第74章

Everything is possible when a man is whirled off his feet by the Great Emotion.History reeks with the stories of men whose natures were changed, whose careers were blasted, whose honor and loyalty and common sense were sacrificed, whose pride and sense of the fitness of things were utterly and absolutely forgotten under the stress of the sex storm that hits us all and renders us fools or heroes, breaking or making as luck will have it and, in either case, bringing us to the common level of primevality for the love of a woman.Nature, however refined and cultivated the man, or rarified his atmosphere, sees to this.Herself feminine, she has no consideration for persons.To her a man is merely a man, a creature with the same heart and the same senses, working to the same end from the same beginning.Let him struggle and cry "Excelsior!" and fix his eyes upon the heights, let him devote himself to prayer or go grimly on his way with averted eyes, let him become cynic or misogynist, what's it matter? Sooner or later she lays hands upon him and claims him as her child.Man, woman and love.It is the oldest and the newest story in the world, and in spite of the sneers of thin-blooded intellectuals who think that it is clever to speak of love as the particular pastime of the Bolsheviki and the literary parasites who regard themselves as critics and dismiss love as "mere sex stuff," it is the everlasting Story of Everyman.

Young and new and careless, obsessed only with the one idea of having a good time,--never mind who paid for it,--Joan knew nothing of the danger of trifling with the feelings of a high-strung man who had never been denied, a man over-civilized to the point of moral decay.If she had paused in her determined pursuit of amusement and distraction to analyze her true state of mind she might have discovered an angry desire to pay Fate out for the way in which he had made things go with Martin by falling really and truly in love with Gilbert.As it was, she recognized his attraction and in the few serious moments that forced themselves upon her when she was alone she realized that he could give her everything that would make life easy and pleasant.She liked his calm sophistication, she was impressed, being young, by his utter disregard of laws and conventions, and she was flattered at the unmistakable proofs of his passionate devotion.But she would have been surprised to find beneath her careless way of treating herself and everybody round her an unsuspected root of loyalty towards Alice and Martin that put up a hedge between herself and Gilbert.There was also something in the fine basic qualities of her undeveloped character that unconsciously made her resent this spoiled man's assumption of the fact that, married or not, she must sooner or later fall in with his wishes.

She was in no mood for self-analysis, however, because that meant the renewal of the pain and deep disappointment as to Martin which was her one object to hide and to forget.So she kept Gilbert in tow, and supplied her days with the excitement for which she craved by leading him on and laughing him off.It is true that once or twice she had caught in his eyes a look of madness that caused her immediately to call the nice boy to her support and make a mental note of the fact that it would be wise never to trust herself quite alone with him, but with a shrug of the shoulders she continued alternately to tease and charm, according to her mood.

She did both these things once again when she came up from the sea to finish the remainder of the morning in the sun.Seeing Gilbert pacing the veranda like a bear with a sore ear, she told Harry Oldershaw to leave her to her sun bath and signalled to Gilbert to come down to the edge of the beach.The others were still in the sea.He joined her with a sort of reluctance, with a look of gall and ire in his eyes that was becoming characteristic.There was all about him the air of a man who had been sleeping badly.His face was white and drawn, and his fingers were never still.He twisted a signet ring round and round at one moment and worried at a button on his coat the next.His nerves seemed to be outside his skin.He stood in front of Joan antagonistically and ran his eyes over her slim young form in its wet bathing suit with grudging admiration.He was too desperately in love to be able to apply to himself any of the small sense of humor that was his in normal times and hide his feelings behind it.He was very far from being the Gilbert Palgrave of the early spring,--the cool, satirical, complete man of the world.

"Well?" he asked.

Joan pretended to be surprised."Well what, Gilbert dear? I wanted to have a nice little talk before lunch, that's all, and so Iventured to disturb you."

"Ventured to disturb me! You're brighter than usual this morning.""Ah I? Is that possible? How sweet of you to say so.Do sit down and look a little less like an avenging angel.The sand's quite warm and dry."He kicked a little shower of it into the air."I don't want to sit down," he said."You bore me.I'm fed up with this place and sick to tears of you.""Sick to tears of me? Why, what in the world have I done?""Every conceivable and ingenious thing that I might have expected of you.Loyalty was entirely left out of your character, it appears.

Young Oldershaw and the doddering Hosack measure up to your standard.I can't compete."Joan allowed almost a minute to go by in silence.She felt at the very tip-top of health, having ridden for some hours and gone hot into the sea.To be mischievous was natural enough.This man took himself so seriously, too.She would have been made of different stuff or have acquired a greater knowledge of Palgrave's curious temperament to have been able to resist the temptation to tantalize.

"Aren't you, by any chance, a little on the rude side this morning, Gilbert?""If you call the truth rude," he said, "yes.""I do.Very.The rudest thing I know."

He looked down at her.She was leaning against the narrow wooden back of a beach chair.Her hands were clasped round her white knees.