Nobody

And she who quartered so swiftly and so diligently that maze of lights and shadows found nowhere the one she wanted, but everywhere the confirmation of her secret thought-that there was no place here for her, no room, no welcome. On every hand love lurked, lingered, languished, but not for her. Whichever way she turned she saw some lover searching for his mistress, but not for her. They crossed her path and paused and stared, sometimes they spoke and looked deep into her eyes and harkened to the voice with which she answered them, giving back jest for jest-and they muttered excuses and hurried on; she was never for them.

It was as if life and fate conspired to humble her spirit and prove her ambitious of place beyond her worth; to persuade her that she was by birth, and must resign herself to remain always, Nobody.

Forlornly haunted, she circled back to the house, and on impulse sought again the boudoir door.

Marie answered, but shook her head; no, she could not say where Mrs. Gosnold might be found.

Impulse again took her out by the door to the drive. Motors were still arriving and departing, to return at a designated hour, but here, at what might be termed the back of Gosnold House-if that mansion could be said to have either back or front-here on the landward side was little light or noise or movement. And after an undecided moment on the steps beneath the porte-cochere the Quakeress stepped down and out into the blackness of the shadow cast by the western wing, a deep shadow, dense and wide from the pale wall of the house to the edge of the moon-pale lawn.

She moved slowly on through this pleasant space of semi-darkness, footfalls muffled by the close-trimmed turf, her emotions calming a little from the agitation which had been waxing ever more high and strong in her with each successive crisis of the night. Here the breeze was warm and bland, the music and the laughter a remote rumour, stars glimmered in a dome of lapis lazuli; peace was to be distilled of such things by the contemplative mind, peace and a sweet, sad sense of the beauty and pain of life. No place more fit than this could one wish wherein to shelter and to nurse bruised illusions.

Insensibly she drew near the corner of the building, in abstraction so deep and still that she was almost upon them when she appreciated the fact that people were talking just beyond that high, white shoulder of stone, and was struck by the personal significance of a phrase that still echoed in ears which it had at first found heedless: "… a Quaker costume, grey and white, with a cloak."

It never occurred to the girl to stop and eavesdrop; but between that instant of reawakened consciousness and the moment when she came around the corner, three voices sealed an understanding:

"You've simply got to make her listen to reason.."

"Oh, leave that to my well-known art!"

"She'll see a great light before one o'clock or I'm-"

Silence fell like a thunderclap as the Quaker Girl confronted Harlequin, Columbine, and Sir Francis Drake.

She said coolly: "You were speaking of me, I believe?"

Drake stepped back, swore in his false beard, and disappeared round the corner in a twinkling.

Columbine snapped like the shrew she masked: "You little sneak!"

And Harlequin capped that with an easy laugh: "Oh, do keep your temper, Adele. You've less tact than any woman that ever breathed, I verily believe. Cut along now; I'll square matters for you with Miss Manwaring-if it's possible."

With a stifled exclamation Columbine caught her cloak round her and followed Drake.

The accent of the comic was not lost upon the girl. She could not but laugh a little at Harlequin's undisguised discomfiture.

"So you're nominated for the office of peace-maker, Mr. Savage?"

"I'm afraid so." He shuffled, nervously slapping his well-turned calves with Harlequin's lath-sword. "I swear," he complained, "I do believe Adele is crazier than most women most of the time. She's just been telling me what a fool she made of herself with you. I'm awfully glad you turned up when you did."

"I noticed that, believe me!"

"Oh, I mean it. Ever since dinner I've been looking for an opportunity to explain things to you, but until Adele told me your costume just now-"

"Well?" Sally inquired in a patient tone as he broke off.

"We can't talk here. It's no good place-as you've just proved. Besides, I've got an appointment with another lady." He grinned gracelessly. "No, not what you think-not philandering-but in connection with this same business. I've got to butter thick with diplomacy an awful lot of mistaken apprehensions before I can set Don and Adele right, after that confounded foolishness of theirs last night-and this rotten robbery coming on top of it, to make things look black! It's a frightful, awful mixup, really, but as innocent as daylight if you only understand it. Look here, won't you give me a show to explain?"

"Why, I'm here, and I can't help listening."

"No. I mean later. I can't stop now, really."

"How much later?"

"Let's see. It's nearly midnight, and all this has got to be cleared up and set straight before one. Do be patient with me until a quarter to one, now won't you please?"

"I may be busy then."

"Oh, come! That's all swank, and you know it. Besides, you do owe me, at least, some little consideration. I don't mean that, exactly-our account's pretty well squared, the way I see it. But, after all, life's a give-and-take affair. Say you'll meet me at a quarter to one."

"Well. Where?"

He appeared to take thought. "It's got to be somewhere off the beaten track. And you're not afraid of the dark. Would you mind coming as far as the gate on the drive?"

"Back there, beyond the trees?"

"I mean the gateway to the main road."

"I wonder why you want me there, of all places. Oh, never mind!" She forestalled a protest of injured innocence. "I'm not in the least afraid to find out. Yes; I'll be there at a quarter to one."

"You're a brick!" Savage declared fervently. "You won't regret being so decent to me. Now I'll run along and be a diplomatist."

He cut a light-hearted caper, just to prove he could, slashed the air gaily with his wooden sword, bowed low and skipped round the corner, leaving Sally even more puzzled than before but somehow placated-comforted by a sense of her own consequence conjured up by the way in which apparently she could manage people.

Savage, for instance.

CHAPTER XIV

MAGIC

For several seconds after Savage had made off Sally delayed there, alone on the empty lawn in the westerly shadow of Gosnold House, doubting what next to do, where next to turn in quest of Mrs. Gosnold; questioning the motive for that furtive meeting which she had surprised, wondering at Savage's insistence on a spot so remote and inconvenient for their appointment, and why it must needs be kept in so underhand a fashion, and whether she had been wise to consent to it and would be wise to keep it. She was at a loss how to fill in the time until the hour nominated, shrinking alike from the lights and gaiety of the hall, the supper-room and the veranda, and the romantic, love-sick peace of moonlit lawns and gardens. Altogether she was in a most complicated, distracted, uncertain and unhappy frame of mind.

Then a latch clicked softly, the hinges of a shutter whined, and the startled young woman found herself staring up into the face of Mrs. Gosnold-a pallid oval against the dark background of an unlighted window not two feet above Sally's head.

She gasped, but respected the admonition of a finger pressed lightly upon the lady's smiling lips.

"S-s-s-sh!" said Mrs. Gosnold mysteriously, with cautious glances right and left.

"There's no one here," Sally assured her in tones appropriately guarded. "You've been listening-" Mrs. Gosnold nodded with a mischievous twinkle: "I have that!"

"You heard-?"

"Something-not much-not enough. If you had only been a few minutes later.."

"I'm sorry, but I've been looking for you everywhere. Please, may I come in and tell you something?"

"Not now."

"It's very important-something you ought to know at once."