Brothers -- Fiction; Love stories; Triangles (Interpersonal relations) -- Fiction
He was evidently on his way to his sister's room, and seizing her
opportunity, she ran like a hare in the opposite direction and managed to
slip downstairs without adventure.
She was not to escape unnoticed, however. The first person she
encountered in the vestibule came forward instantly at sight of her with
the promptitude of one who has been lying in wait.
She recoiled with a gasp, but she could not run away. She was caught as
surely as she had been the night before.
"Hullo!" smiled Sir Eustace, with extended hand. "Going out for a last
look round? May I come too?"
She felt the dominance of his grip. It was coolly, imperially possessive.
To answer his request seemed superfluous, even bordering upon
presumption. It was obvious that he had every intention of accompanying
her.
She gave a confused murmur of assent, and they passed through the
vestibule side by side. She was conscious of curious glances from several
strangers who were standing about, and Eustace exchanged a few words with
a species of regal condescension here and there as they went. And then
they were out in the pure sunlight of the mountains, alone for the last
time in their paradise of snow.
Almost instinctively Dinah turned up the winding track. They had half an
hour before them, and she felt she could not bear to stand still. He
strolled beside her, idly smoking, not troubling to make conversation,
now as ever sublimely at his ease.
The snow sparkled around them like a thousand gems Dinah's eyes were
burning and smarting with the brightness. And still that tender
waltz-music ran lilting through her brain, drifting as it were through
the mist of her unshed tears.
Suddenly he spoke. They were nearing the pine-wood and quite alone. "Is
there anything the matter?"
She choked down a great lump in her throat before she could speak in
answer. "No," she murmured then. "I--I am just--rather low about leaving;
that's all."
"Quite all?" he said.
His tone was so casual, so normal, that it seemed impossible now to think
of last night's happening save as an extravagant dream. She almost felt
for the moment as if she had imagined it all. And then he spoke again,
and she caught a subtle note of tenderness in his voice that brought
it all back upon her in an overwhelming rush.
"That's really all, is it? You're not unhappy about anything else? Scott
hasn't been bullying you?"
She gasped at the question. "Oh no! Oh no! He wouldn't! He couldn't!
I--haven't even seen him today."
He received the information in silence; but in a moment or two he tossed
away his cigarette with the air of a man having come to an abrupt
resolution.
"And so you're fretting about going home?" he said.
She nodded mutely. The matter would not bear discussion.
"Poor little Daphne!" he said. "It's been a good game, hasn't it?"
She nodded again. "Just like the dreams that never come true," she
managed to say.
"Would you like it to come true?" he asked her unexpectedly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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