"FREEDOM FOR TWO"

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 April 1940, Page 9

"FREEDOM FOR TWO"

PUBLISHED BY SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT. COPYRIGHT.

By

MARGARET WATSON.

CHAPTER VI. ! (Continued). All round the floor the gay dresses and fantastic lights were still, and there was a hush, broken only by the whispering of admiration. In the centre of the circle of ice, under a dazzling arc of changing lights, Eulalia span soundlessly, effortlessly, with the ease of a swallow’s flight, circling, doubling, dancing, her arms weaving through air, her bulky body a miracle of grace. Her feet did not seem to touch ; the ice; she appeared to be in mid-air. { “Like a bird in slow motion, isn’t 1 she?” remarked a voice in her ear. j She turned, and found Jon Bernstorn [ sitting opposite her on the other side of i the table, leaning forward, with his ■ chin in his hand. She smiled. He was ! quite pleasant company, and now that! she was beginning to emerge from the | reaction the afternoon's excitement | had left behind, she needed someone, j “Lovely! I can’t help wondering if' she’s really the same person.’’ i “Much too solid to be a changeling,” j he said carelessly; his eyes were on ' her; she -felt their intense blueness. ! Kind, admiring, candid and cool, they were still not the most comfortable eyes in the world by which to be surveyed so steadily.

“Where’s Martin? I don't think he should have let you come hero alone on a gala night like this. It’s going to be abominably crowded later on, and you'll find it awkward with one wing in a stretcher —that is, you would have found it awkward,” he added, with an almost deprecatory smile. No deception here, she felt, no assuming of the protector’s role as an unwelcome duty; this man felt it his part in the companionship of man and woman to look after the woman. It was not so much a duty as a privilege. Of course, she did not want to be looked after, but that was away from the point. “Oh, I shan’t stay very long. I’ll get home before the crush begins. I shouldn’t have come at all, but Martin has gone out without me, and the hotel’s rather boring. Everyone’s down here, I suppose.” “Gone out without you?” repeated Jon, laughing. “The heartless brute! But how characteristic! You make a heroine of yourself; half Dalgano praises you; so your husband goes out by himself.” “I. sent him,” she said, a little piqued. "It was a jaunt he'd planned for both of us, but I couldn’t have taken my pair part it in; so I didn’t want him to miss the pleasure. He’s gone off to climb Koranto and look at the eclipse of the moon.” “Rotten taste, I call it,” said Jon, smiling, “when he could be watching Eulalia skate; or enjoying the contemplation of his wife. But I’m afraid mountains are more in Martin's artistic line, if the truth be known." “He’s an adventurer born," said Erica, with pride, remembering her first glimpse of him.

“I know. I’ve known him for some years. But there are adventures and adventurers. Beauty is a great adventure. So is love, I think. There’s something narrow and limited about the outlook of the man who can appreciate only the violent in experience.”

He said this in his most impersonal of voices, and with his sea-blue eyes fixed thoughtfully on the floating figure of Eulalia in her swimming aura of light; as if he said it because it was in his mind, and must necessarily be freed; not as if he had any personal reason for belittling Martin to her. When she was silent he turned sharply, and looked at her with a faint, almost a sad, smile.

“I’m sorry. I’d no right to say that. Forgive me.” “Why shouldn’t you say it? It’s an opinion."

"It’s my opinion at any rate. I admire Martin very much. I’ve always admired him. He has a sense of living which I envy him; but he has his limitations, 100. There never was another man so restless, so incapable of keeping a loyalty.” She felt his eyes on her once more, and lowered her own. "I mean a loyalty to things, to walks of life, to places, even to interests. I hope the same rule won’t be found to apply to his loyalty to persons. Until now, you see. there’s been no one strong enough to put chains on him. No one. until you came." The phrase struck at her mind like a spear. It echoed her own thoughts with an aplomb which was almost terrifying. She had put chains on Martin; it was the truth. She sat with her hands

loosely clasped on the barrier of the rink, the palm of the right one cradling the swaddled finger-tips of the left. "Go on. You can’t leave your line of argument there." lie laughed, shaking his blonde hair as if lie was shaking away from him. with an effort, an unpleasant idea. "Oh. I’m being an old woman —foreseeing things which will never happen. Of course yen’ll hold him, how coulj you fail?" His voice sank a tone, became almost tender. "How could lie choose but know, when he looks at you. that the world —even his picture-postcard world —is well lost for you’.’” Erica said, very slowly and distinctly: "I appreciate your frankness. Mr Bernstorn; but 1 think you shculd understand that Martin is my husband, and we understand each other perfectly. I’m not afraid to hear him discussed, simply because nothing can shake my own faith in him. But sup- i pose we don’t go on with this conver-1 ration any further. It was a mistake/ ever to let it go so far." I Jon sat watching her steadily for a' moment before hr- answered, "Verv

well. I'm sorry I made myself so obscure. 1 was not criticising. And I think you know that all Martin’s friends—and I ciaim to be among them —are wishing him the great happiness he deserves. We all think him a very lucky man; an’d you a very lucky woman. Now may we leave it there?"

They left it there, and talked of other things, and presently Eulalia came round strolling round the barrier and spent a few minutes with them. Erica asked her, as they smoked a cigarette together: "What happened to the man who came down at the bend of the track? I wanted to ask this afternoon, but I forgot. Was he much hurt?”

! "Not nearly so badly,” said Eulalia. I “as you probably thought. Knocked | out. though, for an hour or so; and the I man who was running third to you | took the worst of the toss. Broke a I rib. I believe. At any rate, they ! brought him in on a stretcher.” I “1 wondered what had happened to ' him." said Erica. "I was expecting ' him to flash by at any moment, and win the race. I almost wish now that he had.” "You don’t like being a heroine?" asked Eulalia, laughing. "I never felt less like one.” It was true. She felt less herself now than in the first stress of panic. Eulalia, in fact was a little alarmed by her continued pallor. "I hate to be coddled myself," she said, "but I do think you should take things easily lor a day or so. Martin will never forgive us if we let you crock up on him. Now do be a good girl, and go home to bed early. Jon will walk up with you.” He was on his feet in a moment. “Of course. It was stupid of me not to see how tired you are.” “I think I will go home,” said Erica, smiling, “before the crush begins. But I don’t need an escort, thanks. I’m quite capable of walking that distance alone.

“I’ll come, all the same, if I may. I have an appointment in half an hour or so, and after that I shall be turning in, too. This air plays the dickens with me; I could sleep day and night.” He added, holding her cloak gently over the bandaged arm; “Ah, well, I shall be back in harness next week." On the short walk to the hotel he talked of nothing more personal than the stars, which were crusted over the sky like ornate jewellery. Men were queer, thought Erica. On a night like this one talked of the eyes of Melusine, but ran away to climb mountains; and one talked of the three stars in the Dagger of Orion, and yet was the most assiduous of courtiers. Yes. beyond doubt men were queer. It was somehow, at so close a range, not funny.

"By the way," he said as they partl ed, "you won’t expect Martin back too ’ early, will you? I don’t say it will happen, but to a' man like him there’s : an irresistible attraction about the I peak higher up. and —well, I wouldn’t ■ worry, or start ringing up the police, : or anything, if Martin doesn't come - home until tomorrow,” he smiled.

• "Take care of the injured pinion. ■ Good night, Mrs Hirst.” Erica sent after him a glance of appreciation. The warning about Martin's 1 probable late return was a considera- ■ tion which Martin himself had not shown her. She went to bed, and read herself to sleep. Jon was a true prophet. Several times during the night she awoke, with the nagging pain of her wrist troubling her, and raised herself to look round at Martin’s bed; but each time the coverlet spread innocent and bland before her eyes, and each time the room was silent and still. She slept uneasily, and was a little sorry] for heself, though she felt ashamed of | her self-pity. Not until she opened her eyes upon the morning light was

I the aching monotony broken. Martin was sitting upon his bed, unlacing his boots. Lying still, she could see his face in profile, keen, contented, not even tired. He pulled off the long boots, set them down with an elaborate care for the silence, and rose on tiptoe. Then, and not until then, he i turned and looked at her. with the stealthy expression a truant husband may well wear when he comes home at seven in the morning to a lightlysleeping wife. Then he saw her open eyes fixed upon him, all- the guilty kindness and self-congratulation, and the reminiscent excitement which shone exultant at the back of his eyes, faded into an expression as nearly sheepish as his face was capable of assuming. < "Oh. hullo, darling! I thought you were asleep." "You mean you hoped 1 was asleep.” said Erica: and somehow all the doubts of the evening seemed in that flood of early light to bo merest fiction of un-

reality. tile outcome of a lingering hysteria: so that suddenly she saw how funny it was that Martin should creep' home like that, and laughed aloud, and in a second had him laughing with her. "Oh. my dear, if you could only sec yourself!” “I'd rather not. thanks. 1 prefer locking al you." He plunged across and gathered her into his arms. ’Oil. 1 love you, darling, it’s a dream of a world!" "Be careful of my wrist, Martin!" i He had been far from careful: but he remembered now with a passion which more than atoned. J "I’m a rough beast. I’ve hurt you. haven’t I? I’m so sorry!" "No."’ she said. "it. was nothing. It’s (Illite all right." She lay back and looked at him, where he sat uiion the edge of her bed. "Did you have a! good view’?” ! (To be Continued).