Hitherto pretty equally balanced between the two young men, or at all events wistfully anxious that friendship with Arthur should not make impossible her old and pleasant comradeship with Sidney in whom she found so much that she liked she became now Arthur's furious partisan. With him and his cause she identified herself. She declared that it was purely for his sake, and not at all in the interest of her own domination and authority, that she had rebuked Sidney, and for his sake solely that she had suffered insult. By a natural turn of feeling she asked in her heart for a reward from him, a recognition of her championship, gratitude to her for having preferred him to his would-be rival; if he were not at least a little pleased and proud, she would feel disappointment and humiliation.
But he would be. And why? Because that was the right thing for him to be, and now in her eyes, at this moment, he could do no wrong. Sidney was all wrong, therefore Arthur must be all right. She could not bring herself to doubt it. And, being all right, he must do and feel all the right things. So he would when he knew what she had done and suffered for him. Her heart cried out that somehow (as delicately as possible, of course) he must be made to know, to know the full extent of her service and her sacrifice; he must know the insult she had received; and he must consider it as great and wanton an insult as she did.
So her feelings formulated their claim upon him, with an instinctive cunning. It was a claim to which no chivalrous-minded man could be insensible; it was one that would appeal with commanding force to Arthur Lisle's impulsive generosity.
"For you I have quarrelled with my old friend for you I have endured insult." What could he answer save that in him she should find a better friend, that his appreciation should efface the insult?
"Don't
be afraid to come. There will be nobody here that you don't like this time." With these words her next invitation to Arthur Lisle ended.
He read them with a quick grasp of her meaning of the essential part of it at least. She was on his side! He was glad. Neither for his own sake, nor for the sake of the idea that he had of her, would he easily have endured that she should be on Sidney Barslow's side and against him. Although she did not know what he knew, and had not seen what he had seen, her instincts and her taste were right! He looked forward eagerly to letting her perceive, in some way or other, that he recognised this, to congratulating her somehow on it, to sealing the pact of a natural alliance between them. How he would do this, or how far he might seem to go in the course of doing it, or what further implications might be involved in such a bond between man and maid, his young blood and his generous impulses did not pause to ask. It was the thing to do and he wanted to do it.
CHAPTER V THE TENDER DIPLOMATIST
For she could hardly believe in what looked now like coming to pass. She had known him for a long time more than a year as a good friend but rather a reserved one; cordial and kind, but keeping always a certain distance, actually, if without intention, maintaining a barrier round his inner self, refusing to abandon the protective aloofness of a proud and sensitive nature. Was he changing from this to the opposite extreme to that most open, intimate, exposed, and unprotected creature, a lover? Well as she had known him, she had not thought of him as that. But her mind fastened on the idea eagerly; it appealed to more than one side of her nature.
"As a rule I just can't talk about myself," he said once. "How is it that I can to you?"
"It's because I love you, and in your heart you know it," she wanted to say, but she answered, laughing, "I've always been rather a good listener."
"If you tell most people a single thing about yourself, they bombard you with a dozen silly questions. Now you never do that."
"That's because I'm afraid of you, if you only knew it," she wanted to say, but she answered merrily, "I find out more by my way in the end, don't I?"
For every step forward his feelings had taken, hers had taken ten. She knew it and was not ashamed; she gloried in it. From the moment she had come over to his side, making herself his champion and asking for his gratitude in return, her heart had brooked no compromise. Hers was a mind quick of decision, prompt in action. To romance she brought the qualities of business. A swift rush of feeling had carried her to the goal; she watched him now following in her steps, and was tremulously careful not to anticipate by an iota the stages he had yet to pass. She marvelled that she had not loved him from the beginning, and almost convinced herself that she had. She could scarcely persuade herself to accept even now the signs of his nascent love.
Thus in truth, though all unknown to him, she did the wooing. Her answer was ready before his question. She watched and waited with a passivity that was to a man of his disposition her best lure. Some of this fine caution she learnt from