The Dark Star

“I did notice it!” said Neeland. And, to that young man’s surprise and annoyance, his face grew hot with embarrassment. What on earth possessed him to blush like a plow-boy! He suddenly felt like one, too, and turned sharply to the little dog, perplexed, irritated with himself and his behaviour.

Behind him the Princess was saying:

“The car is here. I shan’t stop for tea, dear. In case anything happens, I am at the Embassy.”

“The Russian Embassy,” repeated Rue.

“Yes. I may be a little late. We are to dine here en famille at eight. You will entertain James–

“James!” she repeated, addressing him. “Do you think Ruhannah sufficiently interesting to entertain you while I am absent?”

But all his aplomb, his lack of self-consciousness, seemed to be gone; and Neeland made some reply which seemed to him both obvious and dull. And hated himself because he found himself so unaccountably abashed, realising that he was afraid of the opinions that this young girl might entertain concerning him.

“I’m going,” said the Princess. “Au revoir, dear; good-bye, James–”

She looked at him keenly when he turned to face her, smiled, still considering him as though she had unexpectedly discovered a new feature in his expressive face.

Whatever it was she discovered seemed to make her smile a trifle more mechanical; she turned slowly to Rue Carew, hesitated, then, nodding a gay adieu, turned and left the room with Neeland at her elbow.

“I’ll tuck you in,” he began; but she said:

“Thanks; Marotte will do that.” And left him at the door.

When the car had driven away down the rue Soleil d’Or, Neeland returned to the little drawing-room where Rue was indulging Sandy with small bits of sugar.

He took up cup and buttered croissant, and for a little while nothing was said, except to Sandy who, upon invitation, repeated his opinion of the Sultan and snapped in the offered emolument with unsatiated satisfaction.

To Rue Carew as well as to Neeland there seemed to be a slight constraint between them – something not entirely new to her since they had met again after two years.

In the two years of her absence she had been very faithful to the memory of his kindness; constant in the friendship which she had given him unasked – given him first, she sometimes thought, when she was a little child in a ragged pink frock, and he was a wonderful young man who had taken the trouble to cross the pasture and warn her out of range of the guns.

He had always held his unique place in her memory and in her innocent affections; she had written to him again and again, in spite of his evident lack of interest in the girl to whom he had been kind. Rare, brief letters from him were read and reread, and laid away with her best-loved treasures. And when the prospect of actually seeing him again presented itself, she had been so frankly excited and happy that the Princess Mistchenka could find in the girl’s unfeigned delight nothing except a young girl’s touching and slightly amusing hero-worship.

But with her first exclamation when she caught sight of him at the terminal, something about her preconceived ideas of him, and her memory of him, was suddenly and subtly altered, even while his name fell from her excited lips.

Because she had suddenly realised that he was even more wonderful than she had expected or remembered, and that she did not know him at all – that she had no knowledge of this tall, handsome, well-built young fellow with his sunburnt features and his air of smiling aloofness and of graceful assurance, almost fascinating and a trifle disturbing.

Which had made the girl rather grave and timid, uncertain of the estimation in which he might hold her; no longer so sure of any encouragement from him in her perfectly obvious attitude of a friend of former days.

And so, shyly admiring, uncertain, inclined to warm response at any advance from this wonderful young man, the girl had been trying to adjust herself to this new incarnation of a certain James Neeland who had won her gratitude and who had awed her, too, from the time when, as a little girl, she had first beheld him.

She lifted her golden-grey eyes to him; a little unexpected sensation not wholly unpleasant checked her speech for a moment.

This was odd, even unaccountable. Such awkwardness, such disquieting and provincial timidity wouldn’t do.

“Would you mind telling me a little about Brookhollow?” she ventured.

Certainly he would tell her. He laid aside his plate and tea cup and told her of his visits there when he had walked over from Neeland’s Mills in the pleasant summer weather.

Nothing had changed, he assured her; mill-dam and pond and bridge, and the rushing creek below were exactly as she knew them; her house stood there at the crossroads, silent and closed in the sunshine, and under the high moon; pickerel and sunfish still haunted the shallow pond; partridges still frequented the alders and willows across her pasture; fireflies sailed through the summer night; and the crows congregated in the evening woods and talked over the events of the day.

“And my cat? You wrote that you would take care of Adoniram.”

“Adoniram is an aged patriarch and occupies the place of honour in my father’s house,” he said.

“He is well?”

“Oh, yes. He prefers his food cut finely, that is all.”

“I don’t suppose he will live very long.”

“He’s pretty old,” admitted Neeland.

She sighed and looked out of the window at the kitten in the garden. And, after an interval of silence:

“Our plot in the cemetery – is it – pretty?”

“It is beautiful,” he said, “under the great trees. It is well cared for. I had them plant the shrubs and flowers you mentioned in the list you sent me.”

“Thank you.” She lifted her eyes again to him. “I wonder if you realise how – how splendid you have always been to me.”

Surprised, he reddened, and said awkwardly that he had done nothing. Where was the easy, gay and debonaire assurance of this fluent young man? He was finding nothing to say to Rue Carew, or saying what he said as crudely and uncouthly as any haymaker in Gayfield.

He looked up, exasperated, and met her eyes squarely. And Rue Carew blushed.

They both looked elsewhere at once, but in the girl’s breast a new pulse beat; a new instinct stirred, blindly importuning her for recognition; a new confusion threatened the ordered serenity of her mind, vaguely menacing it with unaccustomed questions.

Then the instinct of self-command returned; she found composure with an effort.

“You haven’t asked me,” she said, “about my work. Would you like to know?”

He said he would; and she told him – chary of self-praise, yet eager that he should know that her masters had spoken well of her.

“And you know,” she said, “every week, now, I contribute a drawing to the illustrated paper I wrote to you about. I sent one off yesterday. But,” and she laughed shyly, “my nostrils are no longer filled with pride, because I am not contented with myself any more. I wish to do – oh, so much better work!”

“Of course. Contentment in creative work means that we have nothing more to create.”

She nodded and smiled:

“The youngest born is the most tenderly cherished – until a new one comes. It is that way with me; I am all love and devotion and tenderness and self-sacrifice while fussing over my youngest. Then a still younger comes, and I become like a heartless cat and drive away all progeny except the newly born.”

She sighed and smiled and looked up at him:

“It can’t be helped, I suppose – that is, if one’s going to have more progeny.”

“It’s our penalty for producing. Only the newest counts. And those to come are to be miracles. But they never are.”

She nodded seriously.