Page:The Old Countess (1927).pdf/188

 'Yes, I mind, in a way. But what do you feel about it all?' Dick muttered.

It was difficult to know what she felt, with Dick's dear head pressed against her neck, his arm holding her across her breast. But Dick was not caressing her. He was taking refuge with her. And she, too, was afraid of Buissac now. She hated being afraid. She hated to yield to fear.

'What I feel is what you feel,' she said slowly, trying to think. 'I mean—it's all for you, of course, the places we stay at. If you want to go, so do I. What is there to keep us, if you really want to go?'

But as she spoke she knew that there was something that did keep her. Was it only her superstition, as against Dick's? Her white magic against his black mood? Marthe Ludérac kept her. She and Marthe Ludérac had something to do for each other. Was that only superstition? But it seemed like running away, it seemed like cowardice, to turn one's back not only on Marthe Ludérac's celestial secret, but on her tragedy.

Dick kept his face pressed into her shoulder. He was waiting for an answer.

'Have your walk first,' she found. 'Lunch will make a difference, too, perhaps. Don't forget that it's nothing new, Dick. You wanted to run away the other day, before—' She had been going to say, 'before you had seen Marthe Ludérac,' but she changed it to—'before you'd begun the portrait. If you run away now, I mean, it might become a habit!' and Jill tried