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Page 91
Should she run?
No--the footsteps were coming up, not down. Some one from the
village. Perhaps Angelo, with provisions.
She relaxed again. But the steps were not the steps of Angelo,
that swift and springy youth; they were slow and considered, and they
kept on pausing.
"Some one who isn't used to hills," thought Scrap.
The idea of going back to the house did not occur to her. She
was afraid of nothing in life except love. Brigands or murderers as
such held no terrors for the daughter of the Droitwiches; she only
would have been afraid of them if they left off being brigands and
murderers and began instead to try and make love.
The next moment the footsteps turned the corner of her bit of
path, and stood still.
"Getting his wind," thought Scrap, not looking round.
Then as he--from the sounds of the steps she took them to belong
to a man--did not move, she turned her head, and beheld with
astonishment a person she had seen a good deal of lately in London, the
well-known writer of amusing memoirs, Mr. Ferdinand Arundel.
She stared. Nothing in the way of being followed surprised her
any more, but that he should have discovered where she was surprised
her. Her mother had promised faithfully to tell no one.
"You?" she said, feeling betrayed. "Here?"
He came up to her and took off his hat. His forehead beneath the
hat was wet with the beads of unaccustomed climbing. He looked ashamed
and entreating, like a guilty but devoted dog.
"You must forgive me," he said. "Lady Droitwich told me where
you were, and as I happened to be passing through on my way to Rome I
thought I would get out at Mezzago and just look in and see how you
were."
"But--didn't my mother tell you I was doing a rest-cure?"
Yes. She did. And that's why I haven't intruded on you earlier
in the day. I thought you would probably sleep all day, and wake up
about now so as to be fed."
"But--"
"I know. I've got nothing to say in excuse. I couldn't help
myself."
"This," thought Scrap, "comes of mother insisting on having
authors to lunch, and me being so much more amiable in appearance than
I really am."
She had been amiable to Ferdinand Arundel; she liked him--or
rather she did not dislike him. He seemed a jovial, simple man, and
had the eyes of a nice dog. Also, though it was evident that he
admired her, he had not in London grabbed. There he had merely been a
good-natured, harmless person of entertaining conversation, who helped
to make luncheons agreeable. Now it appeared that he too was a
grabber. Fancy following her out there--daring to. Nobody else had.
Perhaps her mother had given him the address because she considered him
so absolutely harmless, and thought he might be useful and see her
home.
Well, whatever he was he couldn't possibly give her the trouble
an active young man like Mr. Briggs might give her. Mr. Briggs,
infatuated, would be reckless, she felt, would stick at nothing, would
lose his head publicly. She could imagine Mr. Briggs doing things with
rope-ladders, and singing all night under her window--being really
difficult and uncomfortable. Mr. Arundel hadn't the figure for any
kind of recklessness. He had lived too long and too well. She was
sure he couldn't sing, and wouldn't want to. He must be at least
forty. How many good dinners could not a man have eaten by the time he
was forty? And if during that time instead of taking exercise he had
sat writing books, he would quite naturally acquire the figure Mr.
Arundel had in fact acquired--the figure rather for conversation than
adventure.
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