The Restless Sex

"She behaves as though she were falling in love with him… She'd certainly better be careful. The boy is already in love with her, no matter how he acts… If she isn't very, very careful she'll get into trouble with him."

Aloud she said cheerfully:

"Steve, dear, I really think I'm clever enough to have taken the measure of your very delightful brother. And I honestly don't believe it is in him to play fast and loose with any woman ever born."

"He is doing it!"

"With whom?"

"That – Dancing girl – "

"Nonsense! If it's an ephemeral romance, which I don't believe, it's a gay and harmless one. Don't worry your pretty head about it, Steve."

After Stephanie was in bed she kissed her lightly, smiled reassuringly, switched off the light and went to her own room, slowly.

Very gravely she braided her hair before the mirror, looking at her pale, reflected face.

Yet, though pale, it was still a fresh, wholesome, beautiful face. But the brown eyes stared sadly at their twin brown images, and the girl shook her head.

For the nearest that Helen Davis had ever come to falling in love was when Cleland first walked into her studio. She could have fallen in love with him then – within the minute – out of a clear sky. She realized it after he had gone – not too deeply astonished – she, who had never before been in love, recognized its possibility all in a moment.

But she had learned to hold herself in check since that first, abrupt and clear-minded recognition of such a possibility.

Never by a word or glance had she ever betrayed herself; yet his very nearness to her, at times, set her heart beating, set a faint thrill stealing through her. Yet her eyes always met his pleasantly, frankly, steadily; her hand lay calm and cool in his when she welcomed him or bade him good-bye. Always she schooled herself to withstand what threatened her, gave it no food for reflection, no sustenance, no status, no consideration.

Love came as no friend to her. She soon realized that. And she quietly faced him and bade him keep his distance.

She looked at herself again in the glass. Her brown eyes were very, very serious. Then the smile glimmered.

"Quand même," she murmured gaily, and switched off the light.

CHAPTER XXIV

It was a warm day in early June and Cleland, working in trousers and undershirt, and driven by thirst to his tin ice-box, discovered it to be empty.

"Confound it," he muttered, and rang up Stephanie's studio. A maid answered, saying that Miss Quest had gone motoring and Miss Davis had not yet returned from shopping.

"I want to borrow a lump of ice," explained Cleland. "I'll come down for it."

So he concealed his lack of apparel under a gay silk dressing gown, picked up a pan, and went down, not expecting to encounter anybody.

In the kitchenette, in the rear, the obliging maid gave him a lump of ice. Carrying it in one hand, aloft, as an expert waiter carries a towering tray of dishes, and whistling a gay air with great content – for his work upstairs had gone very well that morning – he sauntered out of the culinary regions, along the alley-like passageway, into the studio.

And as he started for the door which he had left ajar, a figure opened it from without and entered hurriedly – a scared, breathless little figure, bare-footed, swathed in a kimono and a shock of hair.

They stared at each other, astonished. Both blushed furiously.

"I simply can't help it," said the girl. "I was sitting on that horse waiting for Miss Davis, when a bee or a horsefly or something stung him and he began to rear and kick all around the court, and I slid off him and ran."

They both laughed. Cleland, clutching his pan of ice, said:

"I seem doomed to run into you when I shouldn't. I'm terribly sorry."

She blushed again and carefully swathed her waist in the obi.

"You didn't mean to," she said. "It was rather startling, though."

"It was, indeed. And now we're having another unconventional party. Shall I leave this ice here and go out and quiet the nag?"

"He'll surely kick you."

"I'll take a chance – " He set the pan of ice on a table, girded up his dressing-gown, and went out into the court. The horse stood quietly enough now. But Cleland soon discovered a green-eyed horsefly squatting on the wall and rubbing its forelegs together in devilish exultation.

"I'll fix you," he muttered, picking up a lump of wet clay and approaching with infinite caution. He was a good shot; he buried the bloodthirsty little demon under a spatter of clay. Then he went back for his ice.

"The deed is done," he said cheerily. "It was a horsefly, as you said… Good-bye… When are we going to have another dance?"

"We'd better not," she said smilingly. She had seated herself on the sofa and had drawn her pretty, bare feet up under her kimono.

"You won't let me give another party for you?" he inquired.

"I ought not to."

"But will you?"

"I don't know. This kimono party we're having now seems sufficient for the present; and I think you'd better go."

"Anyway," he said, "when a desire for innocent revelling seizes you, you know where to go."

"Yes, thank you."

They laughed at each other.

"Good-bye, pretty stranger," he said.

"Good-bye, you nice boy!"

So he went away upstairs with his ice, and she stole out presently and ventured into the courtyard where the placid white horse stood as calmly as a cow.

And Stephanie, lying on her bed in her own room, twisted her body in anguish and, hands clenched, buried her face in her arms.

Helen, returning an hour later, and glancing into Stephanie's bed-room as she passed, saw the girl lying there.

"I thought you were motoring!" she exclaimed.

"The car is laid up," said Stephanie, in a muffled voice.

"Oh. Don't you feel well, Steve?"