The Danger Mark by Robert W. Chambers

Author:Robert W. Chambers [Chambers, Robert W. (Robert William)]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-08-07T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XII

THE LOVE OF THE GODS

Two days later the majority of the people had left Roya-Neh, and the remainder were preparing to make their adieux to the young chatelaine by proxy; for Geraldine had kept her room since the night of the masked fête, and nobody except Kathleen and Dr. Bailey had seen her.

"Fashionable fidgets," said Dr. Bailey, in answer to amiable inquiries; "the girl has been living on her nerves, like the rest of you, only she can't stand as much as you can."

To Duane he said, in reply to persistent questions:

"As a plain and unromantic proposition, young man, it may be her liver. God alone knows with what young women stuff their bodies in those bucolic solitudes."

To Kathleen he said, after questioning her and listening in silence to her guarded replies:

"I don't know what is the matter, Mrs. Severn. The girl is extremely nervous. She acts, to me, as though she had something on her mind, but she insists that she hasn't. If I were to be here, I might come to some conclusion within the next day or two."

Which frightened Kathleen, and she asked whether anything serious might be anticipated.

"Not at all," he said.

So, as he was taking the next train, there was nothing to do. He left a prescription and whizzed away to the railroad station with the last motor-load of guests.

There remained only Duane, Rosalie Dysart, Grandcourt, and Sylvia Quest, a rather subdued and silent group on the terrace, unresponsive to Scott's unfeigned gaiety to find himself comparatively alone and free to follow his own woodland predilections once more.

"A cordial host you are," observed Rosalie; "you're guests are scarcely out of sight before you break into inhuman chuckles."

"Speed the parting," observed Scott, in excellent spirits; "that's the truest hospitality."

"I suppose your unrestrained laughter will be our parting portion in a day or two," she said, amused.

"No; I don't mind a few people. Do you want to come and look for scarabs?"

"Scarabs? Do you imagine you're in Egypt, my poor friend?"

Scott sniffed: "Didn't you know we had a few living species around here? Regular scarabs. Kathleen and I found three the other day—one a regular beauty with two rhinoceros horns on the thorax and iridescent green and copper tinted wing-covers. Do you want to help me hunt for some more? You'll have to put on overshoes, for they're in the cow-yards."

Rosalie, intensely bored, thanked him and declined. Later she opened a shrimp-pink sunshade and, followed by Grandcourt, began to saunter about the lawn in plain sight, as people do preliminary to effacing themselves without exciting comment.

But there was nobody to comment on what they did; Duane was reading a sporting-sheet, souvenir of the departed Bunbury; Sylvia sat pallid and preoccupied, cheek resting against her hand, looking out over the valley. Her brother, her only living relative, was supposed to have come up that morning to take her to the next house party on the string which linked the days of every summer for her. But Stuyvesant

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