Viviette | Page 4

herself on a bench beneath the apple blossoms.
"What things?"
"Everything. My position. Austin's airy ways."
"But that's what makes him so charming."
"Yes, confound him. My ways are about as airy as a hippopotamus's. Look here, Viviette. I'm fond of Austin, God knows--but all my life he has been put in front of me. He has had all the chances; I've had none. With my father when he was alive, with my mother, it has always been Austin this and Austin that. He was the head of the school when I, the elder, was a lout in the lower fourth. He had a brilliant University career and went into the world and is making a fortune. I'm only able to ride and shoot and do country things. I've stuck here with only this mortgaged house belonging to me and the hundred or so a year I get out of the tenants. I'm not even executor under my father's will. It's Austin. Austin pays mother the money under her marriage settlement. If things go wrong Austin is sent for to put them right. It never seems to occur to him that it's my house. Oh, of course I know he pays the interest on the mortgage and makes my mother an allowance--that's the humiliation of it."
He sat with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands, staring at the grass.
"But surely you could find some work to do, Dick?"
He shrugged his great shoulders. "They stuck me once in an office in London. I suffocated and added up things wrong and told the wrong lies to the wrong people, and ended up by breaking the junior partner's head!"
"You had some satisfaction out of it, at any rate," laughed Viviette.
A faint reminiscent smile crossed his face. "I suppose I had. But it didn't qualify me for a successful business career. No. I might do something in a new country. I must get away from this. I can't stand it. But yet--as I've told you all along, I'm tied--hand and foot."
"And so you're very miserable, Dick."
"How can I help it?"
Viviette edged a little away from him, and said, rather resentfully:
"I don't call that polite, seeing that I have come back to live with you."
He turned on her with some fierceness. "Don't you see that your being here makes my life all the more impossible? How can I be with you day after day without loving you, hungering for you, wanting you, body and soul? I've never given a thought to another woman in my life. You're my heart's blood, dear. I want to hold you so tight in my arms that not the ghost of another man can ever come between us. You know it."
Viviette shredded an apple blossom that had fallen into her lap. The fingers that held the petal tingled, and a flush rose in her cheek.
"I do know it," she said in a low voice. "You're always telling me. But, Dick"--she flashed a mischievous glance at him--"while you're holding me--although it would be very nice--we should starve."
"Then let us starve," he cried vehemently.
"Oh, no. Oh, most decidedly no. Starvation would be so unbecoming. I should get to be a fright--a bundle of bones and a rundle of skin--and you'd be horrified--I couldn't bear it."
"If you would only say you cared a scrap for me it would be easier," he pleaded.
"I should have thought it would be harder."
"Anyhow, say it--say it this once--just this once."
She bent her head to hide a smile, and said in a voice adorably soft:
"Dick, shut your eyes."
"Viviette!" he cried, with sudden hope.
"No. Shut your eyes. Turn round. Now tell me," she continued, when he had turned obediently, "just what I've got on. No!" she held him by the shoulders, "you're not to move."
Now, she was wearing a white blouse and a blue skirt and tan shoes, and a yellow rose was pinned at her bosom.
"What dress am I wearing?"
"A light-coloured thing," said Dick.
"And what's it trimmed with?"
"Lace," said the unfortunate man. Lace indeed!
"And what coloured boots?"
"Black," said Dick, at a venture.
"And what flower?"
"I don't know--a pink rose, I think."
She started up. "Look," she cried gaily. "Oh, Dick! I'll never marry you till you have the common decency to look at me--never! never! never! I dressed myself this beautiful morning just to please you. Oh, Dick! Dick, you've lost such a chance."
She stood with her hands behind her back regarding him mockingly, as Eve in the first orchard must have regarded Adam when he was more dull and masculine than usual--when, for instance, she had attired herself in hybiscus flowers which he took for the hum-drum, everyday fig-leaves.
"I'm a born duffer," said Dick pathetically. "But your face is all that I see when I look at you."
"That's all very pretty," she retorted. "But you ought to see more.