EXILE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20538, 12 April 1930, Page 18 (Supplement)

EXILE.

■ BY WARWICK DEEPING. j Author of that much-love J hook, " Sorrell and Son."

CHAPTER XIII. - That 1 was Tom's ono live reaction. Julio (Ves, Julio was" so sound; she stood up firm and straight, she did not get carried away by emotional complexes. >• And how different lit®—his own life—might have been had Julio caught him earlier, before the sot in him had grown habitual. Habit! The horror of a habit, a crave that was part of your flesh, a grinning necessity that mocked at your "Yea and nay." [Yes —Julie. He turned up toward her villa., He mw it-white against the dark hillside. It. reminded him of Julie's hair. Ho could remember her hair whea there.had been no white iu it. Oh, sentimental idiot! Slade had called him an idiot. He went round to the front of the villa and opened the gate softly, and looked up at the ,windows. All dark. But her window was pji the other side toward the garden, end following the path he descended the Bteps into Julia Lord's garden. Ho knowit, to be full of flowers; ho felt them, coloured foam, stocks and roses and lilies l»nd wallflowers. He looked up at her window and saw a light there. His voice was soft. /f Julia." She came to the window. She was jdressed; she had expected him. /." Julia, I want to tell you.". She held up a hand. / I'll come down." ffhe garden door opened. Tom." "I'm here. I'm afraid to move, afraid »f treading on things* We're clumsy brutes." His waiting was like that of a large Hog, and her garden became something ebe to her. " Anything to tell me I" f '" Oh, yes. Amazing stuff." He saw her glance up at the house. She knew that Maria was awake, and that Maria was woman. /" We'll go down to the lower terrace, you don't know my garden," " No. My fault." •*' There are steps here." . He found himself being taken by the hand and shepherded like a child down the. steps, and past the water cistern and between the pillars of the pergola. The tendril of a climbing rose tugged at ' his coat, and it was like a memory catching him with its thorns. " I trod on something, Julie, up there, something growing in the stones. I'm eorry." 'He felt a slight puessuro from her fingers. " Never mind; plants forgive." The} came to the seat by one of the cypresses, yet neither of them sat down. / the withdrew her hand, but gently. "Well J" " I saw Slade. We lost our tempers." «" Men do." "He said that he is going to ask the girl to marry him." Julia Lord stood as still as one of the cypresses. "Oh. not that, surely! You must have—*'" " Perhaps I was heavy in the hocf, Julia. I—" / "He said that about poor Molly Blake." "Before? But I didn't know. It's j serious." „ " Sexitus!" Her voice was vibrant with scorn. *' The man's—impossible. It's too hopelessly crude," " Sejs is, my dear, isn't it, sometimes. tWell, -we lost our tempers, and he let put. But what the devil—" " I shall have to tell her."

1 Bub i, this was to ens c! those rare occasions when Julia, Lord temporised ■and acepted vacillation. The?mood of the night and the mood of tha morning were not in sympathy. She stood at her window, and the sunlight lay gently upon her garden like a smile upon a happy face. Julia Lord thought: /"'We were getting a little hysterical list night. Yes, "a particular night. Things rush back on one. And poor I Tom —i" ' She hent out of the window, and, looking down at tha stones, fancied that she could see the particular plant upon which Frevick's heel had settled. He had been quite troubled about it; he had been troubled about everything; he had looked more lost and loose-limbed than usual, hopeless 3nd sensitive and ineffectual. But she caught herself up. St. Sofario had made them all a little emotional; it had beeu in the air, in Tindaro and the spring, and she resumed the brisk brushing of her hair. This was the morning after yesterday, and her garden had /• not changed, and Billy was not like poor little Molly Blake, and Slade was an insufferable flaneur. It wa3 more than probable that he had been amusing himstUf with poor Tom, shaking a red rag. The whole business seemed rather absurd. iXes, they had been a little hysterical. She walked down into Tindaro. Tindaro Was as usual, and so was the Corso and its shops; fat Tom mas o was swabbing the marble tops of the Cafe Ceres* tables. Tadeo the barber was having his usual arguments with some local citizen, an argument that souuded like a murderous quarrel, and was nothing of the !rud. that was Tindaro, S. Sofario, life, these sudden physical e.vntemeuts, hot air, dust. Mijs Lord gave Billy one attentive and anxious glance. Finding much dust, my dear?" "Oh, plenty! Don't they even water th« streets?"

" Yes, sometimes." Miij Lord sat. down in her familiar chair, and tell the books about her and .the flowers on the. labia and the cashbox iu the sate, and Billy and her feather duster. Buaioess a» usual Good English. -And Billy looked and sounded particularly cheerful. ,Miss Lord drew a deep breath. j\es, that was Tindaro, St. Sofario, life, 'He put all the members of his circus through their tricks, but BiHv was not f a circus girl. St. Sofario had made ell ct them iust, a little emotional. , Billy's face looked as fresh and cl°ar as a new book, and Miss Lord thought,: *' A messy thing—mtei ierence. It doesn't do to read into a tale something which may not be t,here." the morning passed as hundreds of ether mornings had passed. Books came ' in. and books went, on'., old ladies asked questions; old Tom Btoinhcad appeared with six novels fastened with a strap, and teased Billy, aaid had his usual friendly difference with Miss Lord. The rcuntine a. reassuring sameness; everything was in order; the wheels of the clock revolved. At half-past eleven Miss Lord rose f>om Ver chair. She bad decided to see Tom Frevick, and to toll him tbafc interference mi.Chfc bo both foolish and superfluous. Billv was hunting out a book on lace for a visitor from ono of tbo hotels. " Miss Brown." " Yes, Miss Lord." They had tacitly accepted formalism In public. " Would you utind carrying on till itt felvo to-dav ? I have someone to see." Billy's face was cloudless. Of course." " 'Thank you " Julia Lord went in search of Frevick. Bhe both found him and did uoi» lind •J 1 ? 1 ' ' ol ' when she rang the rusty bell V '^ a she was answered bv of A d °g' Aud that xvaA alJtttfiiiiS? th ® b<?11 again and waited, and llllPiss3 C4mo she tried the door.

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It was locked. Sho was about io turn away, when# sho thought sho heard someone moving in, the passage. Tho dog whimpered, and with something in her heart that answered the dog's whimpering, sl\b turned again to the door and knocked. "Hallo!" Her fine face seemed' to flinch. "Is that you, Tom?" " Yes." Sho had a feeling that the door could not bo opened. Sho divined its deplorable concealments. " Tom, I think we exaggerated things last night. I think it would be wiser to temporise." His ; voice came to her tonelesslv, resignedly. "All right, You know best. I overslept myself." " Then you agree ?" •" Oh, yes, I agree." Sho hurried away; she wanted to escape from that r closed door; it was so likei the fatal door that -had separated them years ago. Poor, hopeless Tom. So sensitive, so generous, and so deplorable. An exile, tho most tragic of exiles, with nothing but a littlo yellow dog to keep him company. Sho avoided Tindaro, and hurried back by way of lanes and paths to her villa and its garden and, meeting Maria in the passago, wished that Maria could bo avoided. " I'll have lunch in the garden, Maria." *' The signorina has a headache ?" " No; just a littlo tired. It's tho spring, Maria." Sho went out and looked for thy plant which Frovick's foot had crushed. She found it. She looked at it pitifully. Foor Tom was so liko that plant. * • # * ♦ Tho library had emptied itself, and Billy was putting the returned books back on the shelves when sh«> felt the other's presence. Sho had closed the door leading into the passage, but now it was open, and from the passage SJade smiled at her, and his eyes and her sudden colour met. " Good-morning!" " You" startled me." "Sorry. Apologies." Ho strolled in, closing the door behind him, and with a glance at her that made the act seem as intimate as he meant it to be. laid his hat on the table. He was dressed for a debonair occasion. " Tired after last night " jS'ot a bit." There were still some books to be replaced. She went on with the work, but her movements were mechanical; her consciousness confronted other incidents—his coming in and closing of the door, the way he sat down on the edge of Miss Lord's table. " Come cut and lunch with m?." She paused with a volume of cswtys poised in front of a sht-lf. " I don't know." " Be gracious." She hesitated, and her hesitation vent back to the elemental. Lunching with a man might mean nothing or everything, but lunching with Oscar Slade in Tindaro was a confession of faith, and more than that. She was greatly disturbed. It was the first time in her hfo when a man had so disturbed her. She knew that he might look at her and utter one would happen, things which to her would be sacred and final. She was wom;ia to his man. She could riefc say why or how. She hesitated.

" I'm rather a serious person, Ou-ar," He began to look at her with a lover's intent ness. "Be serious, Billy. . Isn't life exquisitely serious—sometimes ? I want it to be just 33 serious as it can be." She stood with hands hanging. Her lips btgan to move, and in that moment of crisis the door opened on them, and set in the shadows of the passage like a pale cameo they saw Winnie Haycroft's face. Its eyes seemed to open to a shocked stare; its lower lip drooped. She- blurted: "I'm sorry—l'm sorry. I " Billy Vas suddenly and decisively woman. She laughed. " Come iu, Winnie. I'm just going out to lunch with Mr. Slade." Slade had got off the edge- of the table. " Perhaps Miss Haycroft will join us?" " Yt3, come along, Winnie." The pale girl seemed to flicker like a candte tiarae. She stammered. " Thank you—s-so much. I'm afraid —I can't. 1 e-came in to borrow a book. It doesn't matter." And she fled. Slade picked up his hat, looked at it whimsically, and transferred the look to Billy. " Sheer terror, poor kid. Some people always feel superfluous. Are you going to be kind to me and put on your hat ?" Her face had a sudden colour. " Yes." <**»»■* It was very early when Bally took the 1 mule-path down to the sea. so early that the day seemed hers, and the s*a, and th-> sky innocent and cloudiest. The. stealth of the dawn still lingered. So delicately blue was the morning that alt that mountainous coast seemed to join sea and sky with an almost equal blueness. The sea .was laced with gold, and so were the stones of the steep and winding path. The wild rosemary was in flower. On the hillsides a smother of fruit blossom showed up against the grey-green of the olives-and the blackness of cypresses and pines.. The shadows in the valley were the colour of *iolet. Billy carried a bag of plaited straw, and iu it were her bathing dress, a light wrap, and a towel. She had the face of Aurora, a. little mischievous, a little tender, but this beautiful and pagan dawn had other mysteries. .Each sea has its song, and every strand a rhythm of its own, and Billy, going down to bath»> with her lover, was still a child of the north. The north, hi the mam flow of its deeper and darker waters, is neither incidental nor fantastic; it goes steadily toward the sea; it seeks finality, a love that accomplishes. BiUv 3twd at gaze. She. saw a figure on the sands, a white-coated and trousered figure, standing close to the inward glide of the little, sleepv waves. There was not another figure to be seen. They had sea. and sand and skv for their own.

She hailed him. " Oscar;'' He turned and waved a hah, "Hallo! I beak you b,v five minutes. Was there ever such a morning?" She ran on down, and he cam* actors the s.jn<J to meet her, and his brown face had a kind of vividness. His teeth showed very white. And (hey stood for .1 moment' looking at. each ether as though aware of the beautiful newness of evembiug, and of that cool sea and of (in? "freshness of tho morning, and tho mystery of woman and of man. Slades eyes seemed in narrow. " Billy—" She was desired, and her face had a gentle tenderness. " Oh. isn't lite lovely, and won't, tho water be cold!" The first exquisite touch of it, my dear. Your dressing room is over there,' I'vq chosen my rock." She looked into, his *yes and smiled. Love—to her—had 3 rich and generous candour. " I won't be two minutes. I'll race you." " Will you, indeed. It's tho island. Can you manage ifc:" "I've swum there before." " Your'o splendid." iTo ba continued daily.),