No Hero | Page 6

of
the slender body, the humble angle of the cavalier hat, the faint flush
underneath, all formed together a challenge and an appeal which were
the more irresistible for their sweet shamefacedness. Acute
consciousness of the past (I thought), and (I even fancied) some
penitence for a wrong by no means past undoing, were in every
sensitive inch of her, as she sat a suppliant to the old player of that part.
And there are emotions of which the body may be yet more eloquent
than the face; there was the figure of Watts's "Hope" drooping over as
she drooped, not more lissom and speaking than her own; just then it
caught my eye, and on the spot it was as though the lute's last string of
that sweet masterpiece had vibrated aloud in Catherine's room.

My hand shook as I reached for my trusty sticks, but I cannot say that
my voice betrayed me when I inquired the name of the Swiss hotel.
"The Riffel Alp," said Catherine--"above Zermatt, you know."
"I start to-morrow morning," I rejoined, "if that will do."
Then Catherine looked up. I cannot describe her look. Transfiguration
were the idle word, but the inadequate, and yet more than one would
scatter the effect of so sudden a burst of human sunlight.
"Would you really go?" she cried. "Do you mean it, Duncan?"
"I only wish," I replied, "that it were to Australia."
"But then you would be weeks too late."
"Ah, that's another story! I may be too late as it is."
Her brightness clouded on the instant; only a gleam of annoyance
pierced the cloud.
"Too late for what, may I ask?"
"Everything except stopping the banns."
"Please don't talk nonsense, Duncan. Banns at nineteen!"
"It is nonsense, I agree; at the same time the minor consequences will
be the hardest to deal with. If they are being talked about, well, they are
being talked about. You know Bob best: suppose he is making a fool of
himself, is he the sort of fellow to stop because one tells him so? I
should say not, from what I know of him, and of you."
"I don't know," argued Catherine, looking pleased with her compliment.
"You used to have quite an influence over him, if you remember."
"That's quite possible; but then he was a small boy, now he is a grown
man."

"But you are a much older one."
"Too old to trust to that."
"And you have been wounded in the war."
"The hotel may be full of wounded officers; if not I might get a little
unworthy purchase there. In any case I'll go. I should have to go
somewhere before many days. It may as well be to that place as to
another. I have heard that the air is glorious; and I'll keep an eye on
Robin, if I can't do anything else."
"That's enough for me," cried Catherine, warmly. "I have sufficient
faith in you to leave all the rest to your own discretion and good sense
and better heart. And I never shall forget it, Duncan, never, never! You
are the one person he wouldn't instantly suspect as an emissary, besides
being the only one I ever--ever trusted well enough to--to take at your
word as I have done."
I thought myself that the sentence might have pursued a bolder course
without untruth or necessary complications. Perhaps my conceit was on
a scale with my acknowledged infirmity where Catherine was
concerned. But I did think that there was more than trust in the eyes
that now melted into mine; there was liking at least, and gratitude
enough to inspire one to win infinitely more. I went so far as to take in
mine the hand to which I had dared to aspire in the temerity of my
youth; nor shall I pretend for a moment that the old aspirations had not
already mounted to their old seat in my brain. On the contrary, I was
only wondering whether the honesty of voicing my hopes would
nowise counterbalance the caddishness of the sort of stipulation they
might imply.
"All I ask," I was saying to myself, "is that you will give me another
chance, and take me seriously this time, if I prove myself worthy in the
way you want."
But I am glad to think I had not said it when tea came up, and saved a
dangerous situation by breaking an insidious spell.

I stayed another hour at least, and there are few in my memory which
passed more deliciously at the time. In writing of it now I feel that I
have made too little of Catherine Evers, in my anxiety not to make too
much, yet am about to leave her to stand or to fall in the