The Tempting of Tavernake. E. Phillips Oppenheim

evening, but you were rude.”

      “You really are a curious person,” she remarked. “Are you always worried, then, if you find that some one else is seeing things or understanding things which are outside your comprehension?”

      “Always,” he replied promptly.

      “You are too far-reaching,” she affirmed. “You want to gather everything into your life. You cannot. You will only be unhappy if you try. No man can do it. You must learn your limitations or suffer all your days.”

      “Limitations!” He repeated the words with measureless scorn. “If I learn them at all,” he declared, with unexpected force, “it will be with scars and bruises, for nothing else will content me.”

      “We are, I should say, almost the same age,” she remarked slowly.

      “I am twenty-five,” he told her.

      “I am twenty-two,” she said. “It seems strange that two people whose ideas of life are as far apart as the Poles should have come together like this even for a moment. I do not understand it at all. Did you expect that I should tell you just what I saw in the clouds that night?”

      “No,” he answered, “not exactly. I have spoken of my first interest in you only. There are other things. I told a lie about the bracelet and I followed you out of the boarding-house and I brought you here, for some other for quite a different reason.”

      “Tell me what it was,” she demanded.

      “I do not know it myself,” he declared solemnly. “I really and honestly do not know it. It is because I hoped that it might come to me while we were together, that I am here with you at this moment. I do not like impulses which I do not understand.”

      She laughed at him a little scornfully.

      “After all,” she said, “although it may not have dawned upon you yet, it is probably the same wretched reason. You are a man and you have the poison somewhere in your blood. I am really not bad-looking, you know.”

      He looked at her critically. She was a little over-slim, perhaps, but she was certainly wonderfully graceful. Even the poise of her head, the manner in which she leaned back in her chair, had its individuality. Her features, too, were good, though her mouth had grown a trifle hard. For the first time the dead pallor of her cheeks was relieved by a touch of color. Even Tavernake realized that there were great possibilities about her. Nevertheless, he shook his head.

      “I do not agree with you in the least,” he asserted firmly. “Your looks have nothing to do with it. I am sure that it is not that.”

      “Let me cross-examine you,” she suggested. “Think carefully now. Does it give you no pleasure at all to be sitting here alone with me?”

      He answered her deliberately; it was obvious that he was speaking the truth.

      “I am not conscious that it does,” he declared. “The only feeling I am aware of at the present moment in connection with you, is the curiosity of which I have already spoken.”

      She leaned a little towards him, extending her very shapely fingers. Once more the smile at her lips transformed her face.

      “Look at my hand,” she said. “Tell me—wouldn't you like to hold it just for a minute, if I gave it you?”

      Her eyes challenged his, softly and yet imperiously. His whole attention, however, seemed to be absorbed by her finger-nails. It seemed strange to him that a girl in her straits should have devoted so much care to her hands.

      “No,” he answered deliberately, “I have no wish to hold your hand. Why should I?”

      “Look at me,” she insisted.

      He did so without embarrassment or hesitation—it was more than ever apparent that he was entirely truthful. She leaned back in her chair, laughing softly to herself.

      “Oh, my friend Mr. Leonard Tavernake,” she exclaimed, “if you were not so crudely, so adorably, so miraculously truthful, what a prig, prig, prig, you would be! The cutlets at last, thank goodness! Your cross-examination is over. I pronounce you 'Not Guilty!”'

      During the progress of the rest of the meal, they talked very little. At its conclusion, Tavernake discharged the bill, having carefully checked each item and tipped the waiter the exact amount which the man had the right to expect. They ascended the stairs together to the street, the girl lingering a few steps behind. On the pavement her fingers touched his arm.

      “I wonder, would you mind driving me down to the Embankment?” she asked almost humbly. “It was so close down there and I want some air.”

      This was an extravagance which he had scarcely contemplated, but he did not hesitate. He called a taxicab and seated himself by her side. Her manner seemed to have grown quieter and more subdued, her tone was no longer semi-belligerent.

      “I will not keep you much longer,” she promised. “I suppose I am not so strong as I used to be. I have had scarcely anything to eat for two days and conversation has become an unknown luxury. I think—it seems absurd—but I think that I am feeling a little faint.”

      “The air will soon revive you,” he said. “As to our conversation, I am disappointed. I think that you are very foolish not to tell me more about yourself.”

      She closed her eyes, ignoring his remark. They turned presently into a narrower thoroughfare. She leaned towards him.

      “You have been very good to me,” she admitted almost timidly, “and I am afraid that I have not been very gracious. We shall not see one another again after this evening. I wonder—would you care to kiss me?”

      He opened his lips and closed them again. He sat quite still, his eyes fixed upon the road ahead, until he had strangled something absolutely absurd, something unrecognizable.

      “I would rather not,” he decided quietly. “I know you mean to be kind but that sort of thing—well, I don't think I understand it. Besides,” he added with a sudden naive relief, as he clutched at a fugitive but plausible thought, “if I did you would not believe the things which I have been telling you.”

      He had a curious idea that she was disappointed as she turned her head away, but she said nothing. Arrived at the Embankment, the cab came slowly to a standstill. The girl descended. There was something new in her manner; she looked away from him when she spoke.

      “You had better leave me here,” she said. “I am going to sit upon that seat.”

      Then came those few seconds' hesitation which were to count for a great deal in his life. The impulse which bade him stay with her was unaccountable but it conquered.

      “If you do not object,” he remarked with some stiffness, “I should like to sit here with you for a little time. There is certainly a breeze.”

      She made no comment but walked on. He paid the man and followed her to the empty seat. Opposite, some illuminated advertisements blazed their unsightly message across the murky sky. Between the two curving rows of yellow lights the river flowed—black, turgid, hopeless. Even here, though they had escaped from its absolute thrall, the far-away roar of the city beat upon their ears. She listened to it for a moment and then pressed her hands to the side of her head.

      “Oh, how I hate it!” she moaned. “The voices, always the voices, calling, threatening, beating you away! Take my hands, Leonard Tavernake—hold me.”

      He did as she bade him, clumsily, as yet without comprehension.

      “You are not well,” he muttered.

      Her eyes opened and a flash of her old manner returned. She smiled at him, feebly but derisively.

      “You foolish boy!” she cried. “Can't you see that I am dying? Hold my hands tightly and watch—watch! Here is one more thing you can see—that you cannot understand.”

      He