“If you were just an ordinary, stupid, stolid Englishman,” she whispered, “why did you risk your honour and your safety for my sake? Will you tell me that, dear man of steel?”
Julian leaned even closer over her. She was smiling now frankly into his face, refusing the warning of his burning eyes. Then suddenly, silently, he held her to him and kissed her, unresisting, upon the lips. She made no protest. He even fancied afterwards, when he tried to rebuild in his mind that queer, passionate interlude, that her lips had returned what his had given. It was he who released her--not she who struggled. Yet he understood. He knew that this was a tragedy.
Stenson’s voice reached them from the other side of the ridge.
“Come and show me the way across this wretched bit of marsh, Orden. I don’t like these deceptive green grasses.”
“‘Pitfalls for the Politician’ or ‘Look before you leap’.” Julian muttered aimlessly. “Quite right to avoid that spot, sir. Just follow where I am pointing.”
Stenson made his laborious way to their side.
“This may be a short cut back to the Hall,” he exclaimed, “but except for the view of the sea and this gorgeous air, I think I should have preferred the main road! Help me up, Orden. Isn’t it somewhere near here that that little affair happened the other night?”
“This very spot,” Julian assented. “Miss Abbeway and I were just speaking of it.”
They both glanced towards her. She was standing with her back to them, looking out seawards. She did not move even at the mention of her name.
“A dreary spot at night, I dare say,” the Prime Minister remarked, without overmuch interest. “How do we get home from here, Orden? I haven’t forgotten your warning about luncheon, and this air is giving me a most lively appetite.”
“Straight along the top of this ridge for about three quarters of a mile, sir, to the entrance of the harbour there.”
“I have a petrol launch,” Julian explained, “and I shall land you practically in the dining room in another ten minutes.”
“Let us proceed,” Mr. Stenson suggested briskly. “What a queer fellow Miles Furley is! Quite a friend of yours, isn’t he, Miss Abbeway?”
“I have seen a good deal of him lately,” she answered, walking on and making room for Stenson to fall into step by her side, but still keeping her face a little averted. “A man of many but confused ideas; a man, I should think, who stands an evil chance of muddling his career away.”