but all kisses for her.
She knew what was coming between that boy, all awakened and malleablefrom his first passion, and that girl. They were heritors of an age inwhich Love has quickened his pace to keep up with the double-march ofwar.
She was resigned. She had foreseen it. Hadn't she said to him, "Waituntil you see me beside a real young girl"? It had come upon her ratherabruptly, that was all, but she need not really allow herself tosuffer....
She whistled a little tune between her teeth as she swung along. She wasthinking of nothing, she was just moving quickly and regularly, as amechanical toy that has been wound up to go for a certain time beforethe machinery runs down.
So mechanically, so fast she covered the ground. Suddenly a voice calledout, "Halt! Who's there? Mrs. Cartwright?"
With a start, she found that she was in the forest, approaching theclearing and the woodcutter's hut. The sturdy, square-set figure that,coming away from the hut, had encountered her on the moon-dappled path,was that of Captain Ross.
"Hullo!" she returned, brightly. "Have you been cat-calling on Mr.Brown? Isn't it perfectly lovely? After all, this is the time of day togo for walks, I find."
"Is that so? I thought this was the time of day you sat writing yourgreat worrrks."
"Sometimes; but how did you know?"
"You told me you were sitting up working that last time Awdas had thatinfairrrnal dream of his," said the Staff-officer. "That was how."
But at this the machinery that had kept Mrs.
Cartwright going so steadily for the last hour or more, broke downwithout warning. Without warning, she blurted out in a low, unnaturalvoice, "Oh, Captain Ross! I am----in such trouble."
Her limbs failed her and she would have fallen.
The next moment she found that she was sitting upon a pine-log, with herhead upon the solid support of Captain Ross's shoulder, and with his armthrown very comfortingly about her. She wept, copiously and silently,all her tears; the only tears a man had ever seen Claudia Cartwrightshed.
This man, to his eternal honour, made no attempt to check them or toenquire into them. He sat there, supporting her, clasping her with thearm of a brother--this man whom she had not before regarded as anyparticular friend of hers. She wept, taking his handkerchief, large andscented with cigarettes, that he presently stuffed into her hands. Sheknew that she must be making him feel miserably uncomfortable and upset;she cried on, unashamed in the silence of the wood, telling herself thatit would be for the one and only time that she would give herself thisrelief. Presently she sobbed out, "I loved him----"
Captain Ross's "Is that so?" was entirely unstartled and matter-of-fact.
Actually he had been too pole-axed with amazement to do anything but thenatural thing; but a finer judge of women might have been less of acomfort to her. He sat holding her stolidly until she gave thelong-drawn breath and the apology that mark the ebbing of the storm.
"Thank you so much," she was able to say presently, almost as lightly asif he had put a coffee-cup down for it. "You'll forget it, I know. Imust just tell you that it was in my own hands. I refused him. I shallbe glad, presently. But----"
She paused, and the man muttered awkwardly something about wishing therewere anything he could do----
She spoke softly but gravely now. "Captain Ross! Be very gentle, won'tyou, with that little, young girl?"
Captain Ross did not ask what young girl she meant.
PART II