The Summons | Page 4

Charles Hardiman, might as well have held
his tongue.
So very likely it would have been. But when great matters are ripe for
decisions one way or the other, the little accident as often as not
decides. There was a hurrying of light feet in the corridor outside, a
swift, peremptory knocking upon the door. The same woman's voice
called in rather a shrill note through the panels! "Harry! Why don't you
come? We are waiting for you."
And in the sound of the voice there was not merely impatience, but a
note of ownership--very clear and definite; and hearing it Luttrell

hardened. He stood up straight. He had the aspect of a man in revolt.
CHAPTER II
AN ANTHEM INTERVENES
Upon the entrance of Hardiman's party a wrinkle was smoothed away
from the forehead of a _maître d'hôtel_.
"So! You have come!" he cried. "I began to despair."
"You have kept my table?" Sir Charles insisted.
"Yes, but with what an effort of diplomacy!"; and the _maître d'hôtel_
led his guests to the very edge of the great balcony. Here the table was
set endwise to the balustrade, commanding the crowded visitors, yet
taking the coolness of the night. Hardiman was contented with his
choice of its position. But when he saw his guests reading the cards
which assigned them their places, he was not so contented with the
order of their seating.
"If I had known an hour before!" he said to himself, and the astounding
idea crept into his mind that perhaps it was, after all, a waste to spend
so much time on the disposition of a dinner-table and the ordering of
food.
However, the harm was done now. There was Luttrell already seated at
the end against the balustrade. He had the noise of a Babel of tongues
and the glitter of a thousand lights upon his left hand; upon his right,
the stars burning bright in a cool gloom of deepest purple, and far
below the riding-lamps of the yachts tossing on the water like yellow
flowers in a garden; whilst next to him, midway between the fragrant
darkness and the hard glitter, revealing, as she always did, a kinship
with each of them, sat Stella Croyle.
"I should have separated them," Hardiman reflected uneasily as he
raised and drank his cocktail. "But how the deuce could I without
making everybody stare? This party wasn't got up to separate people.

All the same----"
The hushed wonder of a summer night. The gaiety of a bright thronged
restaurant! In either setting Stella Croyle was a formidable antagonist.
But combine the settings and she took to herself, at once by nature, the
seduction of both!
"Poor devil, he won't have a dog's chance!" the baronet concluded; and
he watched approvingly what appeared to him to be Luttrell's
endeavour to avoid joining battle on this unfavourable field. He could
only trust feebly in that and in the strength of the "something else," the
secret reason he was never to know.
It was about half-way through dinner when Stella Croyle, who had
directed many a furtive, anxious glance to the averted face of her
companion, attacked directly.
"What is the matter with you to-night?" she asked, interrupting him in
the midst of a rattle of futilities. "Why should you recite to me from the
guide-book about the University of Upsala?"
"It appears to be most interesting, and quaint," replied Luttrell hastily.
"Then we might hire a motor-car and run out there to luncheon.
To-morrow! Just you and I."
"No." Harry Luttrell exclaimed suddenly and Stella Croyle drew back.
Her face clouded. She had won the first round, but victory brought her
no ease. She knew now from the explosion of his "No" and the swift
alarm upon his face that something threatened her.
"You must tell me what has happened," she cried. "You must! Oh, you
turn away from me!"
From the dark steep garden at their feet rose a clamour of cheers--to
Luttrell an intervention of Providence.
"Listen," he said.

Here and there a man or a woman rose at the dinner tables and looked
down. Upwards along a glimmering riband of path, a group of students
bore one of their number shoulder-high. Luttrell leaned over the
balustrade. The group below halted; speeches were made; cheers broke
out anew.
"It is the Swedish javelin-thrower. He won the championship of the
world this afternoon."
"Did he?" asked Stella Croyle in a soft voice at his side. "Does he
throw javelins as well as you? You wound me every time."
Luttrell raised his head. It was not fear of defeat which had kept his
looks averted from Stella's dark and starry eyes. No thought of lists set
and a contest to be fought out had even entered his head. But he did