Quickly recovering himself, and picking up his pipe, he went on towards the house; and, as he emerged from the pine copse again, the sound of a gong, ringing faintly in the distance, brought him back to earth with a shock almost as abrupt as the ditch. Mrs. Tompkyns appeared simultaneously, wearing an aspect of pristine innocence, admirably assumed the instant she caught sight of him.
'Fancy your being out here!' was the expression of her whole person, 'and coming, too, in just as the gong sounds!'
'Breakfast, I suppose!' he observed. And she trotted behind him like a dog. For all her affectations of superiority she wanted her milk just as much as he wanted his coffee.
He walked into the dining-room, through the window, stiffening as he did so with the resolution of the night before. His armour fitted him tightly. Little animals, children, the too searching calls of Nature, occult, symbolic, magical—all these must be sternly resisted and suppressed in the company of others. The danger of letting his imagination loose was too alarming. The ridicule would overwhelm him. In the eyes of the world he now lived in he would seem simply mad. The risk was impossible.
Like the Christian Scientists, he felt the need of vigorous affirmation: 'I am Paul Rivers. I am a grown-up man. I am an official in a lumber Company. I am forty-five. I have a beard. I am important and sedate.'
Thus he fortified himself; and thus, like the persuasive Mrs. Tompkyns on the lawn, he imagined that he was deceiving both himself—and those who were on the watch!
CHAPTER VIII
And a little child shall lead them.
A week passed quickly away and found Paul still in his sister's house. The country air agreed with him, and he went for long walks over the heathery hills and down to the sea. The little private study provided for him,—remembering Mrs. Tompkyn's example, he made a brave pretence of having reports to write to his lumber Company—was admirable for his work. As a place of retreat when he felt temptation too strong upon him, or danger was near at hand, he used it constantly. He scented conditions in advance very often, though no one probably would have suspected it of him.
Once or twice he lunched out with neighbours, and sometimes people motored over to tea; companionship and society were at hand if he wanted them. And books of the kind he loved stood in precious rows upon the shelves of Dick's well-stored library. Here he browsed voraciously.
His sister, meanwhile, showed tact hardly to be expected of her. She tried him tentatively with many things to see if he liked them, but she made no conspicuous plans for him, and took good care that he was left entirely to his own devices. A kind of intelligent truce had established itself between them—these two persons who lived in different worlds and stared at one another with something like astonishment over the top of a high wall. Moreover, her languid interest in life made no claims upon him; there was pleasant companionship, gentle talks, and genuine, if thinly coloured, affection. He felt absolutely free, yet was conscious of being looked after with kindness and discretion. She managed him so well, in fact, that he hardly realised he was being managed at all.
He fell more easily than he had thought possible into the routine of the uneventful country life. From feeling 'caged' he came to feel 'comfortable.' June, and the soft forces of the summer, purred about him, and almost without knowing it he began to purr with them.
For his superabundant energy he found relief in huge walks, early and late, and in all manner of unnecessary and invented labours of Hercules about the place. Thus, he dammed up the little stream that trickled harmlessly through the Gwyle pine-wood, making a series of deep pools in which he bathed when the spirit moved him; he erected a gigantic and very dangerous see-saw for the children (and himself) across a fallen trunk; and, by means of canvas, boards, and steps, he constructed a series of rooms and staircases in a spreading ilex-tree, with rope railings and bells at each 'floor' for visitors, so that even the gardeners admitted it was the most wonderful thing they had ever set eyes upon in a tree.
With the children he was, however, careful to play the part he had decided to play. He was kind and good-natured; he spent a good deal of time with them daily; he even submitted periodically to be introduced all over again to the out-of-door animals, but he went through it all soberly and deliberately, and flattered himself that he was quite successful in presenting to them the 'Uncle Paul' whom it was best for his safety they should know.
Heart-searchings and temptations he had in plenty, but came through the ordeal with flying colours, and by the end of the first week he was satisfied that they accepted him as he wished—sedate, stolid, dull, and 'grown up.'
Yet, all the time, there was something that puzzled him. Under the leadership of Nixie the children played up almost too admirably. It was almost as though he had called them and explained everything in detail. In spite of himself, they seemed somehow or other to have got into his confidence, so that he felt his pretence was after all not so effective as he meant it to be.
Even—nay, especially—the way he was 'accepted' by the animals was suspicious—for nothing can be more eloquent of the true relations between children and a grown-up than the terms they permit their animals to have towards him—and this easy acceptance of himself as he pretended to be constituted the most wearing and subtle kind of attack he could possibly conceive. He felt as if the steel casings of his armour were changing into cardboard; soon they would become mere tissue-paper, and then turn transparent and melt away altogether.
'They seem to think it's all put on, this stiffness of mine,' he thought more than once. f Perhaps they're playing a sort of game with me. If once they find out I'm only acting—whew!' he whistled low—' the game is up at once! I must keep an eye peeled!'
Consequently he kept that eye peeled; he made more use of his private study, and so often gave the excuse of having reports to write that, had it been true, his lumber Company would have been obliged to double its staff in order to read them.
Yet, even in the study, he was not absolutely safe.
The children penetrated there too. They knocked elaborately—always; but with the knock he invariably realised a roguish pair of eyes and a sly laugh on the other side of the door. It was like knocking on his heart direct. He always said—in a bored, unnatural tone:
'Oh, come in, whoever it is I' knowing quite well who it was. And, then, in they would come—one or the other of them. They slipped in softly as shadows, like the coming of dusk, like stray puffs of wind, fragrant and summery, or like unexpected rays of light as the sun walked round the house in the afternoon. And when they were gone—swiftly, like the sun dipping behind a cloud—lo, the room seemed cold and empty again.
'Oh, they're up to something, they're up to something,' he said wisely to himself. with a sigh. 'They're laying traps for me, bless their little insolences!'
And the more he thought about it, the more certain he felt that Nixie, Jonah, and Toby were simply playing the Cat Game—pretending to accept his attitude because they saw he wished it. Only, less occult and intelligent than the cat, they sometimes made odd little slips that betrayed them.
For instance, one evening Jonah penetrated into the study to say good-night, and brought the Chow puppies, China and Japan, with him. Their tails curled over their backs like wire brushes; their vigorous round bodies, for ever on the move, were all he could manage. Having been duly kissed, the child waited, however, for something else, and at length, receiving no assistance from his uncle, he lifted each puppy in turn on to the table.
'You, Uncle, please hold them; 'can't,'