The Common Law

"Thank you. I wish you the same."

"Come over here and curl up on the hearth and drop your head back on my knees, and tell me what is the trouble—you sulky boy!"

He did not appear to hear her.

"Please?—" with a slight rising inflection.

"What is the use of pretending?" he said, shortly.

"Pretending!" she repeated, mimicking him delightedly. Then with a clear, frank laugh: "Oh, you great, big infant! The idea of you being the famous painter Louis Neville! I wish there was a nursery here. I'd place you in it and let you pout!"

"That's more pretence," he said, "and you know it."

"What silly things you do say, Louis! As though people could find life endurable if they did not pretend. Of course I'm pretending. And if a girl pretends hard enough it sometimes comes true."

"What comes true?"

"Ah!—you ask me too much…. Well, for example, if I pretend I don't mind your ill-temper it may come true that you will be amiable to me before I go home."

There was no smile from him, no response. The warmth of the burning logs deepened the colour in her cold cheeks. Snow crystals on her dark hair melted into iris-rayed drops. She stretched her arms to the fire, and her eyes fell on Gladys and her kitten, slumbering, softly embraced.

"Oh, do look, Kelly! How perfectly sweet and cunning! Gladys has her front paws right around the kitten's neck."

Impulsively she knelt down, burying her face in the fluffy heap; the kitten partly opened its bluish eyes; the mother-cat stretched her legs, yawned, glanced up, and began to lick the kitten, purring loudly.

For a moment or two the girl caressed the drowsy cats, then, rising, she resumed her seat, sinking back deeply into the arm-chair and casting a sidelong and uncertain glance at Neville.

The flames burned steadily, noiselessly, now; nothing else stirred in the studio; there was no sound save the ghostly whisper of driving snow blotting the glass roof above.

Her gaze wandered over the silken disorder in the studio, arrested here and there as the firelight gleamed on bits of armour—on polished corselet and helmet and the tall hilts of swords. Then she looked upward where the high canvas loomed a vast expanse of gray, untouched except for the brushed-in outlines of men in shadowy processional.

She watched Neville, who had begun to prowl about in the disorder of the place, stepping over trailing velvets, avoiding manikins armed cap-a-pie, moving restlessly, aimlessly. And her eyes followed his indecision with a smile that gradually became perplexed and then a little troubled.

For even in the uncertain firelight she was aware of the change in his face—of features once boyish and familiar that seemed now to have settled into a sterner, darker mould—a visage that was too lean for his age—a face already haunted of shadows; a mature face—the face of a man who had known unhappiness.

He had paused, now, head lifted, eyes fixed on vast canvas above. And for a long while he stood there leaning sideways against a ladder, apparently oblivious of her.

Time lagged, halted—then sped forward, slyly robbing him of minutes of which his senses possessed no record. But minutes had come and gone while he stood there thinking, unconscious of the trick time played him—for the fire was already burning low again and the tall clock in the shadows pointed with stiff and ancient hands to the death of another hour and the birth of yet another; and the old-time bell chimed impartially for both with a shift and slide of creaking weights and wheels.

He lifted his head abruptly and looked at Valerie, who lay curled up in her chair, eyes closed, dark lashes resting on her cheeks.

As he passed her chair and returned to place more logs on the fire she opened her eyes and looked up at him. The curve of her mouth grew softly humorous.

"I'd much prefer my own bed," she said, "if this is all you have to say to me."

"Had you anything to say to me?" he asked, unsmiling.

"About what, Kelly, dear?"

"God knows; I don't."

"Listen to this very cross and cranky young man!" she exclaimed, sitting up and winking her eyes in the rushing brilliancy of the blaze. "He is neither a very gracious host, nor a very reasonable one; nor yet particularly nice to a girl who left a perfectly good party for an hour with him."

She stole a glance at him, and her gaze softened:

"Perhaps," she said aloud to herself, "he is not really very cross; perhaps he is only tired—or in trouble. Otherwise his voice and manners are scarcely pardonable—even by me."

He stood regarding the flames with narrowing gaze for a few moments, then, hands in his pockets, walked over to his chair once more and dropped into it.

A slight flush stole into her cheeks; but it went as it came. She rose, crossed to where he sat and stood looking down at him.

"What is the matter?"

"With me?" in crude pretence of surprise.

"Of course. I am happy enough. What troubles you?"

"Absolutely nothing."

"Then—what troubles us?" she persisted. "What has gone wrong between us, Kelly, dear? Because we mustn't let it, you know," she added, slowly, shaking her head.

"Has anything gone wrong with us?" he asked, sullenly.

"Evidently. I don't know what it is. I'm keeping my composure and controlling my temper until I find out. You know what that dreadful temper of mine can be?" She added, smiling: "Well, then, please beware of it unless you are ready to talk sensibly. Are you?"

"What is it you wish me to say?"

"How perfectly horrid you can be!" she exclaimed, "I never knew you could be like this? Do you want a girl to go on her knees to you? I care enough for our friendship to do it—but I won't!"

Her mood was altering:

"You're a brute, Kelly, to make me miserable. I was having such a good time at the Gigolette when I suddenly saw you—your expression—and—I don't even yet know why, but every bit of joy went out of everything for me—"

"I was going out, too," he said, laughing. "Why didn't you remain? Your gay spirits would have returned untroubled after my departure."

There was an ugly sound to his laugh which checked her, left her silent for a moment. Then:

"Did you disapprove of me?" she asked, curiously. "Was that it?"

"No. You can take care of yourself, I fancy."

"I have had to," she said, gravely.

He was silent.

She added with a light laugh not perfectly genuine:

"I suppose I am experiencing with you what all mortals experience when they become entangled with the gods."