So here was Gabrielle like a child let out of school. The long afternoon found her pirouetting with Harry Lassett, or with other disorderly young men of a like nature; the swift night discovered her in a sentimental mood, with all thought of multi-millionaires gone away to the twinkling stars. A brass band had begun to play by that time, and a man was selling baked chestnuts. A pretty contrast that to the Savoy Hotel.
Their talk had been chiefly ejaculatory during the afternoon, but the twilight found them mellowing. Harry still harped upon America, and with some disdain; and now, at length, his contempt found expression.
"Did you see that American chap all right?" he asked her in an interval of the riot.
She admitted the guilt of it.
"Do you mean Mr. Faber?"
"The fellow you met on the ship—Apollo and the liar; the man who talked about eleven millions sterling."
"Yes, I saw him. How did you know I was going?"
"Oh! I was in the Savoy myself this morning. I'm thinking of buying the place."
"Then you propose to settle down?"
"Or settle up. What did you want from the Stars and Stripes this morning, Gabrielle?"
"An impertinent question. Why should I tell you? Why do you want to know?"
"Because I have the right to know."
"The right, Harry—the right!"
They were over at the eastern corner of the pond, shadows sheltering them. Harry Lassett's "six foot one" towered above her five feet five, and made a woman of her. He had the round, "apple" face of a boy of twenty-four, vast shoulders, limbs of iron. His eyes were clear and lustrous, and his hair jet black. There was every quality which makes a quick, physical appeal to the other sex, and now, perhaps not for the first time, Gabrielle became acutely conscious of it. This was something totally apart from schemes for the world's good; something with which millionaires, were they British or American, had no concern whatever. Ten years of a boy and girl friendship culminated here. She tried to withdraw her fingers from Harry's grasp, but could not release herself; his breath was hot upon her forehead; she quivered at his touch, and then stood very still.
"Why have I not got the right? Who has if I haven't?"
"The right to what?"
"To warn Apollo off. Gabrielle, I'm in love with you—you know it."
She looked up; his eyes devoured her.
"What is the good of our being in love?"
"You don't mean to say you are thinking of the beastly money?"
"Harry!"
"Well, then, don't ask me. I've three hundred a year, and I'm going with Barlean in Throgmorton Street when the cricket season's over. That's a half-commission job, and my cricketing friends will rally round. If I tour Australia next year, they'll pay my expenses, and I'll make them pretty hot. We could be married when I come back, Gabrielle."
She laughed, and half turned her head.
"It's quite like a fairy story. And so mercenary! It's just like a business deal."
"Well, your father will ask for a balance sheet, and there it is—totted up by 'Why not' and audited by 'Expectation.' Why don't you say something about it?"
"Do you want me to say that you will always be my best friend?"
"Family Reading—go on. Love and respect and esteem. I'm d——d if I stand it. This is what I think."
He slipped his arms about her, and kissed her hotly upon the lips. She had never been kissed by a man before, and the swift assault found her without argument. She was conscious in a vague way that prudence should have made an end of all this upon the spot. Yet there was a physical magnetism before which she was powerless; an instantaneous revelation of life in its fuller meaning, of a sentiment which had nothing to do with prudence.
"Harry!" she cried, and that was all.
"Gabrielle, you love me—I feel that you do when you are near me."
"How foolish it all is—how mad!"
"I won't have that rot. Why, you are part of my life, Gabrielle."
"Of course, we are very old friends——"
"If you say any word like that I will take you out into the very centre of the pond and kiss you there. Come along and skate now. I feel quite mad."
He caught her in his arms, and they went whirling away. The red-nosed man with the cornet played the "Merry Widow" until his whole body swelled; there were harsh tones of cockneyism, silver laughter of boys and girls, the whirr of good skates cutting the ice. And above all a clear, starless heaven, such as London had not known for many a year.
"How long will you be away with these Achon people, Gabrielle?"
"I don't know; we are going to Corfu to see the German Emperor."
"Don't bring him back with you. He'd never get on with fools. Isn't it all rather out of the picture?"
"What do you mean by that, Harry?"
"Well, your trotting about with millionaires, hanging on to the skirts of other people's ambitions. It can't last. Some day soon, these doors will be shut. There'll be nobody at home when you call."
"That would not trouble me. I go because my father wishes it; and, of course, I like Eva."
"She's rather a jolly girl, isn't she? They're a different class to that Faber man. He's just an adventurer."
"Who has managed to make himself necessary to two continents. I wish you knew him. You'd be the first to bow down."
"To eleven millions! I might if he handed over one of them. That must be the fly in his ointment. I don't suppose he has a friend in the world who doesn't want to get something out of him."
"Do you include me in that category?"
"Well, you wanted his name. I knew he'd laugh at all that peace rot. It's the greatest humbug of the twentieth century, and I admire the German Emperor for his courage. He and Kitchener are the two greatest men in the world to-day. Now, don't you think so?"
"I don't think anything of the kind. If there is any one conviction in my life that is sincere it is this. You know it, Harry."
She was very earnest, and he would not wound her. Gabrielle Silvester could dream dreams, and some of them would put great intellects to shame. Harry knew this and admired her in the mood; he altered his own course at once.
"Of course I know it. But tell me, what did Faber say?"
"Oh, very little—he spoke about the frost."
"Wants to skate with you, eh?"
"I think not. He is full of bogies. The English Channel and the North Sea are to be frozen over."
"Great idea that. We shall skate all the way to Paris! Dine at the Ritz and curl afterwards. What a man!"
"No, really—what he fears is a panic in England if the sea should really freeze."
Harry thought about it for some minutes in silence. Presently he said:
"I don't believe it could happen. He was chaffing you."
"I think he was."
"But if it did happen—by gad! what a funk some people would be in!"
"The valiant people—who believe in war in the abstract."
"Now you're ironical, Gabrielle."
"No," she said; "I'm only hungry."