THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 UNTt. OF CAUF. LIBRARY. LOS ANGELES
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 THE 
 
 PASSIONATE PURITAN 
 
 " The story of a passionate love and of the 
 warring between two distinct ideals of life. 
 It is very well and realistically presented as a 
 problem." Boston Transcript 
 
 THE STORY OF A 
 NEW ZEALAND RIVER 
 
 " Jane Mander comes from New Zealand 
 
 and she writes about that most interesting 
 
 country with the surety of thorough knowledge 
 
 and with the insight of the born story-teller." 
 
 New York Times
 
 THE 
 STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 By 
 JANE MANDER 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE PASSIONATE PURITAN," AND 
 "THE STORY OF A NEW ZEALAND RIVER" 
 
 NEW YOKE 
 DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 
 
 1922
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1922 
 BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC. 
 
 FEINTED ITS U. S. A.
 
 To 
 
 Certain American Friends 
 Whose Encouragement and Practical Help 
 
 Made Possible 
 The Writing of This Story 
 
 2131342
 
 It is the business of the very few to be independent ; 
 it is a privilege of the strong." 
 
 " Flee, my friend, into thy solitude. I see thee deaf- 
 ened with the noise of the great men, and itung all over 
 with the stings of the little ones." 
 
 " Admirably do forest and rock know how to be silent 
 with thee." NIETZSCHE
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 DO hope you will like it," said Bob Lorrimer rather 
 doubtfully. 
 
 -*- " I don't care a cuss if I don't. I shall stay till 
 I've got all I can out of it. But I say, this is hot, isn't 
 it? " answered Valerie Carr. 
 
 " Yes, it's the worst since I came. You couldn't see 
 much of the river, I suppose. There's a big fire to the 
 north of us." 
 
 " Not a thing," she said in a disgusted tone. 
 
 They stood on what was known as the Dargaville main 
 wharf beside the steamer that had just brought Valerie 
 from Helensville. Passengers still moved cautiously down 
 the unrailed gangway with packages and bags in their 
 hands, and relatives still greeted each other with forced 
 gaiety or honest affection, and acquaintances with laconic 
 nods. The donkey engine swung the first net full of trunks 
 and boxes in dangerous imminence above the heads of all 
 who stood on the limited area of the narrow landing. 
 
 " Look out ! Look out ! " impatiently yelled one of the 
 steamer hands, annoyed that it should be his job to save 
 people who did not seem to want to live. 
 
 There was a scramble out of the way. Bob and Valerie 
 drew aside against the wall of a zinc shed. She looked into 
 the pile of luggage that was dumped at her feet, saw that 
 
 1
 
 gj THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 her own belongings were not there, and turned again to 
 Bob. 
 
 " What do you think of it so far ? " she asked. 
 
 " I think the paper is a promising thing. They will 
 turn it into a daily next summer if we make a good start. 
 Anyway it is a stepping-stone, and we can make it pretty 
 much what we like so long as we boom the district and 
 Benton's candidature. The committee's fine, and as they 
 all have work to do and know nothing about running a 
 paper they will not be fussing about the office all the 
 time." 
 
 "And the place?" 
 
 Bob shrugged his shoulders. " Well, you'll see." 
 
 Valerie looked about her, seeing the wharf, the sheds, 
 the steamer, and the uninteresting line of low shops across 
 the street. But the rest of the place blurred off into the 
 pall of smoke that was choking the life out of the little 
 flat town. Even the opposite bank of the river was clouded 
 in a hot mystery. The Wairoa itself, usually a restless 
 stream, dawdled along on the top of the tide, a turgid 
 yellow, carrying charred debris gathered up by its far-off 
 rambling tributaries, and doing nothing that a river 
 should to cool the air or refresh the eye. It was hotter, 
 if anything, on its surface than it was in the sandy town. 
 
 Valerie gave little thought just then to the passengers 
 or to the people who met them, though she knew that she 
 and Bob were being stared at. The town already knew 
 him as the editor of the new tri-weekly paper, and it had 
 known for some days that he was to have a woman assist- 
 ant from Auckland. While this was a matter of real 
 interest in a place that had a population of under two 
 thousand, it was not a matter for astonishment. Nothing 
 was a matter for astonishment in Dargaville. That was 
 the town's pet pose.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 3 
 
 But such of the town as met the steamer that day 
 looked curiously at the newcomers for several reasons. 
 Bob was the son of the Bishop of Auckland, and Valerie 
 was the daughter of that city's cleverest and best-known 
 lawyer, Davenport Carr. The glamour of this combined 
 social distinction made the local dignitaries look a little 
 weak. Not that the town would have admitted it in pub- 
 lic. Indeed it was prepared to resist any undiplomatic 
 move on the part of the outsiders to teach it anything 
 with the undue haste usually showed by outsiders in im- 
 pressing little towns. But it stared this day with a 
 friendly feeling, for the two were good to look at, and the 
 town immediately sniffed the possibility of romance. 
 
 II 
 
 Bob and Valerie were radiantly healthy, with the kind 
 of vitality that did not wilt even in that dissolving atmos- 
 phere. They stood tall and straight, unaware of smoke- 
 choked lungs, their eyes untroubled by the glare that 
 radiated off the zinc roofs of the sheds. 
 
 In spite of her tedious train and steamer journey 
 Valerie had contrived to arrive with the air of having 
 merely strolled out of a nearby street. She wore a plain 
 dark linen dress with a narrow pale blue collar round the 
 pointed neck, and a soft linen hat to match. She wore 
 white canvas shoes that had stayed white, and white open- 
 work cotton stockings. There was not a superfluous inch 
 of material about her. She carried a good black travelling 
 bag which Bob now held. 
 
 Valerie was not conventionally beautiful, but she car- 
 ried an internal dynamo that shot sparks at the passerby 
 and made him forget his manners, turn his head and won-
 
 4 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 der who the deuce she was. And there was something in 
 the carriage of her head, and the fashioning of her 'liinbs 
 and the assurance of her manner that confirmed his first 
 impression that she was that desirable thing, somebody, 
 not only in her own right, but with the added prestige of 
 ancestors. 
 
 She was supple and loose-limbed and tanned from a 
 summer spent largely in the open air. Her vitality had 
 run over from her limbs into her amber hair. It had a 
 curious luminousness, which caused many of her acquaint- 
 ances to wonder what she did to it. She coiled it about 
 her head in two thick ropes which usually dragged a little 
 down her forehead, and often made her look like the queen 
 of vampires, the very last lady of life and imagination 
 she would have bothered to imitate. Beneath that amber 
 hair, and beneath heavy eyebrows of the same colour, her 
 deep-set and amused blue eyes softened a face that was a 
 little too contemptuous, made one forget the nose, a little 
 too strong for beauty, and antidoted a mouth that was 
 curiously voluptuous. For the rest she had a fine skin, 
 splendid colour, dimples, a good chin, and her head well 
 set on a proud neck. 
 
 Bob stood over six feet, a well-developed and athletic 
 male. The lines of his face were straight and his features 
 cut with strength, but with little suggestion of delicacy. 
 His heavy black eyebrows met when he frowned over 
 humorous brown eyes that found the world a pretty good 
 place to live in. In fact most things were pretty good to 
 him. He had a healthy crop of coarse black hair on his 
 well-shaped head, and it was always cut the conventional 
 length and combed in the conventional way. He was al- 
 ways carefully up-to-date with his clothes, and looked ex- 
 ceedingly well in them. At twenty-seven he had extricated 
 himself from the perplexities of youth and adolescence, had
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 5 
 
 had his conventional time of knocking "around away from 
 his home associations, had returned in the conventional 
 manner to settle down to his life-work. 
 
 The main difference between these two was that you 
 looked at Bob and dogmatized, and you looked at Valerie 
 and wondered. 
 
 Ill 
 
 After her glance about the wharf Valerie brought her 
 eyes back to his face. 
 
 " Where am I to stay? " she asked. 
 
 " Mac's pub," he grinned. 
 
 " Oh, Lord ! Beer and flies." She made a comical 
 grimace. " Then there's nothing else ? " 
 
 " No. We have tried everything. Nobody has any 
 room, and you'd hate boarding with anyone here anyway. 
 Mac's is all right, clean as pubs go, and the food is jolly 
 decent, on the whole." 
 
 " Any other women stay there? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Thank God for that." 
 
 " Mac refused to take you at first. You see he can 
 fill up most of the time with men who spend a lot at the 
 bar, and women don't pay. And then, well, the pub is 
 la bit lively sometimes. However, the committee spends 
 a lot there, and Benton fixed it. So you are on trial. 
 Whatever happens you must not complain about any- 
 thing." 
 
 " Dash it all, Bob, did you ever hear me complain about 
 anything? " 
 
 A broad grin spread over his face. 
 
 " Oh, yes, you've heard me complain about hosts of 
 things, fusty old ideas, the cowardly virtues, etc., oh, yes.
 
 6 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 But you never heard me complain about physical discom- 
 fort, now, did you? " 
 
 " No, gentle Val. And I told Mac that if you found 
 your bedroom full of rats and the soup full of cockroaches 
 it would be nothing to what I've seen you oblivious to, 
 and that you would be out of the place all day and most 
 of the evenings at the office. Oh, hullo! Here are some 
 of the committee." 
 
 He turned as two men came round the corner of the 
 shed. 
 
 Valerie looked keenly at Tom Allison and Ray Bolton, 
 the bank managers of the town. One glance at them told 
 her they would mean nothing in her life, and that they 
 probably meant little in the lives of anybody else. 
 
 " Sorry you had to arrive on our hottest day, Miss 
 Carr," said Allison, looking at her with a deliberately 
 inviting and admiring gaze. Young women of manifest 
 attractions did not constitute one of the reasons for the 
 fame of Dargaville. 
 
 " Oh, I shan't judge the town by its hottest day," re- 
 torted Valerie. 
 
 Just then the second net full of trunks and boxes fell 
 about their feet. She pointed out her belongings, and 
 Bob beckoned to a carter waiting near. Then they all 
 walked the few feet of wooden planks to the dusty side- 
 walk of River Street. 
 
 The bankers claimed Valerie in conversation. They 
 assured her that Dargaville was quite a live little place, 
 that there was a nice exclusive little set, and a good bridge 
 club. They parted from her and Bob at the corner of 
 Queen Street, remarking that their wives would call as 
 soon as they returned from the coast. 
 
 Her eyes twinkled at Bob. " Is that the best the place 
 can do? "
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 7 
 
 "Well, Benton has a good deal more juice," he smiled 
 Hack. 
 
 Valerie looked curiously about her as they went on by 
 the river. Along the bank there was a clay path, a few 
 sheds and boathouses set on piles, and poles to which boats 
 were moored right against the steep edge. The shops and 
 stores faced them from the other side of the street, for 
 this was a one-sided thoroughfare. People stood there in 
 the doorways trying to get some air. There seemed to be 
 a little breeze now coming out of the west. A limp farmer 
 passed by in a creaking wagon, his horses drooping. 
 There were several men ahead of them walking to the hotel. 
 There were no sounds about them but the rattling and 
 clanking of the steamer unloading at the wharf. 
 
 Soon she saw a large building looming out of the haze. 
 It was a typical New Zealand small-town wooden hotel of 
 two stories, with verandah and balcony along the front 
 and down the side farthest from the centre of the town. 
 Two men were lounging at the front door. Already she 
 could smell the beer and feel the flies. 
 
 A large sign across part of the front told the passerby 
 that this was the Dargaville hotel and that the proprietor 
 was Thomas MacAlarney. 
 
 IV 
 
 Bob led Valerie down the near side of the house to the 
 night entrance, along a narrow corridor to the hall, and 
 up the back stairs to a room numbered nine without meet- 
 ing a soul. 
 
 " Here you are," he said. " Now I must get to the 
 office. I'll be back about six. If I were you I'd always 
 use the side way. The front stairs come down beside the
 
 8 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 public bar. This is the quiet end. I'm on one side of you 
 and Father Ryan is on the other. The bathroom is op- 
 posite us. So long." 
 
 Bob's parting smile was meant to be heartening. He 
 was always forgetting that sympathy was wasted on a 
 person who persisted in regarding everything that hap- 
 pened, whether good or bad, as some kind of adventure. 
 
 Valerie opened her door and carried her hand-bag in- 
 side. She threw her hat on the bed, dropped into the one 
 plain chair, wiped her face, and began a survey of the 
 possible horrors. She saw that the room was fairly clean, 
 that the clothes cupboard would do, that there were two 
 pillows to the single bed, an unusually generous equipment, 
 that the quilt was aggressively white, that the tops of the 
 chest of drawers and the washstand were not stained as 
 badly as many she had met before, that the pattern on 
 the one mat had faded to a less irritating result than new- 
 ness would have been, and that the wall paper did not have 
 the one sickly greenish-yellow tone she could not possibly 
 have endured. The worst being thus satisfactorily ab- 
 sent she heaved a sigh of relief. There were flies, but she 
 had had flies before, and most of them would go with the 
 heat. She was no victim of optimism, but when she was 
 using a present as a means to a future it was the future 
 and not the present that conquered her senses and her 
 imagination. 
 
 She walked to the window swishing out the flies. She 
 was glad to see that it opened on the balcony and she 
 hoped that she would have it mostly to herself. She 
 looked across the river, and could just make out the rush- 
 fringed edge of a large swamp. She turned back and 
 smiled into the spotted mirror that hung above the chest 
 of drawers. 
 
 *' Well," she thought, " we begin again."
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 She sat down on her bed wondering whether her luggage 
 would be brought up or whether she would have to go in 
 search of it. She knew there was no service beyond the 
 weekly cleaning of her room and the providing of meals. 
 There had been no maid visible in the hall, and none would 
 ever come. There were no bells to ring. Some time she 
 would have to capture her chambermaid and see what 
 could be done with her. She took some soap out of her 
 bag and a towel off the rack, and walked out to the bath- 
 room. A porter was dragging her largest trunk down the 
 hall linoleum. 
 
 " Fine," she said as he came up to Her. " I was won- 
 dering what I should do about it." 
 
 He straightened his back, and to her surprise touched 
 his forehead. She looked into the approving blue eyes of 
 a thin, seedy Irishman whose favourite occupation was 
 advertised somewhat blatantly in the colour of his nose. 
 
 "Ah, and it's the heat you've brought, miss," he said, 
 wiping his face with his sleeve. 
 
 " More than usual ? " 
 
 " Shure. It has been cool till this. I'm thinking it 
 won't be very comfortable here for a lady." 
 
 " I shall be all right. I can be all right anywhere. Do 
 you belong to the house? " 
 
 " Indeed and I do." 
 
 " Fine. If I get into any trouble I'll come to you. 
 What's your name? " 
 
 " It's Michael O'Shay I am, miss. And I'll tell Nancy 
 to take the good care of you. I'll be after her when I go 
 down." 
 
 " No, no, thanks. Don't do that. The girls are prob- 
 ably resting now, and if they are not they ought to be.
 
 10 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 There's nothing I want, really. I hate disturbing tired 
 girls." 
 
 He beamed at her. 
 
 " God bless 3^ou for a kind one, miss. He might have 
 made a few more while He was about it. But I must be 
 after working." 
 
 When he was returning for the last time Valerie won- 
 dered whether she should tip him. She wished she had 
 asked Bob what the custom here was. The minute she 
 reached for her purse she saw she had made a mistake. 
 
 " Nothing from a lady like yourself, miss," said Michael 
 with a hurt look. 
 
 " Indeed no, Michael. But I want you to go and get 
 me a bottle of ale, and bring it up here. Can you do that 
 for a thirsty person? " 
 
 " Indeed and I can," and with a look that included her 
 in a secret fellowship, he went off to return in a few min- 
 utes with a bottle, a corkscrew, a tumbler and sixpence 
 change. 
 
 She waved back the coin. " You must drink that to me 
 for good luck in Dargaville," she said gaily. 
 
 " God love you, miss, and there'll never be anything but 
 .good luck for the likes of you." He opened her bottle, 
 touched his forehead again, and backed out gallantly. 
 
 Valerie drank her ale, and after a cold shower began to 
 unpack. She heard no sound immediately about her till 
 Bob knocked on her door at a quarter past six. 
 
 VI 
 
 She looked with interest round the large dining-room, 
 for there were all sorts of men sitting at the small square 
 tables. Bob led her to one in the corner almost under 
 their rooms.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 11 
 
 " Is Mac here? " she asked as they sat down. 
 
 " No. He eats late. You may not see him for days, 
 and he won't take any notice of you." 
 
 She looked at the place set opposite his. " Who sits 
 there? " 
 
 " Father Ryan. I thought you would not mind. He 
 has always sat here. He is a charming gentleman. He's 
 away to-night. Why, here's Benton." 
 
 He rose to meet a large, loosely-built man in dusty rid- 
 ing clothes who sauntered with spurs jingling down the 
 room towards them. Roger Bentou was wiping his face 
 with a handkerchief that would have scandalized his wife 
 at that moment. He held out a big hairy, tanned hand 
 to Valerie and dropped into the priest's chair. 
 
 " I meant to be at the steamer, Miss Carr. I promised 
 my wife I would, but my horse cast a shoe the other side 
 of Te Koperu, and delayed me. How's your father? " 
 He looked at her out of gay lazy bluish-gray eyes. 
 
 " Fine, thanks." She looked him over quickly, liking 
 his boyish frankness and country comfortableness. 
 
 " Join us for dinner, Benton," said Bob. 
 
 " No, thanks, I'm on my way to the camp. I just 
 dropped in to greet Miss Carr. I hope you will like us." 
 His eyes rested on her again with a vague intentness. He 
 thought her very stunning. 
 
 " I hope so too," she retorted mischievously. 
 
 " It's a small town but we manage to knock some fun 
 out of it," he went on. 
 
 " I shall like a great deal about it, but I'm not promis- 
 ing to like the things I shall be expected to like." 
 
 He looked a little uncertainly into her amused eyes. 
 " Mrs. Benton wants you to come along on Sunday after- 
 noon to the camp, you and Lorrimer," he said. 
 
 She hesitated a moment. But the word camp had
 
 12 
 
 magic in it. And then she felt she could hardly refuse 
 this first invitation. " Thanks. I shall like to come." 
 
 " That's good. Anything you want me for, Lorri- 
 mer? " He stood up. 
 
 " I think not. Things are going all right." 
 
 Roger went off, nodding at every table he passed. 
 
 Then Bob turned to the waitress who had come up and 
 was standing glancing at Valerie. 
 
 " Lizzie," he said informally, " this is Miss Carr." 
 
 Valerie smiled up at her and without a word established 
 between herself and the girl the understanding that existed 
 between her and all people who ever served her. When 
 Lizzie had departed with their order she turned to Bob. 
 
 " What did he mean by the camp? " 
 
 " It's out on the coast. The elite have cottages there." 
 
 VII 
 
 After dinner when Bob had returned to the office Valerie 
 continued her unpacking. She shed most of her clothes 
 for the purpose. Through her open window came inter- 
 mittent sounds of voices and laughter from the bar, but 
 nothing passed by along the street. A little before ten 
 o'clock something brought her upstanding, taut, like a 
 listening animal. She bounded out on the balcony, forget- 
 ting she had on only a shirt and bloomers and was visible 
 from the street. She looked upstream whence the excit- 
 ing sounds had come, and saw a green and a red light and 
 then the outlines of a little steamer and a big ship filigreed 
 against the dull radiance of a hazy rising moon. She 
 drew a long breath as the small boat tugged and the 
 great ship glided past the hotel, so near that she could 
 have thrown a stone upon the decks. She heard the 
 sounds of strong, hoarse voices and the clanking of
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 13 
 
 chains mingling with the pompous throb of the engine in 
 the tug. She blew a sentimental wish to the unknown men 
 on their way to sea, and she stood till she could no longer 
 see any evidences of their passing. . . . Then she 
 was arrested by another sound. Through the clammy si- 
 lence of the night there advanced and retreated the unmis- 
 takable roll of the ocean breaking on a long beach. She 
 hung her head over the balcony the better to hear. 
 
 She heard Bob's steps along the hall. She rushed to 
 his window and poked in her head. 
 
 " Bob," she began excitedly, as he opened his door. 
 * l You didn't tell me we could hear the sea." 
 
 "Val! Good heavens, what are you doing? What? 
 The sea? Yes, the coast is only four miles away." He 
 qame up to the window. He was very tired. 
 
 " But, Bob, how wonderful ! Do we always hear it? " 
 
 " Yes, when it is still. I say, Val, really, you must not 
 go out on the balcony like that. The pub is closing, and 
 the men come round this side of the house to the stables. 
 They mustn't see us here. You know, you must be a little 
 discreet." 
 
 " Oh hell, Bob. You are getting to be an old grand- 
 mother. Good-night." She ran her hands viciously 
 through his hair, patted his cheek more kindly, and with 
 an absurdly furtive air crept back along the wall to her 
 window. 
 
 The weary Bob was asleep in a quarter of an hour, but 
 Valerie lay for some time listening to the surf beating like 
 a pulse in the heart of the stifled town. 
 
 VIII 
 
 When she walked into the dining-room the next morning 
 Bob had vanished and Father Ryan was drinking his sec-
 
 14) THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 ond cup of coffee. There were a few stragglers scattered 
 at the tables, men who had lived not wisely but too well in 
 the recent past and looked as if they were doubtful about 
 the blessing of surviving to greet another day. 
 
 The priest rose and drew out her chair. Father Ryan 
 was small and thin and exquisite. His hair was like white 
 floss silk, and his bright blue eyes were both keen and mild. 
 He looked at Valerie as the other men had done with obvi- 
 ous admiration, but the quality of his approval was a very 
 different thing. 
 
 " I hope the heat did not keep you from sleep," he said, 
 after they had greeted each other. 
 
 " It did not, thanks. I slept much too well. I meant 
 to be down at eight. But that's not the first good inten- 
 tion of mine that has gone wrong." 
 
 She was pleased to see that he gave her a quick smile. 
 
 As she ate her eggs and bacon she asked him questions 
 about his parish. She was glad to think she would have 
 his voice to listen to, for he spoke the most beautiful Eng- 
 lish in the world, the English of the Irish scholar. He sat 
 with her till she had finished, and bowed her through the 
 door with a manner that made her feel as if she were in a 
 mediaeval tale. 
 
 She could see little of the town as she walked to the 
 office. She had no idea of the extent of it as it straggled 
 along the river with its broad streets and many open lots. 
 It was almost entirely a one-story town, the largest on the 
 Wairoa, and the only one to have banks and now a paper 
 of its own. It was the terminus of a railway that ran 
 eighteen miles north into one of the finest kauri forests of 
 the country. But nobody knew just why it had happened 
 to grow where it did, for it was on the narrowest part of 
 a great barren tongue of land that stretched from th'e 
 Kaipara heads for the best part of sixty miles between the
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 15 
 
 river and the sea with not a thing to attract settlement 
 except the depth of the river on that side. It had na 
 water supply save the uncertain one of rainfall. It faced 
 a great swamp. But it was now the growing town of a 
 prosperous and booming timber and dairying district. 
 
 It was the river that most interested Valerie as she 
 walked along. It was the best commercial waterway in 
 the North Island, and on its upper reaches it was haunt- 
 ingly beautiful. It stretched away into gumfields and re- 
 mote valleys. Little steamers and launches fussed con- 
 tinually upon its strong current, and at any moment a 
 ship might come gliding round a bend. 
 
 But Dargaville had its distinction. It was blase, and 
 liked to say the world came to its doors. It was used to 
 the unusual, to men who had roamed the whole earth, to 
 all the types that go down to the sea in ships. Governors 
 and members of Parliament passed through it to shoot. 
 Newly arrived Englishmen came spying out the land. Re- 
 mittance men came to its banks to cash orders signed by 
 titled names. And it was used, too, to seeing bodies that 
 had been fished out of the river covered with an old sheet 
 and carried on a stretcher into Mac's hotel. It was used 
 to seeing the constable marching solemnly between painted 
 ladies who had just arrived from Auckland, and who had 
 to be returned by the steamer by which they came without 
 damage to the morals of the youth of the town and before 
 they could escape to the bush. 
 
 Dargaville had not been astonished when a woman doc- 
 tor took charge of the Aratapu hospital, three miles down 
 the river. So it had taken calmly the information that 
 the new paper would have a woman on the editorial staff. 
 Nor was it unduly surprised to learn later that the woman 
 was young and amazing, and that she was living in Mac's 
 hotel.
 
 16 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 Valerie walked on as Bob had directed her till she came 
 to a low, narrow building standing between two open lots. 
 The paper had been housed in a store on the fringe of the 
 town near the railway station. There she saw trucks of 
 sawn timber which was being loaded into a brig at the 
 short wharf. Train sheds blackened by smoke straggled 
 along both sides of the line in the direction of the ticket 
 office which was a couple of blocks inland. She crossed 
 the street with her eyes on the unpretentious construction 
 that was to house more than she ever dreamed. A newly 
 painted sign, The Dargaville News, dwarfed its size and 
 diminished the proportions of the one broad window, which 
 had been whitewashed inside half-way up. She knew it 
 was probably the smallest and meanest newspaper office in 
 the colony, but she had learned not to despise beginnings. 
 
 As she stood a moment considering it she could hear 
 Bob's voice inside giving orders to somebody, and the 
 monotonous throb of machinery in the rear. Feeling as 
 if she had cast something behind her forever, she put her 
 foot on the log step and jumped into a narrow passage 
 partitioned from the office for a distance of six feet by 
 glazed glass. Past it she looked across a high sloping 
 counter down at Bob. He was leaning over a desk by the 
 opposite wall, and while he wrote he was telling a dark boy 
 of extraordinary aliveness to get a certain advertisement 
 back from the foreman. Valerie whistled the notes of the 
 tui's spring song. Bob spun round on his chair and got 
 to his feet. The (lark boy, after one unabashed stare at 
 her, darted into the composing-room to tell the staff that 
 she had come. 
 
 " I'm ready for anything," she said. 
 
 " I never knew you when you weren't," grinned Bob.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 WHEN Bob introduced her to him Valerie saw 
 the importance of Jimmy to the Dargaville 
 News. Indeed, Jimmy did more than work with 
 the energy of six boys. He cast a glamour over the littered 
 office and the second-hand machinery and the smelly com- 
 posing-room. His work was more to him than a job, those 
 circumscribing four walls fell down before his roving eyes, 
 and the cantankerous old printing machine was an enemy 
 after his own heart. 
 
 Jimmy was a boy of uncertain fatherhood, and the eld- 
 est of a family of five. When he was an inconvenient in- 
 fant his mother had come to Dargaville dressed as a young 
 widow, and though obviously not of the servant class had 
 begun to keep herself and her child by doing washing. 
 Women who watched her suspected that she set her teeth 
 on this work, and one day one of them asked her if she 
 could sew, and offered to start her as a dressmaker. And 
 Jimmy's mother became one of the best sewers in the town. 
 Then she married a decent youth employed in Roger Ben- 
 ton's stores. They had four children, the youngest but a 
 baby, when the father was killed in an accident. The town 
 rallied to help the game little woman whose children were 
 always clean and well behaved, a subscription was got up 
 for her, and she started out again as a dressmaker. 
 
 Jimmy had known for years that a great responsibility 
 rested on his shoulders. He had to show the town that it 
 had not wasted its time when it had helped his mother. 
 
 17
 
 18 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 He had just left school and was looking for work when 
 there was talk of the coming paper. But it did not occur 
 to him at first that it would have anything so wonderful 
 as a job for a boy. 
 
 He was fishing off the station wharf when one of his 
 school friends told him he had just heard a boy was 
 wanted for it. He jumped up, left his line and bait, and 
 ran along the river to the office where two men were un- 
 loading the new jobbing machine. He was told the boss 
 had gone to lunch. He ran all the way to Mac's hotel, 
 stopped panting in the hall, hesitated a moment about 
 storming the dining-room, but bursting with anxiety lest 
 he be too late he stuck his head in at the door. He saw 
 Bob Lorrimer eating alone, quite unconscious of the por- 
 tentous power he seemed, and got a fit of horrid funk, 
 but conquering it as he did Red Indians in his dreams, he 
 strode hot and grubby and fishy to Bob's table, and stood 
 nervously twisting his cap in his hands. He was sick with 
 shame at feeling the eyes of the room upon him, and hu- 
 miliated by the sight of his filthy fingers, but still some- 
 thing supported him in that dreadful moment. 
 
 " Please, sir," he began miserably, as Bob looked at him. 
 
 " Well, son, what do you want ? " asked the arbiter of 
 fate quite amiably. 
 
 " Please, sir, I heard you want a boy, a boy for the 
 paper." 
 
 Jimmy ached to sink into the earth as Bob covered 
 him with a shrewd glance. He could not know that the 
 man was immediately prepossessed in his favour. 
 
 Jimmy was a short stocky boy with very bright brown 
 e3 r es and bronze-tinted hair. Usually his round face shone 
 with some secret amusement of his own at the world about 
 him, an amusement curiously mingled with the solicitude he 
 had acquired from helping a tired mother and keeping a
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION IS 
 
 watchful eye on little ones. Bob did not see the solicitude 
 at this moment, but he saw something that held him. He 
 knew the job mattered enormously to Jimmy. 
 
 "Do you really want to work, son?" he asked. "It 
 will be hard work." 
 
 " Yes, please, sir." 
 
 " What have you done? " 
 
 Jimmy drooped pitifully. " I I haven't done any- 
 thing, sir. I've just left school." 
 
 " What standard have you passed? " 
 
 " The sixth, sir. I'm fourteen." There was nothing 
 boastful about the latter statement, but it was given hope- 
 fully. 
 
 " What's your name? " 
 
 " Jimmy Paul, sir." 
 
 " All right. Come to the office at nine to-morrow morn- 
 ing, Jimmy." 
 
 The boy stared at him swallowing hard. " Will 
 will you take me, sir? " He could not realize it was 
 done. 
 
 " Yes, Jimmy, I'll try you. You can be a fine help to 
 me if you really want to work, and I'll pay you what you 
 are worth. I'll see you at nine to-morrow." 
 
 But Jimmy still stood fumbling with his cap, unable to 
 move. And Bob understood. 
 
 " I say, Jimmy, do you know any boys who would help 
 to deliver the paper at night? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Fine. You pick out three of the best and bring them 
 with you in the morning. They must be reliable, you un- 
 derstand, and be willing to stay on the job. They must 
 be ready to come along after school if they're still at it. 
 They'll get a commission on the papers they sell and a 
 wage for delivering. And it will take an hour or more
 
 20 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 according to the number of regular boys you can get. I'd 
 like three at least. Can you look them up this after- 
 noon? " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 And bursting with pride at this amazing trust in him, 
 and with eyes that would have lit up a dark night, he 
 strode out of the dining-room and dashed off to tell his 
 mother that he had the grandest boy's job in the town. 
 
 Bob smiled after him. He had been told by the com- 
 mittee the night before that Jimmy was the boy he should 
 get, but even without that recommendation he would have 
 known Jimmy was the boy. And Bob was satisfied with 
 the three that Jimmy brought with him the next morning, 
 and saw that it was a regular boy gang with its acknowl- 
 edged code and leadership and loyalty. 
 
 When Valerie arrived Jimmy was managing his run- 
 ners, and trying not to be lordly about it, for his mother 
 had impressed on him that pride goeth before a fall. He 
 counted out their papers, checked up their sales and re- 
 turns, put the pennies into a cash-box of his own and 
 entered each boy's record in a three-penny note-book that 
 was the treasure of his life. He would have died to save 
 it from injury, and he never had a more wonderful mo- 
 ment than when after Bob had audited and balanced it 
 for the first time, he had turned with the words, " First 
 rate, Jimmy. Not a mistake. Go on as you have done 
 this week and I'll raise your salary at the end of the 
 month." 
 
 And listening to him that night his tired mother dreamt 
 wonderful dreams for him, mingled with hopes of rest 
 some day for herself. 
 
 But Jimmy did much more than manage the runners. 
 He swept out the office and the composing-room, he sharp- 
 ened the pencils, filled the inkwells, washed the paste
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 21 
 
 brushes, filed the papers and exchanges, ran all the er- 
 rands, greased the machinery. He helped the foreman to 
 make up, and he learned to set type and to follow copy. 
 And all these things he did as if the world moved only 
 because they were done. 
 
 " What a gorgeous boy," said Valerie to Bob at the end 
 of the second day. " This place is a continuous revel for 
 him." 
 
 " Yes, and you'll be part of the revel soon." 
 *' Well, that won't hurt him," she retorted. 
 
 II 
 
 Valerie was alone in the building at four o'clock the fol- 
 lowing Saturday afternoon for Bob had gone off to report 
 a dairy conference, and the staff had also gone, as they 
 did at the week-end when possible, since it was not a pub- 
 lishing day. She had just smiled the last of them out 
 with the comfortable feeling that she would have no an- 
 tagonisms there. From the first day she had regarded 
 them as co-workers with herself, and her friendly attitude 
 had been returned with good measure. She knew that the 
 foreman Ryder, and the jobbing-man Johnson, and the 
 leading woman typesetter, Miss Hands, who had all been 
 brought from Auckland, were sophisticated artisans ready 
 to jump at the first pin prick, but because she had read 
 history with insight, and understood the background that 
 had contributed to their sensitiveness, and because she had 
 in herself no class consciousness, she met them frankly on 
 the ground of common interest, eager to learn all they 
 could teach her. 
 
 And she had won their gratitude by insisting that awn- 
 ings be provided for the windows of the composing-room, 
 a matter Bob had let slide. 
 
 Valerie leaned back in her chair stretching herself. She
 
 22 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 had to admit she was tired with the long hours and tHe 
 unusual weather. She had worked till after ten every 
 night. She had as yet seen nothing of the town. Her 
 only exalted moments had been those when timber vessels 
 had gone by. And it was wonderful to look through the 
 clear upper half of the office window across the dusty 
 road, past a fringe of rushes, and to see stealing into the 
 smoke cloud on the river a phantom ship slipping from 
 nowhere into nowhere, like the fabrication of a dream. 
 She thought of one that had gone by that morning, a 
 black brig etched in for a few unforgettable minutes in a 
 world of vagueness before it faded out. 
 
 She was glad she had come. It was good to have a 
 real job, to feel that she was independent, that at last 
 she had got clear away from the relatives and their set, 
 and that a new world was before her. 
 
 She worked on till after half-past six. She saw she 
 would have to come back after dinner and probably the 
 next morning. But then there was the afternoon when 
 she would walk with Bob to the coast. The thought of 
 the open sea lifted her spirits. She closed her books, 
 locked the front door behind her, and turned towards the 
 hotel. It was half-past seven when she reached the dining- 
 room. 
 
 It seemed to her to be unusually full of men. Then 
 she remembered that it was Saturday night, pay night, 
 half holiday night for the bushes and the mills, and she 
 was prepared for it to be noisy till late. That dining-room 
 at the end of a hot day would have wrecked the nerves 
 of a sensitive person who had not a sense of humour. 
 Colossal designs had been an obsession with the decorator 
 employed by Mac to do the house up in style. The wall 
 paper was heavily embossed with gigantic dark brown 
 chrysanthemums which stood out in a manner that made it
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 23 
 
 surprising that pictures could be hung against them. The 
 pictures, with the exception of one of a ship, were adver- 
 tisements of whiskies, ales and stouts set in wide gilt frames 
 that had not been cleaned since the house was built. The 
 room was high, but a varnished ceiling and a high var- 
 nished dado, to the height of five feet all round it, dimin- 
 ished its liberal proportions. A huge sideboard blatantly 
 displayed enormous pieces of silver that had appare^ 4 " 1 ; 7 
 been designed to show how many bunches of graphs could 
 be moulded to the square foot. Competing for attention 
 were bowls and bottles of cut glass ravined and cliffed like 
 a mountainous land. The two smaller sideboards that 
 held piles of plates and silver for the tables were dwarfed 
 to an undeserved insignificance. It was evident that the 
 linoleum had been intended to match the wall paper. But 
 the intention was better than the result. The eight win- 
 dows along one side were hung with curtains of lace no 
 longer white, elaborate in pattern and heavy with a de- 
 sign to match the silverware. Stretched in the wash to 
 different lengths they formed an irregular line above the 
 floor, and threatened in places to trail upon it. The room 
 was lit with four gas lamps suspended from the centre. 
 
 But hideous as it all was, it was one of the cleanest 
 rooms of its kind. The campaign against flies was vigor- 
 ous, varied and continuous. Every sugar bowl and milk 
 jug and butter cooler and bread board was protected with 
 circles of netting hung round the border with heavy blue 
 beads. The table-cloths were changed twice a week and 
 the floor washed daily. 
 
 To Valerie this was ugliness carried to the point of 
 humour. And then it was inevitable. She could not change 
 it. And she had as extraordinary a patience with dis- 
 agreeable facts as she had extraordinary an impatience 
 with disagreeable ideas.
 
 24 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 This night as she walked to her table her feet dragged 
 a little. She was relieved to see Father Ryan was away 
 for she could not have exerted herself to talk. She sat 
 down, sympathized with Lizzie who looked pale, and 
 glanced idly about the tables near her. A little way off 
 a tweeded Englishman and another man eating with him 
 returned her casual look. The Englishman did not par- 
 ..Ito^larly interest her, but the other one did for she saw 
 it was Doctor Steele, of whom Bob had talked significantly. 
 
 The doctor was the best physician and surgeon on the 
 river. He was also a man with a skeleton in the cup- 
 board, only it was a skeleton that never stayed in the cup- 
 board, but danced grimacing upon the public streets to 
 the scandal of the passerby. He had a wife who was a 
 pathological case or a vile old hag according as to whether 
 the critic were scientific or emotional. Men often won- 
 dered why the doctor allowed her to live on with him, but 
 he was of those who having once loved a woman recognized 
 some obligation to care for her ever afterwards. In the 
 hotel Mac saw to it that he had peace, for he once, in a 
 notable passage of arms, had informed the lady in no 
 uncertain terms that she could not set foot in his house. 
 The doctor spent most of his leisure time there. He never 
 drank to excess. His great diversion was poker which he 
 played incessantly with anyone who came along, caring 
 nothing whether he lost or won. 
 
 Valerie looked beyond him down the crowded room, and 
 at once her eyes were held by a figure at a table on a 
 line with her own at the other end. It was Mac's table, 
 and now for the first time she saw him there-. She stared 
 curiously till, raising his face, he caught her fixed gaze. 
 She instantly looked away, and then had a funny feeling 
 of self-consciousness as she felt his hard scrutiny. She 
 went on eating without raising her head till someone came
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 25 
 
 up to her table. It was Michael, with a tray and a glass 
 and a bottle of wine. 
 
 " Mac's compliments, miss," he said with a sly smile, as 
 he poured her out some. 
 
 She was absurdly pleased. She looked down the room, 
 waited till Mac looked back at her, and then she raised her 
 glass and drank to him. He answered her by a jerky 
 movement intended to be some kind of salute. And that 
 was her introduction to Thomas MacAlarney. Almost a 
 week went by before she spoke to him. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The owner of the Dargaville hotel was the largest and 
 most inarticulate Irishman in New Zealand. He was, for 
 his race, singularly unapproachable. He had been born 
 in Australia three months after his parents arrived there, 
 and had early become a nomad about the gold fields. It 
 was at Calgoorlie and Coolgardie that he made the money 
 he afterwards put into the hotel business. He had drifted 
 to New Zealand and Dargaville as men drift about the 
 colonies, and finding only one poorly run house he had 
 settled there and set himself out to get the trade. 
 
 Many adjectives would slip to the tongue at the first 
 sight of him, but not the word prepossessing. He stood 
 six feet two and required the seating space of two ordi- 
 nary men. But he was not a floppy fat man. His enor- 
 mous stomach was hard, his great arms were hard. The 
 clutch of his hand was as inescapable as that of fate. 
 His tomato-coloured skin looked very dry and shiny if he 
 had just washed and very damp if he had not. He had si 
 large round head covered with a lot of coarse gray hair, 
 and a pointed beard always tidily trimmed. Heavy black 
 eyebrows that showed hardly a streak of gray bristled
 
 26 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 over his protruding blue eyes in a manner that alarmed 
 small boys, and, indeed, many an adult when he frowned. 
 The eyes themselves had a curious expression of mingled 
 amusement and hostility. He looked at all people with a 
 fixed hard stare, and one had to know him for some time 
 to realize that he did not crave to murder the whole human 
 race. 
 
 He was never known to wear a coat save at the start 
 and end of his annual trip to Auckland. No tailor seemed 
 equal to the task of making his vests capacious enough, 
 for he was never seen in one that was not split down the 
 back. But his shirts and trousers were impeccable and his 
 boots always brushed. 
 
 In his hotel he was an autocrat. Though his house was 
 public in the eyes of the law, there were people he would 
 not allow to set foot in it, and he had ways of making the 
 local law agree with him. It was his pride that he ran 
 the best public house in the north of New Zealand. He 
 sold unadulterated liquor even before the prohibition 
 party got after the trade, and he gave the best shilling 
 dinner in the country. He was famous for it. He never 
 allowed a drunken man to be seen leaving his house. He 
 had two rooms beside his stables at the back with cots in 
 them, and there he calmly dumped and locked up the 
 obstreperous drinkers till they should be able to walk 
 off without attracting the attention of the constable. He 
 felt it was only fair to keep them out of the clutches of the 
 law. 
 
 Thomas MacAlarney rarely spoke to a woman other 
 than his servants, whom he managed himself. Few people 
 suspected that he was mortally afraid of the sex and con- 
 fused in its presence. He was conscious of his vocabulary* 
 which was liable to be unprintable at any moment, and 
 having but little knowledge of the English or any other
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 27 
 
 language apart from its curses and violent epithets he 
 was not equal to the amenities of ordinary conversation. 
 
 He had an uncanny knowledge of all that went on un- 
 der his roof. He took great care of his girls and men 
 knew it was not safe to flirt with them. The newspaper 
 committee had had hard work to persuade him to take 
 Valerie, but they did not guess his real reason for hesi- 
 tancy, which was that he was almost certain she would 
 not be comfortable. It solved the problem a little to have 
 the priest on one side of her and Bob on the other. Other- 
 wise he would have felt bound to leave empty the rooms 
 next her. But at the end of a week he was easy in his 
 mind. He knew she smoked cigarettes in her room, that 
 she had twice ordered ale with her lunch, that Father 
 Ryan called her a remarkable woman, that she gave no 
 trouble, and that already his servants adored her.
 
 CHAPTER HI 
 
 IT was in high spirits that Valerie set off the next 
 afternoon with Bob to walk to the coast. A heavy 
 thunderstorm in the night had cleared the air and 
 set the dust, and a breeze had swept the river and the 
 town of the haze that had obscured them for over a week. 
 As they went up Queen Street she looked curiously at the 
 banks, the land offices, the law offices, the Native Land 
 Court building and Roger Benton's large general store 
 all bunched together near River Street, and beyond them 
 up the rise at the houses and gardens that made this the 
 aristocratic thoroughfare. 
 
 She saw that the whole place was heat worn. The 
 gardens and lawns were brown. The blistering sun had 
 peeled the paint off the white walls. There were no large 
 trees anywhere, but only shrubs to break the glare. 
 
 When they had gone by the last cottage and were sur- 
 rounded by the stunted vegetation on the flat above 
 Valerie stopped, looked back and drew a long breath. 
 There was more of a view than she had imagined. She 
 gazed away across the river, over the miles of flax and 
 cabbage trees in the swamp at hills and valleys girdled 
 about with shadows. There were hills and valleys to the 
 south and hills and valleys to the north, all checkered 
 with the shapes of the clouds that were trailing over the 
 face of the sun. To the east and south she saw fields, the 
 glow of grain, innumerable specs of sheep and cattle, the 
 white spots of houses, the red roofs of barns, water towers, 
 clumps of Scotch firs, green spots marking the sources of 
 
 28
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 29 
 
 springs, all the signs of a prosperous land, but she liked 
 better the uncertainty, the magic and mystery that the 
 northern hills hid beneath their wealth of bush. 
 
 They turned their faces to the sea. They dropped 
 into little dips and mounted little rises, alternately seeing 
 and losing sight of the sand-dunes to the left of them and 
 the reddish white cliffs to the right. There was not a 
 sizable tree to be seen on this flatness set up between the 
 river and the ocean till you came to the hills that rose 
 suddenly out of it on the north. Nothing but pampas 
 grass and fern and low scrub would grow on its niggardly 
 soil. 
 
 They swung along happily, startling myriads of grass- 
 hoppers and small brown butterflies that lived in some 
 miraculous manner upon the dead sticks. Soon it became 
 harder to walk, and their feet sank in the heavy sand. 
 And the air was now filled with the roar of the sea. 
 
 As they cleared a mound, all unexpectedly glory was 
 spread about their feet. They stood at the head of an 
 S-shaped ravine that cut into the coast-line, dividing a 
 stretch of sand-hills from a stretch of cliffs. It was deep 
 and green with forest trees fed from a spring that gushed 
 out at its head to fall in a series of cataracts on to a 
 shallow stony bed, and so out across the beach below. In 
 layers between the dunes and the cliffs the gap was striped 
 with low sand-banks, a bit of white beach, a narrow line 
 of lazy surf and a stretch of azure sea. Coming to it 
 thus across the miles of hot aridity, the gully was a won- 
 der of coolness and vivid colour and sweet scents. 
 
 The road dipped suddenly and a turn showed them the 
 first waterfall. Valerie was furious to see iron pipes lead- 
 ing from it. 
 
 " Of course they had to ruin it? " she exploded. 
 
 Further down the trees met above them and they
 
 30 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 seemed to have sunk deep into a green nest with the sountl 
 of the waves lowered to a whisper floating away over their 
 heads. 
 
 " Oh, how I should love to have a tent down here and 
 come to sleep. Who owns it? " 
 
 " Benton, of course. He owns almost everything about 
 Dargaville." 
 
 Round the next corner they saw through the trees a" 
 little way off a row of five small cottages. Anything that 
 stood in rows annoyed Valerie. 
 
 " The fools," she sneered. " Don't they see enough of 
 each other in the town? Good heavens! I hope we are 
 not going to meet them all." 
 
 " I'm afraid we are. They were gathered to meet me 
 two weeks ago. But they mean to be kind." 
 
 " Damn it, Bob, don't talk such rot. If they had asked 
 Miss Hands I might grant that, but you know perfectly 
 well they don't mean to be kind. I wouldn't have come 
 if I had thought twice. At least I'm not going to know 
 here anybody I don't want to know. I'm not going to 
 waste time that way." 
 
 Bob grinned. " This will make you madder still, they 
 all think you and I are engaged." 
 
 " Oh, hell, Bob, what does it matter what they think? " 
 
 The}' found the adult population of the gully gathered 
 on the Benton verandah and at the mere sight of them 
 Valerie's eyes glared. 
 
 " Now, Val," whispered Bob, " do be decent. The poor 
 devils didn't make themselves." 
 
 But it must be confessed that Valerie behaved badly. 
 It was nothing to her that it was the inner circle of 
 Dargaville that was lolling languidly there on deck chairs 
 consumed with a curiosity it was trying not to show about 
 the much talked of daughter of Davenport Carr. She
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 31 
 
 knew well enough that it was only because Bob was a 
 bishop's son and she the privileged child of the most pow- 
 erful family in the Remuera set that they were greeted 
 with the effusive and deferential politeness that so irri- 
 tated her. She was furious to think she would have to 
 sit there with them when she craved to be on the beach. 
 
 And then she saw as she sat down that nearly every 
 woman present looked as soon as she could at her left 
 hand to see if there was an engagement ring upon it. 
 The poor souls did not know it but that completed their 
 utter nonentity as far as she was concerned. She did 
 like Mrs. Benton, who was a very attractive woman, but 
 she could not forgive her all in a minute for imposing the 
 rest of Dargaville upon her. Bob did his level best to 
 counteract the difficult atmosphere she created, and he 
 was as thankful as she was when the visitors finally rose 
 to go. They were no sooner away than the Benton chil- 
 dren invaded the verandah, five of them, and Valerie in- 
 stantly became another person. 
 
 " Would you like to come on the beach? " asked Mar- 
 jorie, looking up at her confidently. 
 
 " Indeed I would. That is just what I have been wish- 
 ing to do all the afternoon. I wonder why it is that chil- 
 dren and dogs are the only things that ever know what I 
 want." 
 
 " Really, Val," protested Bob indignantly. 
 
 She turned to Mrs. Benton with an irresistible smile 
 and gesture. " Mrs. Benton, I've been abominably rude. 
 But I may as well do it once and be done with it. I loathe 
 social entertainment, and I haven't fought my family for 
 years on the subject to come here and begin all over 
 again. Of course you have to be nice to everybody. That 
 is the price you pay for being married to a parliamentary 
 candidate. But I'm not, you see."
 
 32 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 Mrs. Benton was soothed by something in those twin- 
 kling blue eyes, and though astonished was flattered at 
 the implication that she was not damned with the rest. 
 
 Tommy Benton seized Valerie by the hand. " Do you 
 like fires on the beach ? " he asked. 
 
 " More than anything in the world," she said warmly. 
 
 " Suppose we have a picnic tea," suggested Roger. 
 
 " Oh, please do," said Valerie, ^ if it will not be too 
 much trouble." 
 
 So she set off with him and the children, leaving BoE 
 to help Mrs. Benton. Valerie got on well with Roger who 
 was predisposed to like all women, especially the daring 
 ones. As they reached the sand-hills she caught sight of 
 a tent roof under the shade of trees against the cliffs to 
 the right. It was well isolated from the rest of the camp. 
 
 " A tent," she exclaimed, stopping suddenly. " Who 
 lives in it ? " 
 
 " It belongs to Barrington." 
 
 " Barrington! What Barrington? " She tried to keep 
 the astonishment she instantly felt out of her voice. 
 
 " Dane Barrington, the writer." He looked curiously 
 at her. " Do you know him? " 
 
 " I have not met him. I know his work, of course. And 
 dad knows him. What is he doing here? " 
 
 " He lives here, that is, up the Wairoa. Has been up 
 here about a year. Lives like a hermit." He saw she 
 was enormously interested. 
 
 But she said no more, and just then they came out upon 
 the open beach. The ocean washed before them along 
 an unbroken coast-line for more than fifty miles, and 
 stretched away towards the Australian shore with the 
 glitter of the afternoon sun still hot upon it. Valerie 
 stretched out her arms and began to run and shout and 
 gather firewood with the children. They had a fine pile
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 33 
 
 by the time Mrs. Benton and Bob appeared with the bas- 
 kets. Both Roger and his wife forgave her for the after- 
 noon before the picnic meal was over. No parents could 
 long have been annoyed with a girl who was so obviously 
 delighted with their children. They both noticed that she 
 .paid very little attention to Bob. 
 
 As they walked back to the gully in the twilight Valerie's 
 mood changed again. She kept looking at the colours 
 fading out of the sky, and when they turned in off the 
 beach she glanced enviously at the tent snuggled there 
 and now lit from within by the light of a lamp. She 
 wanted to go and peep through the flap, wanted desper- 
 ately to see the man who was wise enough to be alone 
 there. But it was a stupid world. She could not follow 
 all her impulses. 
 
 Roger Benton returned to Dargaville with her and Bob. 
 While the two men talked business Valerie mooned along 
 thinking her own thoughts. They left her at River Street 
 to go to the office. She was in no mood to go inside. She 
 wandered along the flat uninteresting road in the direction 
 of Aratapu. She was not in the least ashamed of her 
 rudeness of the afternoon. If she had been nice, she re- 
 flected, invitations to dinner would have been the result. 
 In the end these people would have learned that she did 
 not want to have anything to do with them. She cared 
 nothing for the fact that the men she had met were her 
 bosses on the paper. What they paid her for was her 
 work, and she would show them she could do that. And 
 she chuckled to think that because her father had lent 
 them money they would have to take her as they found 
 her. 
 
 And then tHere slipped into her mind the picture of the 
 tent lit from within, and snuggled against the cliffs. She 
 wondered if Dane Barrington ever came to the hotel.
 
 34 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 II 
 
 Valerie had discovered the piano the day after her ar- 
 rival, but it was not till two evenings after she had been 
 to the coast that she had the leisure to try it. Nancy, 
 her chambermaid, told her there was a sitting-room in 
 front of the hotel. 
 
 " Nobody ever sits in it, miss," she said. 
 
 It was a dreadful room, but like the dining-room it was 
 to Valerie so ugly that it was funny. She went at once 
 to the piano. It was a fairly good make and almost new, 
 but it was out of tune and stiff for want of use. She 
 wondered if Mac would mind her playing. As a compli- 
 ment to him she began with Irish airs. Soon she heard 
 the sounds of men's voices below, beginning diffidently, 
 and then ringing out till they filled the house with the 
 roar of a strong masculine chorus. She gave them chan- 
 tries and drinking songs, and found there was some re- 
 sponse to all. 
 
 A little before nine o'clock a man of medium height 
 and lazy grace, who was walking towards the hotel, paused 
 to listen as lines from one of his favourite songs floated 
 out to him. " Wrap me up in my old stable jacket, and 
 say a poor buffer lies low, lies low." 
 
 Dane Barrington had not heard that song for years. 
 It gave a pleasant lift to his spirits which were sadly in 
 need of elevation. He walked in and stood outside the bar 
 door. Men were gathered there and half-way up the 
 stairs. 
 
 " Who's playing? " he asked someone. 
 
 "Dunno." 
 
 The song ended and after a moment another tune be- 
 gan. An Englishman leaning against the post at the foot
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 35 
 
 of the stairwa}' started to hum it, but he could not re- 
 member the words. Moved by a sudden impulse Dane 
 mounted a few steps and waited for Valerie to begin the 
 air again. Then his voice rang out in a hushed silence, 
 " Drink to me only with thine eyes," and until he had 
 finished the second verse there was not a sound in the 
 house. There was a burst of applause and calls for more, 
 but he shook his head, slipped down the stairs, and dis- 
 appeared along the hall looking for Mac who was not 
 about the bar. 
 
 Thrilled at the piano, and wondering who on earth had 
 that tenor voice, Valerie had begun " Come into the Gar- 
 den, Maud," and was grievously disappointed that the 
 voice did not go on. She played one more old English 
 air, but the company below had drifted back to the bar, 
 and having given it its entertainment she turned to Bee- 
 thoven. 
 
 Dane found Mac in a private room with Doctor Steele 
 and a government inspector. 
 
 " Who's playing, Mac? " he asked. 
 
 " Miss Carr, I guess." 
 
 "Who's she?" 
 
 "Where the bloody hell have you been? Davenport 
 Carr's girl, you know. She's come to the News" 
 
 " Oh." Dane sat down and ordered whisky. 
 
 " Have a game? " asked Mac. 
 
 " Yes, presently." He held his head as if he were 
 listening. Michael brought in the drinks. Dane's atten- 
 tion wandered. He stood up. 
 
 " I say, that's music. I want to listen to it for a 
 while. I'll be back." 
 
 His desertion of them did not annoy or astonish the 
 men left behind. 
 
 Dane went upstairs to Mac's room which was next the
 
 36 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 sitting-room. He flung himself down on the big bed witli 
 his right arm across his eyes and lay still. He stayed 
 there till Valerie stopped at ten o'clock. He heard her go 
 off along the hall. He wondered if she were staying here. 
 He wondered why on earth a daughter of Davenpo^Carr 
 had come to Dargaville to go on the paper, to go on any 
 paper anywhere when she could play like that. After a 
 minute or two of speculation he got up and went down- 
 stairs. 
 
 It was not till the next day at lunch time that Valerie 
 got a chance to ask Michael who the singer was, and if 
 there was anyone in the place who could tune the piano. 
 
 That evening she went down to dinner ahead of Bob. 
 They were under no obligation to eat at the same time. 
 She was hardly seated when Mac entered the room and 
 walked up to her table. It was the first time she had 
 seen him at close range. She smiled up at him rather 
 uncertainly. The hard light in his eyes did not change. 
 
 " Good-evening, Mr. MacAlarney," she began tenta- 
 tively. 
 
 " Mr. WHAT? " he roared. 
 
 Then her face broke into the smile that was the pass- 
 key to the hearts of all who saw it light up that way. 
 
 " Am I to call you Mac? " 
 
 " Well you bloody well do, don't you ? " 
 
 " It is easier," she said lightly, not in the least dis- 
 turbed by his superfluous word. 
 
 " You want the piano tuned ? " he went on gruffly. 
 
 "Well, if I might pay - 
 
 " Damn the bloody expense. I'll have it done if you 
 want it." 
 
 " You don't mind my playing? " 
 
 " No. Play whenever you want to." And without an- 
 other word he turned and walked heavily off.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 37 
 
 Valerie decided as she looked after him that thought 
 his manners might be a little unsesthetic she would not 
 have any difficulty with his spirit. 
 
 She found him equally reasonable when she approached 
 him on the subject of keeping a horse, which was to be her 
 only luxury. She had already spoken to Roger Benton 
 about one he was willing to sell. 
 
 Mac talked in staccato sentences guarding his words. 
 
 " You'd better graze it. Just give it a feed when you 
 ride it. It can go in my paddock. Two bob a week. 
 That's my charge. Michael will fetch it when you want 
 it. Or you can get it yourself. You can pay for feeds 
 as you get 'em. Shilling a feed." 
 
 " And if I'm out late may I put it in the stable myself 
 without troubling anybody? " 
 
 " Any bloody time you want," he said, relapsing into 
 spontaneity.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 BOB, Valerie and Father Ryan lingered at their 
 table after dinner. There were only two other 
 men in the room. The priest had been talking of 
 a strange family he had visited that day up the line. 
 
 " One wonders what it is that holds such people to- 
 gether," he said. 
 
 " It's because they are tame," said Valerie. " Fear of 
 the unknown and lack of an adventurous spirit." She 
 nodded down the room at Mac who came in as she was 
 speaking and sat down at his table. " Do you think 
 it's religion? " she went on turning again to Father 
 Ryan. 
 
 " Well, I wouldn't dogmatize about that," he smiled. 
 
 " You know, you're no good for an argument. You 
 never come out and say anything that one can talk 
 against." 
 
 " You deprive her of an awful lot of pleasure," grinned 
 Bob. 
 
 The priest smiled into her pugilistic eyes. " I'm not as 
 sure as you are about many things," he said softly. 
 
 Bob chuckled. 
 
 " I'm not as sure as I seem, but it amuses me ' 
 
 Bob turned his head to see what had stopped her so 
 abruptly. 
 
 A man had entered at the other end of the room and 
 had sat down with Mac. His appearance in the most 
 gilded dining-room in the world would have been arrest- 
 ing. There it was miraculous. 
 
 38
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 39 
 
 " Is that Dane Harrington? " asked Valerie, knowing 
 that it was. 
 
 " Yes," Bob answered. 
 
 " Have you met him ? " 
 
 " I've been introduced to him." 
 
 " It's funny you never told me he was here." 
 
 " He isn't here. He lives out somewhere. Comes to the 
 pub occasionally to gamble and drink." 
 
 Her eyes flashed. " Dear charitable old Bob, so sweet 
 and wholesome? " she sneered. 
 
 Bob got red. 
 
 " Now, children," said Father Ryan, spreading out his 
 peaceful hands. " Mr. Barrington would tell you that 
 no man was worth that remark." 
 
 " Do you know him, Father? " she asked. 
 
 " I don't think anybody knows him." 
 
 " But you don't judge him by what is said of him? " 
 
 " I've nothing to do with judging him." 
 
 Valerie shot her eyes significantly intensified at 
 Bob. 
 
 He got up to go. 
 
 " I'm going to have another cup of coffee," she said. 
 " Oh, you needn't stay, Bob. Are you going off to the 
 Bentons right away? " 
 
 " Yes, I am." 
 
 " All right. Good-night. You'll be back Monday 
 morning? " 
 
 " Yes." Bob strode out of the dining-room annoyed 
 with himself for being angry about nothing. 
 
 Father Ryan made a move to rise. 
 
 " Oh, stay and talk to me," said Valerie, beckoning to 
 Lizzie. " I'll have another cup of coffee, please. It's just 
 silly," she went on as the girl moved away, " that one man 
 should judge another on hearsay."
 
 40 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 She was staring frankly now at Dane Barrington. Be- 
 side Mac he looked like a boy. Mac was a canvas in 
 heroic size daubed in freely in splotches of red and gray. 
 Dane was an etching in black and white, as vivid as a 
 silhouette, as delicate as a drawing by Whistler. She was 
 rather pleased with this comparison, and she felt a keener 
 sense of life as she looked at his fine black head and ala- 
 baster profile outlined there beside Mac's great ruby face. 
 
 She turned amused eyes on Father Ryan's placid fea- 
 tures. 
 
 " My old set ostracizes that man. Speaks of him with 
 bated breath. But I don't feel contaminated by his pres- 
 ence. Do you? " 
 
 " Not in the least. He has never hurt anybody half 
 as much as he is hurting himself." 
 
 " That's it, and I have no doubt that as a sinner he 
 has been absurdly overrated. As a matter of fact this 
 rubbish about sin, this idea of what can hurt one is one of 
 the most ridiculous things that can be told to a thinking 
 person. The real sins, the real corroders of souls are 
 overlooked. People are not ostracized for overeating, but 
 from my point of view, if you're going to ostracize at all, 
 they ought to be. They are not ostracized for prying 
 into your personality, but they ought to be. They are 
 not ostracized for whispering behind doors, but they 
 ought to be. They are not ostracized for grumbling and 
 nagging and opening other people's letters, but they ought 
 to be. Those are the things I'm out to ostracize people 
 for." 
 
 She glared at Father Ryan. 
 
 " You and I will not quarrel about that," he said sim- 
 
 piy- 
 
 " I don't suppose Mr. Barrington is a bit worse tKan 
 my father," she said musingly.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 41 
 
 This frankness surprised the priest, who had heard the 
 current rumours of Davenport Carr. 
 
 " Well, I take men as I find them," he went on gently. 
 " Mr. Barrington is a man of contradictions. But he is 
 more at war with himself than anyone else need ever be 
 with him. The man I would be afraid of would be the 
 man who accepted himself without a fight, or the world 
 without a fight." 
 
 " Ah," she patted his arm, her eyes flashing, *' that's 
 it. That's it." 
 
 " And he is a generous man, though he would not admit 
 it. He gave me fifty pounds last week for a wretched 
 family that has tuberculosis. And when he handed it to 
 me he said, ' Ryan, this isn't Christianity, it's damned 
 foolishness, and you know it as well as I do. If we had a 
 grain of sense we'd have prevented those people being 
 born, or once born we'd chloroform them. What the 
 devil have they got to live for? This money will only 
 feed their diseases. But you can have it on your con- 
 science. I've enough on mine.' ' 
 
 Valerie threw back her head and let out a peal of laugh- 
 ter that surprised the four men eating in the dining-room. 
 
 " That's Miss Carr, I suppose," said Dane to Mac, who 
 nodded. 
 
 " Father Ryan must have been telling her a good joke," 
 he added. 
 
 II 
 
 Valerie had meant to play the piano that evening, but 
 she felt self-conscious now with Dane in the hotel. She 
 stood uncertainly in her room for some minutes. She had 
 not changed for dinner, she seldom did, as she usually 
 went back to the office. She wore a dark linen dress with 
 :a little white at the pointed neck. She solemnly surveyed
 
 42 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION; 
 
 what she could see of herself in her mirror, and then she 
 turned and went hatless down the side stairs and out to 
 the river. The venom had now gone out of the heat, and 
 the night was balmy and soft. She strolled along towards 
 the centre of the town. At Queen Street she paused. She 
 wondered if Dane Barrington were going back to the coast 
 that night, and whether if she took that road she would 
 meet him. She turned up a few yards, but then abruptly 
 swung round and went on past the town wharf, the office, 
 the railway wharf, and on towards the northern hills. 
 
 She had discovered four main roads leading out of 
 Dargaville. One that she did not care for ran south 
 along the Wairoa to Aratapu. The second was the camp 
 road. The third went off across the flat in a northwest- 
 erly direction towards the forest and Kaihu, touching the 
 railway here and there, and the fourth, the one she now 
 explored, ran due north by the river. 
 
 About two miles from the town she came to a wooded 
 point and saw the beginnings of a track trailing off into 
 it. She could never resist a track, so she walked on 
 through a bit of mixed bush that ended in a picturesque 
 point and a rock projecting high over the water like a 
 lookout. From it she got a fine view across the Wairoa 
 of valleys filmed with indigo-tinted mist, and of bush-clad 
 ranges outlined on the horizon like the coasts on a map 
 with undulating layers of pigeon gray and rose fading 
 off into a luminous opaline sky. 
 
 She threw herself down with delight at finding a retreat 
 like this so near the town. As she sat, the little black 
 steamer that ran between Dargaville and all wharves up 
 to Tangiteroria came chugging down on the evening tide, 
 and a small launch went racing by. She wished she could 
 afford a boat. She wanted to go to the beginnings of the 
 river in remote hills and lonely places. There was some-
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 43 
 
 thing fascinating aKout seeing a little trickle of water 
 grow and grow till it could carry an ocean-going ship. 
 She loved the places that rivers came from, the mangrove 
 swamps they cut across, the lagoons they sneaked out of, 
 the gullies they watered. 
 
 Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of foot- 
 steps coming along the track. Before she could move a 
 man slipped out of the bush, and in the dusk she saw his 
 slight boyish figure above her and his white face framed 
 in his soft black hair. 
 
 " Oh, I beg your pardon," he said quickly and resent- 
 fully, not seeing who it was, and thinking he had surprised 
 a pair of lovers. Before she could speak he turned and 
 was gone. 
 
 Valerie could not bring her mind back to the river and 
 the birds. She began to think of Dane Barrington. 
 
 She was fifteen when she had first read an article by 
 him in the Sydney Bulletin. That was ten years ago and 
 since that time he had become the finest critical writer, 
 and one of the best writers of stories and verse in the 
 colonies, and was generally acknowledged to be the best 
 all-round journalist in Australasia. He was an Austra- 
 lian, born in Sydney, and even before he achieved a repu- 
 tation as a writer he had achieved one on his looks and 
 fascination. Almost every well-known Sydney artist had 
 painted him or drawn him. A black and white drawing 
 of his head by Norman Lindsay had been the feature of 
 one winter's exhibition, and had been reproduced in pa- 
 pers and magazines. As a girl of seventeen Valerie had 
 come across a print of it and had cut it out and pasted 
 it in a little book with heads of Byron and Shelley, and 
 Keats and Napoleon and Caesar, and other dramatic he- 
 roes of her adolescent passions. She still had that little 
 book.
 
 .44 THE STRANGE 'ATTRACTION 
 
 Then Dane Barrington had figured as co-respondent 
 in a divorce case that rocked the city of Sydney and 
 spread ripples of luscious scandal to the dinner-tables of 
 New Zealand. Nothing but the bare announcement of the 
 affair appeared in the press, and when he afterwards mar- 
 ried the woman concerned the talk died down. Articles 
 and verse from his pen appeared at intervals, and Valerie 
 read everything he wrote with a strange feeling that he 
 was writing for her. Then she heard at a dinner in her 
 home one night that he had left Sydney and had come to 
 live in New Zealand, at Christchurch. And there was a 
 whisper that he and his wife did not get on. Because of 
 his magnetic looks rumour could not let him alone. He 
 was one of those men who accumulate publicity without 
 any personal effort. Then again came the bare announce- 
 ment in the press that his wife had divorced him and had 
 returned to Australia. The name of the lady concerned 
 this time was suppressed. 
 
 The colonies will stand one divorce, and if the details 
 are not too unpleasant, will suspend judgment and give 
 the parties a chance. But two divorces inside of four 
 years strain their charity. And when not long afterwards 
 Dane Barrington was blackballed out of the best club in 
 Christchurch every door, save those of a few newspaper 
 men, was closed to him. Nothing as to this final blow 
 appeared in the press, so that lovers of scandal drew all 
 the more upon the inexhaustible resources of their imagi- 
 nation. Dane Barrington himself would have been 
 amazed to discover that the mere mention of his name 
 conjured up in the breasts of the pure pictures of de- 
 pravity that it would have taxed his own powers to depict. 
 
 Valerie had learned next that Dane had come up to 
 Auckland and that her father had met him. For some 
 time after that his name did not appear in print. But
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 45 
 
 Rumour knew all about him. He was drinking himself to 
 death on the gumfields, that El Dorado of lost men. 
 
 Then after a year of silence his stories and articles and 
 verse began to appear again as good as ever. One night 
 a discussion of something he had written began among 
 men sitting with her father after dinner, and the talk 
 drifted to the man himself, and to the circumstances of 
 his banishment, and she gathered that no one present be- 
 lieved the tales. 
 
 " Well, he was a damned fool not to fight it," she heard 
 her father say. " There's no sense in being sensitive about 
 things like that." 
 
 Most of her relatives, however, banned his name from 
 general conversation, but they had long since taken the 
 meaning out of language for Valerie. She herself had 
 ceased to be a lady so often that it did not disturb her to 
 hear a man had ceased to be a gentleman. She merely 
 wondered what fine adventure he had been up to. 
 
 And then there was her own father. He had been the 
 most illuminating experience in her life. It seemed funny 
 to her that Dane Barrington should be an outcast while 
 her father sat in the seats of the mighty. Of course he 
 had been clever enough and wealthy enough to keep out 
 of divorce cases. 
 
 And now this strange being who had been a kind of 
 phantom flitting in and out of her dreams for years, was 
 here somewhere, to be actually seen in the flesh, to be 
 encountered unawares on the roads, to give a sense of ad- 
 venture to an evening stroll. 
 
 Seeing his head as it had appeared for a moment against 
 the dusk of the trees it was hard to think he was anything 
 but a phantom, and if it had not been for the memory of 
 his vibrant voice, that said " I beg your pardon " over 
 and over again in her brain, she would have thought she
 
 46 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 had seen a vision. She got up wondering why he had 
 come that way. Had he walked from the town just to 
 get the view from that point? In any case, he knew it 
 and wanted something from it and he had been irritated 
 to find an interloper there. She would have felt just the 
 same. When she reached the road there was no sign of 
 him. He had been swallowed up in the night. 
 
 Ill 
 
 Valerie looked out of her window at the river the next 
 morning and revolted swiftly and completely against the 
 idea of work. 
 
 " I'll do it to-night," she said to herself. 
 
 " Lizzie, would it be possible for me to have a few sand- 
 wiches? I want to take my lunch and go off for a picnic. 
 I could make them here at the table if I could have some 
 cold meat." She looked up at the waitress with a half- 
 humorous, half-pleading appeal, as if she knew she were 
 asking an outrageous thing but could not help it. 
 
 " Why, I will make you some sandwiches, miss. It 
 isn't a busy morning. There's some nice cold beef, and 
 do you like tomato sauce on it? " 
 
 " Yes, I do. That's fine. And ask Michael to get me 
 a bottle of ale." 
 
 She turned to Father Ryan. 
 
 " I'm going to play truant," she said gleefulty, " and 
 have a lovely day all to myself. I get awfully sick of 
 people, don't you? " 
 
 " One needs a rest from them, I think, to restore one's 
 forces." 
 
 " Well, it's more than that. I like myself." 
 
 " You have every reason to, I'm sure," he smiled gal- 
 lantly.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 47 
 
 ** Oh, I don't mean to be conceited." 
 
 "No, no, I understand." 
 
 With her lunch and her ale and George Moore's Esther 
 Waters tied up in a package, Valerie set off a little after 
 ten o'clock. She had on a plain serge dress and a cloth 
 hat, and carried a hooked stick. Beyond the station she 
 had the world to herself, and as she walked she whistled 
 and whisked the heads off the monkey grass. She went 
 by the point she had discovered the night before, and a 
 mile further on found herself climbing into hiHs. Pres- 
 ently she stopped at the top of a low range to look down 
 upon an old house buried in trees on a point below her. 
 
 " Oh, how lovely," she said under her breath, with a 
 quick lifting of her spirits, as if she had just caught a 
 glimpse of the sea at the end of a long valley. 
 
 She could see only the red roof and two brick chimneys, 
 from one of which a column of smoke rose lazily in the 
 warm air. By the size of the pines and poplars that 
 mingled with the native bush to make a wall about it she 
 gathered that it had been built by an early settler. Any- 
 way it had a charming old-world air like that of some 
 deserted mission station. Removed from the house a little 
 she saw patches of colour and fresh light greens that 
 looked like vegetables, and across the road she saw in a 
 clearing a cow and a horse. 
 
 She walked slowly down the dusty slope, breathing in 
 the cool of the heavy bush on either side, till she came 
 to an old post and rail fence buried in great geranium 
 bushes and old briars and moss roses, that honeyed the 
 air with the sweetness of their leaves. Convolvulus crept 
 about everywhere, and stretches of periwinkle formed a 
 carpet back into the trees. But she could see no sign of 
 the house. It was barricaded from view many times over 
 by shrubs and bush and pines. Set back in the hedge
 
 48 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 she came upon a moss-covered wooden gate, and for a 
 moment the glory of the place was spoiled for her by the 
 menacing notice that was nailed to it : " No Admittance. 
 Beware of the Dogs." 
 
 The neglected driveway inside turned and twisted 
 among the trees, but in spite of that inhospitable warning 
 the whole place had a seductive air of peace. Fantails 
 fluttered about it unafraid of the invisible dogs, and a 
 million bees thrived among the mingled scents. Wood 
 pigeons flew over her head, and as she stood still a cock 
 pheasant nervously trailed his beauty across the road a 
 little way off. 
 
 Regretfully Valerie moved on, wondering who on earth 
 lived there. Coming to a track leading towards the river 
 she followed it, and found herself on a point the next 
 beyond that on which the old house stood. She could see 
 nothing of it even from here, but she could see the steps 
 cut down the rocky face to a little landing where a small 
 boat was tied outside a boathouse. Between the two 
 points the river widened in an arc-shaped bay, rock-bound 
 and overhung by lovely mixed bush. The water in it was 
 clearer than that of the main stream and it was very still 
 and cool. She investigated her own point, found a hollow 
 where she could lean back, and for some time mooned in 
 a peaceful sensuousness listening to birds and the wash 
 of the tide, and staring up through the green elegance of 
 a titoki at clouds that dissolved into puffs and melted 
 away in the vivid blue. 
 
 Her dreaming was disturbed by the sound of a launch. 
 She listened, envying the person who was racing down the 
 river. As the sound grew sharp she stood up and looked 
 over the top of a bush. Then seeing that the boat was 
 heading straight for her point she ducked quickly, and 
 peered out cautiously as it went by into the little bay.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 49 
 
 It was a white launch of fine lines, with a broad band of 
 scarlet round it just below the gunwale. She could make 
 out the name Diana near the bow. There was only one 
 person in it and she recognized him immediately, despite 
 the fact that his dark head was almost hidden under a 
 slouch hat. 
 
 Very much alive now, she watched him make for the 
 boathouse. Half-way across the little bay he turned his 
 head suddenly, looking straight where she crouched. She 
 ducked again, hoping he had not seen her. She saw him 
 run the launch into the shed, shut the doors, go up the 
 steps and vanish in the trees. She wondered if anyone 
 lived there with him. She wondered if he were now back 
 from the coast for good. She wondered if it was from this 
 peaceful place that he had been for the past year sending 
 out the fine stories of lost men that had been among the 
 best things he had ever done. 
 
 As she speculated she raised her head, listening. Be- 
 fore she could get to her feet the figure of a Chinese boy 
 cleared the bushes. She stared at him in amazement for 
 a second. Then she remembered that one of the things 
 accounted to Dane Barrington for a suspiciously exces- 
 sive love of luxury was the fact that he kept Chinese 
 servants. 
 
 " Please, miss, you trespass," said the boy, bowing low. 
 
 " Trespass," she repeated quickly getting to her feet. 
 
 " Yes, miss. You please to go away." 
 
 Just for a minute she was furious, and the boy's eyes 
 fell before hers. 
 
 " Whose land is this? " she unnecessarily demanded. 
 
 " It is Meester Barrington, miss." 
 
 "Did he send you?" 
 
 " Yes, miss." * 
 
 Her eyes gleamed. " All right. You give Mr. Barring-
 
 50 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 ton a message from me. My name is Valerie Carr. You 
 hear it? Valerie Carr. Tell him that, and tell him I think 
 he is the meanest man I ever heard of, the meanest man. 
 You say that." 
 
 The boy's impassive face was raised to hers. 
 
 " He not like the people who make a picnic, miss," he 
 said gravely. 
 
 " I understand, but you tell him what I said." 
 
 She took up her things and followed him out to the 
 road. 
 
 " How far does his land go? " she asked. 
 
 " There, to that big tree, miss," he pointed. 
 
 " I see. Be sure you tell him what I said, and my name, 
 Valerie Carr," and she walked on. 
 
 She was not angry now. She was amused and excited. 
 If the boy gave Dane her message she knew that he would 
 be bound to tender her some kind of apology. She wan- 
 dered on wondering if he would and how he would do it. 
 Then she resettled herself on the bank of the river a mile 
 further on, and tried to forget the incident. But it kept 
 intruding itself upon the pages of Esther Waters and 
 upon her rambling thoughts. The only time she was really 
 oblivious of it was when for two hours she lay asleep. 
 
 Later in the afternoon she crossed the road and climbed 
 a hill by a rough track. There was a fine view from the 
 top, and she ate her remaining sandwiches and stayed 
 there till the sun dropped out of sight behind her. It was 
 dusk when she reached Dane Barrington's retreat. She 
 lingered along by the old buried fence listening for sounds 
 from within. She wondered again if anybody but his 
 servants lived there with him. She craved to go in, defy- 
 ing the notice at the gate. She thought it the most seduc- 
 tive place she had ever found beside a lonely road. 
 
 It was seven when she reached the News office with three
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 51 
 
 or four hours' work ahead of her. Reluctantly she went 
 in, drank a long draught of water to wake her up, and 
 settled down to her evening's work. 
 
 IV 
 
 When Dane Barrington entered his house from the 
 launch that morning he struck a little gong. 
 
 " Lee," he said to the Chinese boy who appeared in- 
 stantly in the hall doorway, " there are some people pic- 
 nicking on my point. Go and tell them they are trespass- 
 ing, and that they have to clear out. God damn them, 
 there are plenty of places for them to go to." 
 
 He turned back through a French door to a broad 
 verandah, that ran most of the way round the house. On 
 this side, that nearest the river, it was furnished in two 
 sections for living and sleeping with a bare space between, 
 where steps came up from the path. The sleeping end 
 was at the front against the side wall of a large study. It 
 was screened on two sides by heavy canvas curtains now 
 drawn up almost to the roof. Besides the cot there was a 
 plain table littered with books and magazines and an 
 Italian stool upholstered in worn red tapestry. An In- 
 dian rug, much worn, in shades of red and blue covered 
 the floor for the length of the bed. Opposite the steps and 
 making with them a passage between the sections was a 
 French door opening into the room beyond. 
 
 The living end was comfortably furnished with a spe- 
 cially made wide hammock of white canvas, two low chairs 
 upholstered in dull red rep, a footstool covered with the 
 same material, a couple of old carved English chests, a 
 solid mahogany reading table with a pile of books on it, 
 and a beautiful small table of vermilion lacquer decorated 
 with black dragons. The hammock was loaded with red
 
 52 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 silk cushions, and a fine possum rug lined witH dull reo! 
 cloth was doubled across the foot of it. Another such 
 rug lay on one of the chests. The small table had on it a 
 fine Chinese enamel jar used for tobacco, a cigarette box 
 of bronze, and a tortoise-shell cigarette case inlaid with 
 mother-of-pearl. The two floor rugs were, like the one by 
 the bed, of old Indian work, with faded flowers trailing 
 along a strong red ground. The predominance of this 
 colour everywhere warmed up the gray unpainted floor and 
 the weather-beaten walls. From this section of the veran- 
 dah three French doors opened into one large room with 
 the windows at present shaded by silk curtains, the colour 
 of burnished copper. 
 
 Dane leaned down to caress two Airedale terriers that 
 stood looking expectantly up at him. Then he told them 
 to lie down. They watched him as he got into the ham- 
 mock with the grace of a woman, and then they settled 
 obediently on the floor underneath him. Dane drew be- 
 side him the scarlet table, lit a cigarette, searched among 
 the cushions for a book, a volume of plays by Chekov 
 which he had left there, and finding it, fixed the pillows at 
 a comfortable height and began to read. 
 
 After a short time Lee rose up beside him like a mush- 
 room. 
 
 " What is it? " There was a trace of irritation in his 
 voice. 
 
 " The lady tell me to give you a message, Meester Bar- 
 rington." 
 
 "Lady? What lady?" 
 
 " The lady who trespass." 
 
 " Oh well, what? Was it only one lady? " 
 
 " Yes, sir. And she very angry. She say to tell you 
 she is Valerie Carr. She say it many times and she 
 say
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 53 
 
 " Oh damnation ! Confound it ! Well, what else did she 
 say? " 
 
 "She say " 
 
 " Go on, Lee. Don't be afraid. I'm not going to blame 
 you for what she said." 
 
 " She say you the meanest man she ever know. She 
 tell me tell you that." 
 
 Dane laughed suddenly. " She did, did she? Good for 
 her. Which way did she go ? " 
 
 "Along the road, that way," he pointed. 
 
 "All right, thanks, Lee." 
 
 The boy glided into the house. 
 
 Dane lay indecisively for a few minutes. Then with a 
 wriggle of impatience he dragged himself out of the ham- 
 mock, slouched off the verandah waving back his dogs, and 
 went round the house and down his grass-grown drive to 
 the road. He went on past his boundary expecting that 
 Valerie would have turned in at the next attractive point 
 on the river. He explored it, but found no trace of her. 
 He stood where there was a long stretch of road visible 
 but she was nowhere to be seen. He walked another 
 quarter of a mile, and finding no sign of her he turned 
 grossly back, angry at her now for disturbing his morning. 
 
 At nine that night, intent on her books in the silent 
 office, Valerie heard steps pause on the clay sidewalk out- 
 side. Then she heard the door open without a knock. 
 She wondered if Bob had got back sooner than he expected. 
 She swung round in her chair to see Dane Barrington 
 moving round the corner of the counter. He was without 
 a hat and as she looked up at him her eyes were arrested 
 by the glitter of the gaslight for a second on the eyes of a 
 green snake curved over the top of a black stick he car- 
 ried. She almost thought the thing alive. 
 
 He. stood easily before her for a little before he spoke.
 
 54 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 are Valerie Carr ? " he began unceremoniously. 
 
 " I am," but the glint of amusement faded quickly from 
 her eyes, and without knowing why, she got to her feet 
 and faced him. 
 
 He went on at once with a cool detached manner that 
 she felt was assumed. 
 
 " I didn't know it was you I was turning off my land 
 this morning. The last person in the world I should wish 
 to be inhospitable to would be a daughter of Dave Carr. 
 But I do detest picnickers messing up my place." 
 
 Valerie found her tongue. " I wouldn't have messed up 
 anything," she retorted. " There's no person on earth 
 who has more respect for a beautiful spot than I have ! " 
 
 "Well, how could I know that?" His brilliant eyes 
 glared at her. " And anyway, my dear girl, surely a man 
 has a right to one spot on this earth where he can feel 
 himself alone, really alone." 
 
 " I grant you that right," she cut in curtly, aggrieved 
 at his manner. " I assure you your aloofness is in no 
 danger from me. I didn't know it was your place." 
 
 Then she saw instantly that he misunderstood her, that 
 something in her tone had lashed that extraordinary entity 
 that was staring at her out of those wonderful eyes. She 
 had seen the black lashes quiver. 
 
 " Oh please," she cried spontaneously, " I didn't mean 
 that. I mean - " she stopped confused. They looked 
 at one another for a moment of silence. 
 
 She almost forgot she was looking at a man, and stared 
 as if she were looking at a picture. She saw a perfect oval 
 face of arresting whiteness a little tanned by the sun, a 
 face shot through all its sensitiveness with elusive pain. 
 But the features, chiselled with the beauty of an old cameo, 
 had as yet no sign of looseness about them. They were 
 straight, mobile, but firm. He had a lovely mouth, with
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 55 
 
 no trace of dissipation upon the fine lips which curved 
 ever so delicately at the ends with a whimsical little twist. 
 It was a face that any loss of weight would have made 
 thin, but as she saw it it needed nothing to give it per- 
 fection of proportion. She was only conscious of all this 
 as a setting for his eyes. It was they that held and 
 abashed her. They lit from within his whole glamorous 
 presence. They spread the troubled questioning and 
 nervous discontent about his features. They suggested 
 quests, adventures, battles, defeats, despairs. In the poor 
 gaslight they seemed to be absolutely black and she could 
 not tell what colour was in them. 
 
 She recovered herself and went on. " I put that badly. 
 What I meant to say was that I never encroach on peo- 
 ple's peace. I care too much for my own." 
 
 He did not take his eyes off her as she spoke. He was 
 rather astonished that she had sensed him so quickly, and 
 still more astonished at her blundering apology. It was 
 unexpectedly human. 
 
 " I understand you, thank you," he said quietly. His 
 glance fell on Esther Waters lying on the top of a fat 
 ledger. He looked back at her. 
 
 " Was it you who were out on the point by the river 
 last night?" 
 
 " Yes. Is that your land too? " 
 
 At the change in her tone his face melted into a slow 
 smile that created a responsive one on hers. 
 
 " No, Miss Carr. And you may come out to that point 
 of mine whenever you want to. But for God's sake don't 
 bring anvone with you or tell anyone you come. Good- 
 night." 
 
 Before she could think of an answer he was gone round 
 the counter and she heard the door close. 
 
 He left an extraordinary blank behind him. It seemed
 
 56 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 to Valerie that he had sucked something out of her. She 
 stood uncertainly a moment. Then she closed the door 
 into the composing-room for no reason except that she had 
 to do something to sharpen her consciousness again. Then 
 she sat down in her chair and deliberately pieced him to- 
 gether as he had stood in front of her. He was little more 
 than two inches taller than herself, slightly but well made, 
 and she judged him to be about thirty-six years old. In 
 spite of his unusual appearance she had seen nothing of 
 the poseur in his manner. Indeed she had been surprised 
 by a certain simplicity, an unconsciousness of himself. 
 And he had not thrust forth any tentacles at her. Bob 
 had jeered at his mode of dressing, but he was simply 
 carrying the easy and conventional clothes of the artist 
 into the camp of the Philistines, as the Philistines carried 
 their clothes into the haunts of the artist. If he had a 
 beautiful throat Valerie saw no reason why he should not 
 wear low soft collars and open shirts. If he liked colour 
 she saw no reason why he should not wear a vivid tie, pro- 
 vided that his manner did not proclaim it, and his did not. 
 She had liked the cut of his navy serge suit, and the fresh- 
 ness of his white silk shirt and the comfort of his canvas 
 shoes. He knew how to combine fastidiousness and finish 
 with colour and ease. Beside him Bob looked like a bull 
 beside a deer. 
 
 She remembered that she had heard him called effemi- 
 nate, but nothing effeminate had looked at her out of those 
 eyes of his, nor was there anything unmasculine about his 
 voice. 
 
 It was half an hour before she could get her thoughts 
 back on working up Bob's notes of the county council 
 meeting of the afternoon before. She didn't seem to care 
 how many tons of stone were put on the road between 
 Aratapu and Dargaville before the winter came, or whether; 
 Princess Street was ever shelled again or not.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 ONE evening in the middle of March, as Dane lay, 
 smoking in his hammock immediately after his 
 dinner, the dogs which were chained on the other 
 side of the house set up a ferocious yelp, and almost simul- 
 taneously Lee stood in the nearest doorway. 
 
 " Mr. Benton coming in," he said. 
 
 " All right. I'll see him." 
 
 Dane did not move as Roger came with his spurs clink- 
 ing round to that side of the house. 
 
 " Hello ! " he said as his visitor came to the steps. 
 
 " Hello, Barrington, are you sociable this evening? " 
 
 " Yes, really pleased to see you. Did they get away 
 from the coast yesterday? " 
 
 " Yes, everybody has gone and you have it to yourself 
 now." 
 
 " Good. Sit down. Have you had dinner? " 
 
 " Yes, at Hill's, as I came along. I've got to look in at 
 the railway men's meeting to-night, but there's plenty of 
 time." Roger sat down where he could see his host's face. 
 
 Lee came through the doorway with a tray and bottles 
 and glasses. 
 
 " Wine or whisky, Meester Benton ? " he asked. 
 
 " Whisky, thank you." 
 
 " Meester Barrington, what for you? " 
 
 " Wine, please." 
 
 The boy poured out the drinks, saw that the smoking 
 apparatus was complete, and disappeared. 
 
 Roger Benton took out his pipe and filled it. " I'm 
 
 57
 
 58 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 glad the summer is nearly over," he said. " I don't mind 
 the heat. But we have had so little rain this summer. 
 That's so bad for the stock." 
 
 " Yes, why the deuce don't you manage better than to 
 let your animals die? The sight of dead cows floating 
 down this river makes me sick. I bumped into one the 
 other day. Couldn't get that poor brute's eyes out of my 
 mind." 
 
 *' Well, we don't see 'em die for fun, Barrington. It's 
 impossible to watch them all the time, and the damned 
 things will walk into the river to get cool, and then down 
 they go in the mud and drown before anyone can get to 
 them." 
 
 " What a pathetic tragedy," said Dane, drinking down 
 the last of his wine. " How are you getting on? " he 
 asked after a silence. " Have you formed a committee 
 yet?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 Dane turned lazily on his cushions. " You ought to 
 hurry up with that, Benton. And drill them in the his- 
 tory of the Opposition. You've got to talk Massey, you 
 know, as well as yourself. And Mobray has a pretty in- 
 telligent group going already." 
 
 " I know. I will hurry up. I'm going to do it this 
 week. I wish you'd come on the committee." 
 
 " Good God ! " Dane laughed suddenly, seeing this was 
 what Roger had come in to ask. " That wouldn't do you 
 any good, my friend. The world hasn't your easy toler- 
 ance. No, thanks, I won't go on your committee. But 
 I'll help you all I can." 
 
 He looked out through a clearing he had cut through 
 his trees to the river. It put into a leafy frame a picture 
 that varied with every day. In the foreground there was 
 a little bit of river and then the stretch of a long valley,
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 59 
 
 at the end of which the sun rose and the moon rose. He 
 saw the silver arc now upon the horizon with the shapes of 
 trees etched in vivid black across it. 
 
 " The men like you," persisted Roger, " the fellows 
 around the mills and the camps. They are the chaps I'm 
 afraid of." 
 
 " My dear chap, my singing to them occasionally won't 
 affect their politics. But you get your committee going 
 as soon as you can. And make George Rhodes chairman 
 of it. He's the most intelligent of that lot in Dargaville." 
 
 " Yes, I will." Roger stretched out his legs. " I envy 
 you, Barrington." 
 
 " Do you? " 
 
 " Yes. Really I do. You have no ties. You don't 
 have to be respectable. You don't care what men say 
 about you." 
 
 "Don't I?" 
 
 " Well, you don't show it." 
 
 " What men don't show, my naive friend, is often the 
 most vital thing about them." Dane took another ciga- 
 rette and lit it at the one he had just finished. He turned 
 a little and readjusted his cushions. Then he looked quiz- 
 zically at Roger. Besides Doctor Steele he was the only 
 man he had asked to come to this place. He would never 
 forget that Roger had called upon him at Mac's hotel be- 
 fore he had been there a week and had invited him out to 
 his sheep run. He had not accepted the invitation, but 
 he had accepted the spirit of it. Dane liked Roger. He 
 was like a blanket on a cold day. He appeared to enjoy 
 life. And there was something about his big loose body, 
 his strong limbs, that gave physical comfort to the other 
 man with his nervous organism and his much too ready 
 weariness. 
 
 " It must be an awful bore to have a public job," said
 
 60 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 Dane after a while. " The last thing on earth I should 
 want would be to run for Parliament. What on earth do 
 you see in it? " 
 
 " Oh, I'll like it well enough if I get in, but I don't like 
 the bother of getting there." 
 
 " Yes, it pleases your vanity and that of your wife. 
 You fool yourself into thinking you can do more for the 
 district than any other man because your friends have told 
 you so, and your wife is dying to go to Wellington every 
 winter and cut a dash, and you like the idea of dining with 
 the Governor all that." He waved a hand contemptu- 
 ously. 
 
 Roger would have been annoyed at anyone else who put 
 it this way. " You are right," he said amiably. " Well, 
 I'm not in, and a man who has been in fifteen years 
 will take some beating. But it's the general swing in 
 the country from Ward to Massey that I'm reckoning 
 on." 
 
 '* Yes, the old Liberal Party has had a long innings ; 
 eighteen years or so, isn't it, since Dick Seddon jumped 
 into the lead, and there was someone before him, wasn't 
 there? " 
 
 " I forget just now." 
 
 Dane thought he was the most casual candidate he had 
 ever met. 
 
 Night was now settling down on the river and the gar- 
 'den. Lee and his brother San, who was cook, came into 
 the big room beside them, drew back the curtains, and lit 
 two lamps that cast bands of light across the verandah 
 and created mysterious shades beyond the trunks of the 
 trees outside. Then they went into the other room and it 
 fcame to light also. 
 
 " You like some music? " asked Lee from the doorway 
 nearest the sleeping cot.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 61 
 
 " Care for the victrola, Benton? I got one out re- 
 cently. It amuses the boys." 
 " Why, yes, I'd like it." 
 Dane nodded at Lee. 
 
 II 
 
 Roger turned in his chair a little so that he could look 
 into the room with the three doors. He had never been 
 asked into it, nor, indeed, into the house since his host 
 had reconstructed it. As Valerie had thought, it had 
 been built by an early missionary, and no less a person 
 than Bishop Selwyn had once lived there. It amused Ben- 
 ton to think that the same walls should have housed two 
 such dissimilar men, for Roger had supposed many of the 
 rumours about Dane were true, even while he remained 
 tolerant to the man. 
 
 The house had been constructed with some taste, for the 
 studs were high, the ceilings of the main rooms beamed, 
 and the brick fireplaces large. Dane had replaced the old 
 wall paper with linings of oiled rimu. The room with the 
 three doors had originally been two, but he had taken out 
 the partition to make it spacious enough to house most of 
 the Oriental things he had picked up when travelling in the 
 East. 
 
 Roger had heard Davenport Carr say that Dane Bar- 
 rington's Indian rugs and Chinese things were so valuable 
 that he had willed them to the Sydney Museum, but this 
 did not impress him so much as did the suggestion of silken 
 rakishness that he got through the curtained slits of those 
 tantalizing doors. He had once managed to sit opposite 
 one of them long enough to have his senses tickled by the 
 riot of gold and vermilion and wondrous blues and greens 
 that lit the room and the walls.
 
 62 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 The place was indeed something of a treasure House for 
 & good deal of the Chinese porcelain, the nephrite and 
 jadeite brush pots and jars and ornaments, some of the 
 ivories, three carved boxes of Peking lacquer, many of the 
 Hronze incense burners and covered jars, an enamel box 
 inlaid with jewels, and a wonderful little bottle of lapus 
 lazuli had come from the loot of the Summer Palace at the 
 suppression of the Boxer rebellion, and by devious ways 
 had found themselves in the hands of Dane's father. He 
 had, besides, a varied collection of less valuable but beau- 
 tiful vases and jars of apple green and powdered blue and 
 red porcelain, a collection of small things carved out of the 
 hard stones, some fine bits of Foochou lacquer, and a mar- 
 vellous carved box of rock crystal in which he kept ciga- 
 rettes. These things stood on lacquered tables and cabi- 
 nets, and the most valuable were locked in one behind 
 glass. He had two large screens, one old Chinese in black 
 and gold and the other Japanese in red and black. The 
 three lamps in the room were oil set in red porcelain jars 
 and had shades made of gay silks. A nest of scarlet 
 lacquer tables, of which the one on the verandah was part, 
 stood between two of the doors. 
 
 There were no pictures on the walls which were hung 
 with Indian silks and rugs, and the floor was covered by 
 one large and very valuable one in the prevailing colour. 
 To tone this down the deep lounge set directly in front of 
 the brick hearth and the two modern upholstered chairs 
 were done in black silk, but their sombreness was in turn 
 vivified by numerous brilliant cushions. At one end of the 
 lounge there stood a fire-screen of fine black lacquer orna- 
 mented with mother-of-pearl. 
 
 This was the kind of thing that looked mysteriously 
 wicked to people brought up on the Victorian antimacas- 
 sar, wool work, and the aenemic proportions of spidery
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 63 
 
 furniture or the severity of mission art. Roger was not 
 at all sure of it himself; it wasn't the kind of thing he 
 would go in for, and yet it stirred him pleasantly. He 
 supposed it was only because it was on the banks of the 
 Wairoa that it took on the significance it did. Of course 
 he had told his wife all about it, and it was too good a 
 glimpse of sin to be kept in the family. All Dargaville 
 knew that Dane lounged about like a woman on gorgeous 
 cushions, and that his rooms were filled with colour and 
 scent. The pioneer spirit, conveniently recent enough to 
 be quoted, was offended. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The two men listened in silence to records by Harry 
 Lauder and Melba and Caruso. But Roger was not fond 
 of music. After a while as he refilled his pipe he turned 
 to his host. 
 
 " Have you seen Miss Carr yet ? " he asked. 
 
 " Yes, turned her off my land one day." 
 
 " What ! " 
 
 Dane raised his face a little, peering at Roger, who was 
 blurred against the wall out of the line of any light. 
 
 " Fact. But I did not know till afterwards that it was 
 she. Then I went to the office and apologized." 
 
 "Oh, you did?" 
 
 " Why, of course. I wouldn't willingly be a beast to 
 the daughter of Dave Carr, or to anybody else's daughter, 
 for that matter." 
 
 " She's a character." 
 
 "Is she?" 
 
 " What did you think of her? " 
 
 " Why, nothing. I noticed she had fine defiant eyes
 
 64 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 and a lot of hair. [Are you getting sentimental about 
 her?" 
 
 Roger stretched out his legs. " I might, if she'd let 
 me," he said. 
 
 Dane assumed an air of solemnity. " Look here, old 
 chap. None of that. You've got to be a moral husband 
 and father, a pillar of society. The eye of the world 
 is on you, Roger. And then there's Lorrimer, isn't 
 there? And he has a belligerent set of shoulders. Not 
 that that ever made any difference to a determined 
 man." 
 
 " They don't act as if they were engaged." 
 
 " That's nothing. You never know what is between any 
 man or woman." 
 
 " I wonder why she came up here? " 
 
 " How should I know, my dear Roger? Is she any 
 good on the paper? " 
 
 " By Jove, yes, she is." 
 
 " Well, it is a well-edited little sheet, I can tell you that, 
 and they're improving the make-up every day, and they've 
 got life into it, whichever of them is doing it. By the way, 
 I seem to remember some tale about her, an adventure, 
 running away from home or something like that, years 
 ago, in a boat, with some boy." 
 
 " Yes, she did, and Lorrimer was the boy. My wife was 
 staying in Auckland at the time, and heard the story. It 
 was ten years ago. I forget the details now. They did 
 go in a boat, and I believe it was a week before they were 
 found. And she looks now as if she'd just run away with 
 anybody any minute. She's the most independent girl 
 the women don't like her. She won't go to see anybody. 
 She's refused all invitations to dinner. What can you do 
 with a girl like that?" 
 
 "Good Lord! Why try to do anything? Let her
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 65 
 
 alone." Dane, who had lain for some minutes without 
 smoking, lit himself another cigarette. 
 
 " Women are a pest," went on Roger, with an air of 
 profundity that amused his host. 
 
 " Then keep away from them." 
 
 " Well, I can't. I like them, I like their company." 
 
 " H'm ! That's the one thing about them I like least. 
 They don't understand company. They ruin it and love 
 and scenery and music, and everything worth having, with 
 their infernal chatter. It's an eternal mystery to me that 
 men don't strangle women in the night. I sigh for the 
 good old days when they did it. The best women could 
 ever do for me was to give me physical rest, and God 
 knows I have wanted a lot more than that from them. 
 And they don't even understand sense. They do under- 
 stand suggestion and stimulation, but they fall short when 
 it comes to satisfying what they have aroused. And they 
 can't make a fine art of love. They can only be senti- 
 mental or sacrificial about it, and eternally remind you 
 afterwards that they have given you everything. They 
 have no honour in love." He stopped abruptly. He had 
 surprised Roger by this outburst. 
 
 " I guess you are harder to please than I am," he said. 
 
 Caruso's voice, vibrant with the passion of an Italian 
 love song, rang out from the room further down and was 
 smothered in the heavy silence of the garden. Dane threw 
 one hand across his face. He did not want to talk any 
 more. Roger sat till another record was played then he 
 stood up. 
 
 " I must be getting along, Barrington." 
 
 Dane roused himself and swung out of his hammock. 
 Stretching himself, he looked up at the soft stars. 
 
 " God ! What a lovely night ! You will have a fine 
 ride," he said.
 
 66 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 They went round the house along the drive to the rather 
 dilapidated stables outside of which Roger had tied his 
 horse. It was a beautiful animal that whinnied and pawed 
 the ground as they came up to it. The moon, coming up 
 over the pines, caught its quivering muscles and put a 
 sheen on them. Dane drew down its impatient head and 
 rubbed his cheek against the satin of its sensitive skin. 
 It nosed him back in a friendly fashion. Then he looked 
 up admiringly at Roger, who swung easily into the saddle, 
 and who was a superb figure on his big horse. Dane 
 walked along by him to open the gate. 
 
 " I'll go down to the tent in a day or two," he said. 
 " I may stay down there while the weather's good." 
 
 " All right. Good-night." 
 
 " So long, old man. See you soon. Don't forget about 
 your committee." 
 
 " No fear." And in a moment Roger's horse was leap- 
 ing for Dargaville. 
 
 Dane lingered by his gate, staring into the forest that 
 rose steeply between him and the western sky. It was 
 virgin bush, practically untouched, with Kauri saplings 
 further up sending slim pointers impertinently at the very 
 stars. His one grievance against this range was that it 
 shut him off from the sunsets. He had always dreamed 
 of a place where he could lie in a hammock and see the sun 
 come up on one side of him and go down on the other. 
 But it seemed that that was one of the impossible things 
 he had clamoured for. 
 
 He thought of Roger as he walked back, and was 
 amused to think that he had been attracted by Valerie 
 Carr. And yet there was nothing unusual about it. He 
 got a picture of Valerie as she had risen out of her chair 
 in the office to face him. He had not thought of her since, 
 even though at the time he had felt her charging vitality.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 67 
 
 He was still suffering too much from his treatment at the 
 hands of women to be easily rid of the exceeding bitterness 
 he felt when he thought of them. 
 
 His dogs leapt at him from their kennels beside the 
 path. He caressed them, and unchained them, and played 
 his way with them back to the other side of the house. 
 Then he began to pace back and forth on the path, stop- 
 ping every now and again to look up at the trees patterned 
 against the moonlit sky, or to peep through his cutting at 
 the dull sheen on the river. 
 
 As he went up the steps some time later he felt some- 
 thing crunch under his feet, and with a little shudder 
 stooped to see what he had done. Making a face, he 
 scraped the unpleasant thing out of sight with his shoe. 
 Then he grieved because he had crushed the life out of an 
 insignificant insect, and took a moment to wonder what 
 pathetic domestic tragedy in the history of beetles would 
 result from his inadvertent clumsiness.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 ""^ T'OU know, Val, I do think we ought to go just 
 
 ^[ once to the Bentons' for a Sunday. It does 
 
 JL seem so dashed uncivil not to." 
 
 This came out unexpectedly as Valerie and Bob sat in 
 the office about half-past eight. She waited a few sec- 
 onds before replying. Her eyes had hardened. 
 
 " Good heavens, Bob, do I have to decide for you 
 whether you go or not? I've decided for myself and 
 told you my decision. If you can't make up your mind 
 what you want to do, I do not see why you should bother 
 me with it." 
 
 Bob took a long puff at his pipe. It annoyed him that 
 Valerie was the one person he could do nothing with. And 
 it annoyed him that some devil in him continually 
 prompted him to try to change her. The fact that irri- 
 tation and friction resulted did not deter him from begin- 
 ning it all over again. 
 
 " Well, I can't see why you don't want to go," he 
 snapped. 
 
 " Then you'll have to go on living without seeing, Bob. 
 Do you know you are getting more like the relatives every 
 day? Yes you are," she repeated, as he squirmed in his 
 chair. " You promised if I came up here that you would 
 treat me as if I were a man and an independent stranger. 
 And you have done nothing of the kind. I feel your criti- 
 cism every day. You were mad when I ordered ale for my 
 lunch. You were mad when I walked past the barroom 
 
 68
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 69 
 
 door and you heard some harmless creature inside enquire 
 who I was, as if that could hurt me. You were mad when 
 you heard that I played to a party of sailors. You are 
 mad because I'm talked about. I've always been talked 
 about, and I always will be, not that I get up in the morn- 
 ing meaning to be, but it seems to happen. Now I won't 
 go to the Bentons' because I want rest on my Sundays. 
 And if, after seeing me all the week, you still want to see 
 me on a Sunday, all I can say is you're a glutton. If I 
 hadn't tried to regulate this friendship of ours you'd have 
 killed it years ago. You men are all alike. You want to 
 swallow a woman whole, and then you wonder why you get 
 sex indigestion." 
 
 " You'll live to be knocked down yet," he retorted, an- 
 noyed that he could never get the best of her. 
 
 " I wonder why that thought seems to give such pleas- 
 ure to a large proportion of the human race? " she said 
 meditatively. " It doesn't thrill me to think that anyone 
 who differs from me will get a crack on the skull. That's 
 just like the relatives, Bob. They used to curl their 
 tongues with joy round the things fate had in store 
 for me." 
 
 " Look here," he groaned, " if you compare me with 
 those damned relatives again " 
 
 " Then don't be like them, dear Bob." 
 
 He turned back to his desk. " I say, have you any 
 more to do here ? " 
 
 " A little." 
 
 " Well, I don't care, clear out. I've got to write this 
 leader." 
 
 She made a face at him, kissed the top of his head, took 
 her things and went out. As she walked towards the cen- 
 tre of the town she stopped once and drove her right heel 
 into the clay path as if she were crushing a centipede.
 
 70 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 " My God," she thought, " if I ever make any claims on 
 any human soul may I be struck dead." 
 
 And a man coming up to her looked curiously at her, 
 wondering why she had twisted round in the path like that. 
 
 II 
 
 When Valerie came to Queen Street she paused. She 
 could just hear the heavy roll of the waves on the coast. 
 She considered that it could not be much after nine and 
 that she could walk to the gully and back with time to 
 spare before the hotel closed at midnight. She knew the 
 cottagers had returned three days before, and that she 
 would have the road to herself. Few people from the town 
 ever walked up there on the flat. The moon was nearing 
 the full, and she knew it would be wonderful out there by 
 the sea. 
 
 Sounds of voices and laughter floated out as she passed 
 Ray Bolton's house. They were playing bridge in there. 
 She paused a moment to listen. The windows were open 
 and the light streamed out through the lath blinds that 
 screened the verandah. She could hear Mrs. Harris's 
 high laugh, that undiscriminating laugh that took the 
 flavour out of everything. She could imagine the chatter 
 round those tables, the punctilious behaviour as a thin 
 veneer over brittle tempers and personal predilections. 
 What she detested most about these people was that they 
 were poor copies of other imitations, all straining their 
 imaginations in the process of worshipping the " correct 
 thing." She wondered if little Mrs. Rhodes was there 
 struggling to keep her personality intact in that circle, a 
 victim of her husband's position. 
 
 Ten minutes after she had left the town behind her she 
 had forgotten it. She drew in long breaths of the rising
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 71 
 
 breeze that wailed about the bushes with a vague threat of 
 rain. Clouds crept up from the west and blotted out the 
 moon and uncovered it again as they drifted on. She felt 
 extraordinarily free and happy. 
 
 When she got to the top of the ravine she dropped down 
 upon the edge of it between bits of stunted ti-tree. Down 
 below her she could see the moon whitening the line of surf. 
 
 The breeze was fresh here and the sea was rising. She 
 was lost in a rambling wonder at the miracle of space 
 above her when she heard steps on the road. In her dark 
 dress she was almost invisible in the shadow, and could 
 have stayed unobserved, but instinctively she jumped to 
 her feet, and startled a man who stopped suddenly not 
 more than a yard away from her. 
 
 " What the devil oh, I beg your pardon. Good Lord, 
 Miss Carr, do you jump down from the stars in a para- 
 chute, or what? " 
 
 Valerie struggled against the instantaneous effect that 
 Dane had on her. " I thought everybody had gone from 
 here," she said lamely, as if she had to account for her 
 presence. And then she was vexed that she seemed to be 
 apologizing for herself. It was so unlike her. 
 
 " The cottagers have gone, thank God. But I don't 
 regulate my life by them." 
 
 " I should hope you didn't," she said with emphasis. 
 
 She saw now that he was stooping under the weight of a 
 large knapsack strapped to his back. He held his smok- 
 ing pipe in one hand and his snake stick in the other. His 
 head was vividly black and white against the sheen of the 
 moon, and the wind stirred in his soft hair. 
 
 As he saw her with the moon full upon her face he 
 caught again that sense of abundant life he had got from 
 her before, and a sense of bodily poise and pliancy from 
 her easy limbs.
 
 72 
 
 " You are alone? " he said, dropping his voice into a 
 richer and wondering tone. 
 
 "And why shouldn't I be? " 
 
 He detected the belligerency, good-humoured though it 
 was, of the person frequently on the defensive against 
 criticism. 
 
 " Well, it is unusual to find a woman who is sane enough 
 to be alone, and on such good terms with the night that 
 she will wander about with it. But you must be very 
 lonely, Miss Carr." 
 
 This simple directness amazed Valerie. She did not 
 know what she had expected him to be, but he was saying 
 things that struck her as astonishingly unusual. Or per- 
 haps it was that his glamorous personality infused ordi- 
 nary syllables with an extraordinary force. 
 
 " I don't know," she said slowly. " I have always been 
 happiest alone." 
 
 He instantly raised the hand that held his pipe to a sa- 
 lute. " I won't disturb your dreams," he said softly. 
 " Good-night," and moved on. 
 
 " Oh, I didn't mean you to go like that," she exclaimed 
 spontaneously. 
 
 But he waved his hand at her and did not stop. She 
 stood still looking after him till he had disappeared, and 
 he knew, with a funny vague premonition, that she did. 
 
 She thought of him all the way home. She compared 
 him again with her father. Davenport Carr had been 
 born into the Brahmin caste, and Dane Barrington into 
 the artist. Though Dane's marriage and his looks had, 
 projected him into the other for a while, Valerie doubted 
 if in spirit he had ever belonged there. Her father had 
 talked of his fascination as a dinner host, had excused his 
 informal dress, had called him a special case, always with 
 the implication that he was a privileged outsider. It had
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 73 
 
 always amused her to hear the outsiders discussed by the 
 elect. She learned as she grew up that there were a multi- 
 plicity of elects each with its own group of outsiders. She 
 was amused at the queer game played by those " outside " 
 who wanted to " get in." She had heard the most solemn 
 conversations on the subject. She had never been able to 
 take seriously the enormous importance of the " ins " over 
 the " outs," because the importance seemed to her to be 
 such a frail bubble, and one so easily pricked. And why 
 did anybody ever want to get "in"? Why not stay 
 " out " ? Why not make your own " elect," if you had to 
 have an " elect " ? 
 
 She had listened to her mother making out dinner lists. 
 That well-intentioned but sadly unintelligent parent never 
 dreamed that her terrible child was formulating a philos- 
 ophy about the elect out of so simple a thing as a dinner 
 list. And when Dane Barrington had been crossed off the 
 dinner lists of the country Valerie had wondered if he was 
 foolish enough to think he would lose by it. 
 
 And now she felt, without knowing any more of him 
 than the pictures of his beautiful old place by the river 
 and of the tent snuggled in the sand-hills, that this man 
 had learned there were things he could well do without. 
 And it seemed to her that the cleverest thing in the game 
 of life, as in bridge, was to know what you could discard. 
 
 She felt now with a lift of her spirits that she would get 
 to know him. The place was too small to keep apart two 
 people who wandered about in the night. She was rather 
 afraid of him mentally. He was brilliant in a profession 
 where she had little more than dreamed her way, and even 
 in their two brief encounters she had felt a cool mental 
 poise balanced against her impetuous dogmatism. She 
 knew she was crude beside him. But she was no depreci- 
 ator of herself. She had never met a man her personality
 
 74 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 could not affect if she chose. But she was not planning 
 any onslaught on the peace that Dane had made for him- 
 self. Her thoughts did not run on into any sentimental 
 future. All she thought was that it would be nice to have 
 him to talk to sometimes, perhaps to ride with, while she 
 stayed in Dargaville. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The next Saturday evening Dane Barrington wandered 
 back and forth on the beach beside the surf, so near it that 
 he had to dodge unexpectedly encroaching runs of frothy 
 water. He wore a rough tweed suit without a vest, as the 
 air had been chilled a little by heavy rain the night before, 
 but he was hatless as usual, and his low collar was loosely 
 held by a dull red tie. 
 
 His mind was clouded by one of the moods of boredom 
 and loneliness that he could so seldom fight off, and he was 
 playing with the impulse to go up to Mac's. He cursed 
 himself that he could never go light-heartedly now in the 
 matter of folly. Many men he knew, Davenport Carr, for 
 instance, could drift into a night of drinking with gaiety, 
 and did not have to pay afterwards the price he did. 
 What a wretched creature man was with a body that was 
 never equal to his imagination. There were physical 
 limits to his capacity for eating, drinking and forgetting ; 
 physical limits to his capacity for love. And, worse still, 
 there was that awful mental limitation, satiety. 
 
 He reflected that it was pitiful that he did not know 
 what to do with himself in this mood. He could get just 
 so far in fighting it and then everything went smash in his 
 brain. He turned off the beach, walking towards his tent. 
 
 Rounding a hillock and mounted on a bay horse, Valerie 
 nearly ran over him.
 
 73 
 
 As she had hoped she would meet him she was prepared 
 to some extent. She pulled up suddenly. But she mis- 
 understood the first look in his upturned eyes. 
 
 " I'm sorry to seem to get in your way, but as you get 
 in mine you will have to get used to the sight of me." 
 Safe up on her horse, gathering something from the life 
 and magnetism of him, she felt snippy. 
 
 As he looked up at her something in her flushed and 
 glowing face, in her exuberant health, in the way her un- 
 covered head was set on her shoulders, with her hair in two 
 long plaits hanging down her back, brought light back 
 into his mind. And at her words the light flashing into 
 his mind diffused itself over his face. 
 
 " Oh, Miss Carr, I wish " he began impulsively and 
 
 stopped, remembering unpleasant things. 
 
 " Yes? " She stared down expectantly, surprised by 
 his manner. 
 
 " Oh, it wasn't anything." He looked away from her, 
 making a hopeless gesture with his shoulders. 
 
 To his astonishment, before he could move, she vaulted 
 off her horse and stood before him. " Please finish that 
 sentence," she commanded. 
 
 She was surprised to see that he looked at her quite 
 helplessly. 
 
 " You were going to ask me to do something for you. 
 What was it ? " More than her words her youth and her 
 own particular glamour spoke for her. 
 
 " Why, how did you know that ? " Some of the pain 
 had gone from his eyes. 
 
 " When a person has a face as expressive as yours, 
 
 well " She waved her hands. " I know what is the 
 
 matter with you. The goblins have got you. Now what 
 do you want me to do ? " 
 
 She felt a quick sense of triumph as she saw the smile
 
 76 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 gather at the back of his eyes. She had spoken with the 
 pert ease of a spoiled child, and it had amused him and 
 surprised him into the simple truth. 
 
 " You're right. I am blue. I was going to ask if you 
 would let me ride on the beach with you. I have my horse 
 down here in Benton's stable." 
 
 Her eyes widened and she felt very warm inside. " May 
 I ask why you hesitated at first? " 
 
 " Well, it would take a long time to tell. Hesitations 
 have a complicated background." 
 
 " That may be. But I want you to understand some- 
 thing this minute. You don't have to hesitate about ask- 
 ing me anything. I don't run my life on hesitations. I'd 
 have you know I'm a free spirit." 
 
 Her head went up as she said it, and he thought he had 
 never seen a more ravishing picture of youthful defiance, 
 and absurd self-assurance. 
 
 " I salute you, Miss Freedom," he said with a charming 
 gesture. 
 
 He stood poised before her in the sand with his head a 
 little to one side. The despair had gone out of his eyes 
 over which a whimsical questioning now flitted, and she 
 could see in the fading light that they seemed to be blue. 
 But they were the most baffling eyes she had ever seen. 
 She knew there was a great deal going on behind them, and 
 she wondered if she would ever know even a fraction of what 
 it was. She wondered what they would look like when he 
 put love into them, for they were wonderful even when they 
 were lit with polite interest. 
 
 " You don't believe me," she went on pertly. 
 
 " Well, let's postpone a discussion of freedom. I take 
 it that I may ride with you ? " 
 
 " You certainly may." 
 
 "Shall I help you up?"
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 77 
 
 "Help me up!" 
 
 " Oh, I beg your pardon, Miss Independence. Have 
 you no weaknesses? " And again a slow smile crept out 
 of his eyes and rippled about his features like a wavelet on 
 a pool. 
 
 " You can find out," she retorted, vaulting into her sad- 
 dle, and looking down at him. 
 
 " Will you wait on the beach ? I won't be five minutes." 
 
 She was a little disappointed that he had not asked her 
 to the tent. She was excited as she rode on, and told her- 
 self not to assume a manner that really did not belong to 
 her. She was not at ease with him yet, and his looks kept 
 attracting her attention away from the man inside. 
 " Gosh," she said to herself, " no man ought to look like 
 that unless all men do. He'd make a vampire of a haloed 
 saint." 
 
 But she had felt something besides his looks, something 
 that came out of him to meet her, a sudden joyous some- 
 thing that had delighted her. He had peered at her as 
 one elf might at another passing in a green glade. She 
 thought of some of the furtive looks that men on her fa- 
 ther's yacht and men at her father's dinner-table had given 
 her, and marvelled at the difference there could be in the 
 admiration of a man's eye. 
 
 As Dane saddled his horse he stifled an unpleasant sus- 
 picion that he had no business to snatch at this chance of 
 breaking up his mood. Though he might go about with 
 no outward consciousness of his looks, he knew only too 
 well the effect of them on women. And then, Valerie was 
 the daughter of Dave Carr, a fact he must not forget. 
 But he had the impression that she was a mere girl, and a 
 good deal of a tomboy. His estimate of her was hope- 
 lessly wrong, as he was to find out, but he had never been 
 at first any judge of the character of women.
 
 78 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 IV 
 
 Valerie watched him as he rode towards her. He rode 
 'as all Australians do, as if he had been born in the saddle. 
 The horses recognized each other. His was black, lined 
 like a racer, and a more nervous animal than hers. 
 
 " Where did you get him? " she asked. 
 
 " From Benton." 
 
 " Oh. That's where I got mine." 
 
 He gave one look at her and one at the beach ahead. 
 " Let's go it," he said. 
 
 They started on a canter and broke into a gallop. She 
 hung down on her bay's neck like a jockey urging it to 
 keep up with the black which kept shooting ahead. The 
 surf was a blurred gray line beside them as the} 7 raced on, 
 letting the animals run themselves out, and when they 
 slowed down panting and foaming, the last bit of lemon 
 light had faded off the cool sea. 
 
 Valerie had lost her hair strings and her plaits were 
 half undone. She picked her tumbled hair out of her eyes 
 and both she and Dane searched hurriedly for their hand- 
 kerchiefs, and tried to recover their natural breathing. It 
 took them some time to bring their excited beasts back to 
 the tame pace of a walk. 
 
 " That outpaced the goblins, I think," he said, smiling 
 at her. 
 
 " Were they very bad goblins ? " She put the sweet 
 sympathy of a child into her tone. 
 
 " Rather. But what do you know about goblins? " 
 
 " What do I know about them? Well, I like that ! I've 
 goblins of my own. Haven't I a right to them ? " 
 
 " Of course, if you insist on having them. But yours, I 
 should imagine, are rather jolly."
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 79 
 
 She gave a contemptuous snort. " How like a man ! 
 Superior even about his tragedies." 
 
 " Good Lord, you can have all mine any day you want 
 them," he said, with a tinge of bitterness in his voice. 
 
 They rode on in silence for a few minutes. Enough 
 light radiated off the beach and the surf for them to see 
 each other's faces. They had now reached a place on the 
 coast where trees came down to the shore, and there was a 
 little gully a few yards further on. 
 
 "Would you like to get off and smoke a while?" he 
 asked. 
 
 " Yes, indeed." 
 
 He fastened the horses, and they sat down on the roots 
 of a tree near them. 
 
 " How did you hear of your old place by the river ? " 
 she asked, after he had lit her cigarette and his pipe. 
 
 " Oh, I came wandering by it one day and saw * For 
 Sale ' on the gate. I went in, and I never made a quicker 
 decision about anything in my life. I bought it the next 
 day. It's one of the few sensible things I ever did." 
 
 " I wonder if they have been so few," she said softly. 
 
 " I'm afraid they have. I haven't lived sensibly at all. 
 I'm not like you, you see." 
 
 He shot a quick look at her. 
 
 " Oh dear! Have I suggested that I've lived sensibly? " 
 
 " Well, I may have misunderstood you. Suppose you 
 explain yourself." 
 
 " Good Lord ! " she laughed, but very pleased that he 
 seemed interested. " Wherever shall I begin ? " 
 
 " Well, let's go backwards. Why do you want to work 
 on a paper? " 
 
 " Why " she paused considering. 
 
 " Don't tell me if you don't want to," he said quickly. 
 
 " Oh, but I do. I was just thinking about what led
 
 80 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 up to it. I've always wanted to get away from home, be 
 independent. I want to write. Don't smile. I never 
 expect to write half as well as you do." 
 
 " I'm not smiling. And why should you not write as 
 well as I do? " 
 
 " Well, I never expect to, but I want to write. I won 
 a prize story in the Weekly News a few years ago and that 
 set me going. But I don't expect to do it yet, nothing 
 much before I am thirty. And dad said I'd better get a 
 practical education as well. And so I took a commercial 
 course. And then I thought I'd better get on a paper. 
 I was on the Star for a while society, rotten job. I 
 couldn't stick it. And then dad got in with the Xezcs 
 committee here and sent Bob up. He was on the Herald. 
 And Bob saw it would take two of us. And he offered 
 it to me and here I am. Of course that's not quite the 
 whole of it." 
 
 " Nothing ever is the whole of it. But why should you 
 want to write when you can play the piano as you do ? " 
 
 " Why, I want to earn my own living, be independent." 
 
 " But you could do that with your music." He turned 
 and looked at her. 
 
 " What ! I care too much for music to play it in 
 public! To a pack of unsympathetic boobs who rustle 
 programmes and wriggle in squeaky chairs! Not I! I 
 never played in public. I couldn't even play to my rela- 
 tives. If there was one person around who did not like 
 music I should get up and smash something." 
 
 He was astonished at the intensity that had welled up 
 in her. She threw her cigarette away and sat up very 
 straight glaring at him. 
 
 " But you play at Mac's? " he said. 
 
 " Oh there, yes, places like that, yes, but not on the 
 stage."
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 81 
 
 " I understand that. They wanted me to go on the 
 stage when I was a boy, but I could not sing that way." 
 
 " Oh." She turned warmly to him. She was craving 
 to have him talk about himself. " But you sang one night 
 in the hotel." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Why didn't you go on? " 
 
 " Oh, I don't know. Did you want me to? " 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 They both looked out over the gray sea for some 
 minutes. 
 
 " You know dad pretty well, don't you ? " she began 
 again. 
 
 " I've met him several times. He's a ripping good 
 sport." 
 
 " Yes, isn't he quite something of a father ? He and 
 I always stood together. I don't know where I would 
 have been but for him. It was he and I against the rest 
 of them. The relatives, you know. Awful bunch! 
 Awful!" 
 
 She felt the smile playing about his face. 
 
 " Didn't you run away from them once, or something? " 
 He was curious now to hear her version of the tale. 
 
 " Why, where did you hear that ? " 
 
 " I was in New Zealand at the time, on a visit in the 
 South Island. And the story stuck in my memory along 
 with your name. It was quite an adventure, wasn't it? " 
 
 " It was," she laughed. 
 
 " Do tell me about it." 
 
 " It is a long story." 
 
 " Well, what of that? I want to hear it." 
 
 She felt warm and excited at his interest. " It was 
 more than an adventure," she began, " it was a crisis. It 
 was my last stand for liberty."
 
 82 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 " Good Lord ! How old were you? " 
 
 " Fifteen." 
 
 " Liberty at fifteen ! All right. Go on." 
 
 " I won't if you are going to laugh at me." 
 
 " Go on," he insisted, flashing a disrupting look at her. 
 
 " Well, it all goes back to the fact that I happened to 
 be born among my relatives." 
 
 " Most things seem to go back to that." 
 
 " Yes, don't they? And you see, they could never ac- 
 count for me any more than I could account for them, and 
 the trouble was that they were always trying to account 
 for me, while I had the sense to accept them for what they 
 were. You know the kind of thing my family is." 
 
 " Let's see. Coronetted stationary, the younger son 
 end of it, a name that goes back to property in the Dooms- 
 day Book, women who read The Queen and know every 
 ramification of the Royal Family." 
 
 She laughed delightedly. " That's exactly it. And 
 they were probably a nice harmless lot in England, but 
 something happened to them on the voyage out. They 
 were gods when they got here, and as gods they set them- 
 selves up. There were an awful lot of them all under the 
 Elegancies, my mother's parents, 3 r ou know. She was one 
 of seven, and then there were the aunts and some old 
 cousins, quite a party. And the Elegancies ruled them 
 all. They were beautiful old pictures, I grant you that. 
 
 " Well, you know, they ran Auckland society. They 
 gave two balls every winter that decided who was ' in ' and 
 who was ' out.' They entertained the Governors. They 
 were old personal friends of Sir George Grey. And no- 
 body ever questioned their right to rule like that till I
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 83 
 
 came along. They captured dad for mother as they 
 captured men for every daughter but poor Aunt Maud. 
 That failure must have cost them some sad hours. Well, 
 to come to me. Goodness knows what happened to me 
 when I was an egg, but I got a queer poke from somewhere. 
 Do you ever try to account for yourself? " 
 
 " Quite often," he smiled. " Go on, I'm awfully inter- 
 ested." 
 
 Feeling that he really was, Valerie loosened up as she 
 went on. It seemed a long while since she had had some- 
 one to talk to. He puffed contentedly at his pipe, nod- 
 ding occasionally, turning his face to her and smiling as 
 she got more worked up with her story. 
 
 " Well, I was the third child, all girls to dad's disgust. 
 But he always said I was a mistake in form. And then I 
 had a queer twist. I couldn't believe the things that were 
 told me. Something used to come up in my throat and 
 say it was all wrong. And I had a most awful temper. 
 I don't know what would have happened to me but for 
 dad and the servants, because I couldn't stick the things 
 the others did. And it was a fight. I was always being 
 sent to bed without food, and the governess was always 
 sneaking it up to me, God bless her! And I was always 
 running out with my woes to the gardener. He was Irish, 
 God bless him! I'm afraid I had no class loyalty. My 
 best friends were the servants. It was better when I 
 learned to play the piano and could read. And then dad 
 got horses and the yacht, and the Lorrimers came to live 
 next door. Bob and his sister had my kind of disease, too, 
 in those days, and we had a conspiracy of our own. And 
 there was a lot that was glorious. We had a beautiful 
 place. You know that point in Remuera with a lot of 
 pines out on the end. And I used to sit on the rocks there 
 and watch the seagulls and dream of London and of living
 
 84 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 by myself and being famous. Well, I must get on witK 
 the story. 
 
 " Of course the relatives opposed everything I ever 
 wanted to do. But dad stood by me. He let me go to the 
 grammar school. Of course I got on. Learning was no 
 trouble to me. And I won a host of prizes that first year. 
 And of course I went home a little puffed up, and I 
 thought at last they would be proud of me. But Bob had 
 taught his sister Doris and me to smoke cigarettes. It's 
 funny now to think what that meant ten years ago. And 
 the week after I got home mother poked about in my 
 things, and found a packet of cigarettes and a love letter 
 from some boy in one of my boxes. Well, I never poked 
 about in anybody's things. I know what I think about 
 people who do. And when the people who did things like 
 that to me came to talk to me of morality or behaviour 
 they couldn't impress me at all." 
 
 She paused for a moment, clasping her hands round her 
 knees. 
 
 " Well, this was the grand row. Dad was away on the 
 yacht. Mother summoned the Elegancies. I knew some- 
 thing was up and I was fighting mad. You see, I was so 
 sick of it. There'd been a row when they found I wasn't 
 in bed at ten one night and that I was sitting on the point 
 wrapped up in a rug listening to a glorious gale. That 
 was wrong. There'd been a row when I was discovered 
 talking to the gardener in his room one night. They 
 would have sacked him but for dad. That was wrong. 
 There'd been a row when they found Byron's poems under 
 my pillow. That was wrong. There'd been rows when I 
 wouldn't go to stupid girls' parties, when I wouldn't go to 
 the Elegancies for Christmas dinner (that was an awful 
 one), when I wouldn't go to boarding-school, when I 
 stopped saying my prayers, and when I wouldn't be con-
 
 85 
 
 firmed. And I knew they just had the habit of opposi- 
 tion. But of course it was awful. I'm not saying that it 
 wasn't. And I was so sick of it. But I had learned they 
 couldn't do anything to me. I remember how wonderful it 
 was when I discovered that they could not put me down 
 the well in a sack, or lock me up in a cupboard, or things 
 like that; that all they could do was just talk. And my 
 dear old governess had taught me a wonderful thing when 
 I was a little child, when Daphne and Rose used to pester 
 me. You know that silly little jingle, * Sticks and stones 
 may break my bones, but names can never hurt me ' ? I 
 can see her now as she said it, dear old thing. And I 
 learned the philosophy in that old jingle, and it was a 
 grand weapon. Of course I had ceased to be a lady so 
 often that the word came to mean nothing. What I found 
 was that I was still myself, with my own loves and hates, no 
 matter what they called me. Goodness! I am rambling. 
 Does this bore you? You see it's wonderful to have some- 
 one to talk to." 
 
 She peered into his face. He saw she was excited. 
 
 " I was just thinking how fine it was to hear someone 
 really talk again. Go on. You are not boring me at all." 
 
 " Of course I know now that it was just as hard on 
 them, poor things, as it was on me. I must have been a 
 horrid little brute from their point of view. But I seemed 
 so right to myself. It's funny how harmless we seem to 
 ourselves, isn't it? And the governess thought I was right, 
 and dad kept telling me to go ahead. Well, to come back 
 to the cigarettes. Smoking seemed funny to me, just a 
 lark, not to be compared with telling tales and doing 
 sneaky things. But the dear relatives thought otherwise. 
 So mother got her moral props, the Elegancies, old mum- 
 mies that they were then, Aunt Maud, whom I particularly 
 hated, and a brother and a sister. The idea was, I sup-
 
 86 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 pose, to finish me with this weight of family majesty. Of 
 course, if dad had been home she would not have done it. 
 Well, we sat down to dinner, but if an avalanche is going 
 to fall on me I'm not going to sit idle and watch it coming 
 down. So I asked mother what the matter was. She said 
 I would know presently. I said I'd know then, or leave 
 the table and go to eat with the servants. My old grand- 
 father held up a hand in the way he had always done to 
 annihilate opinion. Something happened to me. I shouted 
 at him to mind his own business, that as far as I was con- 
 cerned he was dead. I wish you could have seen the faces. 
 I'm sure they thought the moon and stars were coming 
 right through the ceiling. If I'd had a dozen hands with 
 pistols in each pointing at their heads they could not have 
 looked more staggered. They were a ridiculous spectacle, 
 and I lost my temper and told them what I thought of 
 them. I made mother tell me about the letter and the 
 cigarettes, and then I let them have it all the bottled-up 
 rage of my youth. Of course I was abominable. I glo- 
 ried in the mess I was making of their nerves. Nothing 
 short of physical force could have stopped me, and they 
 didn't know what to do with me. Mother took hysterics 
 and Aunt Maud wept. When I was done I was sick too. 
 Then I stalked out and left them. 
 
 " I went down to the rocks and the boathouse, and pres- 
 ently Bob came; I'd told him something was up. And I 
 told him I was 'going to run away and settle the thing. 
 Well, he'd had a row too. The Bishop had found out he 
 was reading Ingersoll. So we decided we'd both go. I 
 guess I egged Bob on. I had three pounds in my money box 
 and he had five. We got out that night about midnight. 
 I was thrilled with the idea and quite reckless. I had a 
 beauty of a little boat that we could sail or row, and he 
 had a tent, and we sneaked out no end of things, my man-
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 87 
 
 dolin and his banjo, Stevenson's Wrecker and Treas- 
 ure Island, a notebook for a diary and rugs and clothes. 
 And there was a lot of stuff handy in the boathouse. It 
 was a glorious night. Bob and I had often been off with 
 dad on the yacht, you know. We could do everything, 
 and there was nothing to scare us about the night. 
 
 " Would you believe it, we managed it for a week. We 
 got over to Birkenhead the first night, and lay up a creek, 
 and first thing in the morning we went and bought all the 
 food we could carry. Then we had to hide for the day. 
 The next night we got out of the harbour. We were aw- 
 fully scared we would be nabbed, but we learned after- 
 wards that mother, terrified out of her wits, would do 
 nothing till dad got back, and wouldn't allow Bishop Lor- 
 rimer to do anything either. Oh, I forgot to say I'd left 
 a note to dad, which mother, of course, read, saying 
 sweetly that I was running away with Bob Lorrimer. I 
 did not see at the time what a thunderbolt that would be. 
 And mother was more afraid of the scandal than she was 
 of our health. We ran away on the Saturday night, and 
 it was Monday morning before dad knew. That let us 
 clear Auckland harbour and get up the coast. 
 
 " You know, it was just wonderful! We had to travel 
 at night, row and sail, and sleep by day hidden at the 
 backs of the bays in little creeks. And I said the weather 
 god loved us, for it was the most beautiful week, and the 
 phosphorus out there in the channel at night! And of 
 course there never were such stars! I can thrill with it 
 all now. I never thought of the relatives. I knew they 
 could do no more to me. But Bob was scared at first and 
 did not get reckless till the third day. He really was a 
 fine old Red Indian, and we were just a pair of sweet kids, 
 with no idea what was being said about us. Well, we 
 came to the end of our food, and to our last night. We
 
 88 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 knew we would have to go to Kauwau Island the next day 
 and get some more, and we guessed that would be the end 
 of it. So we made a night of it. We had a fire, and we 
 played, and we talked about religion and our ambitions, 
 and nerved ourselves up to face the music. And a man 
 riding for a doctor for a sick wife heard our banjo and 
 mandolin, for by that time the whole of New Zealand was 
 listening for them, and he got on the telephone, and first 
 thing in the morning we were nabbed by two jolly yachts- 
 men who had been hunting us for days. It was thrilling 
 to be caught. And my, what a row we had made." 
 
 Dane chuckled with her. " You certainly did. I remem- 
 ber it. But the papers made out a grand case for you, 
 didn't they? " 
 
 " Oh, they were beautiful, and so was dad. He had the 
 Auckland reporters to meet us at his office soon after we 
 got there. They read our diary, heard what we had eaten 
 and read and said and thought, and they came out with 
 grandiloquent stuff about the fine old spirit of the British 
 race, and our being fired with the days of Nelson and 
 Drake. We were the symbol of undying youth in the 
 great empire which was safe and sound so long as there 
 was young blood like ours to renew the spirit of our glori- 
 ous ancestors. You can imagine what all that was to the 
 relatives." 
 
 Dane threw back his head and laughed out. " Grand 
 old stuff. And how did they take it ? " 
 
 " Well, I never did know exactly what happened in our 
 absence. Mother was in the doctor's hands when we re- 
 turned, and I did not see her for a week. It was delicately 
 suggested to me that I had shortened her life by some 
 years. She is still, as you know, alive and blooming, and 
 will probably live to put flowers on my grave. I did not 
 see the Elegancies for at least a month. In fact, every-
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 89 
 
 body kept out of my way. I got at what it was at last 
 through Bob. Mother and the relatives and the Bishop 
 and Mrs. Lorrimer had had solemn conferences about the 
 advisability of marrying us at once on our return, Bob 
 eighteen, and me fifteen. But dad damned them up hill 
 and down dale and shut them up somehow. But Bob got 
 the worst of that, and he ran away from home for years, 
 went to the South and to Australia. And it was what 
 they thought about Bob and me that just finished the 
 whole bunch for me. . . . There, I said it was a long 
 story. I do hope I haven't bored you." 
 
 Her manner changed suddenly. 
 
 " You have not," he said, knocking the ashes out of his 
 pipe. " It's a proper story, and explains a lot." He was 
 as much interested, indeed more so, in the way she had told 
 it than in the tale itself. 
 
 She wanted to ask him questions about himself. She 
 felt hot and very alive, for she had got herself quite 
 worked up. And after her long talk the silence seemed 
 abrupt and likely to become significant. He looked very 
 boyish sitting still with his hands clasped now round his 
 knees, and his face turned so that she could see his profile 
 clearly against the trunk of the tree. He sensed her in- 
 tensity and wondered if it was just her own dramatic sense 
 that had so wound her up. 
 
 " Yes, you have had goblins too," he said, quietly turn- 
 ing his face to her. " I think it was pretty fine that you 
 could stand against all that." 
 
 " I rather liked standing a lot of it," she said honestly. 
 
 She felt the smile that played about his eyes. And then 
 he stood up, cutting off whatever mood they might have 
 drifted into. 
 
 " Come on, let's ride again." 
 
 She was not accustomed to following the moods of men.
 
 90 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 She had b"een a good deal spoiled, and was used to having 
 them follow her. But she felt, as she mounted, that per- 
 haps at last she had met a man who could do a little man- 
 aging himself. But she had a queer feeling of flatness 
 after her eager talking, and it took some minutes of a 
 brisk canter to bring her to a mood of self-possession. 
 Dane did not seem disposed to talk any more, and they set 
 their horses to another gallop. 
 
 When they slowed down again he began to smoke, and 
 she ventured no more than casual remarks about men at 
 Mac's, hoping he would talk, and being disappointed that 
 he did not. When they got to the ravine she supposed he 
 would stop, but he rode on with her, letting his horse lead 
 in the blackest part where they could not see each other or 
 even their own hands held up before them. When they 
 came into the light he began to talk of the sense animals 
 had in the night, and went on to tell her tales of riding out 
 in the great spaces of Australia. He kept the talk abso- 
 lutely impersonal till they came to the borders of Darga- 
 ville. There he pulled up. 
 
 " I'll turn back here," he said, guiding his horse beside 
 hers. " Thanks awfully, Miss Freedom, for dispersing 
 the goblins." He held out his hand. 
 
 For a moment he seemed immaterial to her, a phantom 
 on a black horse. But there stirred about him an effulgent 
 warmth that was anything but etherial. As she took his 
 hot and nervous hand, she bit back a question on her lips, 
 for she wanted it to come from him. 
 
 " I've had a jolly time," she said instead. " I do hope 
 I did not bore you." 
 
 " You did not. Good-night." He rode off without 
 looking back. 
 
 She was conscious of keen disappointment as she rode 
 on, and yet why she did not know. Had she expected
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 91 
 
 more response from him, or what? He had got away 
 from her after she had told her story, but he had seemed 
 pleased to have her company. Was she surprised that 
 he had come so soon to companionable silences? She did 
 not know. But she did know as she lay wakeful in her 
 bed that she had met a personality that was not to be dis- 
 posed of in general terms. And already she wondered 
 when she would meet it again. 
 
 Dane thought about her for a little while after he left 
 her. The ride had shaken him out of his depression and 
 out of his loneliness. And after all it had been pleasant 
 to listen to a girl talk with the vividness she had and the 
 honesty she had. And he realized she was not just the 
 girl he had thought her at the beginning of the evening. 
 He wondered how much of a woman she was. And he 
 knew, too, that he would like to see her again.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 O, Jimmy, you'd better not come back to- 
 night." 
 
 " You can't do those jobbing proofs by 
 yourself, Miss Carr." 
 
 " Can't I ? " Valerie smiled up into the face of the boy 
 who hovered over her. She knew he was longing to be 
 asked to come back and do his part with the men. "All 
 right. Then I will be glad to have you to-night. I'll be 
 here at seven. You try to get a run round in the fresh 
 air before you come in." 
 
 " Yes, Miss Carr." He went out whistling merrily. 
 
 Valerie looked at her watch. It was half-past five. 
 Miss Hands came out of the composing-room. 
 
 " Now, Miss Hands," said Valerie, " I insist that you 
 don't come back to-night. You can to-morrow if it looks 
 as if we won't get through. I shall be sorry I took that 
 job, you know, if anybody gets sick on it." 
 
 Miss Hands' thin face was lit with a sacrificial smile. 
 
 " It isn't tiring working for you, Miss Carr," she said. 
 
 Valerie felt a sudden gulp in her throat. The faithful- 
 ness of these people sometimes made her want to throw 
 bricks at them. But she shot a quick look at the woman 
 who had been so easily overwhelmed by a little ordinary 
 kindness. 
 
 " Miss Hands, it means a lot to me to hear you say 
 that. But it's part of my job not to overwork you. 
 Now you rest to-night." 
 
 Ryder and Johnson came out of the composing-room 
 
 92
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 93 
 
 door struggling into their coats. They had their hats on 
 the backs of their heads, and they lit cigarettes as they 
 paused. 
 
 " I couldn't quite finish that sporting copy, Miss Carr," 
 said Ryder. " I'll come back to do it. I don't like to 
 keep my wife waiting for dinner." 
 
 " Thanks, Mr. Ryder. But I don't like to have you 
 come back for that. Perhaps I can manage it." 
 
 " Not at all. I'll be glad to come back." 
 
 " I'll be back for a couple of hours, Miss Carr," said 
 Johnson. 
 
 "All right, thanks, good-night." 
 
 Miss Hands and the men went out together. Valerie 
 stretched herself. " What a wonderful thing work is. It 
 puts such colour into people," she thought. 
 
 It was Thursday evening of the last week in March. 
 Bob had been away since the previous Saturday going 
 over part of the electorate with Roger Benton, and Valerie 
 was running the paper herself. Bob had left leaders ready 
 for the Monday and the Wednesday. Valerie said she 
 could manage one for Friday. She had her books all up 
 to date now, could edit the telegrams and cablegrams, and 
 was more than equal to the reporting and paragraphing 
 and editorial work. It was not the paper or the book- 
 keeping that troubled her so much as the drudgery of the 
 proof-reading on the jobbing. 
 
 Most New Zealand newspapers have their own general 
 printing plants, and the News committee expected in time 
 to have the expenses paid by the jobbing work of the river 
 towns. There was only one way to beat the Auckland 
 presses at this business, and that was to do it cheaper and 
 faster than they could. Valerie took little interest in the 
 bill-heads and circulars and letter-heads and show sched- 
 ules, and what interest she did take was centred in John-
 
 94 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 son's pride in turning out good work. She only wisHecl Ke 
 could read his own proofs, but that turned out to 
 be mostly her job, and one that often had to be done at 
 night. 
 
 The week that Bob thought would be a slack one turned 
 out to be strenuous. On the Tuesday morning Town- 
 shend, the owner of the biggest timber mill up the river, 
 walked into the office. 
 
 " Where's the boss ? " he asked as Valerie got up from 
 her chair. 
 
 " I am for the present," she smiled. " What can I do 
 for you? " 
 
 He looked doubtfully at her. " Well, I thought I'd try 
 you people on a job. But I guess I'd better send it on to 
 Auckland." 
 
 "Dear me! Do I look as discouraging as all that?" 
 She gave him a ravishing smile. "And it's hardly fair to 
 judge the jobbing work by me, anyway. I don't do it. 
 But we have one of the best men from Auckland here who 
 does, and he's bored to death because we haven't jobs 
 worthy of his skill. Now this one of yours might just 
 save his reason. You might let me have a look at it." 
 
 His shrewd eyes had lit up as she talked. He took a 
 bundle of timber specifications out of his pocket and un- 
 rolled them. He didn't suppose she would understand 
 them in the least. And she didn't, but she gazed at them 
 with the greatest interest. There were fifteen different 
 kinds of sheets, and she was really alarmed at the multi- 
 plicity of red and black lines and the complicated figures 
 and the amount of careful proof-reading it would take. 
 And she had no idea whether Johnson could do it, or 
 whether they had the paper. 
 
 " This looks like the stuff he's been itching for," she 
 said warmly. *" 4 How many do you want of each and when
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 95 
 
 do you want them, and must it be exactly this same quality 
 of paper? " 
 
 " I want five thousand of each altogether, but you could 
 do it in lots of five hundred. I want the first lot delivered 
 next Monday by the Tangiteroria steamer. The paper 
 doesn't have to be identical, but the nearest you can do." 
 
 " Can you wait till this afternoon for an estimate? You 
 can get the Auckland mail to-night if you don't like our 
 offer." 
 
 " Yes, I'll do that. I'm going to be here all day. I'll 
 come in about three o'clock. Good-morning," and he 
 walked out. 
 
 Valerie hurried in to Johnson. 
 
 " I don't know what I've let you in for. But come and 
 look at this." 
 
 They spread the sheets out on a bench. Johnson saw 
 at once it was far and away the best job the place had 
 produced, that it was indeed a good hard one, a real test 
 of what he could do. It warmed Valerie to see how keen 
 he was to do it. They called Ryder into the conference. 
 
 " We haven't the paper," he said. 
 
 She looked woefully disappointed. But a search dis- 
 closed a few sheets that would do as a specimen. Johnson 
 wrote out an urgent telegram to a printing house in Auck- 
 land as to the possibility of getting paper up the next day, 
 and Jimmy rushed off with it to the post-office. Johnson 
 and Ryder dropped what they were doing, and started to 
 work out a scale of prices based on day and overtime 
 rates. 
 
 " Would you work overtime on it ? " asked Valerie. 
 
 " You bet, rather than lose it," answered Johnson. 
 " But you will have the worst of it, Miss Carr. It will 
 be a beastly thing to read." 
 
 When Townshend walked in at three o'clock she was
 
 96 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 ready for him. He approved the paper and the price, 
 and she assured him they would be in time. 
 
 "All right. Go ahead," he smiled into her keen face. 
 
 This job was straining the energies of the whole office. 
 Ryder had to help Johnson on the difficult setting, and 
 this threw a lot more work on Miss Hands and the local 
 girls and Jimmy. But the whole staff rose to the occa- 
 sion. 
 
 II 
 
 After they had gone this Thursday evening Valerie 
 worked on till a quarter past six. There had been that 
 week a return of heat, a last flicker of summer. The office 
 was very stuffy, and she felt tired and worn. She hurried 
 to the hotel for a quick dinner, hoping she was not going 
 to have a headache. Her feet dragged as she walked to 
 her table. This was one of the nights when she could not 
 take Mac's dining-room humorously. 
 
 " You do look so tired, Miss Carr," said Lizzie. 
 
 " I really am, Lizzie," she smiled back. She ordered a 
 light meal and held her head in her hands. When she 
 raised it again she saw that Mac and Dane Barrington 
 had come in. They both nodded at her smile, and then 
 she began to feel better. She saw Michael go to their 
 table, but she did not notice Mac nod at her and give an 
 order. As she began her dinner the seedy Irishman came 
 up to her with a bottle of Burgundy and poured out a 
 glass. 
 
 " It's the spoiled lady you are, for sure," he said 
 slyly. 
 
 " Ah, it's so nice to be spoiled, Michael." Her eyes 
 twinkled at him. Then she raised her glass to the table 
 at the other end of the room, oblivious of curious glances
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 97 
 
 from men near by, and she was delighted that Dane as 
 well as Mac drank to her in return. This incident warmed 
 her up to such an extent that she felt better. 
 
 Soon after she got back to the office she felt the omi- 
 nous return of her headache. Jimmy had been waiting on 
 the steps for her. She could never get ahead of him. He 
 liked to watch her coming, to flourish his cap at her, to 
 take the key and open the door and stand by for her as if 
 she were a queen. He did it all with a twinkle in his eye 
 as if he enjoyed being romantic. 
 
 Soon after he and Valerie had settled down to the proof- 
 reading Ryder and Johnson came in and the jobbing ma- 
 chine began to shake the building. 
 
 Ryder came out again at a quarter past eight ready to 
 
 g- 
 
 " You look a bit sick," he said to Valerie. 
 
 " Yes, I have a headache." 
 
 "Can't you leave it?" 
 
 " No. We'll be done with this by half-past eight. How 
 much copy have you for the morning? " 
 
 " A column and a few sticks." 
 
 " That all ? Well, I must have the leader and the meet- 
 ing done to-night. I can manage it. That sporting copy 
 of yours has helped a lot." 
 
 Ten minutes after he had gone out she put down her 
 pencil. " Now, Jimmy, nothing more. You get out of 
 this at once." 
 
 When she had got him out she held on to her head, feel- 
 ing she could do nothing till the jobbing machine stopped. 
 It went on till nine. Then Johnson came out hot and 
 tired. 
 
 His intelligent brown eyes looked admiringly at her. 
 
 " I say, why don't you knock off? You look as if 
 you'd done enough for one day."
 
 98 THE STRANGE "ATTRACTION 
 
 " I wish I could, but I've got to do a leader and , meet-} 
 
 ing." 
 
 " Sorry. I can't help, can I? " 
 
 " No indeed, thanks just the same. Good-night." 
 
 Ill 
 
 In a few minutes there was silence. Few people went 
 by that way at night unless there happened to be a vessel 
 at the station wharf or freight trains running late. Rid- 
 ers might pass after the hotels were closed. Men rarely 
 worked in the evening in the nearest stores on the town 
 side. Occasionally sounds from the houses at the back 
 drifted in. Valerie was gladly conscious of the quiet, but 
 it did not help her much. 
 
 These occasionally devastating headaches were the one 
 blot upon her otherwise vigorous health. Once past a cer- 
 tain point they accumulated pain with express speed, and 
 reduced her to nausea and utter helplessness. She knew 
 no cure but to lie down and take a big dose of aspirin. 
 Then at the end of an hour she was all right again. But 
 she had used up her stock of tablets and the chemist was 
 now closed. As the copy had to be ready for Ryder at 
 half-past eight in the morning it could not be put off, and 
 she knew she must fight the pain as best she could. She 
 began to write slowly struggling against it. But her head 
 dropped in spite of her. She felt as if she were going to 
 faint. 
 
 The opening of the door stimulated her to raise her 
 face. She had not heard steps. In a mist she saw Dane 
 Barrington looking at her over the high counter. 
 
 "Why, Miss Carr, what is the matter? You look 
 beastly ill." He came quickly round to her. 
 
 She tried to keep her head up. " It's only a headache, 
 and I must work." She never wondered why he was there.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 99 
 
 " Well, you can't work looking like that. Have you 
 ever taken aspirin? " 
 
 Yes, but I haven't any." 
 
 " I have. Will you take it and go home? " 
 
 *' I can't go home. I have a leader to write, and and 
 a meeting." The effort to keep up nauseated her. Her 
 head dropped back onto her hands. 
 
 Dane leaned his snake stick against the corner of her 
 table, opened the door into the composing-room, struck a 
 match and lit a near gas jet. Then he hurried to the back 
 cloor, opened it and looked out into the small yard littered 
 with boxes, barrels and paper. He saw there was a high 
 wooden fence all round it and that no one could look in. 
 It had odours of its own, but it was incomparably fresher 
 and cooler than any place inside. He found two large 
 sheets of brown paper on a bench and spread them out on 
 a flat place near a tap where water dropping into a 
 bucket cooled the air. Then he went quickly back to 
 Valerie. 
 
 " Come on, Miss Carr, and lie down. I've fixed a clean 
 place. You'll be all right soon if you keep still." 
 
 He put an arm round her and helped her out. She did 
 not seem conscious of him at all. Hardly knowing what 
 she was doing she dropped down on to the paper and lay 
 dizzy with pain. Mechanically she clutched at her throat. 
 She was wearing a shirt-waist with a collar that though 
 soft seemed to be choking her. Very deftly with his sen- 
 sitive hands Dane undid the knotted tie and loosened it. 
 Then he found a tumbler inside, rinsed it at the tap and 
 filled it. 
 
 " Can you take a good dose? " he asked leaning over 
 her. 
 
 " Yes, oh yes," she mumbled. 
 
 He took a little box out of his vest pocket, gave her
 
 100 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 five tablets, and helped her to drink half the glass of 
 water. Then she slumped back and lay still, her face 
 livid with pain. He was torn with misery at the sight of 
 it. He searched for a clean handkerchief, and finding one, 
 soaked it in water and put it on her hot forehead. Then 
 he undid her heavy ropes of hair, spread them out on the 
 paper, and carefully laid the large amber pins together 
 in one place. Looking at her thus he thought her beau- 
 tiful. 
 
 He leaned over her again. " Tell me if you can what 
 you were going to write a leader about." 
 
 " The Warendon fire I wanted to make it good 
 
 something on heroism you know ' 
 
 " I know. I'll do it. How long did you want it? " 
 " A column, if I could we need the copy." 
 " All right. I'll do it. Lie still, and you will be better 
 by the time it is finished." 
 
 She was vaguely conscious that he covered her up with 
 something, and then that she was alone. For a time, it 
 seemed an eternity, she was sure her head was flying to 
 bits. There were ghastly explosions of agony when she 
 clenched her hands to keep from screaming, and then it 
 all went suddenly, and she had exquisite moments of re- 
 lief at the cessation of the pain. She slid into dream- 
 land. She did not know where she was or remember that 
 she had had a headache. She was aware of pale stars 
 over her head and of the sheen of the moon tipping over 
 the roof of the office. Then she thought she was in a 
 boat. She could hear water. She tried to turn her head. 
 She was mildly puzzled that she could not move it. She 
 tried her arms. They too were made of lead. But she 
 lay on untroubled by this phenomenon and drifted into 
 curious dreams and profound oblivion.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 101 
 
 IV 
 
 It was a quarter to eleven when Dane had finished writ- 
 ing. He was astonished when he saw how late it was. 
 Valerie must have fallen asleep, he thought. He went 
 quietly out through the dimly lit composing-room and 
 saw from the doorway that she lay exactly as he had left 
 her with his coat unmoved, showing that she had never 
 stirred. He leaned down to look at her. Her face was 
 not so livid now, and he was struck again with the dis- 
 tinction of it, and by an expression of sadness and dis- 
 illusionment that was not there when her eyes were open 
 and her features ablaze with the light from them. No, 
 she was not the mere child he had thought her. He looked 
 at her shapely, passionate mouth, contrasting with the 
 intellectual forehead and the balance in the rest of her 
 face. That mouth beguiled him, enticed him, overcame 
 him. He told himself he was a fool to play with the temp- 
 tation to kiss her, but he leaned lower and very delicately 
 kissed the unconscious lips, thereby stirring in himself 
 senses that after considerable starvation were only too 
 ready to be stirred. He sat up a little ashamed of him- 
 self, but as she did not stir he leaned down recklessly and 
 did it again. He took up her ropes of hair and laid them 
 against his cheek enjoying the fragrance of them. He 
 had always loved women's hair when it was soft and fine 
 like this. He was just thinking she was very sound asleep 
 when a noise staggered him and brought him to his feet 
 with a sickening sense of shock. 
 
 What he distinctly heard was the opening of the front 
 door. In a flash it went through his mind that the office 
 was lit, that it was a public place, and that anyone could 
 come in as he himself had done. And he was here in the 
 yard with Valerie unconscious and prostrate upon the
 
 102 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 ground. Instinctively he snatched up his coat and put it 
 on while a variety of lies raced through his mind. 
 
 But whatever the situation, it would be improved if she 
 were awake. He dropped on his knees beside her, took his 
 handkerchief off her forehead, and spoke with anxious 
 tenseness. 
 
 " Miss Carr, wake up ! Wake up ! You are all right 
 now." 
 
 As she did not stir he shook her lightly, but it had no 
 effect upon her. As he thought it strange she should be 
 so sound asleep he heard the front door close again. But 
 whether the person who had closed it was in or out he did 
 not know. He stepped cautiously to the back door. If 
 there was anyone there who might come through there was 
 only one thing for him to do, go in at once and find out 
 what manner of man he had to deal with. 
 
 Then he heard a very comforting sound, that of steps 
 retreating along the path. After a minute or two of re- 
 assuring silence in the building he stepped inside and 
 walked quickly to the office. There was no one there. 
 He hurried to the front door and saw the figure of a man 
 in the moonlight going off towards the town. He could 
 not make out who he was. There was no one else about. 
 He had been in tight places in his life, but never had he 
 felt more relieved. He turned the key in the lock, put out 
 the light, leaving the office in darkness, shut the compos- 
 ing-room door, drew the blinds of the side windows, and 
 went back to wake Valerie. 
 
 He wished himself out of this now, and reflected sadly 
 what an everlasting fool he was with hi's lack of suspicion. 
 He ought to have remembered the office was a public place. 
 Still at that hour who would have expected anyone to have 
 business with the paper? He leaned quickly down over 
 Valerie and spoke her name. Then for the first time he
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 103 
 
 noticed her shallow breathing. He shook her violently, 
 and saw that her eyes opened and closed with an uncom- 
 prehending stare. Frantically he found matches, struck 
 one, pulled up her eyelid, and saw the dilated pupil. 
 
 His heart stopped. " My God ! My God ! What have 
 I done? " he groaned. 
 
 He dived into his vest pockets, drew out two little boxes, 
 struck another match and examined the contents. Then 
 he sprang to his feet. For a moment he stood overcome 
 by a speechless rage at this damnable trick that fate and 
 his own carelessness had played him. He wondered how 
 many men in the history of the world had gone down to 
 obloquy for no stronger cause. But he dare not add in- 
 action to carelessness, whatever the result to himself. 
 There was nothing to do but to trust the two men in the 
 town he knew he could trust. 
 
 Spreading out paper on the composing-room floor, with 
 great difficulty he raised Valerie and carried her in. He 
 took in her hairpins and put them beside her. He locked 
 the back door. He hesitated about the gas, but finally 
 left the jet burning low, in case she came to in his ab- 
 sence, though he had little hope of that. He went through 
 the office without lighting it, opened the front door and 
 looked out. He blessed the regular habits of the town. 
 There was not a soul in sight. He locked the door behind 
 him, and with the key in his hand began to run. It wor- 
 ried him dreadfully to think of Valerie lying on the floor 
 even in the midst of the harmless machinery. There might 
 be mice or rats. 
 
 He was thankful to find the hotel fairly quiet. What 
 he would do if Doctor Steele was away he did not know, 
 but the doctor was in the very first room he poked his 
 head into, playing poker with a stranger. 
 
 " Lucky I have my case here, D. B.," he said, when he
 
 104. THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 had heard the bare facts. " Let's get Mac and find out 
 how soon we can bring her along." 
 
 The big Irishman was in his own room. The tale did 
 not surprise him in the least. 
 
 " I'll have every son of a out of the 
 
 way by half-past twelve. Nothing much doing to-night. 
 I'll clear Mike to bed, and sit up for you myself. Back 
 door. Come through the yard." 
 
 " Damnation, it's going to be risky bringing her through 
 the town," said Dane. 
 
 " Of course, you bloody fool," said Mac good-humour- 
 edly, " don't do it. Take a boat." 
 
 And though the distance was less than half a mile that 
 is what they did. 
 
 They found Valerie exactly as Dane had left her. The 
 doctor at once applied stimulants to her heart and res- 
 piration and bent over her watching, while Dane stood by 
 racked with anxiety. But strained as he was, he was 
 struck by the picture the gloomy doctor made there on 
 his knees, playing his small flashlight over the face of the 
 unconscious Valerie who lay like the effigy of a mediaeval 
 princess on the top of her own sarcophagus pale and 
 stiff. 
 
 " She's all right, D. B. Splendid heart. She'll come 
 out very well." 
 
 "Thank God!" 
 
 The doctor wrapped round her a rug they had brought 
 from the hotel, and drew up a wooden chair so that he 
 could look down on her face. Dane drew a stool to the 
 other side of her and dropped on to it. After a few min- 
 utes the doctor took out his watch. 
 
 " A quarter to twelve. Well, we'd better wait till half- 
 past. Haven't got any cards about you, have you, Bar- 
 rington? "
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 105 
 
 Something on the expression of the other man's face 
 arrested him. 
 
 "Why not have a game to pass the time? " he asked 
 solemnly. 
 
 " It's a perfectly good idea, Doc," smiled Dane with a 
 little shrug of the shoulders. " A pleasant antidote to 
 the hour I have just spent. You know, if I couldn't have 
 trusted you and Mac I might just as well have shot my- 
 self? " 
 
 " As bad as that? " said the doctor laconically keeping 
 his eye on Valerie. 
 
 " Well, it was for less than this that I was black- 
 balled in Christchurch," said Dane, with intense bitter- 
 ness. 
 
 " Yes, it is unfortunate that men are often judged not 
 for what they have done, but for what the men who judge 
 them would have done in their place." 
 
 The flashlight cast fantastic shadows on the walls 
 through the frames of the impassive old printing press 
 and the spick and span jobbing machine, and glittered 
 on steel wheels and rods. The bulky cases of type loomed 
 up above them, and the heavy tables and benches added 
 to the weight of the air in the close room. But Dane had 
 been afraid to let the doctor open the doors lest at that 
 hour of the night the light attracting someone should be 
 taken for a fire. He was only too anxious to see Valerie 
 safe in her room in the hotel. 
 
 " Wonderful thing, a woman," said the doctor softly, 
 gazing down at Valerie with profound reverence. 
 
 Dane thought of the other man's wife as he had seen 
 her one day as conspicuous in the middle of River Street 
 as a red barn in the middle of a ploughed field, as blatant 
 as the blaring of a circus troupe, and he marvelled at this 
 inextinguishable charity.
 
 106 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 " I wisK I could b'elieve it again, Doc," he said, and 
 they fell into a silence. 
 
 At half-past twelve he investigated the neighbourhood 
 for signs of activity, but the whole place was peacefully 
 asleep. The doctor partly roused Valerie when he picked 
 her up, but she gazed at him with a mild surprise and 
 closed her eyes again. He carried her out to the boat 
 while Dane, using his flashlight, restored the composing- 
 room to its ordinary arrangement. He carefully put the 
 brown paper back where he had found it, collected all the 
 amber pins, and put out the gas. But he forgot to raise 
 the blinds. In the office he felt the hand of fate upon him 
 again. The circle of light fell on his stick, which he had 
 completely forgotten. Had the man who had come in 
 recognized that stick? Then he saw Valerie's coat and 
 small bag on a hook. He cursed himself for the worst 
 fool ever born as he gathered them up. 
 
 But he did feel considerable relief as he rowed the boat 
 along to the hotel, reflecting as he looked at the doctor 
 sitting with Valerie in his arms, that the sleepers in little 
 towns don't know any more than those in big ones what 
 strange things may go on round them in the night. 
 
 V 
 
 A little after seven the next morning Doctor Steele 
 slipped out of Bob's room, where he had stayed to watch 
 Valerie, and into hers, and gave her a strong injection of 
 caffeine. Then he sat down on the bed beside her till she 
 roused. 
 
 " Why, 3octor ! " SHe opened her eyes wider and wider, 
 and rubbed them and started to raise herself. 
 
 " Lie still. There's nothing the matter. Just get h'olcl 
 of yourself and think."
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 107 
 
 She looked at him, puzzling about in her memory. 
 
 "Well, how do you feel?" 
 
 " Feel? " She shook herself. " What has happened to 
 me? " Then she looked at him in amazement as if she did 
 remember something. " What is it, doctor? I feel stupid, 
 very heavy in my head. Aren't I all right? " 
 
 " Quite," he said, in his even manner. " But you had a 
 headache last night, do you remember? In the office? " 
 
 She struggled to clear the fog in her mind. " Why, 
 yes, I had. I remember now." Her eyes widened again. 
 And he saw a tense enquiry in them. 
 
 " What do you remember? " he asked. 
 
 She hesitated. " Why, I I just had a headache. But 
 it was very bad. I do get them very bad. Did I try to 
 come home and faint, or what? " 
 
 "H'm!" he thought to himself. "You're on the de- 
 fensive for him already." 
 
 " No," he went on aloud, " you didn't faint. You re- 
 member that Barrington went into the office? Well, he 
 gave you morphia in mistake for aspirin, one and a quarter 
 grains, a nice little dose." 
 
 " Oh, heavens ! Well, please don't blame him. It hasn't 
 done me any harm. I do hope nobody knows." 
 
 Something like a smile gathered at the back of the 
 doctor's sepulchral eyes. " Nobody who will ever mention 
 it, my dear young lady, only Mac and myself. We keep 
 the secrets of this town. Now presently, when Father 
 Ryan goes down to breakfast, Barrington will slip in 
 here to tell you about it. I'll see there is nobody around. 
 You can get up when he has gone. Drink all the strong 
 coffee you can for breakfast and eat plainly. You'll feel 
 stupid perhaps all day. But you're all right now." 
 
 He stood up as he finished, and with a laconic nod he 
 went quietly out.
 
 108 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 He left behind him a patient who was stimulated with 
 more than the caffeine. Valerie heard low sounds in the 
 next room and hoped Father Ryan would go down early 
 as he usually did. She tried to think back over the even- 
 ing before, but everything was blank after the appear- 
 ance of Dane's face over the counter. She was very curi- 
 ous now to know what had happened. Then she heard 
 Father Ryan close his door and go off along the hall. 
 She wondered if he had heard anything in the night. But, 
 she reflected, he would never tell. 
 
 She heard a low knock on her door. In answer to her 
 quick reply Dane came through it in stockinged feet and 
 closed it behind him. 
 
 Valerie had raised herself on her pillows and her abun- 
 dant hair fell about her like a cascade of gold, but she 
 saw at once that he was quite oblivious of the fact that 
 she was in bed or that she had any hair at all. He 
 moved forward to the bedside near the foot, and looked 
 at her with intensely worried eyes. His face was strained 
 and she knew he had not slept. 
 
 " Oh, Miss Carr," he began at once in a nervous whis- 
 per, " can you believe me and forgive my damned care- 
 lessness? I gave you morphia last night by mistake. I 
 had aspirin." He put his hands to his pockets and pulled 
 out the two little boxes. " But somehow in my hurry and 
 in the bad light I got the wrong thing. You were 
 suffering so badly. You see." He held the boxes out to 
 her. 
 
 Valerie spoke slowly for it was still an effort to talk. 
 " Oh, my dear man, you don't have to produce any evi- 
 dence." 
 
 "You believe me?" 
 
 " Good Lord! May I ask why I shouldn't believe you? 
 Why, you look as if you'd never been believed before ! "
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 109 
 
 For he had looked at her out of most grateful but rather 
 incredulous eyes. 
 
 " When I can tell you the story I think you'll under- 
 stand. The thing that is worrying me still is that some- 
 body came in when I had you in the yard, when I found 
 I couldn't wake you. I don't know who it was, but he 
 went out again almost at once. He didn't see us, I'm sure, 
 but I'd left my stick hi there " 
 
 " Oh, don't let that worry you for a minute." She 
 had recovered sufficiently to put contempt into her tone. 
 
 " I came at once for the doctor," he went on, " and we 
 had to tell Mac. But he is absolutely trustworthy ' 
 
 " Heavens above ! " she broke in, " what are you talking 
 about? What are you afraid of? " 
 
 " Oh, Miss Carr," he threw out his hands, and shook 
 his head. " If you'd been hit as I have " 
 
 " My friend, if the other women you have known have 
 been malignant beasts, please don't judge me by them. 
 It's not very complimentary to me or to your own judg- 
 ment." 
 
 Something in her eyes hypnotized him and his mobile 
 face lightened. 
 
 " I apologize for my judgment. I'm afraid it never has 
 been very good. Now I want to know if I can't help you 
 to-day. You won't feel like work. Is there anything I 
 could write here and send along? " 
 
 " You did the leader? " She was beginning to think 
 quite clearly now. 
 
 " Yes, a column. And I wrote up an interesting bit of 
 news I got yesterday about an Englishman up at Town- 
 shend's mill who has just come into a fortune. I know 
 him, and the news is accurate. You will have it ahead of 
 the Auckland papers. I did nearly a column of that, 
 thinking you could cut it if you did not want it all. That's
 
 110 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 what I stopped in to give you last night. I was going to 
 bring it in this morning, but seeing your light as I was 
 going home I changed my mind." 
 
 " Oh, that was awfully good of you. Then I've got all 
 I need. There isn't anything else you can do. I can man- 
 age it all." 
 
 "Are you sure? You're really all right?" He was 
 seeing the woman now, her flushed face and bright eyes 
 set in the cloud of hair. 
 
 " Quite. You had a much worse night than I did. But 
 now, please forget it." She held out her hand. 
 
 He took it, raised it to his lips, kissed it twice, dropped 
 it without looking at her, and slipped out of the door. 
 
 She stared for some seconds at the place where he had 
 disappeared. " Well ! Romantic ! that man ! But why 
 am I surprised? " 
 
 Then she thought over what he had told her. And then 
 she felt a chill upon this rather exciting event. She won- 
 dered whether he made a habit of taking morphia. 
 
 She was in the office at nine o'clock reading his leader. 
 It was a beautiful bit of writing, so out of the common 
 rut of such work that it was copied in full afterwards 
 by a number of papers with comments on the inspired 
 moment that had fallen upon the editor of the News. 
 Then she read the account of the Englishman and his 
 windfall. It was excellent journalism. She would not cut 
 a word of it. She labelled both and took them in to the 
 foreman. 
 
 Later in the Hay Ryder looked at her curiously. He 
 alone of the staff had noticed that she was not quite her- 
 self. 
 
 " Bully stuff, that leader, Miss Carr," he said. 
 
 " Yes, isn't it? Mr. Barrington gave it to me last night 
 with the other copy."
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 111 
 
 Ryder did not tell her that he guessed who had jmttefl 
 it. He did not ask her why he found the office empty 
 the night before when he had stepped in as he was going 
 by to see if her head was better. He had seen her hat and 
 coat, and he had seen Dane Barrington's stick. He had 
 just observed these things and had gone out. And he did 
 not ask her why he had found the blinds drawn all round 
 the composing-room that morning. And neither Valerie 
 nor Dane ever learned who it was who had opened and 
 closed the front door.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 VALERIE lay in the shade of a solitary clump of 
 five stunted trees on the edge of the cliffs about 
 two miles north of the ravine. It was the Sun- 
 day following the headache. She had finished up her 
 work that morning, buoyed up by the thought that she 
 would get out to the sea in the afternoon. It was a fine 
 windy day, cool and clear. The breeze was strong on the 
 cliffs and below her the surf tumbled riotously. 
 
 She had found on the very edge of the cliffs a rush- 
 grown pocket like the pit of an old Maori fortification, 
 with one end worn down so that sitting she could see the 
 surf splintering itself into harmless froth below. She sat 
 down, drew her chin up to her knees, and began to dream 
 of that magnificent future when she should have literary 
 London at her feet. Then she turned to the last number 
 of the Sydney Bulletin that she had brought with her, 
 and reading, grew dozy and settled herself to sleep. She 
 lay on her side facing the sea, with a light cloak drawn 
 partly over her and the sun and wind burning her right 
 cheek. 
 
 And it was thus, unconscious, that Dane wandering 
 along the cliffs came noiselessly upon her. 
 
 Astonished and then amused he stood looking down on 
 her. He had taken his pipe from his mouth at the first 
 sight of her, but he put it back and puffed on. He was 
 aware of the fine lines of her figure under her serge dress 
 and the cloak, and of the easy way she lay. He was 
 vaguely regretful that a soft hat kept the sunlight off her 
 
 112
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 113 
 
 Hair. He remembered how she had looked when he had 
 kissed her. He had a ridiculous impulse to kiss her again, 
 to waken her with his kisses, and to hear what she would 
 say. He was conscious, too, as he looked at her that he 
 had been lonely for a long time. 
 
 He told himself to go on. But something held him. 
 
 He had never analyzed, any more than anyone else ever 
 does, the beginnings of adventures in friendship. He had 
 always drifted pleasantly, unquestioningly, into acquaint- 
 ance with women as if there never was any further stage 
 in the relationship. He had learned little from the ex- 
 perience that the affair almost always proceeded on some 
 inner compulsions of its own to the passionate and then to 
 the tragic climax. Born to love life and love and to 
 respect them both, he had taken them in their flow with 
 simplicity and childlike trust, and with for a long time 
 an incurable ignorance of the unpleasant fact that life 
 and love by no means meant the same thing to all men 
 or to all women. He had been a trustful lover, and in- 
 evitably a betrayed and terribly hurt lover, quite unable 
 to realize the effect of his looks on women who had nothing 
 more to give him than a crazed infatuation. 
 
 He had loved for their beauty and charm a few un- 
 scrupulous women who had left him bereft of any idea as 
 to why their affections did not last. He could never im- 
 agine what it was that had wrecked the ship on a smiling 
 sea, for he never looked out for sunken derelicts, but was 
 always gazing at the stars or searching for enchanted 
 islands on the skyline. He had been astounded and then 
 embittered to learn the tales that were told of him. Why 
 of him and not of others, he wondered. In fact, like many 
 artists of exquisite sensibility and far-reaching imagina- 
 tion, he lived in a continual state of wonder at the goings 
 on in the world about him, at motives that were not
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 his, fit animosities he could never feel, at rivalries 
 that never touched him, at meannesses that could not 
 have lived for a moment in the generous expanses of his 
 mind. 
 
 But, as he looked now at Valerie, he f(3rgot what other 
 women had done to him. He moved very quietly to sit 
 down on the edge of the hollow till she should wake. But 
 something, the sense of life, or the smell of his pipe 
 startled her, and she sat up quickly, and seeing him rubbed 
 her eyes as if she were in a dream. 
 
 " Why, it is you! " she said, staring at him. 
 
 He looked down whimsically at himself as if he needed 
 corroboration, and then he smiled at her. Now, as for the 
 first time she saw him in broad daylight, she saw that the 
 sun worked magic in his eyes, turning them to gentian 
 blue, and that something in the optical machinery in his 
 head darkened and lightened them, as if they were lenses 
 at the ends of tubes lit and dimmed by multiple lights 
 and screens behind. And she thought of the words the 
 King of the City said to Shri in the old Sanscrit tale, 
 " Thy dark blue eyes have utterly destroyed my sense of 
 right and wrong, which are now mere words without mean- 
 ing, impotent to hold me." 
 
 " I didn't mean to wake you. I was going to play the 
 guardian knight. You are all right again? I rode in on 
 Friday evening to ask Doc Steele." 
 
 " I know you did. He told me. Now tell me the story. 
 What did you do with me? " 
 
 With the omission of his own emotional moments he 
 told what had happened without elaboration. SKe 
 watched him as he talked sitting now opposite her with his 
 face turned towards the sea, and his hair stirring about 
 his head, very fine black hair, that even in the sunlight had 
 no suspicion of a sheen upon it.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 " I wish I knew who it was who came in," hie said, at 
 the end. 
 
 " Goodness me, are you still thinking about that? You 
 had a perfect right to be in the office." 
 
 " That's the trouble," he smiled, " I wasn't in it." 
 
 "Oh, pooh!" 
 
 He looked quizzically at her. " I wish you'd teach me 
 to go through the world with my thumb to my nose as you 
 do." 
 
 She laughed out merrily. " Is that the way you see 
 me?" 
 
 " Yes, it is. And I've come to the conclusion it's the 
 only way to take the world. I hope you will keep it up." 
 
 " I mean to, and when they put me in my coffin my hand 
 will set that way." She laughed again at the picture this 
 conjured up in her mind. 
 
 " Gorgeous youth," he said, a little bitterly, looking 
 away from her. 
 
 She sobered at once. It was absurd that he should 
 speak of youth as something in the long lost years behind 
 him, for he was looking young enough as he sat there. 
 She thought of something to divert him from introspec- 
 tion. 
 
 " I say, that leader of yours was stunning. I couldn't 
 have done it without being sentimental. You make me 
 green with envy. And do you know that you have had 
 quite a lot to do with the making of me? " He followed 
 her glance to the Sydney Bulletin. " I've been taking that 
 for ten years, ever since I read an article by you on Joseph 
 Conrad." 
 
 " Oh, really ! " He looked quickly at her and away 
 again. 
 
 " And you have been my literary adviser ever since. 
 You introduced me to Shaw, Wells, Ibsen, George Moore,
 
 116 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 Oscar Wilde, Synge, Yeats, Lafcadio Hearn, Ambrose 
 Bierce, Nietzsche, Turgenief, Dostoievsky, oh, hosts of 
 men. And I've just read your article there on Masefield. 
 You know, you've kindled fierce fires in my brain. You've 
 filled me with a glorious discontent. You've made New 
 Zealand too small for me. You've made me want to write, 
 to travel, to get to London and Paris and see the world. 
 See what you've done ! Made a raving fever out of a per- 
 fectly good lotus eater." 
 
 He had turned to look at her as she talked, and thought 
 again she was the most vivid thing he had ever seen. 
 
 " Good God ! I apologize. How little one realizes the 
 devastating effects of one's work." 
 
 She laughed out again. She was becoming a little ex- 
 cited at seeing she could interest him. He took up the 
 Bulletin and began idly turning the pages. 
 
 " I haven't this number myself yet," he said. " I sup- 
 pose it is in my mail." He came to a clever cartoon and 
 showed it to her. " The chap who does those is a friend 
 of mine, a cripple, but one of the j oiliest fellows I ever 
 knew." Her face clouded. " Oh, don't pity him. He 
 hasn't missed much. After all it's what goes on in your 
 mind that matters, not what goes on in your legs." 
 
 She agreed with her eyes, and then got him talking 
 about Sydney and the men he knew there till the sun was 
 down glaring in their faces across the sea. 
 
 She took out her watch. 
 
 " Do you have to go ? " She was only too disposed to 
 hear regret in his tone. 
 
 " Well, no but I'm awfully hungry." 
 
 He looked into her eyes and fell for her intention as he 
 had so often fallen for women's intentions. 
 
 " I say, will you come along and have tea with me in 
 the tent? There is nobody about now."
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 117 
 
 Belligerency danced into her eyes in an instant. 
 
 " What the dickens does it matter whether there is 
 anybody about or not? I'm going to settle this with you 
 now. Are you afraid to be seen with me or do you think 
 I'm afraid to be seen with you, which ? " 
 
 He was astonished at this brutal frankness. " Good 
 Lord! do you go at everything like that?" He looked 
 helplessly at her. 
 
 "Well?" she demanded. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " Is it your reputation you're worried about? Do you 
 think I don't know it, and everything that has been whis- 
 pered and rumoured and concocted about you by people 
 who sin by wallowing in the supposed sins of others ? Why, 
 I'm far more of an authority on your reputation than you 
 are. And that's what I care for it ! " She snapped her 
 fingers. " Or is it that you've heard I'm engaged to Bob 
 Lorrimer? Well, I'm not, and I never will be. So much 
 for that. Now what is it? " 
 
 Then her eyes fell before his, which were burning with 
 a curious intensity. But he got lightly to his feet and held 
 out a hand to her. 
 
 " Come on then," he said softly. 
 
 " I believe you understand me," she said lightly, as she 
 stood beside him. 
 
 " You flatter me, Miss Freedom. I don't even under- 
 stand myself with whom I have lived these thirty odd 
 years." He picked up her cloak and the Bulletin and 
 his stick. 
 
 II 
 
 They scrambled down the cliffs and went along the 
 beach delighted with the lovely evening growing stiller as 
 the wind went down, growing grayer as the burning fan
 
 118 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 of gold and rose faded out of the radius of the sun. As 
 they wont they startled seagulls whose strange behaviour 
 attracted her attention. 
 
 " They're catching toheroas," said Dane. " They 
 watch for the air bubbles, and then they bore into the 
 sand. They have to be awfully smart, for even the little 
 fellows suck down amazingly fast. Then they fly up and 
 drop them, and if the first fall does not break the shell 
 they take it up again. Let's catch some. It will take 
 you all your time to get a big one out." 
 
 They sat down together and soon saw the little bubbles 
 of a creature coming under the surface to breathe. She 
 dug fast with her two hands as the shell-fish sucked away 
 from her spitting as it went. She had quite a tussle to 
 get it out. 
 
 " I wonder if it feels any fear," he said. 
 
 " How queer it must be to have a blind instinct with- 
 out consciousness." 
 
 " Well, a vast number of the human race have little else. 
 Except for physical pain they have no vivid sense that 
 anything is going on about them. The}' are no more 
 alive than that why, it has gone already." 
 
 " So it has." She gazed at a little patch of heaving 
 sand. " Yes, I know what you mean. Beauty every- 
 where, and no eyes to see it. That struck me as a child. 
 I remember once two of my old aunts sat on the verandah 
 one glorious spring morning and fought about whether 
 Queen Victoria had ever really appreciated Prince Albert 
 or not; they gorged on details of the Royal Family, and 
 they got so furious about it that they did not speak to 
 each other for a week afterwards. I listened to them for 
 a whole hour. There was the lovely garden and beds of 
 flowers just beside them. And that's what they were do- 
 ing! And I wondered why I was supposed to love and
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 119 
 
 respect those two awful old women who never saw the 
 sun and never knew when it was spring. Oh dear! I'm 
 talking too much. You must stop being such a good 
 listener." 
 
 "Must I?" His eyes held hers for a minute. Then 
 he stood up. And they went on to the gully. 
 
 She sat down on his narrow cot sniffing the smell of the 
 canvas and the snug air of the tent. She took in the 
 details of its spartan simplicity in a glance or two the 
 box cupboards, the plain kauri table, the rickety camp 
 chairs, the few cooking utensils, the Chinese matting 
 pressed over the uneven ground, the small typewriter, piles 
 of books and papers, and socks and ties and clothes over- 
 loading a standard pole. Nothing less like the abode of a 
 sybarite could be imagined. And he seemed strangely out 
 of place in it as he moved about like an aristocratic cat, 
 but feminine and feline only in his grace. She felt again 
 there was nothing in his quality to suggest diluted mascu- 
 linity. 
 
 " Will you have tea or wine? " he asked. 
 
 " Well, I would like tea." 
 
 " Good. Come on and carry some of these things out to 
 the fireplace." He handed her various utensils, and then 
 he filled a billy from a covered bucket. 
 
 Valerie's spirits rose with every minute. It is doubtful 
 if there is a more friendly thing on earth than a picnic 
 fire built to boil a billy for tea, and when it is tea for two 
 it gathers a mysterious glamour as a human moti accu- 
 mulates intensity. 
 
 And there never were two people more susceptible to 
 any kind of enchantment than Valerie and Dane. They 
 stood watching the smoke curl up into vanishing wisps 
 among the tree tops and the shadows deepen about them. 
 As he puffed contentedly at his pipe he reflected that a
 
 120 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 fire must have been the first dissipater of loneliness in the 
 days when a timorous humanity struggled with the be- 
 ginnings of things, that the desire to dance must first have 
 been stirred in the heart of man by the leaping of lambent 
 flames, and that love as an art must have been begun by 
 the warmth of glowing coals. Anyway, the sight of his 
 fire and of Valerie sitting on a stump engrossed in it made 
 him feel happier than he had done for some time. 
 
 He left her when the water began to hum and went in 
 to set out the meal, leaving her to make the tea and bring 
 it in. She saw the tent lit up with a lamp and his shadow 
 moving like a grotesque on the wall. She felt very gay 
 and alive. 
 
 He made no apology for the plainness of his food, for 
 as he was going home the next day he had but remnants 
 left. But Valerie never knew what she ate that evening. 
 It was sufficient to eat with a man who had the air of 
 presiding at a great feast. 
 
 " Ah, give me this any day before your satin couch 
 civilization," she said, looking round soon after they 
 began. 
 
 " You think you despise the satin couches, don't you ? 
 But what you really despise is the fact that they have 
 been over-emphasized." 
 
 " But I do despise them. I love the primitive for its own 
 sake. The satin couch world is cluttered up with a lot 
 of unessentials, such a lot of meaningless stuff." 
 
 " There is meaning back of it. But the meaning has 
 been obscured or perverted. You are the product of satin 
 couches, even if you are a reaction against them. You 
 would not appreciate this tent if you had not been brought 
 up on satin. The primitive is fine for the nerves, but it is 
 not stimulating to the modern mind. The caveman had a 
 strong stomach but a poor imagination. It takes su-
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 121 
 
 premely sophisticated people to perceive the beauty of the 
 simple life. No plebeian gumdigger sees the picturesque- 
 ness of a nikau whare. It's the man who comes from 
 marble halls who does that. I can write inspired articles 
 about the bush, but the man born in it can't. It's really 
 because you had your grandparents that you love this. 
 So don't despise that background." 
 
 He had come alive while he talked and his voice had 
 deepened a little. 
 
 " I don't despise the best of it. But I do despise ite 
 assumptions," she retorted with spirit. 
 
 " My dear Miss Freedom, every class has its assump- 
 tions. Every race, clique, caste and set has had them all 
 down the ages." 
 
 " Well, I dislike all assumptions then." 
 
 " What about your own? " His eyes flashed an amused 
 challenge at her. 
 
 " Mine! " She glared at him. " Oh dear, have I any? 
 That's one of the diseases I have been determined not to 
 have." 
 
 " You have some about freedom, I think." 
 
 " Oh, of course you'd say that," she retorted. " But 
 I know I'm only free comparatively." 
 
 He raised his eyebrows at her. " I gather you did not 
 breathe easily in the Remuera set. May I ask if you find 
 it less difficult in Dargaville? " 
 
 " I'm having nothing to do with Dargaville. I'm just 
 living here for the work." 
 
 " H'm ! You really mean to work, don't you ? " He 
 looked hard at her. 
 
 "Of course. Why not?" 
 
 He looked away from Her witKout answering. It 
 seemed to him that He was getting fresK impressions of 
 her every hour.
 
 122 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 " People aren't real, if they have not work," she went 
 on eagerly. " That is one of the things I saw as I was 
 growing up. I don't mean just a hobby. I mean work. 
 It's wonderful what it does to people. Take all the ordi- 
 nary people in our office. And Lizzie, that girl at Mac's 
 who waits on me. It makes them originals, not imitations. 
 And Mac, look at him. Something in his own right." 
 
 " Yes, you have the idea," he smiled. " Stick to it. 
 I'm glad you can admire a man like Mac. You ought to 
 see him in the bar. That is where he is really great. He 
 broods like a gigantic puck over that motley crowd with 
 a kind of puzzled expression, contemptuous and amused." 
 
 Dane talked on about him and the types of men about 
 the river till they had finished. Then he produced a bottle 
 of wine and they began to smoke. 
 
 " It's wonderful to have someone who understands," she 
 said impulsively, after they had raised their glasses to 
 each other. " I wish you could see how my relatives would 
 look if I told them I admired people like Mac." 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. " Well, you don't worry 
 about them now, do you ? " 
 
 " Not in the least. They're all dead." 
 
 He raised his eyebrows enquiringly. 
 
 She sat up talking eagerly, so much so that he won- 
 dered for a moment if the wine could have affected her so 
 soon. 
 
 " You see, I killed them all years ago, all but dad. It 
 was a grand scheme. I don't remember now how the idea 
 came to me. But I made ghosts of them. I said to my- 
 self, * Let them be like the furniture. There's a chair. It 
 is an object. It can't hurt me. It is a dead thing.' And 
 I began to imagine them dead one by one. And I learned 
 what you could do with your imagination. Aunt Maud 
 jras my first ghost, because she was the worst. And then
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 123 
 
 it did not hurt me to see her any more, or to hear her 
 nasty old tongue any more because she was only a pathetic 
 spirit. And as it worked so well with her I killed them 
 all in my mind. I appointed a day for them to die. I 
 even wept over it for some of them, mother and Rose, be- 
 cause you see, I had cared, I had expected them to be 
 things, and it was hard to come to see they would never 
 be any different. But I had no peace with them alive, and 
 so they all had to go. And then it was funny to see them 
 come into a room. I used to say to myself ' How queer. 
 There you are moving about as if you were a live thing. 
 But you are just like the chair to me, and quite dead, 
 because I don't expect anything of you any more.' And 
 then, of course, I could be nice to them. For who would 
 snub a ghost? And they all began to tell me how im- 
 proved I was." 
 
 She stopped, for Dane had taken his pipe out of his 
 mouth and turned his face to her, and there came out of 
 his eyes a look that abashed her. " You're pretty ruth- 
 less, aren't you ? " he said quietly. 
 
 Then to his surprise he saw her bite her lips, and a 
 mist come over her eyes. " Oh, no, I'm not. All that 
 hurt, really it did." And he saw the expression on her 
 face that he had seen as she lay unconscious in the yard. 
 
 " I didn't mean to imply that you can't feel," he said 
 quickly, seeing that he had hurt her. 
 
 " Why, I feel far too much ! " she cried. " That is why 
 I could not stand it. That is why I had to fight. That 
 is why I had to kill them." 
 
 He put out a hand and patted her arm lightly. " I 
 know. I understand." 
 
 She subsided at once, her face flushing up. " I'm silly 
 to be so serious," she said, lighting another cigarette. A 
 moment of awkwardness followed. Then Dane stood up.
 
 124 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 " Well, you're only another poor mortal crying for the 
 moon," he said lightly. 
 
 " And don't you ever cry for it? " 
 
 " Good Lord, my dear, sometimes it seems to me that I 
 never do anything else. Come on, let's go out to the fire, 
 and smoke there." As he spoke he took a sweater and a 
 heavy coat off a hook, and collected tobacco, cigarettes 
 and matches. 
 
 Ill 
 
 When they had piled up sticks and logs and started S 
 fine blaze, they sat down in the sand and rushes a little 
 way above it. He had wrapped his coat about her and 
 had put on his own red sweater. The light of the flames 
 played about their faces and lit up their eyes. They sat 
 still for a while and then she turned to him. 
 
 " You were born in Sydney, weren't you? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 ** What kind of a family did you have? " 
 
 " I didn't have any except a father. That is, my 
 mother died when I was born, and I was the first." 
 
 " No relatives ! How joyful ! " 
 
 He turned with the flash in his eyes that she was trying 
 Jo encourage. 
 
 " That's the ironic part of it. Having none I always 
 Ranted some." 
 
 " Tell me about it. What did you do as a boy? " 
 
 " Well, I think I had a funny childhood, very irregular, 
 Hut it had its interesting side." He picked up a piece of 
 stick and threw it down into the fire, and talked on quietly 
 and rather monotonously, quite without the reminiscencing 
 'fervour that Valerie had shown. " As a man my father 
 quite a character, but he was somewhat negligent as
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 125 
 
 a parent, indeed I may say he was a lamentable failure 
 as a parent, and you can be under-fathered just as mucH 
 as you can be over-fathered. But he was a great charac- 
 ter. He was very handsome, much bigger than I am, and 
 I get my colouring from him. He was on the stage as a 
 young man, with Brough and Titherage, and then he met 
 with an accident that badly lamed him. So they made 
 him advance agent for the Brough Company, and he was 
 with them till he died. He began taking me round with 
 him when I was about six years old, and for years I 
 travelled with him all over Australia and in Africa and 
 India. He was very well known, fortunately for me, for 
 as a kid I was a lot alone. I was really awfully lonely." 
 He paused, putting down his pipe in the sand beside him. 
 ** I say, do you really want to hear this ? " 
 
 " Oh, please, I do." She opened her eyes very wide at 
 him. 
 
 " Well, my parent was not exactly fitted for the job. 
 He used to forget about me. He'd leave me in a hotel 
 in charge of a porter or anybody who happened to be 
 around, and he would go off for days and nobody would 
 care whether I ate or ever went to bed, and the porter 
 might be sacked, and then there'd be nobody responsible 
 for me. I used to hang round the tiars and billiard sa- 
 loons and drop asleep watching the play and listening to 
 the tales. Eventually some man would find out who I 
 was and go to the office about me, and somebody would 
 come and wake me and tell me to go to bed. Sometimes 
 I went to bed alone, but not often, I didn't like it. Oc- 
 casionally there'd be a boy in the place I would take to, 
 and like you, when I began to read it was much better. 
 I didn't care much for roughing it then. I wasn't very, 
 strong physically, and I shrank from ordinary boy bru- 
 tality. Well, I was always being left somewhere, ancj
 
 :i26 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 then dad would miss something and remember me. Then 
 there would come a telegram saying, * Where's that kid of 
 mine? Send him on by the eleven-thirty to-night with my 
 clothes.' And often I would be roused out of bed and 
 taken to a train and sent off to some town where, as likely 
 as not, my father would forget to meet me in the morn- 
 ing. I was frequently lost. Once it was quite serious. 
 That was in Africa. An Englishman found me asleep in 
 a station in the early morning. He watched me a while 
 and then woke me, and I told him my father was supposed 
 to be there sometime. But I must have looked frightened 
 or something, for he took charge of me, took me to break- 
 fast and waited round with me all the morning. Then as 
 !dad never turned up, he left word at the station and took 
 me off to his hotel. It took him three weeks to trace my 
 casual parent who had been on a spree and in an accident. 
 When he finally came there was a scene. The English- 
 man wanted to adopt me. He had had a boy who died. 
 He was a huge chap, jolly and friendly. But my strange 
 father had some queer affection of his own for me. He 
 was always glad to find me again. He had an inex- 
 tinguishable faith in the world's goodness to me. He al- 
 ways knew I would turn up, and I always did turn up. 
 It was a tribute to his extraordinary personality and to 
 the fact that he always paid his debts, that I was invari- 
 ably given money and shipped along with his tooth-brush 
 and the things he continually left behind. The only thing 
 I ever quarrelled with him about was the stage. He 
 wanted me to go on it, and trained me for it. But I could 
 not stand it. I could not stand the women. And I wanted 
 to write poetry. We had some trying arguments about 
 it. But I was only eighteen when he died." 
 
 Dane took up his pipe again and refilled it. 
 
 " What did you do then? "
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 127 
 
 " Fortunately he left me enough money to go to Lon- 
 don, where I'd always wanted to go. And there I looked 
 Up a sister of his, much older, unmarried. A pathetic, 
 starved thing, as I see her now. She hugged his memory, 
 and I let her hug it. She was living in a world of her 
 own where all men were Saint Anthonys and Sir Galahads. 
 And she made a Sir Galahad of me well, I was one then. 
 Poor soul, she got very dotty about me, but before I'd 
 been there more than six months she died, and then I found 
 she had left me her money." 
 
 " And what next? " 
 
 He smiled at this inquisition. " Let's see, I stayed on 
 in London for a year, then I went to Paris and then to 
 Berlin, and I rambled about Europe, and on into Persia 
 and back to India and the East. It was the East that 
 hypnotized me. Sometimes now I wish I had stayed there. 
 But the climate worried me, and the life the Anglo-Saxon 
 leads is pretty rotten, and I could not have kept out of it. 
 I hankered after Sydney again too, and so I went back 
 when I was twenty-four and began to write. I've run 
 about the Islands and New Guinea and this country of 
 yours since then, and, well, now I'm here." 
 
 He took a long puff and stared down into the fire. 
 
 *' Yes here, after all that," she said slowly. 
 
 " Well, why not? " 
 
 " There must be so much you miss." 
 
 " Yes, and very glad I am to miss it." 
 
 " Do you intend to stay here? " 
 
 " I don't know. But I can consider it calmly. After 
 all a book is a book, and a boat a boat, and a fire a fire 
 all the world over. And then this business of being in the 
 swim in London or Paris or New York is only another of 
 the hypnotisms men succumb to to please themselves. It 
 isn't as important to Hve in London as they think it is.
 
 128 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 You can get behind humanity anywhere in the world. 
 Every man in earnest wherever you go has the illusion 
 that his particular ism or place is running the world. 
 Each believes in the final dominancy of his set of ideas. 
 Nothing gives you such a sickening sense of monotony as 
 going about this world listening to men talk of their ideas. 
 It makes you long for the good old days when nobody 
 had any ideas beyond getting a meal and chasing a woman. 
 In the course of a week's travelling you will meet twenty 
 varieties of truths, each of which is the only thing that 
 will save the world morally and industrially. And the 
 fanatics talking these various truths are being pandered 
 to and used everywhere by the same political and capital- 
 ist forces for the same old ends." 
 
 " But good heavens," she protested, " isn't there some- 
 thing more in the world than people talking about their 
 ideas? Don't tell me you did not get a great deal more 
 than that from travelling. You saw beautiful places, 
 beautiful things." 
 
 " Yes, I know, and places are wonderful." 
 
 " Why, of course. Oh dear, you've had everything, 
 [just everything I want." She leaned forward staring hard 
 into the fire. 
 
 " Well, you are going to get it, aren't you ? You cer- 
 tainly will if you want it." 
 
 " Yes, I am," but she did not say it with her usual 
 positiveness, and she felt a little chill that he should him- 
 self so cheerfully contemplate the idea of her going away. 
 
 Dane got up and went down to the fire and poked the 
 straggling ends into the centre and put on another log. 
 He stood there a minute beside it, a rather drooping 
 figure vividly projected against a panel of darkness be- 
 tween the trunks of trees. She felt a swift clutch upon 
 Jier heart as she looked at him. And she saw him against
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 129 
 
 the background of that wandering youth that he had so 
 simply pictured. And she thought it was no wonder that 
 he drank to excess occasionally. And then she wondered 
 again if he made a habit of taking morphia. It startled 
 her a little to see how much she cared about it. 
 
 Dane came back to her and sat down carefully beyond 
 the reach of hands, as he had done before, and began to 
 talk easily of his travels in the East. She listened fasci- 
 nated to his impersonal account of men he had met, situa- 
 tions he had been in, and forces working in China and 
 Japan. She had heard enough to be able to ask intelli- 
 gent questions, and the time slipped by. It was he who 
 thought of it first. 
 
 " What time do you have to be in ? " he asked. " I 
 mustn't keep you here too late." 
 
 She was not accustomed to men who considered jfche 
 hours for her. 
 
 " Twelve o'clock. What is it now ? " 
 
 " Nearly half -past ten." 
 
 '* Oh, I'd better go. It's rather heavy walking." 
 
 She had a funny sense of frustration as he went into 
 the tent to get a lantern. She wondered why. When he 
 came out again he thought of the fire, and covered it up 
 carefully, for the undergrowth about was still dry enough 
 to catch. Then they set off into the sooty blackness of 
 the ravine. There was something extraordinarily inti- 
 mate about the compressed isolation of that little gully. 
 It shut them off from the world as completely as if they 
 were on a remote island. Ferns and creepers gave it a 
 jungle fascination. The trees met so thickly overhead 
 that not a starbeam twinkled through. The rumble of 
 the surf was smothered to a distant monotone in the heavy 
 stillness. 
 
 Valerie felt her pulses beating faster and faster, her:
 
 130 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 talk becoming more and more disjointed. Sensing tHe 
 change in her Dane walked deliberately ahead of her, and 
 quickly, fighting the temptation to stop and throw his 
 arms about her. They recovered their equilibrium but 
 not their spontaneity on the flat above. She had not ex- 
 pected him to go on with her, but he put out the lantern, 
 leaving it by a bush, and started off with her. He lit his 
 pipe and they went on some distance in silence. Then 
 under the stars she lost her queer feeling of disruption 
 and regained her poise. As far as she could feel he was 
 oblivious of her as he swung along beside her. 
 
 After a while he asked her abruptly how she liked 
 Roger Benton, and talking of him and his chances in the 
 election they came to the borders of Dargaville. 
 
 " It was awfully good of you to give me your company," 
 he said lightly, with no air of lingering, as he held out his 
 hand. 
 
 " Yes, it's been a masterpiece of self-sacrifice." 
 
 She saw the smile that lit his eyes, and then he gave her 
 a little salute and turned away. She walked on wondering 
 if he had wanted to kiss her in the ravine, if the thought 
 of kissing her had yet entered his mind. And then she 
 told herself she must not think these things. She posi- 
 tively must not get fond of him. Feeling the way she 
 did about a career and about living she had no business 
 to encourage him. Then she thought she was absurd. He 
 had given no sign that he had the remotest intention 
 of looking upon her as anything but a passing acquain- 
 tance. 
 
 She passed Bolton and Allison gossiping by the former's 
 gate and knew they looked curiously after her. She was 
 glad to find the side door of the hotel still open, but as 
 she slipped in quietly Mac came from the corridor with a 
 candle to see if it were shut.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 131 
 
 Because she had no conviction of sin Valerie never had 
 the sense of being caught. She smiled up at Mac. 
 
 " That was a narrow shave. What would I do if it 
 were locked? " 
 
 The big Irishman's hard eyes softened into the begin- 
 nings of a grin. She felt her soul was naked under that 
 shrewd omniscient stare. But somehow it did not offend 
 her. 
 
 " Knock on the window. Mike will let you in." He 
 nodded in the direction of the room where Michael slept. 
 He wondered in a vaguely interested way as she went on 
 if she had been out with Dane Barrington. 
 
 She did not get to sleep for some time. Through her 
 open window she caught at intervals on some drift of the 
 night breeze the sound of the surf, and she pictured the 
 man down there alone in his tent, and fell asleep to dream 
 of a boy lost in a world of hotels and stations, a boy who 
 kept running round corners after a man carrying a gi- 
 gantic tooth-brush.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 BOB was generously astonished with what ha<f been 
 accomplished in his absence. When Valerie walked 
 in at nine he sprang out of his chair with en- 
 thusiasm. 
 
 " Val, you are a brick. That job for Townshend is a 
 stroke. Benton will be awfully pleased. Looks as if he 
 might be on our side. And that leader of yours on the 
 fire is one of the best things I ever saw. Mrs. Benton 
 read it to us last night." 
 
 " It was a good leader, wasn't it ? But I didn't write 
 it." She turned to the hook where she hung her hat and 
 coat. 
 
 "You didn't! Why, Val, it wasn't quoted," he said, 
 and his tone implied that she had made a blunder. 
 
 " It didn't have to be, Bob. Mr. Barrington wrote it 
 for me." She was sorry to see that heavy frown form 
 over his eyes. 
 
 " Barrington wrote it ! How the devil did he come to 
 write it? Look here, Val, I don't want him to have any- 
 thing to do with this paper, if you don't mind." He 
 dropped down into his chair. 
 
 " Well, you can't stop him bringing in news, Bob. He's 
 a friend of Benton's. He came in on Thursday night 
 with that stuff about Lord Reaver's son and the fortune 
 just as I was trying to write the leader, and I was most 
 beastly ill with a headache, and he stayed and did it for 
 me. Rather decent, I thought." 
 
 Bob was a bit ashamed of his reaction. Valerie sat 
 
 132
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 133 
 
 (down easily at her desk. " Did you have a good week?. * 
 she went on amiably. 
 
 " Oh, I suppose so." 
 
 But it was the middle of the clay before he had recov- 
 ered sufficient detachment to talk to her about it. He 
 never made any reference later to the copies he saw of 
 Dane's leader in other papers. Nor did Valerie mention 
 them. She was above thinking that pin pricks serve any 
 useful purpose in human relations. 
 
 A few evenings later she had to work in the office till 
 nearly seven. Bob had left an hour before. When she 
 entered the dining-room she saw there was no one at her 
 table and only one man, a stranger, eating at that end of 
 the room. She turned her head and saw that Dane was 
 with Mac at the other end. To her surprise the big 
 Irishman beckoned to her. As she approached his table 
 she thought Dane's unmoved face a bit of unnecessary 
 tact. But as she smiled at him she was surprised to catch 
 no answering glimmer of responsiveness in his miserable 
 eyes. The look in them chilled her before she could think. 
 
 " Come and have some pheasant," growled Mac hos- 
 pitably. " I think you know Barrington." But there was 
 nothing significant in his tone to suggest that he sus- 
 pected there was something between them. 
 
 " I do. Yes, I'd love to," she said in one breath, trying 
 to smile at Mac and look enquiringly at Dane at the same 
 time. As she sat down opposite them her spirits rose a 
 little at the sight of the steaming pheasants and the bot- 
 tles of wine. As Michael brought extra service he smiled 
 'at her as if he were in a conspiracy with her. 
 
 She watched Mac carving deftly with his great red 
 hands. She tried to appear as oblivious as he was of the 
 frozen manner of the man beside him, but she wondered 
 what on earth had happened to the gay spirit who had
 
 134 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 made a feast of his crumbs in the tent, but could not now 
 smile at the prospect of pheasant and champagne. He 
 Idid not even look at her, but sat smoking a cigarette and 
 staring at a corner of the table, his head a little bent, his 
 shoulders hunched in an attitude of profound dejec- 
 tion. 
 
 Mac handed her a luscious plate of the best portions 
 of a bird with potatoes and little onions, and Michael 
 poured her out a glass of wine. 
 
 " Go ahead, eat," commanded Mac. 
 
 Then Dane looked at her, a faint glimmer of interest 
 appearing at the back of his desperate eyes. He raised 
 his glass to her and drank deeply. 
 
 She began to eat, for she was hungry, and she meant 
 to pay Mac the compliment of enjoying his meal. " This 
 is grand. I love pheasant high like this. Is there much 
 game up this way? " 
 
 " Yes, about Kaihu. Can you shoot ? " 
 
 " At a target, yes. But I don't like killing anything 
 except rats." 
 
 Mac handed a plate to Dane and filled his own and 
 began to gobble audibly. Then he looked at the other 
 man who made no attempt to eat. 
 
 "Cheer up, D. B.," he said gruffly. "Heard of the 
 accident ? " He turned to Valerie. 
 
 " No. What is it ? " Her eyes widened, and she looked 
 from him to Dane. 
 
 " Duffield. Englishman. They brought him down from 
 Townshend's mill an hour ago. Back broken." Mac said 
 it as laconically as he would have said " He's got a cold." 
 
 Valerie put down her knife and fork while something 
 caught her throat. " How rotten ! " she exploded. 
 
 " Yes." Mac went on with his mouth full of food. 
 " Bloody hard luck. Good sport. He's done."
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 135 
 
 She looked into her glass and without thinking drank 
 it empty. 
 
 " That's it," said Dane bitterly, speaking for the first 
 time. " That's the only answer." And he finished his 
 own glass and refilled it. 
 
 " You knew him? " She turned her sorry eyes upon 
 him. 
 
 ft Yes, knew him well," he said irritably, and looked 
 away from her. 
 
 " He's gone to the hospital, I suppose," she said to 
 Mac. 
 
 " Yes. Lorrimer went too, with Doc Steele." 
 
 They all ate in silence for some minutes. Valerie felt 
 depressed herself now. " I can never get used to acci- 
 dents," she said gloomily. " Such a waste of human 
 material." 
 
 " Plenty more to take its place, don't worry." Mac 
 continued to eat with superb indifference. 
 
 Dane beckoned to Michael and ordered more wine. 
 When it came he reached for her glass. 
 
 " Oh, please, not any more for me," she said quickly. 
 
 He shot a look at her. The champagne was working 
 in him. " Be a sport. Of course you will have some 
 more." He filled her glass. 
 
 Mac raised his, drinking for the first time. " Here's 
 long life to you both," he said. It sounded as if he were 
 proposing a matrimonial toast. Valerie compressed her 
 lips, and a flicker of amusement crossed Dane's eyes. 
 
 " Not long life, Mac, but full life, eh, Miss Freedom? " 
 And for the first time he looked at Valerie as if he really 
 saw her. 
 
 She nodded, smiling at him as if she would make him 
 forget. 
 
 Then Dane began to eat a little and to talk, and the
 
 136 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 'despair went from his face. He became alive, and she 
 saw why her father had called him one of the finest table 
 talkers he had ever met. As the wine got hold of him he 
 grew more brilliant. He got on to reminiscences of the 
 gold field rushes in Australia, to the tragedies and come- 
 dies of fever-stricken men and women. She listened aston- 
 ished and fascinated, but chilled to think that he had to 
 be a little drunk to be like that. But he had forgotten 
 Duffield. At least she was glad of that. 
 
 Mac grew a little more lively too. He broke in witK 
 grunts and comments, and he forgot Valerie occasionally 
 and let slip words with unpleasant connotations. Then 
 she was surprised to see that Dane had not lost his aware- 
 ness of her, for he silenced Mac with a commanding Sh! 
 Interested though she was, she thought she had better 
 leave them to it. She stood up and thanked Mac with S 
 little bow. He grinned broadly at her. 
 
 Dane looked up at her with a subconscious appeal in 
 his eyes, now softened and a little slumbrous. " Oh, don't 
 go, don't go," he pleaded. 
 
 She did not want to. She had drunk just enough to 
 make her reckless. But something told her she could not 
 stay there and drink with them. 
 
 " I must go. I have to work," she said, and went oft 
 wondering if she were walking steadily. Unaccustomed to 
 champagne she felt so fuddled when she got to her room 
 that she lay down on her bed and fell asleep and did not 
 wake till after midnight. 
 
 II 
 
 The next evening as she walked with Bob to the office 
 after dinner he told her that Dane Barrington Had Keen 
 drunk the night before and was still in bed in the Hotel.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 137 
 
 " I thought he probably was," she said sweetly. " I 
 had Idinner with him and Mac last night, and the fourth 
 bottle was coming in as I left, or perhaps it was the fifth. 
 I got a bit shickered myself and had to go to bed." 
 
 Bob stopped suddenly in the middle of the path, and 
 then strode on belligerently. 
 
 " Out with it," she said calmly. 
 
 *' I have nothing to say." But it was the tone of a man 
 Svho could have talked all night on the subject. 
 
 " Really ! You began by telling me something you sus- 
 pected I would not like to know. Why be squeamish about 
 the rest of it? " 
 
 " Val, if you are going to be associated with that man 
 I'm going to leave Dargaville." 
 
 " That's not necessary, Bob. Sack me instead." 
 
 " Don't talk rot." 
 
 " Look here, Bob, calm down. The trouble is that you 
 r do not know me at all. Years ago you set up some vision 
 and called it Valerie Carr. It never was Valerie Carr, and 
 it never will be, and why on earth you want to keep on 
 tailing it Valerie Carr passes my comprehension. I've 
 done my best as kindly as I could to show you I am not 
 that vision. I did think I loved you and could marry 
 you. I don't know what happened to make me see I 
 couldn't. But I know something did. I'm willing to take 
 the whole blame for that three months. I have never 
 blamed you. But I couldn't go on, Bob. And one can 
 never go back and begin again in the same way. You 
 want something entirely different from me. You want a 
 woman who will go your own road." 
 
 They had reached the office. He unlocked the door and 
 tKey went in. Valerie did not take off her things. She 
 sat on the edge of her desk looking at Bob, who had sat 
 'down and thrown his hat on to a pile of papers.
 
 138 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 She struggled with something in her mind for a few 
 minutes, then she went on quietly. 
 
 " Bob, we cannot work here with friction between us. 
 You can have my resignation here and now, or you can 
 play the game and shut up about what I do." 
 
 He turned fiercely on her. " You know as well as I do 
 we can't bust up the job now. We've got to go on with 
 it." 
 
 " It isn't any use telling me I have to go on with a 
 thing. I tell you I will stay on one condition, and one 
 only. And it was the one on which I came up. Are you 
 going to keep it or not? " 
 
 " Oh, of course, I have to keep it. I always have to do 
 everything." 
 
 " No, you don't. You simply have to choose between 
 having me go or stay. And if I stay I'll never hurt your 
 feelings by mentioning things I know you won't like to 
 Jiear. If you think back over this conversation you will 
 see you began that business. And you know quite well 
 that when people hit me I can hit them back, and I'm 
 always going to hit them back. I'm no meek and mild 
 angel. But I do try not to give the first blow. The 
 world is hard enough for all of us without that first 
 blow." 
 
 As usual, Bob felt ashamed of himself. And he hated 
 her awful fairness, her incorruptible strength, her fatal 
 gift of hitting back in the sorest spot. He would have 
 felt better if only he had known some weakness of hers he 
 could make a dent in. 
 
 " Of course you must stay, and you can go to hell for 
 all I care," he retorted savagely. 
 
 " Now that's the proper spirit. If only we would all 
 let each other go pleasantly to hell the world would be 
 >quite a nice place to live in."
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 139 
 
 " All right. See that you let Barrington go pleasantly 
 to hell if you get shook on him." 
 
 " Hell ! Bob ! Are you in a conspiracy to throw that 
 man at me or what? " He had thrust better than he 
 knew. 
 
 He was astonished to see her turn and go out of the 
 office. He sat staring blankly at the wall in front of him 
 for some minutes. Did she really care for that man? 
 Up till now it had only been the fear that she might 
 come to do so that had been in his mind. And if she 
 did what was he to do? He dropped his head in 
 his hands and thought back. And he knew he had no 
 choice. 
 
 Valerie walked almost to the centre of the town in a 
 rage against Bob. She told herself he had no business 
 to hang on to a former relation in this manner. That 
 was the kind of weakness that she loathed. Why could he 
 not accept the inevitable? Just because she had never let 
 him see how painful, how frought with struggle and in- 
 decision the thing had been for her he had supposed she 
 had not felt about it. And then that remark about Dane. 
 She told herself she was not in love with Dane. He was 
 not in love with her, and she detested this anticipatory 
 settlement of her affairs. 
 
 She turned up Queen Street and walked to the fringe 
 of the town and a little way on along the coast road. It 
 was a cool windy night. But she found she was too upset 
 to calm down all at once. She did wish Dane had not been 
 so drunk as to be still in bed. She could not see how he 
 could be any more sensitive than she to the tragedy in 
 life. Much of her positive manner was due to the fact 
 that she had to set her teeth on life or she could not have 
 endured it herself. She stopped in the road and looked 
 up at a black cloud that blotted out a part of the Milky
 
 140 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 Way. Then hardly knowing why she swung round and 
 teent back to the hotel. 
 
 She had not been in her room two minutes before there 
 came a knock on her door. Michael stood there. 
 
 " Miss Carr," he began, with his ready sentimental 
 smile, " there's a man in the house who would like you to 
 play to him." He had the manner of a person who was 
 continuously performing deeds that had to be disguised 
 or hidden, and he infused a perfectly innocent proceeding 
 yrilh an air of furtive wickedness. 
 
 " Oh, is there? Then I shall be very glad to play." 
 She tried to keep her voice casual. 
 
 She closed the door of the sitting-room behind her 
 wondering if Dane were in one of the rooms next it. She 
 knew one was Mac's. She knew afterwards that she had 
 played deliberately, or that she had started deliberately 
 to get hold of the man who was listening to her. Once lost 
 in the music she forgot him, and he existed only as a 
 subconscious stimulus. At the end of two hours she felt 
 herself running down. She stopped and sat still on the 
 piano stool half expecting some sign from him. But she 
 heard nothing, and disappointed went back to her room. 
 Under her door she found a note in a sealed envelope. In 
 the middle of the folded piece of paper was written, 
 " Thanks, Miss Freedom, for a golden hour in a leaden 
 r day." 
 
 It was one of those fragments in the development of a 
 Human relation that have a significance invisible to the 
 casual eye. Valerie could not have torn it up or put it 
 in the waste-paper basket. On the other hand she had 
 not reached the exuberant stage when she wished to kiss 
 it or put it in a scented sachet. She studied the nervous 
 writing for a minute, and then folded it up and put it in 
 a little tin box with a copy of her will, some receipts, some
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 141 
 
 old photos of herself and Bob and her father on the yacht, 
 and other miscellaneous things which for one reason and 
 another she wished to keep. 
 
 Then she sat down on her bed and stayed very still for 
 some time. She recognized some kind of crisis in her life. 
 It had come to her in the office when she offered her resig- 
 nation to Bob. Something inside her said " Now or 
 never." And she wondered how many people in the history 
 of relationships acted on the " Now." 
 
 Ill 
 
 "Have you had a hard week? You seem tired." Fa- 
 ther Ryan looked solicitously at Valerie as she sat down 
 to dinner. 
 
 " I'm more cross than tired. I haven't slept well the 
 last night or two. And life makes me so cross sometimes. 
 There's poor Duffield still alive. Why, why, when he has 
 to die? Why is nature so brutal? " 
 
 The little priest waved his soft hands. " We have to 
 leave all that." 
 
 " I've noticed that most of us do leave it," she retorted. 
 
 " What are you going to do to-night ? " he asked after 
 a minute's silence. 
 
 " Nothing in particular. That is, I was going for a 
 ride." 
 
 " Would you like to come with me to the hospital and 
 play to the patients? I have to see a man there who is 
 v*ery ill with pneumonia. There is a piano there seldom 
 used. I think they'd like some music." 
 
 " Yes indeed I will. Will the matron let me play at 
 night?" 
 
 " Yes, I'm sure it will be all right. It's in the accident 
 ward."
 
 142 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 Valerie had never been in a public hospital, and when 
 she walked into the long ward with the night nurse she 
 got a funny gulp in her throat, and a sense of the vast 
 areas of human experience that had so far been unknown 
 lands to her. She was struck silent by the piteousness 
 of the two rows of white cots and the shapeless lumps that 
 lay under the white quilts. The ward was always full, for 
 this was the only hospital on the river. There were all 
 kinds of heads and faces projected sharply against the 
 pillows. Some turned as they walked in and others, 
 gripped by a benumbing indifference to the things of earth, 
 lay still. She saw that three beds had screens round 
 them, and wondered what stricken things lay there to be 
 hidden away from the rest. She was glad she was to sit 
 with her back to them. She felt she could never have 
 played if she had had to face them. 
 
 She dug out of her memory the things she thought her 
 varied audience would like, cheerful things, happy songs 
 and dances, and a little sentimental music to stir the 
 pulses of the dreamers. She had asked the nurse to stop 
 her when it was advisable, but no one stayed her hand. 
 At last her mood began to break. Something began to 
 distract her. She finished rather abruptly a waltz by 
 Brahms and turned on her stool. Half-way down the 
 ward, sitting with the nurse, she saw Dane Barrington. 
 She stood up and they came towards her. 
 
 " Oh, will you sing? " she said impulsively to Dane. 
 
 He gave her a black look. " Sing ! Good God ! How 
 could I sing here? " 
 
 She felt chilled at once at the pain in his eyes. But 
 she resented his suffering. 
 
 The nurse thanked her eloquently and moved off to a 
 man who had beckoned to her. 
 
 " Are you riding? " asked Dane.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 143 
 
 " Yes. I came up with Father Ryan." 
 
 " Oh. Do you have to go back with him? " 
 
 " I don't have to, no." 
 
 They looked at each other. Something came out of 
 him and clutched at her. 
 
 " Then I'll tell him I'm taking you back." 
 
 " All right, but I have to have supper with Miss Addi- 
 son first." 
 
 " Well, that's all right. I've only just come. I'm go- 
 ing to sit with Duffield for a while. I'll wait for you at 
 the stable." He moved off with the air of a man who 
 dreads with every nerve in his body what he is about to 
 do, and disappeared behind one of the screens. 
 
 The hospital superintendent, Miss Addison, thought 
 Valerie rather absent-minded as they took supper in her 
 pleasant little sitting-room. And Valerie, on her side, was 
 staggered at the apparent calmness with which the matron 
 told her that there were three people in the building who 
 could not possibly live a week. 
 
 IV 
 
 Dane was pacing back and forth beside the stable when 
 she went out. He stood still when he saw her and waited 
 for her to come up to him. He felt her life and vitality 
 and sympathy reaching out to him. It enfolded him like 
 a warm and gracious garment on a cold day. He made 
 an impulsive movement and seized her hands. 
 
 " Oh, man, how can you live if you suffer like this about 
 people?" she said, and in spite of herself a shade of 
 criticism crept into her tone. 
 
 His raw nerves recoiled from it at once. 
 
 " Good God ! You go and sit by that man and look 
 into his eyes as I have been doing. He can't talk except 
 with his eyes, and he is putting the despairing questions
 
 144 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 of ages into them. I tell you if you looked at them long 
 you'd go mad. If it is easy for you to forget the God- 
 damned mess and mystery of all this it isn't for me." He 
 flung her hands away and stamped off to the stable. 
 
 Valerie bit her lips and looked up at the impotent stars 
 so brilliant in the clear May night that they silvered the 
 river running below. For the first time in her life she 
 had not the faintest idea what she was going to say next, 
 what she could say next to comfort this man. It was all 
 very well for her to feel deep within herself that the only 
 answer to him was to antidote tragedy with beauty, death 
 with life. How was she to say it and not be cheap and 
 banal? She was feeling strained and uncertain when 
 Dane led the horses out. 
 
 " I'm sorry I was rude, Miss Carr," he said, as he 
 stopped before her. 
 
 She had a wild impulse to throw her arms about him as 
 he stood with his head a little on one side looking at her. 
 
 " You were not rude," she said softly. 
 
 She let him help her to mount, and she put her hand 
 on his shoulder with a significant pressure. They rode in 
 silence out of the hospital grounds and along the road 
 by the river. She stole looks at him as he kept his horse 
 abreast of hers. He had a tweed cap tilted back on his 
 head that gave him a curiously rakish look as it pressed 
 his hair out round his white face. She wondered why he 
 wanted her company for he did not seem aware of her at 
 all. But she had no desire to clutch at his reserves. She 
 looked up at the stars and tried to think her own thoughts. 
 
 About a mile from the hospital he pulled up his horse. 
 He looked up a scrub-covered slope to their left. He 
 seemed to find something. 
 
 " Are you in a hurry? " he asked. 
 
 " No."
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 145 
 
 " There's a track off here to the coast. Will you ride 
 out there? I don't want to go home. I don't want to be 
 alone." 
 
 " Of course I will." 
 
 He led the way up a rough incline covered with low 
 ti-tree and broken by small washouts. Then they came 
 out upon the plain where there was a maze of old tracks 
 partly overgrown and often treacherous. They went 
 slowly, for he missed the way every now and then and they 
 had to go back and pick it up again. The air was keen 
 and salty, with a light night wind rustling about the 
 bushes. The sound of the surf advanced and receded as 
 they twisted and turned. 
 
 Valerie lost the sense of her own identity, and it was 
 not till Dane pulled his horse up at the head of the ravine, 
 and she saw the dull line of the surf below, that she came 
 back to herself and him. 
 
 He had been lost too, groping in a great blankness of 
 pain and despair, but instinctively feeling his way to a 
 little glimmer of light, impulsively following its little 
 flicker, thinking of the moment when he might get to it. 
 
 " Shall we go down? " he asked, turning to look at her, 
 as she sat straight and tense on her horse. 
 
 *' Of course, if you'd like to." 
 
 She wondered if he still had the tent. They trusted to 
 their horses to steer them safely through the Cimmerian 
 darkness of the gully, for they could see nothing till the 
 dull white shadow of the cottages showed through the 
 trees on the open lower level. When they came opposite 
 the Bentons', which was nearest to the beach, Dane 
 stopped again. 
 
 " Would it be too cold for you to sit out a while? I 
 have coats and things in the tent." 
 
 ** No, I never catch cold."
 
 146 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 As he led the horses to Roger's stable she remembered 
 that it must be after midnight. But the next day was 
 Sunday. And then her morality had never been regulated 
 by the position of bits of steel on a clock's face. 
 
 He came back to her and led the way into the tent and 
 lit a candle. 
 
 He took a warm coat off his pole and helped her into 
 it, and put on his red sweater, and pulled a rug off his 
 cot. He led the way to a hollow half-way up the side of 
 the cliff where they could look down upon the surf. He 
 sat down beside her and wrapped the rug about their 
 feet and knees, took out his pipe and began to smoke. He 
 forgot to offer her a cigarette. 
 
 She waited a little and then asked him for one. He 
 came to her out of a far-away mood and looked at her al- 
 most in surprise. Then he was smitten with a quick re- 
 morse for his discourtesy. 
 
 " Lord ! I'm sorry. Miss Carr, I'm behaving very 
 badly. Why, I forgot you were there, that is, I knew you 
 were there, but hang it, how can I say it ? " His tone 
 showed that he was less tragic than he had been when 
 they started out from the hospital. 
 
 " You don't have to say it. I understand," she said 
 eloquently. " You are really paying me a great compli- 
 ment." 
 
 He held up the rug enclosing them in an intimate snug- 
 ness while she lit her cigarette. But his suffering had gone 
 much too deep to be lightened all at once. As he smoked 
 on he retreated from her into his own thoughts. 
 
 Valerie leaned back a little against a thick clump of 
 rushes so that she could look at his figure bent forward, 
 his hands clasped about his knees, his face turned from 
 her sometimes staring straight out over the black sea, 
 and sometimes raised "to the sky. There was something
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 147 
 
 about the way he sat, about the forlorn droop of his 
 shoulders, the set of his head upon them, that made her 
 mad to throw her arms about him and pull him back into 
 a live warm world. She relentlessly fought these impulses, 
 the most powerful she had ever known, because she was 
 so uncertain about him. She had not the faintest idea 
 how far, if at all, he had committed his feeling to her. 
 
 Suddenly he swung round to her, taking his pipe from 
 his mouth. He adjusted the rug which he had disar- 
 ranged. 
 
 " You know, I was just wondering how far the human 
 race might have got without words. Individuals can get 
 on quite well without them. I got an amusing picture of 
 everybody going about in a great silence, smiling, point- 
 ing, making signs, very restful, eh? " 
 
 " Why " she was dislocated out of her own mood, 
 " we shouldn't have got very far with art, invention, all 
 that we call civilization, should we? " 
 
 " We might have developed some other kind of civiliza- 
 tion, a better kind. We haven't done so much after all. 
 We've learned a lot about comfort, something of beauty. 
 We have learned to save life from some of its diseases, and 
 words have been instrumental in spreading information 
 about those things, yes." He looked up at the sky a mo- 
 ment and went on as if he were talking to himself. " How 
 little we have done after all. We can't make a fine human 
 being, the test, the real test. Nobody knows what will 
 produce a Confucius or a Caesar. They just happen. 
 Our great men are accidents, produced by so frail a 
 chance that it is astonishing to contemplate it. The 
 moods and senses, forced or spontaneous, of a couple of 
 people with no notion of producing a hero, a fortuitous 
 collaboration of passion and circumstance and a fragment 
 of life force, and behold! a great man results. What a
 
 148 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 joke ! And not a person in all history has ever contributed 
 a practical idea as to the making of him. Some people 
 think health does it, some think education, some think the 
 Bible, some think matching a tall fair man with a short 
 dark woman, some think breeding, some think free love. 
 And what is the result of all those theories? The same 
 uncertainty everywhere. And often with the more breed- 
 ing there is the poorest result, and with the more chance 
 the better. Out of nowhere comes a Lincoln and out of 
 aristocrats an idiot ! " 
 
 He dropped his head on to his knees a moment. 
 
 " And then when you get the best that we can do, it is 
 a specimen tragically fragile and incomplete, so easily 
 maimed and broken, and so pathetically helpless with his 
 own kind. Numbers of our cleverest men can do wonders 
 with anything but themselves. Men who can paint splen- 
 did pictures are often dirty, offensive, bedraggled human 
 beings eternally suffering from indigestion, men who can 
 compose glorious music are half mad and full of childish 
 vanity, men who can write great books are mean-spirited, 
 nervous persons who fly into a rage at the sight of one 
 man's adverse opinion, men who can lead armies to victory 
 are afraid of their mothers-in-law, men who can build 
 magnificent bridges and govern empires are putty in the 
 hands of their mistresses " 
 
 Valerie laughed out, throwing up her head. 
 
 "Well, isn't it a spectacle?" he demanded, almost 
 fiercely. 
 
 " Yes, it is." 
 
 " Do you think there's any system at the back of it 
 all?" 
 
 " I feel there ought to be. But I don't know." 
 
 " I get so tired thinking about it," he said, drooping 
 again.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 149 
 
 She put out her hand and buried her fingers in the 
 hair on the back of his bowed head. 
 
 He turned to her at once, and throwing an arm about 
 her, grasped hers on the further side of him with a hot 
 and nervous clutch. He nosed his face into her neck so 
 that his hair tickled her cheek. And then he lay still, like 
 a tired child, sure of its resting place. 
 
 Valerie drew a long breath and then exerted all her 
 will power to drive back the excitement that heaved up 
 inside her. She knew that Dane was not at that moment 
 thinking of her as a woman at all. She had no illusions 
 as to the possibility of his being a blazing and imperious 
 lover when he was moved. But he was not a perennial 
 dribbler of sensation, and something, she could not tell 
 what, was holding him back. 
 
 So she sat very still herself, keeping her free hand away 
 from his head, and trying to give him just the comfort 
 of a presence that she felt he wanted. She tried to hold 
 on to the sensation that the nestling of his head in her 
 neck gave her. After a while he sat up suddenly, ran his 
 hands through his hair, and looked for his pipe which he 
 had put down in the sand. 
 
 Then he turned to her. " I say, I haven't any business 
 to be keeping you out like this. It must be very late. 
 I'm very selfish." 
 
 She felt an intense irritation, what at she did not know, 
 and then she felt cold. 
 
 " Why, I'm not a child," she said, with just a touch of 
 sharpness in her tone. She sat up conscious again of a 
 sense of frustration. 
 
 He filled his pipe slowly and began to smoke. It had 
 grown cold and feeling it now she shivered. Dane got to 
 his feet and held out his hands to her. She felt he was 
 conscious of her drifting experimental mood, and that for
 
 150 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 some reason he was fighting it and managing it. It em- 
 barrassed her and made her feel crude and undignified. 
 And that made her angry at him. He walked ahead of 
 her to the tent and threw in the rug. Then he helped her 
 off with his coat and after pulling off his own sweater 
 looked at his watch. 
 
 " Good Lord ! It's two o'clock ! How will you get into 
 the hotel ? I'll go there with you and " 
 
 " You don't have to, my dear man. What kind of babe 
 do you think I am? I'll knock on Michael's window. Mac 
 told me to." 
 
 He peered curiously at her in the starlight. 
 
 " Of course," she said. " I asked him what I would do 
 if I was out after midnight." 
 
 Then she saw his face light up against the dull white 
 tent wall. 
 
 " You are very nice and unafraid, Miss Freedom, aren't 
 you? " he said softly, and turned along the path to 
 Roger's stable. 
 
 They rode in silence through the ravine and for some 
 way along the flat above. They were more uncomfortable 
 with each other than they had ever been. Valerie knew 
 that she had intended Dane to kiss her down there, and 
 the fact that he had not done so made her look foolish in 
 her own eyes. But the thing that disturbed her much 
 more was the fear that he had sensed her intention. This 
 fear froze her into a complete detachment from him as she 
 rode beside him. 
 
 At the borders of Dargaville he stopped. 
 
 " You have been very kind to me to-night, Miss Carr, 
 very kind. Now are you sure you're all right ? " 
 
 She was absurdly hurt again all at once. " Oh, I 
 haven't been kind," she said impatiently, " and I'm quite 
 all right, thank you." She held out her hand.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 151 
 
 As he took it and gripped it firmly he looked at her and 
 seemed about to speak. But instead he leaned down over 
 her hand and pressed a kiss upon it, and swinging his horse 
 away from her, rode off. 
 
 Valerie could not have told whether it was a town or a 
 forest she rode on through, for she saw nothing of it. A 
 fierce excitement burned through her, making her a little 
 sick with the stress of it. 
 
 When she reached her room she threw up her window at 
 the bottom, drew her chair to it, and sat down. Her 
 thoughts swirled about in her mind for some time, and out 
 of the swirl emerged a few well-defined certainties. She 
 had wanted Dane to kiss her. She was falling in love with 
 him. She wanted to fall in love with him. She wanted 
 him to love her. But he drank. Perhaps he took mor- 
 phia. He was a strange and difficult person. She did 
 not understand him. And then the question, What was 
 she going to do about it? And the questions, Did he care 
 for her? If not, could she make him care? What was it 
 that halted him every now and then? 
 
 She had not found any answer when at last she fell 
 asleep.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 DANE had not ridden more than a quarter of a 
 mile away from her when he pulled up his horse 
 and turned off in a northerly direction. He 
 crossed the Kaihu road and found his way down to the 
 river road leading to his home. 
 
 He could not put Valerie out of his mind, and he knew 
 now what he was coming to with her. He knew he could 
 not be with her again, as they had been down in the sand- 
 hills, without kissing her. He was not in love with her 
 yet, but he wanted to be in love with her. He wanted her 
 to make life vivid and positive again, just once, just once 
 more. She had made him painfully aware of his loneli- 
 ness. 
 
 And yet he had sworn that never again would he become 
 mixed up with any woman. For a man who loved women 
 it was an absurd resolve, and he had as he rode now a full 
 sense of its absurdity. And then, Valerie was different 
 from all the women he had known. She stood apart. She 
 seemed fine and sincere. But he knew it was not her char- 
 acter that attracted him. What did a man ever think 
 about a woman's character? He ought to emphasize it, 
 but he never did. No, it was her vividness, her vitality, 
 the suggestion of softness and allurement deep within her, 
 the tones in her voice when she lowered it, her mischievous 
 'desirous eyes and her tantalizing mouth; these were the 
 things about her tKat beguiled him. 
 
 152
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 153 
 
 He pulled his horse to a standstill on the hill above his 
 house. He often paused there to look down upon it. It 
 gave him a feeling of peace. He loved to come back to its 
 scented splendour after the dry bareness about the tent. 
 These contrasts intensified his sense of life. He wondered 
 what it would be like to have Valerie there filling the house 
 with her music. He could see himself lying in the ham- 
 mock listening. 
 
 He rode down and went in, hushing his dogs. He slept 
 better than he expected and woke to a fine cool late May 
 day. He ate his breakfast outside and settled down in his 
 hammock afterwards to smoke. But he could not keep his 
 thoughts on the thing he had meant to write. 
 
 He kept seeing Valerie, not as he had seen her the night 
 Kefore, but as he had seen her the first time in the office, 
 and then again as she lay unconscious in the yard. And 
 he wondered if she were seriously interested in him. He 
 never over-emphasized the importance of sentimental 
 moods. It did not occur to him that because she had put 
 her hand on his head the night before it was an indication 
 that she was in love with him. He knew now she was not 
 the child he had first thought her. She had probably been 
 kissed by many men. 
 
 Well, what of it all? He had not followed all his im- 
 pulses with her. Something had held him back. A tangle 
 of inhibitions, indeed. He could not tell which of them 
 was the stronger, but he thought of Davenport Carr first. 
 He knew well enough what that social autocrat would 
 think of his association with his daughter in any way 
 whatsoever. And he was deeply indebted to Davenport 
 Carr. And he simply must keep away front his daughter. 
 
 And if he went on how would it end, anyway? Just as 
 it had always ended. With him love had always destroyed 
 itself. And he felt he could never hold Valerie. She was
 
 154i THE STRANGE ATTRACTION; 
 
 set for so much more in life than love. For one thing, she 
 would never stay here with him by the river. And he 
 would want to stay by the river. 
 
 He thought back over his life. He knew he had packed 
 into fifteen years the intensities that stronger men spread 
 over forty. He had lived with a reckless disregard of 
 health or old age. He had never seen any good reason for 
 living long, for living past the summit of one's powers. 
 He loathed the thought of a nerveless, loveless, ravaged old 
 age, and so he had flung roses riotously with the throng 
 till he had broken down. Then, forced to face alterna- 
 tives, to estimate his spiritual assets and liabilities, he had 
 been surprised to find that he cared to live on a basis of 
 revaluation. He laid most of the world away, and came 
 back to concentrate his forces on his work and on such 
 beauty as he could find there within reach of his old place. 
 
 And he told himself that he, a clouded and despairing 
 spirit, had no business to snatch at the brightness of un- 
 tarnished youth going by, had no business to impose the 
 moods and habits of a reckless life upon the fine hope and 
 gaiety of a purposeful one. He saw it all very clearly 
 that May morning. 
 
 The next day it turned cold and rained and there fol- 
 lowed a week of early winter weather that depressed him. 
 He did not go into Mac's at all. It was too cold to enjoy 
 his launch. After two bad nights he came to a decision. 
 He ordered his tent and its belongings brought home. He 
 packed into chests and locked up the smaller and more 
 valuable of his things, and leaving his boys as he had be- 
 fore to look after them and his house till he should return, 
 he slipped away to Auckland and to Sydney for the winter. 
 He knew what he was doing. For the first time in his ex- 
 perience he was running away from life.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 155 
 
 II 
 
 He was gone for nearly two weeks before Valerie knew 
 it. She had thought of him a good deal in the wet days 
 following the night on the sand-hills, and supposed he was 
 keeping in out of the unpleasant weather. She had spent 
 her idle moments speculating as to what turn their next 
 meeting would take. Then in a letter from her father she 
 learned that he had lunched with Dane the day he left for 
 Sydney. She was hurt and angry, without reason, as she 
 admitted to herself. He was in no way committed to tell- 
 ing her of his doings. And then she began to wonder if 
 he had run away from her, and why. 
 
 But as the days went by she had less and less time to 
 indulge in her own thoughts. She was drawn and will- 
 ingly enough into the burning issues of that memorable 
 campaign when the old Liberal Party that Dick Seddon 
 led triumphantly into battle and victory for fifteen odd 
 years crumbled before that mysterious force in the world 
 that brings about a change. The little office became a 
 more strenuous place than ever. Two local girls had 
 been added to the typesetting staff. One of the book- 
 keepers from Roger's store had been transferred to help 
 Valerie for half his time. The jobbing work was mount- 
 ing up every day. As Bob was away a good deal now with 
 Roger, the running of the office single-handed was a con- 
 siderable job for Valerie. She now began at eight in the 
 morning, and was often there till ten at night. But she 
 revelled in these swift days, and had many a thrill over 
 obstacles overcome. She was a person who was warmed 
 by many fires and able to make many burn for her. She 
 got increasing pleasure out of the devotion of Jimmy and 
 Miss Hands, and out of the cooperation of Roger's com-
 
 156 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 mittee. She even discovered likeable qualities in Boltori 
 and Allison, who were at least devoted backers of their 
 political party, and able to admire the work she was doing 
 for it. Her favourite on the committee was the lawyer, 
 George Rhodes, who was doing fine work digging into the 
 past history of the enemy and bringing into the clear light 
 of day the things it most wished to have buried forever. 
 But Valerie liked working with all of them. She liked the 
 mysterious change that was wrought in people who were 
 working for a common cause, the sense of fraternity that 
 developed among them. 
 
 But even in this exhilarating hustle the thought of Dane 
 lay slumbrous ever at the back of Valerie's mind, and when 
 at the end of five weeks she got a letter from him she was 
 amazed at the feeling it roused in her. It came to the 
 office with the mail from the steamer about five o'clock, but 
 when she saw it was seven closely written pages she had to 
 put it aside till she should be finished for the day. And 
 that was not till half-past ten that night. Then by the 
 light of two candles she read it in her room. It was a de- 
 lightful letter, intimate and impersonal, saying nothing 
 and everything. And it filled her with questions as to 
 what she was going to do with herself and him when he 
 came back. 
 
 As he had given her no address she wondered if he were 
 about to return, but at the end of a week she wrote to him 
 care of the Sydney Bulletin, wrote as impersonally as he 
 had written to her, of the progress of the campaign and 
 the humours of the day. Then she began to look for the 
 Australian mail, but she heard no more of him till, well on 
 in August, Father Ryan mentioned casually one morning 
 at breakfast that Dane had been a passenger with him on 
 the steamer from Auckland the day before.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 157 
 
 III 
 
 Late one afternoon in the last week in the month Dane 
 sat playing and singing to himself in his study. He had 
 on a dull red lounging robe and gay soft slippers. Be- 
 hind him at the end of the room a log fire was burning 
 low, the intermittent flames casting spurts of light across 
 the polished case of the piano, and glittering for a second 
 on brass candlesticks and picture glass. There were no 
 Other lights in the room. 
 
 This had been the parlour of the old mission station, 
 but when Dane had reconstructed the house he had ex- 
 tended it by some eight feet, so that it was now roomy 
 enough to contain without overcrowding a varied collec- 
 tion of furniture, in spite of the fact that the entire avail- 
 able wall space was given up to shelves of books. Against 
 the front window, which he had had widened for the sake 
 of light, stood an old Italian table and cabinet, the former 
 littered with manuscript paper, a bronze ink set of curious 
 English workmanship, a jade brush pot full of penholders, 
 an enamel jar for tobacco, a carved red lacquer cigarette 
 box, several pipes, a pile of paper-backed French novels, 
 some disreputable pieces of blotting-paper, and a little 
 ivory box in which he kept stamps. The chair here was 
 Italian, remodelled with a soft seat of old tapestry for 
 comfort. 
 
 There were several tables, English and Italian, littered 
 with books, and a fine old English oak chest standing at 
 the end of the piano. Before the fire were two chairs of 
 the low leather smoking-room variety, and near one of 
 them a table covered with smoking apparatus. Above the 
 bookshelves which did not go beyond six feet up the walls 
 were water colour and oil sketches, and black and white
 
 158 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 drawings by Australian artists. Among them were two 
 heads of Dane himself, one the much-reproduced pen and 
 ink drawing by Norman Lindsay, a wonderful piece of 
 work, and a fine sketch in oils by Sid Long. 
 
 The one French door opening onto the verandah, and 
 the front window were curtained with silken stuff, the col- 
 our of burnished copper, which carried on the tint in the 
 unpolished rimu walls. There were brilliant spots of col- 
 our here and there along the tops of the bookshelves in 
 bits of Chinese porcelain, and there was colour in three 
 Persian rugs on the floor, and in the books, but after com- 
 ing out of the other this looked a very quiet room, and in 
 spite of its diverse objects it was a homogeneous whole. 
 
 Dane lifted his hands from the keyboard on hearing his 
 dogs bark outside. 
 
 " Mr. Benton coming in," said Lee from the doorway. 
 
 " All right. Bring him in here." 
 
 Rather glad of a diversion he got up and turned to 
 meet Roger, who came in mud-spattered as from a long 
 ride. 
 
 " Heard yesterday you were back, Barrington. I'm 
 pretty grubby." Roger looked doubtfully at his elegant 
 host and at the room, now coming to light, as Lee lit lamps 
 and candles. 
 
 " You won't hurt anything. Sit down." Dane indi- 
 cated one of the leather chairs, and took the other himself. 
 " How's the campaign going? " 
 
 u All right till yesterday, curse it ! " 
 
 " What happened yesterday? I haven't been in to the 
 town for days." 
 
 " Lorrimer went to the hospital, down with pneumo- 
 nia." 
 
 Dane looked into the light of the match he had just lit. 
 " That's hard luck, certainly," Ke said sympathetically.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 159 
 
 " It's the very devil," said Roger gloomily. 
 
 Lee came through the door with a tray and put it on a 
 small table. 
 
 " Wine or whisky, Meester Benton ? " 
 
 " Whisky ; yes, some water, thanks." 
 
 " Meester Barrington, what for you? " 
 
 " Whisky, please." 
 
 When the boy had gone out Roger went on. " He was 
 doing fine in the electorate, popular everywhere, and send- 
 ing good stuff to the paper. Now it will be a month at 
 least before he is fit for anything. Miss Carr can run the 
 office all right. She's a wonder, that girl. But she can't 
 do the leaders and the political stuff." 
 
 Dane looked hard into the fire. " What kind of a start 
 have you made ? " 
 
 " Quite hopeful, I think. In fact, I've been surprised at 
 some of the places support has come from. Of course we 
 have the farmers. They have always been for Massey, 
 But it looks as if we might get some of the transient vote, 
 the gumdiggers, bush fellers. There's a change in the 
 feeling, talk of the swing in the country to Massey, and it 
 is a good thing to cultivate. I know I'll carry most of 
 Dargaville, and there's never been anyone who could do 
 that before. Mobray, of course, will carry Te Koperu. 
 But I find he's more unpopular than I thought he was." 
 
 " Still he will be a hard man to beat. And what about 
 the prohibition issue? " 
 
 " That's the devil of it. It isn't certain yet whether 
 Dodge will stand. If he does, the damned fool, he will 
 split the votes, and then nobody can guess the result. If 
 it is clear cut between Mobray and me I've a fighting 
 chance " 
 
 " Then, my dear Roger, Dodge must be bought. Has 
 anybody thought of that ? "
 
 160 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 " Well, yes. I've put Rhodes on to it. But Dodge is 
 a slippery customer." 
 
 " The more slippery he is the more certain it is that he 
 will stand to be bought. Name a figure and don't budge 
 from it." 
 
 " Yes, that's the idea, I know. And with him out that 
 leaves us both liquor men. I've been approached to stand 
 for prohibition, but I'd lose more than I'd gain by that." 
 
 Dane smiled at him. " No labour man mentioned? " 
 
 " No. I wish there were. He'd draw from Mobray, 
 not me. Barrington, I wonder if you could find out where 
 Townshend stands. He's given us his jobbing, but I don't 
 lean on that. He's always been for Mobray, but he's been 
 very amiable to me since I came out. Only he won't talk 
 politics, and that's a bad sign. He holds the election in 
 his hands if his men are solid." 
 
 " They won't be solid." 
 
 " No, that's the funny part of politics in this country. 
 You can't count on anything." 
 
 " That looks as if the voters did a little thinking. 
 What is your war cry? Justice for the North? " 
 
 " Yes, and it's the Kest we could have. It's high time 
 the Government paid some attention to us. Seddon never 
 did, and neither has Ward. They have lived for the 
 South. And we mean to see that if Massey gets the lead 
 he will take some notice of us up here. If I get in for 
 Waitemata, and Haines gets in again for Marsden, and 
 Sloan goes in for the Bay of Islands, we can do more than 
 talk about the main trunk line and the opening up of the 
 North." 
 
 -" Yes, you really have an issue, Roger. I was amaze'd 
 at the possibilities of the North when I went over it, and 
 at the little that had been done for it. Not a decent road 
 anywhere. And it has the finest climate in the country.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 161 
 
 Well, here's your chance, old man. You will go down in 
 history as the man who made the Government make the 
 North, that is, if you don't get swallowed up like the rest 
 .of them." 
 
 " Indeed, I will not," retorted Roger with a fine show of 
 decision. 
 
 Dane smiled at him again, but the other man subsided 
 gloomily. 
 
 " Well, I'm not in. If labour is solid against me I 
 .won't get in. And now with Lor rimer ill curse it ! " He 
 stared into the fire. 
 
 In the pause that followed Dane wondered if they were 
 both thinking the same thing. 
 
 Roger turned abruptly to him. " I say, Barrington, 
 would you help us out with leaders and some articles? 
 tYou can have any price you want." 
 
 Dane felt the hand of fate upon him. Why ever run 
 away from life when it was the relentless tracker it was? 
 But he turned quiet eyes upon the instrument of the gods. 
 
 " I'll think about it, Benton. But I don't want any 
 price. I don't need the money. You will go on paying 
 Lorrimer, won't you? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, yes, of course. But will you really do it, 
 Barrington? I would prefer to pay " 
 
 Dane waved his hand at him. " It's not a question of 
 money at all. I'd like the fun of being in the game. And 
 my knowledge of the North would be useful. Are you 
 going to be around to-morrow ? " 
 
 " Yes, I have a conference with the committee in Darga- 
 ville in the morning. By God, Barrington, do say you 
 will get in on it." There was no mistaking Roger's anxi- 
 ety in the matter. 
 
 " I'd like to think about it to-night a little. I would 
 go in under Miss Carr, of course. I've no desire to run
 
 162 
 
 the News. The idea is that I would simply send in the 
 stuff? " 
 
 " That's it." 
 
 " I'll tell you definitely in the morning, Benton, how 
 much I will do. You can count on me for something, any- 
 way." 
 
 " By Jove, Barrington, I am grateful to you. But I 
 really do not wish to impose on your good nature." 
 
 " My good nature " Dane looked past him at Lee 
 
 who stood in the doorway signalling with his eyes. " Will 
 you dine with me, Benton? " he added. 
 
 " Oh, thanks, no, I can't. Is it as late as that? " He 
 got to his feet. " I must be getting along. Don't get up, 
 old chap. You look darned comfortable down there." 
 Roger beamed upon him almost affectionately. 
 
 But Dane did get up, and led the way through the hall 
 to the front door. 
 
 " See you in the morning then, at the store. Will eleven 
 suit you? " 
 
 "Admirably. Good-night." 
 
 Roger clinked down the front steps feeling he had been 
 very clever. If he could only secure Dane for the News 
 he knew he would have the most potent and penetrating 
 pen the elections would know. 
 
 Dane paced back and forth on his front verandah till 
 his dinner should be ready. He paused now and then to 
 look up at pallid gray clouds gathering density every min- 
 ute in a bottle-green sky that was clearing a little after 
 rain. Mingling with the mist that rose from the soaked 
 earth he felt for the first time the stealthy approach of 
 invisible things feeling their mysterious ways towards birth 
 and their little measure of the spring. From the delicate 
 tassels fringing the ferns by the river up to the dusted 
 fresh green of the kauri saplings on the skyline another
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 163 
 
 surge of life was vibrating all about him in the dusk. The 
 night was closing down on an air sweetened with the violets 
 and jonquils and primroses that carpetec the shaded re- 
 cesses of his garden. It was all very lovely. And he felt 
 unaccountably happy and unaccountably sad. 
 Then Lee called him and he went in. 
 
 IV 
 
 Valerie had been deeply concerned when after a week's 
 absence Bob walked into the office looking gray and ill. 
 He threw a packet of notes and manuscript on her desk 
 and said he must get to bed. It was eight o'clock, and she 
 begged him to get the doctor as soon as he got to the 
 hotel. But when she got home at eleven, after going over 
 his papers, she found he had not done anything for him- 
 self. Alarmed by his appearance she had Michael hunt 
 up Doc Steele, who had left the house an hour before. 
 The doctor stayed by Bob most of the night, and the first 
 thing in the morning ordered his removal to the hospital. 
 He was wrapped out of sight in rugs and run down in one 
 of Mac's launches. While it was still dark Valerie went 
 to the house of the postmaster and woke him. If she 
 could get on the line with Auckland at once Mrs. Lorrimer 
 might be able to get that day's boat. The official man- 
 aged it for her, and she got the Bishop's family out of bed. 
 
 She tried to eat a breakfast that might be adequate for 
 the day she knew was ahead of her. She got sandwiches 
 from Lizzie to take to the office, foreseeing that a lunch 
 time might be merely a matter of imagination. It proved, 
 indeed, to be one of those days when capricious circum- 
 stances collaborate to drive mortals mad. For some rea- 
 son the minds that decided the allotment of cables and 
 telegrams to little papers almost doubled her usual allow-
 
 J64 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 ance. There was a bad accident up the line about which 
 conflicting accounts were received every hour. The com- 
 mittee dropped '.n unexpectedly in the morning to be use- 
 lessly sympathetic about Bob, and she had to tell them as 
 good-humourediy as she could that they had more time to 
 think about him than she had. The printing press chose 
 the occasion to break down in the middle of the afternoon 
 just as the paper was going on, and Valerie had to leave 
 the situation and run, when she heard the steamer whistle, 
 to meet Mrs. Lorrimer, who had sent a telegram to say 
 she was on the way. She had to forget the work while she 
 tried to comfort Bob's anxious mother. She had a buggy 
 ready for her, and explained as kindly as she could why she 
 could not possibly go on to the hospital with her, seeing 
 perfectly well that Mrs. Lorrimer did not believe a word 
 she said. Back to the office she went to meet an up-river 
 man who wanted quotations on prices for a large job. He 
 had been sent by Townshend. From half-past five to half- 
 past six she read the benumbing pages of a spring show 
 catalogue. She hurried home, took a hot bath, tried to 
 make her mind a blank for a quarter of an hour, and went 
 down to dinner feeling as if she had been through a war. 
 Fortified by a bottle of wine from Mac, she ate a re- 
 strained meal and went back to the office to work till 
 eleven. 
 
 The second day was an excellent likeness of the first, 
 except that it was the jobbing machine that broke down 
 instead of the printing press, and that, in addition, one of 
 the girls was away ill. Again she ate her lunch in the 
 office as she edited the cables. And the rushed day was 
 coloured throughout by the news that Bob had a tempera- 
 ture of 104< and was at death's door. 
 
 At six o'clock Valerie dropped back in her chair and 
 went limp. The staff had gone and only Jimmy was to
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 165 
 
 Some back that night to help her on the catalogue proofs. 
 Somehow they had cleaned up the formidable pile of the 
 morning. Everything had got into the paper. But what 
 was to be done about the leaders ? Roger had left her half 
 an hour before saying they would have to get somebody 
 from Auckland. She had resented that idea. She did 
 not want a stranger there. Curiously enough, though she 
 knew Dane was back, and though a part of her intensity 
 was due to the fact that she kept expecting him to appear 
 without warning, it never occurred to her that he might be 
 the way out. 
 
 She gave herself a little more time for dinner that night, 
 and found Jimmy, as usual, waiting for her. They had 
 been reading proofs for about an hour when a noise in the 
 composing-room disturbed them. 
 
 " Sounds like a rat, Miss Carr," whispered Jimmy ex- 
 citedly. He got up and stole to the composing-room door. 
 They had had two rat hunts in the place that winter and 
 the sport had proved absurdly thrilling. 
 
 " Yes, miss," hissed Jimmy in a loud whisper. " A big 
 one; I saw it." 
 
 Valerie bounded out of her chair, forgetting for the 
 moment that Bob might die that night. She darted after 
 Jimmy and closed behind her the composing-room door. 
 
 V 
 
 Dane ran his launch into the bank opposite the News 
 office, and anchored it in the fringe of rushes where he 
 could step out a foot or two from the path. He swung 
 across the street, tapped on the door, opened it and went 
 in. Over the counter he saw Valerie's hat and coat hung 
 on a corner nail. But he could see nobody. Then he 
 heard the extraordinary sounds that were proceeding from
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 behind the closed door. He listened in a startled amaze- 
 ment. His first thought was that somebody was being 
 murdered. 
 
 " Now's your chance ! Get him ! Oh, golly, missed him ! 
 Now here ! There you are ! Oh crums ! Look out ! He's 
 getting fierce ! " These words were hurled about in tones 
 of bloodthirsty fury by a hoarse voice he did not know, 
 and then came shouts from Valerie. " Go it, Jimmy. Oh, 
 you idiot ! That was easy." 
 
 Dane could curb his curiosity no longer. He opened 
 the door and looked through. An amazing spectacle met 
 his eyes. The composing-room was in wild disarray. 
 Sacks and furniture and packages had been pulled away 
 from the walls, and there was litter everywhere. He could 
 see Valerie on her hands and knees with her back turned to 
 him waving a dangerous rod of iron, part of the make-up 
 frame, to be exact. 
 
 " Here you ! " roared Jimmy, who did not at the moment 
 recognize him, and who was beside himself with excitement. 
 "Shut the door!" 
 
 Dane shut it instantly, sliding through it like a shadow. 
 Then he saw the rat dart squealing in his direction. 
 " Here. This way," he called, momentarily caught him- 
 self by the fight, as he stamped to turn it back. 
 
 At the sound of his voice Valerie swung round and leapt 
 to her feet, and for a moment she stood almost transfixed 
 at the sight of him, while Jimmy made a lunge downwards 
 at the hunted beast. Dane stood against the door, almost 
 enveloped in a gray ulster, a tweed cap in one hand. He 
 smiled engagingly at Valerie across the body of Jimmy, 
 who was sprawling on the floor after losing his balance in 
 a resultless plunge. 
 
 As for her, she stood like Diana flushed with the lust of 
 the chase, her eyes brilliant, her hair tumbling down. The
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 167 
 
 plain dress of warm blue woollen stuff she wore set off the 
 life and colour in her head. It struck Dane with the force 
 of a revelation that she was wonderful, and that, more 
 wonderful still, she cared for him. 
 
 Trying to cover her first confusion, she ran to him, 
 holding out her hand. She remembered that Jimmy's 
 sharp eyes would be upon them. 
 
 " It's a rat. Do wait till we get it," she said excitedly. 
 
 He made a face. " You're going to kill it ? " 
 
 They both spoke as if they had seen each other the day 
 before. 
 
 " Oh, yes, a rat, yes." 
 
 Seeing it run across the room she darted from him. 
 Just for a minute he was annoyed that after his absence 
 he should be ignored for a rat. Then watching her he was 
 amused. He heard Jimmy yell as the beast turned on her. 
 It sprang onto her shoulders and ran down her back. But 
 she made no sound. She turned with an extraordinarily 
 swift spin and, catching it wavering, despatched it with a 
 deadly blow. 
 
 Jimmy leapt into the air with a shout, and then gazed 
 at Valerie with adoration. A girl who was not afraid of 
 a rat he nearly burst as he thought of it. But she was 
 looking at the dead beast and at the trickle of blood that 
 came from its crushed head. And she knew that Dane 
 was looking down at her. 
 
 She got slowly to her feet, and ignoring Dane for the 
 moment, looked round the room as Jimmy picked up the 
 body of the rat. 
 
 " I'll clean it up, Miss Carr," said the boy, divining her 
 thoughts. 
 
 " Well, I guess it will have to be done, Jimmy," she 
 smiled, and then she turned and walked to the door where 
 Dane still stood with his eyes on her.
 
 168 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 A fresh flush burned her face as her eyes met his and 
 fell before them. 
 
 " I know I'm ridiculous," she began, a little nervously, 
 " but you know, I just needed that. We've had two wild 
 days, and I had to have something." 
 
 He opened the door, and she went through holding up 
 her hair. She dropped into her chair and swung it round, 
 and without any apology let down the dishevelled gold 
 about her head, and then firmly wound and pinned the 
 coils up again, talking as she did so. 
 
 " How are you? " she began. 
 
 " Very well, I think, thank you." He leaned against 
 the high counter opposite her. 
 
 She thought he looked better than she had ever seen him. 
 At least he had not spent his winter in dissipation, as she 
 had feared he might have done. 
 
 " It was nice of you to write to me, tut it was very rude 
 of you to go off like that without letting me know." As 
 she was not looking at him she did not see the flash that 
 went across his eyes as she said that. 
 
 " I'm sorry I was rude," he said repentantly 
 
 " You're not a bit sorry," she retorted pertly. " Did 
 you get my letter ? " 
 
 " I did, thank you." 
 
 She had finished pinning her hair. She felt hot and 
 confused. He had evidently come in to say something, 
 and was waiting for Jimmy to get out. 
 
 *' Won't you take off your coat? " 
 
 It seemed to her that he emerged out of it like a radiant 
 fcreature out of a utilitarian chrysalis. She felt the beauty 
 of his head again as if she were seeing it for the first time. 
 
 He was more warmly dressed than she had ever seen him 
 in a square-cut suit of dark blue cloth, with a vest over 
 the white silk shirt, and a very calm gray-blue tie. His
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 169 
 
 shoes were heavier than usual. She caught a whiff of 
 some delicate scent, as if his clothes were kept with it. 
 
 He perched up on the high stool and looked down on 
 her. 
 
 " May I smoke? " 
 
 " Of course." Then for the first time since he had come 
 in she thought of Bob. " Have you heard about Mr. Lor- 
 rimer? " Her voice and mood changed as she asked it. 
 
 " Yes. How is he to-day? " His face sobered too. 
 
 " Oh, very ill, I'm afraid. Heavens ! I was forgetting 
 all about him. Doc Steele is there with him now. He 
 may not live through the night." She was ashamed to 
 think how completely she had forgotten her old friend Bob 
 in the last half hour, and determined now to be more loyal 
 in her mind. 
 
 Dane felt the change in her at once and divined the rea- 
 son for it, and he told himself this was no time to put any 
 emotional pressure upon her, and that he must discipline 
 himself till this tension was over. 
 
 " I did not realize he was as ill as that, Miss Carr. 
 I'm very sorry. Benton dropped in and told me on his 
 way home that he had been taken to the hospital." 
 
 "Oh, did he?" And the possibility dawned on her 
 mind. 
 
 '^ Yes," he went on, without looking at her. " He asked 
 me if I would do the leaders and political stuff for the 
 News till Lorrimer was better." 
 
 She said nothing for a minute, but he felt her sudden 
 quickening to life. " What did you say ? " 
 
 " I said I would." Again he did not look at her. He 
 did not need to. 
 
 " You did ! You would work for this little paper ? " 
 
 "Why not? It has just as much power as any other, 
 paper for getting a man in."
 
 170 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 She was about to speak when Jimmy came through the 
 door. Shooting an unfriendly glance at Dane he walked 
 up to Valerie with a comical air of possession and sat 
 down in the chair beside her. She looked at him. " Oh, 
 the proofs, Jimmy? Well, we were nearly through them. 
 We will finish them in the morning. You go now." 
 
 Jimmy understood perfectly that he was being dis- 
 missed, and he was resentful against the man who had 
 come in. He knew who he was, and he had overheard 
 Bob say he did not want him to have anything to do with 
 the office. It disturbed him Ihat Valerie should let him 
 stay there, especially with Bob ill in the hospital. She 
 saw he was put out. 
 
 " Thanks for what you've done, Jimmy. Mr. Benton 
 has sent Mr. Barrington in to see about helping us out, 
 so I won't read any more proofs to-night. Go on home." 
 
 That made the boy feel a little better. He took up his 
 cap and went out saying good-night to her. Then she 
 saw him peeping through the window. She waved him 
 away and they both heard his steps going off. 
 
 Dane's eyes were fixed steadily on her again, and they 
 compelled her to look up at him. " Hero worship ? " he 
 smiled, nodding his head in the direction of the departing 
 Jimmy. 
 
 " As you see, and a bad case. I have to be careful of 
 him. They are so confused and so sensitive at that 
 
 age " She stopped for he had slipped off the stool 
 
 and was standing in front of her, and something about him 
 lifted her to her feet. 
 
 " We never get over it, Valerie dear," he said, very 
 softly. 
 
 He felt her tremble and then make a desperate effort to 
 stand still, and the shadow of the dying Bob fell between 
 them.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 171 
 
 " I'm sorry. I forgot. I looked at you and forgot. I 
 will be good. But tell me one thing. You won't expect 
 me to be good for very long, will you? " 
 
 She looked at him and her eyes answered, and forget- 
 ting Bob and the window and the peep-hole their arms 
 swept about each other. But because he was far more 
 sensitive than she, and possibly because he had drunk deep 
 from cups she had but touched the edges of, he drew 
 away from her lips after a few fierce possessive kisses, 
 seeing that if he went on he would submerge her more 
 deeply than he had any intention of doing that night. 
 For him the office was no fit setting for abandonment to her. 
 
 They stood for a moment shaken by that unleashing 
 of the forces they had been trying to hold back, and some- 
 thing in the very violence of their relaxation startled them 
 into self-discipline. Valerie dropped down into her chair 
 breathing hard and trying to remember Bob, the work, the 
 next morning. 
 
 Dane stood still for a minute amazed that he had let 
 the situation run away from him in this manner. He had 
 not come to the office with the remotest intention of kiss- 
 ing her. And here they were, for he had seen in her eyes 
 the enchantment that he could never resist. 
 
 He sat down in the chair beside her and took her hands. 
 She misunderstood his intention. 
 
 " Oh, please, we can't really. You don't know what 
 this work is. And I must do it. I have no time to play 
 till it is over." She spoke as if she were afraid of him, 
 but she was just as afraid of herself. 
 
 He dropped her hands, feeling the intensity that was 
 burning her. 
 
 " Please don't be afraid of me," he pleaded softly. 
 " I'm sorry I let go like that. I won't do it again till you 
 wish it. I promise."
 
 172 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 He sat very still wondering how the clevil they were to 
 go on without explosions now that they had put the spark 
 to the powder. He had a fierce craving to carry her out 
 to the launch and take her home with him. 
 
 Presently her eyes fell on the neglected proofs. They 
 stimulated her to come back to earth and the compelling 
 present. 
 
 " You must go, please. I have an hour's work at least, 
 and it cannot wait till the morning. I should have let 
 Jimmy stay." 
 
 " I'm Jimmy for the rest of the evening. Yes, come on, 
 dear. I'll read them with you. No, you must not look 
 at me like that. I can't stand it. What the devil do 
 you think a man is? If I'm to stay good you've got to 
 be an angel too." 
 
 And then Valerie laughed. 
 
 And never in the history of spring show catalogues 
 were dull pages of entries for sheep and cattle, and dairy 
 produce and vegetables, and home-made cakes and jams 
 and fancy-work treated with such alternate absorption and 
 indifference as they were in the office of the News that 
 night. And it must be confessed that the resolutions with 
 which they began the proof-reading suffered considerably 
 from lack of nourishment in the following hour. But with 
 each pause, with each kiss, with each wondering gaze eye 
 to eye they grew gayer, and laughed more at themselves 
 and each other. Without putting it into words they took 
 this evening as they felt it knowing they would come to 
 sober ways upon the morrow. 
 
 It was nearly eleven when they finished the proofs. 
 Valerie looked at her watch, and thought again of Bob, 
 and wondered with a little catch at her breath if he were 
 still upon the earth. And she had a sudden revulsion of 
 feeling against the mad happiness of the last hour.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 173 
 
 ** What is it? " asked Dane. 
 
 But she did not wish to put any shades on his face, or 
 bring any pain back to his eyes. 
 
 " I must get home, dear. I have to be here at eight." 
 
 "Eight!" 
 
 " Oh yes, eight, every morning now. You see ? " She 
 shook her head decidedly at him. 
 
 " I see." He helped her on with her coat, and then 
 before she put on her hat he drew her to him and looked 
 into her face. She could not keep her eyes open against 
 that frightening clutch. What did this man expect of 
 her, want of her, when he looked at her like that? Then 
 she felt her lips being very delicately pressed. 
 
 " You don't know when I first kissed you," he said 
 softly. 
 
 She opened her eyes widely upon him. " I certainly 
 do. That morning when you came into my room? " 
 
 " Oh, no. Before that." He smiled at the expression 
 on her face. 
 
 " I kissed you the night before as you lay unconscious 
 in the office yard." 
 
 " Why, you preposterous perfidious villain," she said 
 delightedly. 
 
 " I couldn't help it." 
 
 She tried to frown at him, but she could not. 
 
 After they had kissed each other again she put out 
 the light and they went to the door. Hearing no one about 
 she walked to the river's edge and stood there while he 
 went off and disappeared in the shadows.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 HE looks fine to-day," said Jimmy proudly, as he 
 spread on the desk in front of Valerie the first 
 copy of the inside sheet of the News to come off 
 the machine. He always made the most of this little cere- 
 mony and it never became any less important to him. It 
 was now his job, after Ryder had hammered the last 
 wedge into the make-up frame, to start the mysterious 
 business that sucked in the sheets of paper, already printed 
 on one side, and turned them over on the other ready to 
 be folded. He made a fine art of grabbing the first one 
 over, doubling it for rapid inspection, rushing with it into 
 the office and spreading it out with a flourish. Then he 
 stood by as if the whole world were waiting, while Valerie 
 hunted for the kind of mistake that might halt the ma- 
 chine. That mistake was seldom found, but she always 
 looked for it and Jimmy always stood as if it were an 
 ominous probability. And with them this afternoon, fully 
 conscious of all there was in the little drama, stood Dane, 
 looking over her shoulder. 
 
 " By Jove, Ryder got that in," he said admiringly, 
 pointing to a paragraph at the bottom of a column. 
 
 " He gets everything in," she answered. 
 
 At that moment there came an untoward sound from 
 the composing-room, then a few creaks, and then a sad 
 silence. 
 
 Jimmy's face set in righteous indignation. " Well, if 
 that isn't the dizzy limit? " he demanded of the air. " I 
 went over that confisticated thing this morning and there 
 
 174
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 175 
 
 was nothing wrong with her. That's a machine for you ! " 
 And he dashed into the composing-room. 
 
 Valerie could have laughed if it hadn't been so serious. 
 The boy's comical explosions at the old press, which he 
 treated as if it were a live thing, amused everybody in 
 the office. He reappeared almost immediately in the door- 
 way with a face full of woe. 
 
 " It's the engine," he announced tragically. " She's a 
 goner all right. It's all hands to the crank." 
 
 " Good Lord! " smiled Dane, " what does he mean? " 
 
 " Oh, darn it ! The oil engine. It goes off occasionally. 
 The press will have to be kept on by hand. We won't 
 catch the train and everything will be late." 
 
 They hurried into the composing-room. It had hap- 
 pened on the worst day that week. Both Ryder and 
 Johnson were working feverishly on a political circular 
 that Dane wanted out as soon as possible. The two men 
 put down their cases of type with a resigned air. Dane 
 looked at Valerie. 
 
 " I understand oil engines," he said. " I'll have a go 
 at it if you like." 
 
 " Oh, will you ? Thanks." She shot him as intent a 
 look as she dared. Ryder and Johnson turned to their 
 benches. Miss Hands and the girls at the cases all stared 
 unblushingly at Dane as he walked to the engine at the 
 back of the room, for this was the first time he had ap- 
 peared there in the broad light of day. Jimmy, who had 
 thought his white hands meant helplessness, gave him one 
 glance of grudging admiration before going for his run- 
 ners to help to turn the crank. 
 
 Dane pulled off his coat, spread a sheet of brown paper 
 on the floor, and oblivious of the flutter he had brought to 
 the chaste breast of Miss Hands, began to investigate the 
 refractory machine.
 
 176 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 Valerie returned into the front office, dropped into her 
 chair, and leaned back for a moment's respite before at- 
 tacking a pile of stuff on her desk. She was idly wishing 
 that life could go on forever as it had the last two weeks 
 when she heard familiar voices at the door. She swung 
 round in her chair to see her father and Bishop Lorrimer 
 smiling across the counter. 
 
 " Why, dad! " She bounded to her feet. " You might 
 have let me know you were coming." 
 
 " How are you, Dick, old girl? I decided only late 
 last night that I'd come along with the Bishop and have 
 a look at you." 
 
 Davenport Carr was a tall and handsome man with an 
 imposing arrogant head and dissipated face set on a self- 
 indulgent neck. He looked what Valerie had long called 
 him, a tired hedonist. He had the manner of a man used 
 to seeing the multitude tumble over itself to get out of his 
 way. But he was a humane and good-humoured despot for 
 all that. He had rarely found it necessary to show such 
 fangs as he possessed. After all most people were just as 
 ready to serve him as he was ready that they should. He 
 was perfectly dressed in travelling tweeds, and rather 
 dwarfed the importance of the smaller man in black be- 
 side him. Bishop Lorrimer was of the ruddy-faced cheer- 
 ful kind of clerical, who has an inextinguishable faith in 
 the magic of bishop's blood and the sacraments, and an 
 equally inextinguishable faith in the rights of birth and 
 privilege. 
 
 Davenport Carr's amused blue eyes roamed round 
 the office. <? I suppose you're damned proud of this, 
 Dick?" 
 
 " You bet I am. Want to see it all ? " For the moment 
 she forgot Dane was on his knees beside the oil engine. 
 
 " Rather, if we've time." He looked at the Bishop.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 177 
 
 " We've ordered a buggy to pick us up here in a few min- 
 utes to take us on to the hospital." 
 
 " Nothing here yet," she said, looking out over the top 
 of the whiting on the window. " You've come at a dis- 
 tressing moment," she went on lightly. " The oil engine 
 has broken down." She thought of Dane, and hoped he 
 would not be cross at having to meet her father in his 
 shirt sleeves. She led the way into the composing-room 
 where everybody was going at top speed, and the runners, 
 two at a time, working the printing press crank. There 
 was no sign of Dane. He was down on his knees on the 
 ifar side of the oil engine. 
 
 Valerie led her visitors up to Ryder and Johnson and 
 introduced them. Davenport Carr had caught something 
 of the spirit of that humming workroom. He had heard 
 from Roger too of the Townshend job. And then he had 
 more money than anyone else in this business. 
 
 " You're doing tip-top work here, I believe," he said 
 with genuine appreciation. " Does she allow you any time 
 to smoke? " And with a quizzical look at his daughter he 
 handed his cigar case to the men. 
 
 " Thanks, sir. Yes, she does," said Ryder warmly, for 
 it was Valerie who had insisted on a ten-minutes' spell in 
 the morning and in the afternoon. 
 
 The visitors turned to the printing press, slowly and 
 laboriously grinding out the papers. Just then Daven- 
 port Carr caught sight of the figure, that, unaware of 
 their presence, had crawled round the oil engine at the 
 other end of the room. 
 
 " What the deuce," he began, and looked at Valerie 
 who shot a mischievous glance back at him. He hesitated 
 for a moment and then walked off. She followed with the 
 Bishop. 
 
 Dane looked up as he felt the big form approaching,
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 and Valerie was delighted to see that he was not in the 
 least upset. 
 
 " Well, upon my soul, Barrington, what are you doing 
 there? " 
 
 Dane's hands were black and there was a streak of 
 grease where he had flipped a fly off his nose. But he 
 was simple and self-possessed as he looked up at Valerie's 
 father, and not disturbed by the question he thought he 
 saw in his eyes. 
 
 " I'm the engineman at present," he said. Then he 
 scrambled to his feet and bowed gravely without speaking 
 as Valerie introduced him to the Bishop, who had never 
 met him. 
 
 " I've got at the trouble, I think, Miss Carr. I'll have 
 her going in less than ten minutes." 
 
 Valerie had not written of any change in the office, and 
 it happened that her father had not heard of any, but 
 Dane wondered at once if he had come up because he had, 
 and saw by his next words he had not. 
 
 " How do you come to be here, anyway? " Davenport 
 Carr asked it very lightly, as if it did not matter in the 
 least. 
 
 " I'm writing the leaders till Lorrimer comes back." 
 
 " Oh, are you ? Will you dine with us at Mac's ? I'm 
 going to the hospital first with the Bishop, but I will be 
 back by seven." 
 
 " Thanks, I will." 
 
 Jimmy came up to Valerie and told her that a buggy 
 had stopped in the front. Nodding pleasantly to the staff 
 Davenport Carr led the way to the office. 
 
 II 
 
 Dane was waiting down-stairs in the hotel when Michael
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 179 
 
 told him Valerie's father was back. He had had but a' 
 few minutes to reflect upon the fact that kissing her had 
 made an enormous difference to his attitude towards her 
 father. He was now prepared to resent any probing, covert 
 or open, as to his acquaintance with her. But Davenport 
 Carr was far too clever to show his hand to a man he 
 suspected of being cleverer than himself. And besides all 
 he saw so far was a situation and its possibilities. 
 
 Dane led the way to a private room and ordered a 
 preliminary drink. They sat down opposite each other. 
 
 " You're looking deucedly well, Barrington." 
 
 " I've been living a good deal in the open air this last 
 six months." 
 
 " Very sensible. What chance do you think Benton 
 has?" 
 
 " The best any man has ever had against Mobray." 
 
 " Isn't there a prohibition man out? " 
 
 " Yes, but he won't be in at the finish." 
 
 " Ah, can be persuaded to stand down, eh? " 
 
 " I think so." 
 
 Carr smiled across the table at the non-committal white 
 face and into the eyes that met his with easy frankness. 
 " Ah ! how few of us could not be persuaded to stand 
 down, eh, Barrington? " 
 
 " Few indeed, I'm afraid. And if I were Benton it 
 isn't Dodge that would worry me, it is Townshend." 
 
 " Ah. Big labour vote there? " 
 
 " The result lies there, if it ever lies in any one place 
 in an election. But I'm going to warm up Townshend, 
 very carefully, you know. I'll have some leaders on the 
 pioneer work done for the North by these big employers 
 who came in and battled against desperate odds. He had 
 quite a pull, I believe, and it won't hurt to point it out. 
 It will please him, and it may help to make him neutral.
 
 180 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 open his camps to HotK sides, and let his men go unin- 
 fluenced." 
 
 : " That's the idea, Barrington. The silken touch. That 
 will look magnanimous, too.'* 
 
 " It will have to be very carefully done. These chaps 
 know well enough what you're after these days when you 
 'do any buttering." 
 
 " They may do. But buttering wins elections just the 
 same. By the way, I didn't know you were interested in 
 politics." Davenport Carr said it very carelessly. 
 
 " That shows a lamentable lack of knowledge of some 
 of my best work, Carr," smiled Dane. *' However, as 
 it was in Australia, you are pardoned for not being 
 familiar with it. But I've always taken considerable 
 interest in the New Zealand legislation. You forget 
 that I've been something of an idealist for the human 
 race." 
 
 The older man had to smile at the expression on the 
 younger one's face. And then the personal charm that 
 emanated from Dane, affecting men as well as women, 
 began to work. And Carr remembered that he was one 
 of the best bridge players he had ever met. 
 
 " What about a game to-night ? " he asked. 
 
 Dane hesitated. " Well, yes, I'd like it. But it would 
 have to be late, Carr. Would you like to have Mac and 
 Doc Steeleas well?" 
 
 " Yes, all right." 
 
 Just then the sounds of the piano drifted down to 
 them. Davenport Carr thought he detected a swiftly re- 
 pressed attention to it on the part of the other man. He 
 himself pretended not to know who it was who was play- 
 ing. But Dane gave no sign. He lit another cigarette 
 and asked Carr how many seats the Opposition hoped to 
 win in Auckland.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 181 
 
 " Their hopes are a bit extravagant, I think. I believe 
 that's Valerie at the piano, isn't it ? " 
 
 " I've heard she plays well. I don't think there is any- 
 one else about who does." 
 
 Davenport Carr stood up. " I'll go up. What time 
 do we get dinner, do you know? " 
 
 " A little late, I'm afraid. Mac ordered fresh chickens 
 in your honour." 
 
 " Oh. Will you come upstairs ? " 
 
 " No, thanks." 
 
 Valerie turned from the piano as her father walked in. 
 " How did you find Bob to-day? " she asked. 
 
 " Looks pretty sick, poor chap, beastly thin. But they 
 say he's getting on. You haven't been often, Mrs. Lorri- 
 mer says." His keen eyes rested lightly on his daughter 
 as he said it. 
 
 Valerie sprang up from the piano stool. " Good Lord, 
 dad, that woman drives me mad. What does she think 
 I do all day and most of the night? I've been along on 
 the Sundays, used the only spare hour or two I had. 
 That's all I could do. She doesn't know what work 
 means." 
 
 " I suppose she doesn't." Davenport Carr settled him- 
 self in the most comfortable chair he could find and looked 
 round the dingy sitting-room with amused eyes. " Like 
 all this, Val?" 
 
 " Rather awful, isn't it? But I don't look at it. You 
 know, dad, it's wonderful what you can ignore in the 
 world if you know how." 
 
 " Do you think you're teaching me something? " he 
 asked amiably. 
 
 Her eyes twinkled at him. She enjoyed the perfectly 
 arrogant spectacle he made in his swagger tweeds, 
 but she was distressed to see that the folds in his
 
 182 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 neck were fuller and the pockets under his eyes more 
 spongy. 
 
 " You haven't asked after the family," he said. 
 
 " Has anything of importance happened to any of 
 .them? " 
 
 " Now, Dick, old girl. It's time you were getting tol- 
 erant. They're all right, you know." 
 
 " Ah, you're growing tired, dad. That's what is the 
 matter with you. You've no more fight in you." 
 
 " Indeed." He looked curiously at her. " By the way, 
 what do you get to fight up here? " 
 
 She laughed. " Nothing. Everybody loves me, and I 
 just live for the office." 
 
 "Nothing to fight? How boring life must be. Are 
 you seeing much of Barrington? " 
 
 She had been waiting for that. " What would you call 
 much?" 
 
 " Anything with him. He's too damned fascinating." 
 
 Valerie's eyes twinkled again at her father. " And why 
 should he not fascinate me? Why am I to be deprived of 
 fascination ? " 
 
 " That's all right, old girl. But you be careful. He's 
 outside the pale as far as you are concerned." 
 
 " Dad, you must know you're a fool to talk to me like 
 that. No person is outside the pale as far as I am con- 
 cerned until I put him there myself. And I'm surprised at 
 you suggesting this thing to me by talking against it. 
 Between you and Bob you'd have me living with Dane 
 Barrington in a month if I let you talk to me." 
 
 This frankness astonished her father and threw him off 
 the scent. 
 
 " Of course I admire his looks," she went on easily, 
 " and I'm well aware of his fascination. But looks and 
 fascination don't overwhelm me. I want something that
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 183 
 
 you used to care about once, or you said you did char- 
 acter. And I would never care about any man who hadn't 
 it." 
 
 And Davenport Carr, clever as he was, overlooked the 
 fact that they might not be thinking the same ingredients 
 into that term. 
 
 He was reassured and went down to dinner feeling that 
 Dane Barrington, with his fine social sense, must under- 
 stand well enough the social gulf that existed between a 
 man who could not be asked out to dinner and a girl bred 
 in the select precincts of the Remuera set. 
 
 Something about that dinner party amused Valerie 
 enormously and roused Dane. The spectacle of Mac and 
 Davenport Carr side by side was in itself subject for 
 comedy. Each of them was an autocrat in his own fash- 
 ion, and each of them appreciated the eminence of the 
 other in his own profession, recognized his authority, and 
 would obey it in his given domain. Mac was as sublimely 
 easy as his turned-up shirt sleeves and split vest indicated. 
 The gentleman never lived who could overawe him, and 
 Davenport Carr, despising sycophancy while ever ready 
 to use it, thoroughly enjoyed the independence of spirit 
 that glared at him out of those hard blue eyes. And he 
 was amusedly aware of Mac's great hairy arms, of his fat, 
 red hands cleverly carving the chicken, of his enormous 
 head and shoulders, of his curious poise, and of the con- 
 trast he made to Dane on the other side of him. 
 
 Within a minute or two after they sat down Dane took 
 charge of the conversation by a kind of divine right uni- 
 versally acknowledged. The sight of steaming chickens 
 and bottles of champagne was all that was necessary to 
 start him, and after one or two drinks he was off. 
 
 Valerie watched the responsiveness grow Between him and 
 her father, the one stimulating the other. And as she
 
 184 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 patched she was struck more than ever with the funda- 
 mental difference in their quality of mind and spirit. It 
 was not till the meal was nearly over that she saw they 
 were drinking too much. They seemed to drink uncon- 
 sciously, glass after glass. Dane in particular, talking 
 with increasing brilliance, almost forgot to eat. 
 
 She became uncomfortably aware of the time, felt she 
 must get back to the office, but knew her father would be 
 angry at a dinner party disrupted. However, at a quar- 
 ter to nine, she fidgeted and stood up. 
 
 " Awfully sorry, dad, but I must get back to work," 
 she said. 
 
 "What?" he exclaimed irritably. "You too?" He 
 looked at Dane who had got at once to his feet. 
 
 " Yes, I must, Carr. I promised Johnson I'd be there 
 jto plan an inset." 
 
 ^ When will you get Hack? " 
 
 Dane hesitated. Pleasantly relaxed though he was, he 
 would have been glad to end the evening there. And he 
 was sorry that Valerie should hear of anything further. 
 But this was the kind of thing he did not know how to get 
 out of. 
 
 " Oh, about eleven," he said. 
 
 Knowing her father, Valerie guessed how the night 
 would end, but she crushed back a stab of pain, telling 
 herself she must not anticipate trouble. Dane lit his pipe 
 when they got out of the hotel, and they went in silence 
 by the river past the station wharf. It was the first time 
 they had gone through the town together for they had 
 been very careful. As it was dark and they could hear 
 no one Dane drew her hand under his arm after they had 
 passed the wharf. She had drunk sufficient champagne 
 herself to make her feel that it was absurd to be serious 
 about anything.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 185 
 
 The office was lit up and Johnson was there when they 
 went in. He and Dane worked till about half-past ten, 
 and then the jobbing man went out. A few minutes later 
 Dane came into the front office. Concentration on the 
 work had cleared his head. He leaned down over Valerie, 
 put his arms about her and raised her face and kissed it. 
 She jumped up, and threw her arms about him. This was 
 the only time when they allowed themselves any lapse of 
 their sternly disciplined emotions. 
 
 He held her off and looked at her. 
 
 " Valerie, your father is going to be de'ad against us," 
 he said quietly. " Now, dear, don't go off. I know as 
 well as you he has no real right to interfere. But he 
 thinks he has the right of a code, you know. And there's 
 a good deal to be said for it, and it worries me a little." 
 
 " Dane, I insist that you forget my father and my set 
 and my position, and remember me, just me as I stand 
 here." 
 
 " That's what I'm doing now, dear." 
 
 " I wonder. But it is what I am doing with you." 
 
 " I wonder," he repeated, putting his head on one side 
 and peering at her in the beguiling way he had. 
 
 " Go away," she commanded. " Go away at once. I 
 have half an hour's work yet. Tell dad I've gone to bed. 
 He will forget all about me anyway." Her tone shaded 
 off in regretfulness. 
 
 His eyes, considerably softened, regarded her thought- 
 fully, but he was too pleasantly relaxed to worry about 
 anything. Kissing her once more very lightly he went out. 
 
 Ill 
 
 After He ha'd gone Valerie ruthlessly set herself to the 
 remaining work, and at eleven o'clock she was finished.
 
 186 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 She locked up the office and went out. But she did not 
 turn to the hotel. She knew she would not get to sleep for 
 some time. She walked a little way beyond the station 
 and sat down in a clump of rushes near the river bank. 
 
 The two weeks that she and Dane had worked together 
 on the News had been illuminating for both of them. She 
 had seen at once after their first evening of kissing each 
 other that neither of them could go on like that and do 
 the work. She had been unable to sleep without a big 
 dose of aspirin, and she had felt utterly demoralized the 
 next day. In sheer self-defence she put it to Dane the 
 first chance she had, and told him that their emotions 
 must wait. She had expected opposition, but she was 
 surprised to discover that he kept the contract much more 
 f aithfully than she did. 
 
 Dane had told Roger that in addition to the leaders 
 and articles he would help Valerie in the office on publish- 
 ing days, and that he would get out circulars and other 
 literary ammunition. He astonished Roger and the com- 
 mittee with ideas. He began to write leaders that had a 
 fire and appeal no other journalist in the country could 
 equal. For he knew how to play upon the emotions of 
 men, and he knew thoroughly the types with whom he had 
 to deal. He had not talked and drunk and sung with 
 these men for nothing. 
 
 And Valerie, thinking about him as she sat by the river, 
 told herself that he had shown qualities in those two weeks 
 that revealed him as a man absurdly misunderstood, and 
 misunderstood, of course, because he himself had not the 
 desire or the energy to care about it. She knew that more 
 than anyone she had ever met he saw and appreciated 
 exactly what she accomplished, mentally and spiritually 
 and physically, in that daily rush; that every time she 
 kept her temper against odds, that every time she set her-
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 187 
 
 self against giving way to nervous pressure, that every 
 time she managed a difficult interview, or flashed a ready 
 response to some unexpected incident, he knew and esti- 
 mated it as accomplishment. And nothing in her life had 
 so warmed her, had so stimulated and fired her as that 
 understanding. 
 
 And because it so warmed her, because her love for him 
 was daily changing and enlarging its horizons, she could 
 not bear to think of the cloud that she knew descended 
 at times upon that spirit. She had gone through many 
 a tragic hour since the day she had first seen her father 
 the worse for drink. But she had become philosophical 
 about him. She knew well enough that during the process 
 he had died to her as the father of her childhood, and 
 had come to light in a new form as the product of per- 
 verted idealisms. And there had come a time when she 
 could even look upon him drunk without emotion. But 
 she knew she would never get to that stage with Dane. 
 Then she told herself she was being absurdly serious about 
 it. That after all, occasional excess need not be allowed 
 to overshadow their love for each other. That she simply 
 must not allow it to. She had known all along of his 
 habits. And she was committed to him now in spite of 
 them. 
 
 Unexpectedly a peace descended upon her, as something 
 in the spring night wrought its magic within her. She 
 had worried herself into fevers many times over the reason 
 for what she saw about her. She had put her despairing 
 Whys to the impotent stars, but she had struggled 
 through to one dominant perception, the existence of 
 beauty in manifold forms, and the more she sought it, the 
 more she let herself go out to it, the more she found it 
 everywhere. And she knew that it was for that that Dane 
 lived too.
 
 188 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 Comforted she got up and walked back to the hotel. 
 It was nearly midnight, but the place was lit on two of 
 the side rooms. She did not try to listen to see in which 
 of them Dane might be. She went straight to her room 
 and wearied out soon fell asleep. 
 
 She was at the office at eight in the morning. She did 
 not know whether her father had caught the boat which 
 had left unusually early. She wondered if Dane would 
 appear that day with the next day's leader as he usually 
 did, so that it could be set ahead of the rush copy. But 
 she had a premonition that he would not, and arranged 
 her space accordingly. She was right. He did not come 
 in till ten the next morning. She was glad that Bolton 
 was there, having just come in with the news that Dodge 
 was not going to stand, and that he was in George Rhodes' 
 office that moment framing an announcement which he was 
 shortly to bring along. 
 
 She greeted Dane eagerly with this news, ignoring his 
 sensitive and irritable manner. He was enormously re- 
 lieved. He had dreaded meeting her. But he saw no 
 judgment in her eyes. The moment passed and the rush 
 of the day was on. The incident of Davenport Carr's 
 visit was ancient history to Valerie by night. But it had 
 left one of those little dents in her mind which, being one 
 of accumulative experience, had more significance than 
 was apparent to the naked eye when it seemed to die. 
 
 So many things seem to die and do not.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 ONE Friday night in the third week in September 
 Valerie and Dane worked alone. The front door 
 was open, and there stole in to refresh the stuffy 
 office the soft fragrance of an irresistible night. All day 
 long Valerie had shot envious glances over the top of the 
 whiting on the window across the river at the spreading 
 swamp veiled with the enchantments of spring. And at 
 intervals Dane too had looked out at the river and the 
 swamp, and had thought of friendly little creeks he knew, 
 and plaintive lagoons he knew, and pleasant backwaters 
 he knew, and willow-girdled pools he knew where he craved 
 to be with Valerie. 
 
 She leaned back in her chair after she had finished 
 editing a letter from a farmer, and thought of the won- 
 derful week they had had. Dane had brilliantly frustrated 
 two moves on the part of the enemy, had forestalled them 
 in another, and had given George Rhodes some valuable 
 hints to follow up. It was now generally known who it 
 was who was conducting the lively campaign waged by 
 this youngster among journals, and every post brought 
 them back comments on it. Dane's articles on the North 
 were often copied in full, the party heads were quoting 
 some of his most pungent criticisms of the Ward govern- 
 ment, and altogether the eyes of their little world were 
 upon them. This in itself was pleasantly thrilling. But 
 it was nothing to the wonder that was going on inside 
 themselves, gathering intensity from the curbs they put 
 upon it. 
 
 189
 
 ,190 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 .Valerie looked at Dane's head bent forward while his 
 pen raced to finish Monday's leader. Her fingers ached 
 to play with that seductive hair. The more or less chaste 
 good-night kiss they allowed themselves was fast becoming 
 , very miserable dole to hand out to each other from the 
 splendours of love they felt within them. But Dane had 
 kept more steadily in mind even than she had the hard 
 cold fact that she had to be at the office at eight every 
 morning. And perhaps in the final reckoning of accounts 
 the little thoughtfulnesses will be weighed against the big 
 sins and found to have astonishing tonnage. 
 
 But he had come to feel that they were missing their 
 legitimate share of the spring, and, determined that he 
 would get her away from the office for a while at the end 
 of the week, he had given her more help, so that this night 
 they were so well ahead that there was nothing but ordi- 
 nary routine for the Saturday morning. Then, too, her 
 other anxiety, Bob, was now, in spite of one bad relapse, 
 safely on the road to recovery and would, in another 
 week's time, be well enough to go home for a final rest 
 before coming back to the drive of the last three weeks. 
 
 As he read over his leader Dane felt her insistent 
 scrutiny of him and swung round on his chair. After 
 looking at her he caught her hands. 
 
 " Look here, I can't be noble much longer, can you ? " 
 
 " No I can't," she chuckled delightedly. 
 
 He looked at his watch. " It's only ten. Come out on 
 the river for a while." 
 
 " Oh, glorious, I've been wanting that for days." 
 
 " You haven't wanted it any more than I have," he said 
 softly. 
 
 He took the copy into the composing-room, turned out 
 the lights, and hatless they stood in front of the outer 
 (door listening. Then seeing there was no one about she
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 191 
 
 locked up and they crossed the road to the river bank 
 where he now kept his launch when he was working in the 
 office. 
 
 It seemed strange to her that it was the first time she 
 had had a chance to get out on the river, with him. She 
 noticed by the light of the lantern he lit for the bow that 
 the interior of the boat was beautifully clean, and won- 
 dered if he took care of it himself. It was built like a 
 grayhound and had a forward cabin large enough for 
 two people to sleep in. There were cushions and an old 
 rug on the floor by the stern seat. She sat down there 
 with him and put an arm round his shoulder and sat still. 
 
 To her as to him a boat was some kind of sanctuary, a 
 retreat from the world and all its stupidities, frets and 
 fevers, and something about it calmed the excitement that 
 had begun to pound her as they came out of the office. 
 They sat silent while he drove very fast, looking keenly 
 ahead for stray logs or the ends of sunken snags, for the 
 spring rains were liable to bring down sinister things. 
 But it was a clear night and shadows were visible for 
 some distance in the middle of the stream. Presently he 
 steered to the further bank and went more slowly. They 
 made a little breeze which was pleasantly cool against 
 their cheeks. They passed solemn clumps of trees stand- 
 ing black against the stars. They passed valleys belted 
 with strands of cobwebby film. They passed lonely little 
 wharves, merely a few planks negligently attached to 
 wobbly piles, where hopeful settlers from remote gullies 
 came to bring wool and potatoes and grain, and to get in 
 return seeds and wire and kegs of nails. They passed the 
 sheds and camps of timbermen, and the mangrove-sheltered 
 mouths of creeks beckoning for exploration. 
 
 Dane told her tales of many of these things for he 
 knew and loved them all. He kept on till the lights about
 
 192 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 Te Koperu dimly lit the river's edge and then he turned 
 back and ran till he came to the tree hung arc by his 
 own house. There in the black still water against the 
 frowning range of bush he slowed down, and finally 
 stopped against the rocks at a place where a clump of 
 totara above hid the stars. 
 
 He drew up the rug and wrapped it about them and 
 then he drew Valerie into his arms. He felt her grow hot 
 and tense at once, but he had not set out with the in- 
 tention of making love to her. He was compounded of 
 strange vagaries and powerful moods, and few women had 
 ever been able to impose sentimentality upon him when he 
 did not want it. He liked to vision experience as pictures, 
 and he tried to make life follow the pictures he painted 
 with his imagination. He was not always able to do so, 
 he was fast coming to a stage with Valerie when he would 
 not be able to do so, but this night his mood was domi- 
 nant. He held her without attempting to kiss her. 
 
 Then he began to recite: 
 
 Here, in this little bay, 
 
 Full of tumultuous life and great repose, 
 
 Where, twice a day, 
 
 The purposeless, glad ocean comes and goes, 
 
 Under high cliffs, and far from the huge town, 
 
 I sit me down. 
 
 For want of me the world's course will not fail; 
 
 When all its work is done the lie shall rot; 
 
 The truth is great, and shall prevail, 
 
 When none cares whether it prevail or not. 
 
 All the fever died out of Valerie. SHe was afraid to 
 move lest she should break the spell those lines had put 
 upon her. She knew that in saying them he had told 
 her something significant about himself. And contrary to
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 193 
 
 her habit of mind with men her fierce individualism was 
 being insidiously undermined. She was following him. 
 
 His mood changing he sang the refrain of a popular 
 French song : 
 
 Je sais que vous etes jolie, 
 
 Que vos grands yeux pleins de douceur 
 
 Ont charme tout mon coeur, 
 
 Et que c'est pour la vie. 
 
 Je sais que c'est une folie, 
 
 Que loin de vous je devrais 
 
 M'en aller a jamais. 
 
 Je sais, je sais que vous etes jolie. 
 
 She loved the gay little air which she had never heard, 
 but because she had sadly neglected the French she had 
 learned from her governess she could not make out all the 
 sense of it. 
 
 " What's that about folly and running away? " she de- 
 manded, raising her face. 
 
 But he calmly put a hand over her mouth and pushed 
 her head down, and then to puzzle her sang the song 
 through, knowing that it would tease her. 
 
 When he had finished she tried to wriggle up. But his 
 arms tightened about her. 
 
 " Tell me what it said," she demanded again. 
 
 He leaned down and began to move his lips about in her 
 hair. 
 
 " I will not be suppressed," she said, trying to resist 
 him. 
 
 " All right, Miss Freedom," he said softly, suddenly re- 
 leasing his hold upon her, so that she slipped back and 
 hit her head against the handle of the rudder. 
 
 The solicitude Dane showed over that mishap was out 
 of all proportion to its size, but her appetite for solicitude
 
 194 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 was fast becoming abnormally increased, and she did not 
 find it over-much. She was only too content to be caught 
 up in his arms and kissed as he began to kiss her then. 
 He became dynamically and startlingly alive; his grip 
 about her seemed to burn into her flesh. He had changed 
 too quickly for her to respond at once and when her mood 
 rose to meet his he had begun to curb his own. He grew 
 still, and held her lightly. 
 
 She had a queer sensation that she was being disin- 
 tegrated by this potent personality who was mesmerizing 
 her into following his moods, that she was being used as an 
 instrument for the play of his mind and his emotion. And 
 the queerest thing about it was that she did not mind. 
 
 But the evening did not proceed as she had imagined 
 it might. He took out his pipe, and when he struck the 
 match to light it he looked at his watch. 
 
 " It's eleven, dear. I must get you home." 
 
 Valerie did not want to go home. She almost said so. 
 But she sat up, and a little chilled, more mentally than 
 physically, drew the rug over her knees while he started 
 the engine. When he had the Diana out in midstream he 
 put an arm about her and then appeared to forget her. 
 She wondered as they went on how many women had loved 
 him without understanding him in the least. She was be- 
 ginning to see that certainly no woman of the society type, 
 caught at first by his looks, could follow the meander- 
 ings of his moods, or be satisfied for long by the capricious- 
 ness of his attention. But she saw him impersonally as 
 well as personally. She was able, even while succumbing 
 to his looks and charm, to stand off from him and see him 
 for the baffling and appealing creature that he was. She 
 was able to see him against his heredity, against his back- 
 ground, his strengths set against his own weaknesses, his 
 accomplishments against his failures.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 195 
 
 It was not till they were by the borders of the town 
 that he asked some of those simple questions that change 
 lives. He was going slowly along the bank looking for a 
 good place to land her. 
 
 "What have you to do to-morrow afternoon, dear?" 
 
 " Nothing, unless something very unexpected turns up 
 in the morning." 
 
 " Good. Will you come out with me again? " 
 
 " Of course I will." 
 
 " And would you come to my house and play to me and 
 have dinner with me? " 
 
 " Oh, I'd love to." 
 
 II 
 
 The minute they set eyes on each other the next after- 
 noon they knew that each had prepared for a real party. 
 
 Valerie wore a charming dress that she had recently 
 had made and sent up to her from Auckland by a dress- 
 maker who knew her tastes. It was of a heavy blue silk 
 crepe, a shade between navy and indigo that deepened the 
 colour of her eyes, and it was fetchingly decorated with 
 small dull red buttons. It was of the simplest lines im- 
 aginable and under it her limbs moved freely. She wore 
 a little straw hat in the same tones of blue and red. It 
 was by no means a boating costume, but caught on the 
 dilemma of the river and dinner she had compromised as 
 best she could. 
 
 Dane gave her a long intent look as she stepped for- 
 ward to the bow of the Diana hidden in the rushes. 
 
 And she looked at him in much the same manner. He 
 was wearing white flannels with a navy double-breasted 
 coat and a yachting cap, and more glamorous than any 
 captain who ever before sailed a ship he held out his hand
 
 196 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 to her. Something had happened to them both since they 
 had parted soberly the night before. 
 
 " What a charming dress, dear. It just occurs to me 
 that I have never seen you out of office or riding clothes." 
 
 " I know," she said regretfully. " And you, how stun- 
 ning you look in those things." 
 
 They stood in the bow of the boat staring at each other. 
 There were questions and shy evasions in their eyes. Then 
 because this was no place for romance, with the public 
 road only a few chains away and riders likely to be 
 numerous on Saturday afternoon, he moved away and set- 
 tled a possum rug for her to sit upon at the stern. Then 
 with an oar he pushed the launch off and soon he was 
 making for the other side of the river to avoid boats that 
 might be coming down to Dargaville. 
 
 The world was flooded with soft sunshine, and every 
 rush and every mangrove bush and every tree along the 
 bank proclaimed the handiwork of spring. 
 
 After half an hour Dane turned in at the narrow mouth 
 of a deep creek and in a minute the river was out of sight 
 behind mangroves. They were soon in a gully with hills 
 shooting up on either side, a gully that was pure beauty 
 from the tree-ferns at the water's edge to the sun-tinted 
 bush on the skyline. He went more slowly as the stream 
 narrowed, dodging stumps and logs and roots until they 
 came round a bend into an oval pool into which the Diana 
 drifted and stopped. 
 
 Valerie drew herself up and looked into that mirror of 
 shaded jade. The sound of a waterfall near explained 
 why it was clear and jewelled with the greens of the hills. 
 She looked round her and caught her breath. Holding 
 the last of the afternoon sun that was finding its way down 
 here was a clump of rimu, and she knew why Dane had 
 brought her.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 197 
 
 The rimu is the most fragile tree on earth. Some poet 
 among the gods more delicate and mystical than the spirits 
 about him drank a nectar prepared to stimulate imagi- 
 nation and dreamed this tree. It was to be a thing of 
 misty shape, as intangible as gossamer, as variable as a 
 cloud. The gods worked with his idea a long time, and 
 at last they fashioned a magic thing of tasselled fringes, 
 its rich green dusted to luminousness by a silver bloom, a 
 vague shape to sway with every breath of wind, to change 
 with every movement of a bird's wing, so restless and 
 mobile a tree that it would drive an artist to despair to 
 try to catch its form. Nothing but the music of Debussy 
 quivering upon violin strings could adequately suggest its 
 beauty. And the gods had placed it in the fairest setting 
 they could find, in valleys of tropical prodigality among 
 the nikau and the tree-ferns, where its cobwebby loveli- 
 ness softened the stiff splendours of the puriri and its 
 lacy perfection humbled the arrogance of the kauri, the 
 king of the bush. 
 
 This was what Dane liked to think as he looked upon 
 a rimu tree, and he had brought Valerie there because he 
 knew of no fairer gift to give her that day. 
 
 After some minutes they turned to look at each other. 
 Tragedy would have come into their lives there and then 
 if either had spoken a word. He saw a quiver on her lips. 
 He drew her down with him on to the rug, and leaning 
 against the seat held her close to him. And so they stayed 
 making no sound to offend the sensitive deities of that 
 enchanted spot. Presently he began to think of her and 
 of the beauty of her hair, for she had taken off her hat, 
 and the sun's rays lit up her head lying in the hollow 
 of his arm. And he looked into her clear eyes so gener- 
 ously set in her flushed face, and he was glad without any 
 thought of past or future, for that hour alone.
 
 198 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 He said to himself, like the incurable child that he 
 that when the sun left her hair he would turn home. 
 
 Ill 
 
 " I seem to have known you so long that I cannot real- 
 ize that you have not been here before." 
 
 They had paused at the end of the path leading from 
 his steps into the garden. Valerie had clutched at his arm 
 with the queer choking feeling that the day was too much 
 for her. She saw the gray house, low and rambling, 
 against its background of garden and forest wall. She 
 saw honeysuckle and ivy softening its corners and crawling 
 over its red roof. She saw an enormous magnolia tree 
 filling the air with its exotic scent, bushes of graceful 
 fuchsias, of old-fashioned roses, of oleander and camellias. 
 She saw tumbledown seats that Dane never sat upon, and 
 a stone bowl on a pedestal overrun with a rich, red ivy 
 geranium. And everywhere as a carpet were violets and 
 narcissi and periwinkle and primroses. It was a glori- 
 ously untidy garden. Grass grew upon the paths. Weeds 
 flourished in many spots. There was freedom for all 
 things there. 
 
 " I found in dreams a place of wind and flowers 
 Full of sweet trees and colour of glad grass." 
 
 Then he paused wondering if she knew the quotation. 
 She shot, for the first time that day, a provocative look 
 at him. 
 
 "And the lady?" 
 
 " And now, I hope, the lady, * clothed like summer witK 
 sweet hours,' " he said, very softly. 
 
 She closed her eyes as she felt his arms sweeping about 
 Her. And it did not seem in the least absurd that they
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 199 
 
 should stand there in the full sunlight kissing each other 
 again. Nor did it seem absurd that as they went on 
 they should stop every now and then, forget the thing they 
 had been talking about, or put down the thing they had 
 taken up, and find their lips pressed hard against each 
 other. They made indeed so lingering a pilgrimage about 
 the garden that the dusk came down upon them while 
 they were yet exploring it. 
 
 Then he led her round to the verandah. Valerie knew 
 that invisible things were closing in upon her as she sat 
 down. Life, outwardly so undisturbed in that beautiful 
 old garden, was yet beating fiercely in the recesses of her 
 own heart. But she was helpless to move, either to re- 
 strain or to hurry up life, helpless against the mood of 
 the man who gaily set her just where he wanted her to be 
 in a low chair, and then went inside to get the right kind 
 of cushion to put at the back of her head. 
 
 Then when he had arranged her to his satisfaction he 
 got into his hammock and looked at her. 
 
 With a strange sense of unreality Valerie felt someone 
 come up behind her. She found a tea-table placed in front 
 of her, and she forced herself to smile up at Lee, remem- 
 bering their former meeting. But the Chinese boy, living 
 his life in the present moment, without reference to past 
 incident or future possibility, gave her but the gravest 
 How, arranged everything in the most convenient spot and 
 was gone. 
 
 Faced with the implements of a feminine craft Valerie 
 pulled herself together. 
 
 -** I wish you could know how wonderful it is to me to 
 Have you here pouring out the tea," said Dane. 
 
 She looked at him helplessly. " Do you take sugar and 
 icream?" 
 
 "Yes, a little of both."
 
 200 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 She leaned forward holding out his cup which he was 
 just able to reach. As they drank, the rooms beside them 
 were lit up, the curtains parted, and bands of light 
 streamed over the verandah. 
 
 Valerie tried to forget the man who lay in the ham- 
 mock looking at her. She forced herself to ask questions 
 about the things she had heard he had willed to the Sydney 
 Museum, tried to still the rather sickening pounding of 
 her heart. When they had finished he got out of the ham- 
 mock and led her into the study where the fire had just 
 been lit. She looked round the room knowing it was just 
 as beautiful as she had expected it to be. It did some- 
 thing to her, exactly what she could not have told. Every- 
 thing in it began to run together. 
 
 " Will you play to me now, dear? " he asked. 
 
 " Oh, I I couldn't play just now." 
 
 She felt his eyes burning upon her face. She looked up 
 as he caught her against him. 
 
 " Then will you play to me to-morrow ? " 
 
 Her answer was given to his lips. 
 
 And then the world faded away from Valerie, and a 
 man's imperious face and possessive arms were all there 
 was of substantial stuff left in a great space. And her 
 resolutions and ambitions deserted her as if they had 
 never been, and she stood in her imaginative house of many 
 mansions with but one certainty, that love was all and the 
 world well lost for it, and she consigned all other con- 
 siderations to the attic to keep company with the spiders 
 and the dust.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 "^\ "IT TELL, Miss Freedom, where are you now? " 
 
 VA/ " I don't know." 
 
 The question had been asked with a quiz- 
 zical raising of the black eyebrows and had been answered 
 with a comically pathetic frowning of the amber ones. 
 
 It was the following afternoon, and they lounged to- 
 gether on a rug that Dane had spread on a flat rock above 
 the river at one end of the garden. They had been dozing 
 with their arms about each other. She had waked up 
 finally at the pressure of kisses on her mouth and the 
 question. She had drawn herself up resting her chin on 
 her knees, and was looking down on the river. 
 
 " No thoughts at all on freedom ? " teased Dane. 
 
 " No thoughts about anything," she answered, gazing 
 into space across the river. 
 
 He lit his pipe and puffed contentedly, turning often to 
 look at her, vividly conscious now of her every movement. 
 Fantails flew inquisitively about them, and a pair of wood 
 pigeons courted each other with a shameless lack of vocal 
 reticence upon the branches of a totara tree. The hum 
 of bees in the garden behind them was a drowsy and in- 
 sistent monotone. He felt wonderfully relaxed and happy. 
 
 Valerie was full of the glory of this lifting of herself off 
 the earth. She had never supposed that the man existed 
 who could bring love to her clothed with the beauty and 
 delicacy of some romantic dream. But wonder of won- 
 ders this man beside her had brought it to her that way. 
 
 Dane envied her her complete submersion. He was hap- 
 
 201
 
 202 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 pier than he had expected to be again, and was not dis- 
 posed to question his happiness, but he was less over- 
 whelmed by it, much more conscious of the world about 
 him, and when the tea-gong sounded he was glad to hear 
 it, whereas Valerie had forgotten there was a world in 
 which tea was served. 
 
 He got to his feet and pulled her up to him. 
 
 "What is it?" she asked. 
 
 " Tea, dear." 
 
 " Oh! Are we really on the earth? I must wake up." 
 
 " Don't. You are very charming asleep. You remem- 
 ber I fell from grace the very first time I saw you so." 
 
 She flashed a brilliant smile at him. " So you did. It 
 was mean to steal a march on me like that." 
 
 They came out upon the path and hand in hand went 
 up the verandah steps. 
 
 It did not surprise Lee in the least to find them both 
 in the hammock. Valerie could not see that any signal 
 passed between him and Dane. But the boy stayed to 
 pour for them. With perceptions of his own he had put 
 on the tray valuable little vermilion cups that Dane never 
 used for himself. That was the only sign he gave that he 
 understood this was an occasion. He enquired solemnly 
 of Valerie as to her taste in sugar and cream. He handed 
 them their cups and the biscuit jar. He put the table 
 beside the hammock and transferred smoking apparatus 
 to it. Then he moved off like a leaf going by on the 
 wind. 
 
 Dane looked after him with huge appreciation. " Per- 
 fect, isn't he ? " he said. 
 
 " I think they're both wonderful. But then everything 
 about you is. Where did you get them ? " 
 
 " I found them in China and arranged to have them 
 gome out to me. I couldn't live without them now."
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 203 
 
 " How long have you had them? " 
 
 " Oh, years, I forget exactly. I sent them back once 
 Jor a while to see their people when I came over here with 
 my wife. She wanted to live in hotels, and they were not 
 happy." 
 
 " They seem to be such an astonishing combination." 
 
 " Yes, aren't they ? They beat us Anglo-Saxons hollow 
 "at that. You see hew they run the house. They do 
 menial labour as if it were a sacrament. They spiritualize 
 it. It never spoils their manners and habits. There is 
 not a trace of vulgarity about them. I never think of 
 them as servants. They are presences to me, and when I 
 want them to be company they are. They never make a 
 noise. I rarely go into the kitchen, but when I do it is 
 never in a mess. They never get irritated. They never 
 seem to be tired. They understand me in some extraordi- 
 nary way. They know how to take care of me when I 
 am ill. They pay no attention to my irritation, my rest- 
 lessness, my nerves. They are adaptable. I think they 
 are happy here. I've tutored them in English and in 
 French and in our money system. I've taught them to 
 play chess, and most of the time they can beat me at it. 
 How they find time to have the vegetable garden they do 
 I don't know, but a Chink of any kind can make things 
 grow by looking at them, I think. But the thing that in- 
 terests me most is their ungetatableness, if I may make 
 so clumsy a word, their subtlety. I never know what these 
 boys are thinking about, and sometimes I would give my 
 soul to know." 
 
 "Well, that's the Eastern problem, isn't it? " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " That you can't trust them? " 
 
 " My dear, you can trust a cultured Chinaman as yoii 
 can an Englishman."
 
 204 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 " But I mean in a crisis, with women, or in a panic." 
 
 " Of course you can. You've got in mind the ignorant 
 and superstitious coolie, but what about the ignorant and 
 superstitious cockney or any other corresponding class? 
 Both have to be kept decent as a last resort at the nose 
 of a pistol. There's no difference there." 
 
 " And you think there's no difference between us and 
 them?" 
 
 " Oh, I wouldn't say that. The Chinese are superior to 
 us in subtlety, endurance and some mental capacities. 
 And they never needed to have lawyers till we obtruded 
 our pleasant casualness about debts upon them." 
 
 She laughed. " You may be right, dear. But I should 
 be surer of the Anglo-Saxon mind for all that." 
 
 " H'm! How much do you think you know about mind? 
 What does one ever know about anybody's mind? Some 
 of us fuss because we don't know what is going on on the 
 other side of the world. Why, the fact is we don't know 
 what is going on in the same room with us. Sit down at 
 Mac's to dinner with twenty men, your Anglo-Saxon mind. 
 You don't know how many of them are heading for black 
 despair, or why, or how many of them kave the least idea 
 of what they're after in the world, or what things really 
 matter to any of them, and if you knew them for ten years 
 you might not find out. You don't know what goes on 
 inside any person." 
 
 Valerie wriggled to a sitting position in the hammock. 
 
 " I've often thought that about you. All kinds of 
 things go on inside you at the back of those eyes of yours, 
 things I shall never know." 
 
 " Nothing that need ever frighten you, dear, really." 
 He put a hand on one of hers. 
 
 " I don't know. The despairs that people face are often 
 more fearful to others than to themselves."
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 205 
 
 He gave her a quick penetrating look, and then a whim- 
 sical smile crossed his face. 
 
 " Valerie Carr, this is a spring day. And I'd like an- 
 other cup of tea." But he thought of her remark many 
 times in the next week or two. 
 
 Valerie carefully manoeuvred herself out of the ham- 
 mock and sat down at the tea-table. 
 
 Dane watched her, amused that it should delight him 
 so much to have her raise the cream jug over his cup and 
 watch him till he nodded " enough," amused that he should 
 find it so important to balance the hammock carefully 
 while she got back beside him, and then so entertaining 
 that they should drink sip by sip to each other, their 
 eyes shining across the rims of those elegant red cups. 
 
 When Lee had taken the things away Dane insisted on 
 music. For nearly two hours he lay listening to her, 
 thinking it a wonderful thing that life could still make 
 dreams come true, and anticipating the time when she 
 would be there with him to play to him when he wanted 
 her to. 
 
 Thinking of it he could even be philosophical about the 
 fact that he had promised to have an early dinner and to 
 run her afterwards in his launch to the Aratapu hospital 
 to see Bob. He knew she would have preferred to stay 
 with him, but he admired her all the more because she had 
 not wavered for an instant about going. 
 
 II 
 
 It was the next Wednesday night before Valerie could 
 take an hour to go out on the river with him again. She 
 had had moments of regretting that they had not waited 
 till the election was over. And then she told herself that
 
 206 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 the strain of waiting would have been worse than the re- 
 action from letting go. 
 
 Dane had run the launch into a lagoon at one end of 
 the big swamp opposite Dargaville and they sat on the 
 floor at the stern with their arms about each other. They 
 had been working together all day sternly repressing all 
 signs of their feeling for each other. And after three long 
 days she was very tired. He was determined to relax and 
 rest her, but his first words after they settled had results 
 strangely remote from his intention. 
 
 " I wish the darned thing were over," he grumbled. 
 " How soon afterwards can you get away and marry 
 me?" 
 
 He felt her stiffen against him. She withdrew her arm, 
 turned a little and stared at him. 
 
 " Why, Dane you don't have to ask me to do 
 that!" 
 
 There was enough of a young moon for them to see the 
 startled questioning on each other's faces. 
 
 " Have to ! " he repeated. " My dear girl, what do you 
 mean by that remark? " 
 
 " Do you mean that you have meant marriage all 
 along? " She did not know why his look made her flush 
 to the roots of her hair, but it did. 
 
 " I say, my child," he said very quietly, " I want to 
 know why you have assumed I meant anything else." 
 
 " I I don't know," she said helplessly. 
 
 " Oh, I know. You did take some notice of gossip 
 after all, didn't you?" 
 
 She drew a deep breath. She was speechless. 
 
 " You haven't thought of marrying me? " he went on, in 
 the same quiet way. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " I'm very sorry." Something about the crushed way
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 207 
 
 he said it, and the way he moved just a little from her, 
 snapped her control. 
 
 " Oh, now you don't understand," she gasped, and she 
 dropped her head into her hands, and began to sob. 
 
 Dane pulled himself together and put an arm about her 
 shoulders. " I'm going to understand before I'm a day 
 older. Stop crying, Valerie, dear. I can't stand it." 
 
 It was the irritation in his tone that helped her to con- 
 trol. He particularly loathed seeing a woman cry. And 
 then he was annoyed with himself that after all his ex- 
 perience he should be as much at sea with a woman as he 
 now felt he was with her. 
 
 "Dane, will you be frank with me? Because it's all 
 going to be spoiled awful if you're not." 
 
 " As far as I know how to be, my dear, yes." 
 
 " Why do you wish to marry me ? " 
 
 " Why why because I care for you in the way I do, 
 Hecause I want you to come and live with me." 
 
 " You're not thinking of my father, my family " 
 
 " What the hell do you mean, Valerie? " he said with a 
 burst of anger that startled himself and her. "Good 
 God! I thought you cared for me. What is the matter 
 with me that I never can understand your sex? And hon- 
 estly I did think you were above insult." 
 
 He sprang to his feet and stumbled along to the bow 
 and stood there looking away from her. He was so hurt 
 that he was blind. 
 
 And Valerie saw how badly she had blundered. " Dane, 
 will you please come back to me?" she called, struggling 
 for control. 
 
 Because he was above foolish temper he turned almost 
 at once and went slowly back and sat on the seat above 
 her. She got up, and sitting very tensely with her hands 
 gripped about her knees, she looked at him.
 
 208 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 " Please, Dane, I put that very badly. I thought that 
 after the way I've talked about marriage you knew I 
 didn't want to marry anybody, but that you were afraid 
 of the trouble dad and the family might make for me if 
 you did not. What I thought was that you were not 
 considering your own real wishes at all, that you were 
 just being well, conventionally decent about it. But I 
 see that you never took the things I've said about mar- 
 riage, or a career, or living my own life any more seriously 
 than anybody else has ever done. And the trouble is, that 
 however mad I seem to you and everybody else, I am seri- 
 ous about it." 
 
 " You can be as serious as you like about it," he said. 
 " I know well enough you're serious about it. But marry- 
 ing me will neither kill your career nor stop } r ou living 
 your own life." 
 
 She turned her troubled eyes full upon him. 
 
 " You don't believe me," he said harshly. 
 
 " Please, Dane, oh please," her voice trembled. But as 
 he sat aloof and made no move to soothe her she con- 
 trolled herself. 
 
 " Will you listen to me if I talk? " 
 
 " Yes, of course." 
 
 It was a cold tone, hard to talk against. What she had 
 said to hurt him like that she did not know. But she 
 forced herself to go on. 
 
 " I suppose I'm morbid about freedom. I had to fight 
 so for every bit of mine that I've swung to the other direc- 
 tion. And you see I heard such rubbish talked about 
 ceremonies, all kinds of ceremonies, christenings, confirma- 
 tions, weddings, everybody confusing the form with the 
 feeling, or rather taking no account of the feeling at all 
 and you see the feeling was everything to me, and I came 
 to throw all the forms overboard, all of them, I despise
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 209 
 
 them. And I have made my own ceremonies I say things 
 to mjself, and I try to live by them. On Sunday night, 
 before I went to sleep, I had my ceremony for you " 
 
 She found herself being swung over into his arms, and 
 her lips stilled by his. 
 
 " I'm sorry I was angry, Valerie dear." 
 
 " You weren't angry. You were hurt, and I didn't mean 
 to hurt you." 
 
 " I'm sure you didn't." 
 
 He sat still for some time, his hold of her tense, but he 
 kept his face away from her, raised as if he were keeping a 
 fixed gaze upon a star that twinkled feebly above the 
 valley horizon. Presently he looked down at her. 
 
 " What do you intend to do with me, Valerie? " 
 
 " Do with you? " 
 
 " That is what I asked." 
 
 She raised herself and he released her without pressure. 
 
 " Why, Dane, can't we go on loving one another ? " 
 
 " I hope so. I don't know." 
 
 " You don't know? Then, Dane, you are thinking of 
 something of something besides just us." 
 
 " We are not on a desert island, child." 
 
 She became belligerent at once. " Dane, I will not have 
 my father or my family or anybody dictate to me what I 
 shall do or how I shall live. I will not have you think of 
 them. And besides, do they have to know? Aren't we 
 equal to keeping this to ourselves? I shall not tell a soul, 
 not a single one. I'm fond of several women, but I would 
 not trust one of them to keep a love secret. We can man- 
 age here perfectly well. Nobody at Mac's knows what I 
 do or where I go. I never began by telling them. No- 
 body there will ever spy on me." 
 
 " How long had you thought of staying in Dargaville? " 
 
 " Why I when I came I thought of two years."
 
 210 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 " What do you propose to do with me at the end of that 
 time?" 
 
 She looked away from him and did not answer. 
 
 " Did you put anything about time into your ceremony 
 the other night? " 
 
 She did not answer. 
 
 " What did you put into that ceremony, Valerie? " 
 
 " I shan't teU you." 
 
 A smile spread over his face and lit it up as a field of 
 golden grain lights up a brown hillside. She was so glad 
 to see it that she flung her arms round him. But he re- 
 sponded only soberly, and with a very chaste kiss, and she 
 sat up again. 
 
 With a comical resigned air he took out his pipe and 
 began to smoke. She knew perfectly well that the ques- 
 tion was not settled between them, but she did not know 
 what was in his mind. She began to smoke too, and they 
 were quiet for a while. 
 
 " Valerie, I want you to think about marrying me," he 
 said very softly, at length. 
 
 " I can't avoid thinking about it now," she answered, 
 Hut her tone was not as compliant as it might have been. 
 
 " I want to know just one thing more to-night. Is it 
 anything about me that you're afraid of?" He looked 
 into her face as he said it. 
 
 " Why, I love you, Dane. I couldn't possibly love you 
 if I were afraid of you." 
 
 " You're quite sure ? It's not personal at all ? " 
 
 " No, it is not ! Good heavens ! What is the matter 
 with this world that nobody ever can believe that I have a 
 principle, an idea I want to live by! I'm not the first 
 woman in the world who didn't want to marry, and yet 
 everybody treats me as if I were. I'm not the first woman 
 to say I want a career and a lover instead of husband and
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 211 
 
 children. Women have been 'acting that all down the ages, 
 and yet I have to scream and yell and fight to make any- 
 one take any notice of me. And you who have been all 
 round the world, I have to shout it at you. Will you un- 
 derstand me? I'm not domestic. I do not want to darn 
 your socks. I do not want to put your slippers by the 
 fire. I do not want to put buttons on your shirts. I do 
 not want children. I'm probably a horrid unnatural 
 brute, but I did not make myself, and I can't make myself 
 like the women who want to do these things. I do want to 
 love you. I do want to play the piano to you. I do want 
 to talk to you. I do want to rest you. I do want to help 
 you to forget the things in life you don't like. And I do 
 want I do want to take some of the pain out. of your 
 
 eyes " Her voice broke, and she dropped her head 
 
 in her hands. 
 
 For some seconds the only sound in the night was that 
 of little fishes sporting around them in the shallow water. 
 
 Then Dane leaned towards her and kissed her neck and 
 the back of her bowed head. 
 
 " Valerie, it's just because you are what you are that I 
 love you. And we won't talk any more to-night." 
 
 Ill 
 
 He was sorry to see when he walked into the office on 
 Friday morning that she looked as if she had lain awake 
 a good deal. He had himself in the meanwhile made up 
 his mind that all his powers of persuasion should be used 
 to get her to marry him. Though he despised the mar- 
 riage ceremony as much as she did for the things it was 
 used to cover he had a wholesome respect for it as a con- 
 venience in a crazy world. And he had never had any idea
 
 212 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 of carrying on a clandestine love affair with her with the 
 danger he knew there was of being found out in a small 
 place. And then he wanted her in peace, he wanted her 
 with him. He wanted so much more than sex from her. 
 
 They greeted each other as they always did with imper- 
 sonal warmth and were immediately plunged into the rush 
 of the day. It was not till six o'clock, after the staff had 
 all left that they were alone. 
 
 " Have you to work to-night? " he asked. 
 
 " Yes, but only for an hour and a half. What about 
 you? " 
 
 " Oh, I've finished up with Johnson. So I'm going 
 home. Shall you be able to come out on the river to-mor- 
 row afternoon? " 
 
 " Yes," but she was disappointed that he said nothing 
 of that evening. 
 
 " Good. I'd like to take you down towards Aoroa. 
 Meet me by that bit of bush half a mile below Mac's. 
 You know it?" 
 
 " Yes, I know it." 
 
 " All right. Be there by three." 
 
 " Are you going now? " 
 
 " Yes, I'm going home. Good-night." He kissed her 
 lightly, smiled airily at her, and saluted her as he went 
 past the counter. She stood up to watch him cross the 
 street and get into the Diana and go off upstream. 
 
 As she ate her dinner and as she worked afterwards in 
 the office she kept thinking he would come back. But he 
 (did not come back. 
 
 They met each other, however, gaily enough the next 
 day, and she was delighted to find he showed no inclination 
 to talk seriously. As the day was cool and showery she 
 wore a tweed suit and carried a cloak as well, and he had 
 on a light oilskin. The wind was strong at times and as
 
 .THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 213 
 
 they ran into the broader stretches the spray flecked their 
 faces. 
 
 Valerie drew the fresh air into her lungs and felt re- 
 laxed. She was interested in seeing a part of the river 
 she had not yet observed. With delight she watched Dane 
 who always took a keen pleasure in getting what he could 
 out of his engine, and who loved this inanimate thing of 
 his that had brought him so much enjoyment. At inter- 
 vals he turned and smiled at her, and she began to antici- 
 pate the evening and the charm of his old house. She was 
 a little surprised to find he was going a good way down 
 the river, and then that later on he headed the launch into 
 a small sheltered bay with scattered bush about it. 
 
 " I thought it would be nice if we had a fire and a picnic 
 here," he said. " I brought food. We may have another 
 shower, but a little damp won't hurt you, will it? " 
 
 " Oh dear, no," and she entered into the spirit of it 
 willingly enough, though she had a vague feeling that she 
 was being managed to some end. 
 
 The night came upon them before they had finished their 
 meal. Dane piled driftwood upon the fire. They sat 
 side by side to smoke with their arms about each other. 
 They both knew they were shelving the subject they most 
 wanted to talk about. And they were both irritated to 
 think they would not have real peace again with each 
 other till they had talked it out. A shower drove them to 
 cover. But he did not suggest the cabin of the Diana, the 
 one place where they would have kept dry. He drew her 
 under a puriri tree, and they stood close together trying 
 to avoid the drops. She began to see that he had no in- 
 tention of taking her home with him that night. 
 
 " Well," he began abruptly as they stood lit up occa- 
 sionally by the sputtering flames of the fire, " have you 
 thought about marrying me? "
 
 214 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 " Of course I've thought about it." 
 
 " It's stopped raining." He led the way back to tHe 
 fire and respread a dry rug on the ground near. 
 
 "What's the trouble, Valerie? We have to understand 
 each other before we go any further, and I cannot see at 
 all why you cannot go through the marriage ceremony 
 with me. I know as well as you do that it is properly 
 only a matter for statisticians. But you and I are too 
 conspicuous to carry on any love affair without being 
 found out." 
 
 " Well, what on earth can they do to us if we are found 
 out ? I would have to leave the News, of course. But you 
 said, didn't you, that you wanted me to live with you? " 
 
 " As my wife, yes indeed." 
 
 " You mean " 
 
 " I mean, my dear, that I'm not going to be happy 
 about having you come there often in any other way. I 
 don't wish to be selfish in this business, but have you 
 thought of me at all? Have you thought what it would 
 look like if with my reputation I allowed you to come and 
 live with me, or allowed you to become openly compro- 
 mised with me? Of course I forgot it all myself last Sat- 
 urday. I shall forget it again if you make me. But I do 
 remember, however mad it may make you to hear it, that 
 your father was the first man to call on me and to ask me 
 to dine with him when I came up disgraced from Christ- 
 church, and he is my lawyer. He might prefer a love 
 affair to marriage if we could keep it quiet. But we 
 couldn't keep it quiet. I know the conventions of the 
 world, my dear. It's being found out that matters. But 
 why are you so serious about the blooming ceremony? 
 You are being conventional about it, not I. Why can't 
 we go through it and then ignore it and live by our own 
 ceremony. That is the intelligent way to take it, child."
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 215 
 
 She stared into the fire saying nothing. 
 
 " Valerie, I have to know what is in your mind about 
 this. What are you afraid of? " 
 
 " Dane, I lived with somebody else once." 
 
 " I have wondered if you had." 
 
 " You have ! " 
 
 " Yes. Why, you haven't been afraid to tell me that, 
 have you? " 
 
 " No, not exactly afraid. But will that do you still 
 wish to marry me? " 
 
 "Are you trying to be funny, or what? " 
 
 She turned from the fire to look steadily into his 
 face. 
 
 : " It would be all right to put that question to a boy of 
 twenty-one, if you had been rotten enough to let a boy of 
 twenty-one fall in love with you without being told it, but 
 to put it to me is ridiculous. You know, I'm beginning to 
 see that you are not as unconventional as you think you 
 are; that was an absurdly conventional question, and it 
 had behind it assumptions that I am an intolerant and 
 hypocritical blockhead." 
 
 Her face broke into a smile. 
 
 " Yes, for God's sake let's laugh at ourselves. This 
 seriousness is awful." 
 
 " How old are you ? " she asked abruptly. 
 
 " Thirty-seven, and old and full of days at that." 
 
 " I'm twenty-six." 
 
 " And absurdly young for that." 
 
 " I am not." 
 
 " Well, you seem so to me, but I like you that way." 
 
 He lit a cigarette for her and drew the rug about her. 
 The wind had gone down, and the night was fresh but not 
 cold. The growing crescent moon peered down at them 
 through a space between two trees.
 
 216 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 " Haven't you a good deal more to say? " he asked 
 presently, with a teasing smile. 
 
 " Look here, you're not going to laugh me into marry- 
 ing you, you know," she said fiercely. 
 
 " I know no better way." 
 
 She caught his nearest hand and kissed it, and continued 
 to hold it between her own. 
 
 " I suppose I am being too serious," she said thought- 
 fully. " But that other affair taught me a lot. It all 
 went wrong, you see. I don't know now how I ever came 
 to begin. It only lasted three months, and it is all over 
 and done with." 
 
 " Is it really? I didn't know that anything was ever 
 over and done with." 
 
 " Oh, now, you know what I mean." 
 
 " Yes, I won't interrupt. Go on." 
 
 " Well, then, because we hadn't married, we got out of 
 it without any trouble." 
 
 Dane took his pipe out of his mouth and waited a mo- 
 ment before he spoke. 
 
 " Really? You got out of it without any trouble? 
 Then it must have been a highly immoral relation, without 
 a scrap of feeling on either side." 
 
 " I see. Of course I don't mean it that way." 
 
 " No, you meant that you didn't have to go through 
 the business of getting a divorce." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And you don't want to marry me because you're sure 
 it won't last long and that you will wish to leave me or I 
 you." 
 
 " Oh, I'm not sure of anything. Oh dear, why do we 
 have to talk about it? " She dropped her head in her 
 hands again. 
 
 " Yes, I think it's a beastly bore myself. It would be
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 217 
 
 so much pleasanter to drift on with our thumbs to our 
 noses, and much more exciting, and incidentally that 
 end you are anticipating so seriously would be much 
 nearer." 
 
 He relit his pipe and went on smoking. Then he got 
 up and put more wood on the fire, and after raking in the 
 straggled pieces, he stood looking down at her. The fitful 
 light showed him that her face was absurdly troubled and 
 serious. He dropped down beside her and laid his pipe 
 ion the ground. 
 
 " Valerie, I ask you to go through the marriage cere- 
 mony with me because it will save us a lot of trouble. I 
 Idon't attach any more meaning to the damned thing than 
 you do. Everybody jeers at it to-day; I mean everybody 
 yfiih any knowledge of human beings, and uses it merely 
 as a passport, and it happens to be a perfectly good pass- 
 port. I'm one with you in making our own ceremony, the 
 thing we shall live by, or try to live by, the thing that shall 
 be at least a living force to us. Now take your own ob- 
 jections to marriage. You don't have to be domestic for 
 me. The boys run my house much better than you could. 
 You don't have to look after me when I am nervous or 
 seedy. I much prefer that you should not. I don't ask 
 you to change your ways and I don't propose to change 
 mine for you. And then I'm not asking you to have 
 children. I have always wanted kids, but somehow I have 
 always cared for women who did not. I have to accept 
 that- 
 
 " Oh, Dane, I cannot help it," she broke in angrily. 
 " Don't you suppose that if I could be different I would? 
 Do you think I've had an easy life trying to be myself? 
 If I'm not to be myself what the devil am I to be? A 
 shadow of my mother, my father, my sisters, my aunts? 
 What? If I could be a nice plump purring bovine senti-
 
 218 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 mental ass, slobbered over by men and called * that sweet 
 thing,' everybody would let me alone. But I can't be that 
 thing. I look at women like that and they make me sick. 
 I'm sorry I don't want children, but I don't want them. 
 I'm afraid of them. Children do awful things to you. 
 There are two things in this world that kill courage in 
 people, children and possessions. And I won't have either 
 of them. The terrible thing about possessions is that once 
 you acquire them you will sell your soul to keep them, and 
 the terrible thing about children is that you want posses- 
 sions for them you never had for yourself, and so you get 
 fears for them you never had for yourself." 
 
 " Yes, a number of the old religious orders had that 
 idea." 
 
 " I don't care who had it. I've learned it from watch- 
 ing the people about me. All the fight goes out of people 
 when they get a house and furniture and a child or two. 
 I mean the fight about ideas. Of course they fight more 
 than ever for a bigger house and more furniture." 
 
 "All right, dear. What has all that got to 3o with 
 marrying me? We've settled the children, and my posses- 
 sions are willed to the Sydney Museum. Under no cir- 
 cumstances can you have them. I've only just enough 
 income to feed you. I shall have to work overtime to buy 
 you jewellery " 
 
 yalerie laughed helplessly. 
 
 "Oh, Dane, what am I to do with you? You 'don't 
 see it at all. I want to go on with my work. I want to 
 stay on the paper." 
 
 " Well, stay on it, if you want to, as long as you want 
 to. And, my dear child, I'm not supposing we are any 
 different from lots of other people. Love will change with 
 us, and if it becomes something you want no longer, well, 
 I want you to understand that you will be free to go. I
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 219 
 
 couldn't bear to have anything near me that did not wish' 
 to stay. And when you wish it you will find nothing easier 
 than getting a divorce from me." 
 
 " Oh, please, please " 
 
 " Why am I not to mention the thing that is looming 
 largest in your mind? I wish to impress on you that the 
 things you are afraid of are the least of this business be- 
 tween you and me. The marriage ceremony, the divorce, 
 mere forms easily managed for people like us. But you 
 seem to be overlooking the real thing. I'm not asking you 
 to do any more than you are now committed to doing. 
 You want to live with me for a time. You don't know 
 how long, and I'm sure I don't. You've fallen in love with 
 me, and you have told yourself that if love came to you 
 as you wanted it you would have it. I think you're quite 
 right, and I hope I'm going to be happy because it hap- 
 pened to be me. And I know that because you are what 
 you are, you are going to be chained far more by your own 
 compulsions than you are by any formal ceremon}'. Now, 
 since you have let yourself in for the big thing, why on 
 earth be so serious about the little one? " 
 
 He put an arm about her shoulder and stared up at the 
 moon. 
 
 " Please don't think I don't respect your stand," he 
 went on. " It's a far bigger thing to have your own un- 
 written laws and to live by them than it is to be swayed 
 by mere convention. You could stand in the middle of the 
 ruin of convention and keep your ideals. You would not 
 succumb as so many so-called virtuous women succumb on 
 board ship, or in the islands, or in places where conven- 
 tions have lapsed, simply because everybody was running 
 amuck around you. All I'm asking of you is that we do 
 the thing that will help us to keep this relation fine as long 
 as possible here. And there can be only one reason now
 
 220 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 why you won't do it, and that, because you don't trust 
 ine." 
 
 He took her face in his hands and held it and looked 
 into it. 
 
 She was not sure whether she did or not, but she could 
 never have looked into his eyes and said she did not. She 
 knew well enough that he had every intention then of being 
 decent if their relation broke up, but love was such a queer 
 thing, it could fight so desperately and to the last ditch to 
 preserve itself, as she had learned. However, it was to 
 his intention that she answered. 
 
 " I do trust you. It isn't that." 
 
 He dropped her face and with a quick movement got to 
 his feet, filled now with resentment at the stubborn fighter 
 in her. He looked up at the west where clouds were 
 mounting to the zenith. 
 
 " It's going to rain again. I'd better take you back." 
 
 Hurt by a sense of misunderstanding they both got 
 silently into the launch. He carefully arranged every pro- 
 tection against the coming shower, insisting that she take 
 the whole of the rug. He lit the lantern at the bow and 
 headed out into the river. 
 
 The trouble was that Valerie could not let go all at 
 once the things she had been telling herself for years. It 
 seemed to her it would be a weak thing to succumb to the 
 first attack. And it must be confessed that she would 
 have loved to put up a fight and stand with Dane against 
 the world. She was young enough and reckless enough to 
 love the idea of it. She did not see then that the funda- 
 mental difference between them was that she was a fighter 
 and thought a great deal worth fighting for, whereas he 
 was not a fighter and thought little worth a row. 
 
 And then she was much too sure of herself. She was 
 inclined to overrate her accomplishment in this matter of
 
 221 
 
 Herself versus the world, to discount the support she had 
 received from certain factors in her life. She had had, 
 and always would have in her own country, the loyalty of 
 her class whether she wanted it or not, and the power of 
 money to shut mouths. She had never had the poverty 
 that forces one to hunt for bread against prejudice. She 
 had had added to the force of her own personality the 
 glamour of her set, despise it as she might. 
 
 And Dane saw this very clearly, and was annoyed that 
 a girl of her perceptions did not see it as he did. He was 
 angry now that they had had to have all this talk when 
 he had wanted merely to feel. And then he was chagrined 
 that she could stand like that against him. 
 
 He made no response at first when she put her arm 
 round him. She had to withdraw it when the shower de- 
 scended upon them. 
 
 " You'd better go into the cabin," he said. 
 
 " I don't want to. I won't get wet." 
 
 In spite of the cloud between them they rather enjoyed 
 the speeding of the launch through the rain. Dane drove 
 recklessly, but the river was wide here and he knew it well. 
 For a time the stars and the moon were blotted out and 
 the Wairoa was a stretch of blackness in a world only a 
 shade less dark. He began to feel less irritable. After 
 all, he did not believe she would resist him much longer. 
 
 She sat trying to think over all he had said, and over 
 some of the things that had not yet been said at all. She 
 began to see that she had been thinking far more of her 
 wishes and her convictions than of his. Indeed, she saw 
 with a pang of self-accusation that she had been thinking 
 mostly of herself. 
 
 The shower passed, and the moon and stars came out 
 the clearer for the freshening of the atmosphere. Valerie 
 shook the rug and assured Dane that she was not wet.
 
 222 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 Then in readjusting it she sat as close to him as she could 
 and put her arm about him once more. He tried to steel 
 himself against response. He wondered if she suspected 
 his resolution and was trying to undermine it. He tried 
 to think of something else, but the vision of her going with 
 him into his old house began to obsess him. In spite of 
 the cool night they grew warm sitting side by side. But 
 he told himself this would never do, and he whipped up his 
 courage and resolution, and when they came opposite the 
 southern end of Dargaville he spoke the first word that 
 had been spoken for some time and asked her where he 
 should land her. 
 
 She did not answer for a minute. " Oh anywhere," she 
 said very coldly, moving away from him. 
 
 The Diana ran on for some distance before she came to 
 a standstill near the bank. 
 
 Valerie stood up at once without a word, letting the rug 
 fall at her feet, and she moved towards the centre of the 
 boat. 
 
 Dane gave up at once. He restarted the engine and 
 swung the launch back into midstream. Then he moved 
 forward to Valerie who had stopped by the cabin. 
 
 ** Will you please land me here at once," she said, in a 
 voice shaken with anger and humiliation. 
 
 " I will not. Not now," he said, as his arms went round 
 her. 
 
 IV 
 
 " Dane, would it hurt you to tell me that tale? I'd 
 like to know the truth about it." 
 
 " The truth ? " He smiled and shrugged his shoulders. 
 " I won't promise you the truth. But I could give you 
 my version."
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 223 
 
 * THat will do," she said. 
 
 It was Sunday afternoon a week later. They were sit- 
 ting on the top of the range behind his house with a fine 
 view spread out before them. The showery weather had 
 icleared the air, and the day was fresh and crystalline. 
 The two Airedales were skirmishing around them. 
 
 Dane looked off into space for some minutes. 
 
 " What a fool one can be," he said, half to himself. 
 Then he looked at Valerie, who like himself was hatless, 
 lounging easily on the grass-tufted rock beside him. 
 
 She flashed a merry look at him. " Go on then with the 
 tale of a fool." 
 
 " I don't know where to begin. It was always the tale 
 of a fool. You see, I've never known what to do with your 
 sex." 
 
 " I haven't noticed any deficiency in that direction." 
 
 " You will, before you're finished with me." 
 
 **' Look here, you always put it that way, as if I were 
 managing this business." 
 
 " You are, Miss Superman." 
 
 " Dane, I will not be compared with that dreadful crea- 
 ture. But please, tell me the story. It doesn't hurt you 
 any more, does it? " She put out a hand which he took 
 and kissed. 
 
 " No, not now." He put more tobacco into the bowl of 
 his pipe, and then as if changing his mind put it down on 
 the ground, and drew up his knees. 
 
 " You know the names of the women concerned, I sup- 
 pose." 
 
 " The Goldens and Denisthornes are the only ones I 
 know. Were there any more? " 
 
 " No. Those are enough. My wife had met Mrs. 
 Golden in Sydney, and liked her, God knows why, and 
 when we came over to Christchurch the Goldens met us,
 
 224 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 and invited us to dinner. Things were going wrong, in- 
 deed had been for some time between my wife and myself. 
 I didn't care about the people she seemed to like, and I 
 didn't like the Goldens, either of them, but I went, and at 
 that first dinner we met the Denisthornes. I liked them 
 both and we began to meet them everywhere around. Mrs. 
 Denisthorne attracted me a good deal, and I knew I at- 
 tracted her. I thought I was being careful and then 
 Denisthorne had to go to America." 
 
 Dane picked up a stone and threw it down the hillside 
 and watched it land in the head of a tree-fern. 
 
 " My wife and I had come to a stage where we could not 
 go on. I did not know till afterwards that she had fallen 
 in love with a rich Melbourne man, and that she was only 
 too glad of an excuse to leave me and go back to Austra- 
 lia. And I think that before she went she must have 
 asked Mrs. Golden to keep an eye on me. Mrs. Golden 
 had been doing that. I suppose a man is a cad to belittle 
 a woman who gets infatuated about him. I have tried to 
 see the Mrs. Goldens of the world as a doctor sees them. 
 But it isn't easy. I would as soon be in a room with a 
 boa constrictor smiling pleasantly at me as I would with 
 Mrs. Golden. She was clever enough while my wife was 
 there not to let her see anything. After she was gone she 
 went off her head. She kept on sending me invitations 
 which I never accepted, but the trouble was, as they were 
 at the head of everything, I kept meeting them everywhere. 
 And she was very hospitable to Mrs. Denisthorne. Phew ! 
 She was a devil. 
 
 " Well, dear, Mrs. Denisthorne and I fell down, of 
 course. I've nothing to say for myself. I wanted her. 
 My marriage had been very unhappy. It had been a 
 penance. Serves me right. I went into those things with- 
 out thinking. And so I cared a lot about Mrs. Denis-
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 225 
 
 thorne. She was very charming. I saw she was afraid of 
 Mrs. Golden. It seems that Mrs. Golden had wanted 
 Denisthorne herself years before. In fact, she seems to 
 have wanted almost everybody. You can see the situa- 
 tion. She had been lying in wait to get back at Mrs. 
 Denisthorne. And my wife came back and sued me for 
 divorce, and Denisthorne came back " 
 
 Dane paused for a few seconds. 
 
 " No man has ever made me feel such a beastly rotter 
 as Denisthorne did. It always hurts me to think of it. 
 He understood too much. He forgave his wife. He for- 
 gave me. And he cared, cared awfully. He begged me 
 to let the thing go through without a fight. It would 
 have been silly to fight, anyway. We had been too well 
 trapped. So it went through quietly. The papers printed 
 nothing but the bare fact. I saw Denisthorne wanted his 
 wife, and I saw she really wanted him. I told him I would 
 get out quietly. But I reckoned without Mrs. Golden. 
 And this is where the rest of the story begins. 
 
 " I was living in the Manipouri Hotel. One wet after- 
 noon I went out of my room leaving it unlocked, and went 
 to the room of an Australian who had just come, to plan 
 with him that Lake Ada walking trip, which I wanted to 
 do before I left the south. I yarned with him about two 
 hours, and we drank, drank too much, and I had been 
 pretty reckless for some time. It was well after six 
 o'clock when I remembered I had to go out to an early 
 dinner with some newspaper men. I went back to my 
 rooms and found Mrs. Golden there. What I ever did to 
 that woman to make her so mad 1 do not know. I had 
 been courteous to her, but I swear I never gave her the 
 least encouragement. I couldn't. She was the last thing 
 in the world I could bear. She was fat and gross ! Hor- 
 rible ! Rapacious ! And somehow she had gone mad about
 
 1226 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 me. I suppose I was a cad. Certainly I was a God- 
 damned fool. When I saw her come grinning at me I must 
 have let her see what I thought of her. I'd had enough 
 whisky to make me reckless. And no woman could ever 
 forgive that, I know. I told her to get out at once, and 
 when she didn't, I did the unpardonable thing. I went 
 down to the office. The manager happened to be there, 
 and I swore at him and the clerks for allowing a woman 
 to go up to my rooms, and I told him to go and get her 
 out. He didn't know who it was, and he went. 
 
 " No man in his senses would have behaved as I did, and 
 of course I deserved to pay. Well, I don't know what 
 passed between the manager and Mrs. Golden, but when I 
 tell you that Golden was one of the owners of the hotel, a 
 little fact I did not know, you will see things. As I 
 thought about it afterwards, I saw that being the kind of 
 thing she was she could not trust me. So her idea was to 
 get in first and do it quickly. What she told her husband 
 I don't know. Anyway I went off in blissful ignorance 
 with the Australian the next day, and was away nearly a 
 month and then I left him to go on to Dunedin while I 
 went back to Christchurch. As we had been wandering 
 about in the wilds I had heard nothing. I was met by the 
 hotel manager who told me he was very sorry, but I could 
 not stay in the hotel. I've never been so staggered in my 
 life. I hunted up a journalist and wormed the whole 
 story out of him. I suppose you know it. It was that I 
 lured Mrs. Golden to my rooms when I was drunk, that I 
 behaved disgustingly and practically assaulted her, and 
 that I had been blackballed out of my club in consequence. 
 
 " Well, dear, I couldn't take it in, not at all. Of course 
 one hears that things like this happen. But to see myself 
 the monster that rumour was painting me, well, it made me 
 feel queer. I thought I was going mad. I told my
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 friends what had happened and that I had the Australian 
 as witness as to what time I went back to my room, and 
 they believed me and started counter stories. And a few 
 men advised me to fight it. Fight it! My God! What 
 a sweet mess it would have been to air in the courts ! And 
 I had no money to fight it, and the Goldens were among 
 the richest people in the country. And then I didn't care. 
 What was I to fight it for? The few men I cared about 
 believed me, and to my astonishment Denisthorne was one 
 of those who offered to lend me money. But all I wanted 
 was to get away from that damned crowd and never have 
 anything to do with their kind again. And then I saw I 
 didn't really care about them. I had imposed them on 
 myself. 
 
 " But the thing did hurt me, absurdly so, it seems now. 
 It was the malignancy in it, the willingness of so many 
 people to come down on me, people I had never hurt, peo- 
 ple I had never seen, the men who blackballed me out of 
 that club, and it made me think all the more of the ones 
 who stood by me. But it hit me hard. I had never 
 passed a rumour on, or tried to disturb any man's dreams 
 of himself, and I had never allowed any woman to care for 
 me if I was not prepared to see her through. And it all 
 seemed so unfair. God knows I was glad to run away 
 from it. I came up to Auckland. I was bitter and lonely 
 and horribly sensitive about the whole thing. I wondered 
 if the hotels would take me. I shall never forget my feel- 
 ing as I went into the Star and gave my name. But they 
 did, and the next day your father called on me and dined 
 with me there. And I found the newspapermen had been 
 written to by the fellows in Christchurch, and I was not 
 without friends. That ought to have balanced me. But 
 it didn't seem as if anyone could help me. It was some- 
 thing I had to do for myself. I didn't want to meet any-
 
 228 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 one. I drifted on to the Bay of Islands and to Hokianga 
 as if I were looking for something to pull me up. 
 
 " One night in a little pub at Hokianga I struck an 
 Englishman, a strange chap. I don't know what he had 
 fled from. I never got near him. I can't account for him 
 at all. He didn't drink to excess. He didn't gamble. 
 He didn't have anything to do with any woman about. 
 He apparently had a little money. He asked me to go 
 home with him. I went. I stayed with him for four 
 months. I was ill at first and he looked after me. Then 
 I worked on his run with him. He was fattening cattle 
 and clearing quite a large place. He wasn't far from the 
 Hokianga harbour. You know it? Well, I used to wan- 
 der about it at night, and I think that it more than any- 
 thing else brought me back to the world. I'd carried a 
 pistol for some time, and had come near to using it. One 
 night I sat on a little beach. It was a full moon and that 
 harbour was the spirit of beauty itself. And I told my- 
 self it was a grand night and a grand place to die with or 
 to come to some conclusion about living. It was funny 
 how I did it. One can be such an incurable idiot ! I sat 
 down, and on one side of me I made a heap of pebbles each 
 named with something I cared to live for, books I had not 
 read, places I wanted to see, and so on, and on the other 
 I put the stones named for the reasons for not living. It 
 will amuse you to know I called one of them ' women.' 
 Well, I was astonished to see that the arguments for going 
 on were much more numerous than the arguments for 
 shooting myself on the spot. I threw the pistol into the 
 harbour and decided to go on. It gave me a curious feel- 
 ing for days to go about thinking that I might have been 
 dead, and that the thing was in my hands, and that I had 
 put a real issue up to myself. I had drifted along so 
 much of my life. I had a strange exhilaration. And so
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 229 
 
 I came back to work and life, and now that you are going 
 to marrj T me, Valerie dear what! You are crying over 
 that?" 
 
 He swung towards her and pulled her into his arms and 
 kissed her wet eyes. 
 
 " Good Lord, my dear. It's nothing to cry about on a 
 spring afternoon. It's funny, very funny to me now. 
 Was it your vibrations wandering about the universe, I 
 wonder, that caught me that night? Who knows? Oh, 
 kiss me, old girl, and stop crying, for God's sake."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 "TIT TELL, tKat's the last of it, thank God, and 
 
 %/%/ you're no more pleased than I am, Johnson. 
 And it's a topping good job you've done." 
 
 The weary jobbing man's face lit up with a pleased 
 smile at Dane's words. 
 
 They stood with Valerie and Ryder and Jimmy beside 
 the jobbing machine which five minutes before had run off 
 the last inset ready now to go out with the paper on Mon- 
 day. It was the Saturday night before the election, 
 which did not take place till the following Thursday, but 
 it was the last inset and the last chance for special plead- 
 ing because the voting laws of New Zealand have certain 
 regulations peculiar to that land. 
 
 With the idea that the voter shall have a period of com- 
 parative peace in which to sum up the arguments he has 
 heard, nothing of a coercive nature, nothing designed to 
 agitate his meditative mind, is allowed to be printed in 
 any paper or displayed in any shape or form for two days 
 prior to the polls. The candidates and their official rep- 
 resentatives may deliver their speeches up till election eve, 
 but the newspapers may only report them as said without 
 comment. Straight news may be printed, but also without 
 comment. So that the Monday was Dane's last chance to 
 swerve the wavering mind. And he had done his most 
 humorous and pungent best in the editorial and in the 
 inset, and in putting into shape the notes Bob had sent 
 in from the field. 
 
 TJhe pile of insets made a brilliant bit of colour in the 
 drab composing-room, for Dane had insisted on a red sheet 
 
 230
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 231 
 
 for his last fling. In spite of Valerie's fears that it would 
 look bizarre it was a fine and arresting piece of printing, 
 set up and balanced in Johnson's best style, and as far as 
 Dane was concerned its arguments were as hot as its 
 colour. He had spent the best part of a day on it. It 
 was mainly an appeal to labour, the labour of the bushes 
 and the mills, and it delicately flattered the workingman 
 by appealing to his intelligence as well as to his emotions. 
 It had cleverly gathered up every good thing that could be 
 said for a change; it neatly recorded the main deficiencies 
 of the Liberal Party in the matter of promises to the 
 worker, but above all it appealed to the northerner to get 
 attention for the land he had made his own. 
 
 " That ought to make 'em sit up," said Ryder in his 
 dry way as he looked at Dane. Both he and Johnson had 
 come to enormously admire him, not only because of his 
 work, which they were quite capable of appreciating, but 
 even more because of the way he had gone about the office. 
 Indeed, the little group was a good deal of a mutual ad- 
 miration society as it stood there with the curious hesi- 
 tancy of people who have seen each other through a con- 
 siderable piece of work with brains and patience and hu- 
 mour, and want to say something about it, but do not know 
 what to say. The feeling seemed to centre about Dane 
 because he was there for the last time in the place of Bob 
 who would be back in his old chair on the Monday morning. 
 
 Jimmy gazed at his elders in turn with a boundless ad- 
 miration and pride in the faqt that he was here in at the 
 finish with the rest of them. He had got over his first 
 antipathy to Dane. No boy could have held out long 
 against the subtle flattery of the man's approval. For 
 Dane took a huge joy in Jimmy, and of them all he most 
 established the boy as man in his own eyes, for he never 
 ordered him about, and he asked his opinion about weighty
 
 232 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 matters and had once even taken his advice. Indeed, of 
 them all, Dane most clearly perceived the value in the uni- 
 versal cosmos of that which Jimmy was the exuberant 
 start of fresh vitality into a devitalized world. 
 
 Dane gave a last look round the composing-room re- 
 membering the occasion on which he had seen it first. He 
 did not look at Valerie, but turned to the men who had 
 reached for their coats. 
 
 " I'm leaving to-night. Will you come along and have 
 a drink? " He felt it pathetic that that was all he could 
 say to them. 
 
 But Ryder and Johnson did not find it pathetic. They 
 were very thirsty. 
 
 II 
 
 Many things combined to make that week the most ex- 
 citing election period that Dargaville had ever known. 
 The whole country was stirred by the possibility, loudly 
 voiced by the Massey Party, that a change was at hand, 
 and that the old Liberal Party which Dick Seddon raised 
 to Empire fame was doomed to an imminent fall. Sir 
 Joseph Ward, one of the cleverest financiers the dominion 
 had known, was attacked for lack of any policy, and his 
 side found little to say to stem the disrupting tide. Every 
 vote was appealed to as it never had been before. Labour, 
 the farmers, the landowners, the women, the factory hands, 
 the city workers, the capitalists, the prohibitionists, the 
 civil service were all alike appealed to to put new life in 
 the country and a new man in the lead. 
 
 And the Far North in particular was roused out of a 
 long apathy by the energetic campaigns being waged there 
 by the three Massey candidates. Haines, of Marsden, 
 was a tireless fighter with every chance of going in for 
 the third time. The Bay of Islands man Sloan, up like
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 233 
 
 Roger for the first time, had a good chance against a weak 
 rival, and it was now well known that Roger Benton, who 
 had the hardest row to hoe, had the best chance any man 
 had ever had against Mobray, the old Scddon lion. And 
 so it was that to the delight of the North Mr. Massey 
 gave it his last week, having no need to speak for himself 
 in his own electorate, or about Auckland, which was his 
 stronghold. And to the everlasting pride of Dargaville, 
 he was to make his last speech there on election eve itself. 
 
 The two days of meditation and prayer allowed by the 
 laws hardly sufficed to cool the heads of an electorate that 
 had been bombarded with literature and canvassed from 
 house to house many times over into its remotest back- 
 block by all the parties in turn. The dear, gentle old 
 lady who is the object of such solicitude at elections never 
 lost her sense of fluster in spite of the benign intentions of 
 paternal legislation. And though the blatant voice of 
 the last moment agitator was silent throughout the land 
 there was in those last two days a tremulous tenseness in 
 the air, remarked by the oldest inhabitant of every settle- 
 ment as something unprecedented in his whole experience. 
 
 There was indeed little let down in those days for Va- 
 lerie. On the Monday morning Roger held his final com- 
 mittee meeting in the office. Neither he nor anyone else 
 could think of an important thing that was not covered. 
 The final details for the Massey meeting and for the din- 
 ner to him at Mac's on the Wednesday night were gone 
 over. The arrangements for that night's meeting at Ara- 
 tapu and Tuesday's at Te Koperu were scanned for over- 
 sights. Dane's last leader and inset were loudly praised. 
 But though the committee found their labours practically 
 over the little office hummed with news pouring in by tele- 
 gram from all over the country, much more news than 
 could be got into the available space, so that it had to be
 
 234 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 condensed or rewritten. This was where Valerie missed 
 Dane, for Bob was back on the paper that week with the 
 one job on his hands of reporting and writing up the 
 meetings at night, and of helping Roger to prepare his re- 
 marks for the same. 
 
 Valerie had refused to see Dane the day before and he 
 had told her he would not come into the town that week, 
 but that he would look for her at the week-end. She had 
 wondered in her only leisure moments as she dressed or 
 bathed whether he could keep out of the excitement, for 
 as the great day approached it captured even her, and 
 when Roger invited her to be present at the Massey dinner 
 she found she really did wish to be in the fun. She won- 
 dered if Dane would be there, for she was sure he would 
 be asked to go. 
 
 The night was, for those who like that kind of thing, 
 an unforgettable affair. As Valerie stood in her room 
 before the dinner, trying to bathe the signs of utter weari- 
 ness from her face, she heard an exciting tooting of horns 
 and a great fuss down in the street, and guessed that Mr. 
 Massey and his party were arriving from Whangarei. 
 The town seemed to swirl about the hotel. It had been 
 alive all the afternoon with people coming up the river 
 and down the river and across the river and in by train 
 to hear the man who had been the spine of the country 
 party for twenty years. If she had not been so tired, 
 Valerie would have run to the sitting-room to look out, 
 but instead she lay down on her bed for a brief rest. 
 
 To her great disappointment there was no sign of Dane 
 at the dinner. Besides herself Mrs. Benton was the only 
 woman present. It had been found impossible to invite 
 women and have room also for the number of men Roger 
 wished to have. No one could object to Mrs. Benton, and 
 of course Valerie was the omnipotent press. She triec| to
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 235 
 
 put Dane out of her mind and to enjoy the scene for the 
 expression that it was of a certain side of the male animal. 
 She was amused at the extraordinary emphasis put on 
 politics, on last moment cheerfulness, on forced sensations 
 of every kind. Good fellowship roared itself hoarse at 
 that dinner. Promises enough to bring millenniums to a 
 dozen suffering worlds were scattered about with light- 
 hearted prodigality. It was a gorgeous orgy of optimism. 
 And she looked on at it as she had looked on at family 
 Christmas dinners with a heart cold and a mind aloof. 
 One hour of life with Dane, she thought, was worth a 
 thousand such revels as this. 
 
 The meeting afterwards, however, did move her. Mr. 
 Massey had never spoken better in his whole career. For 
 twenty years the Opposition leader had led what was for 
 years a forlorn hope, had fought with extraordinary cour- 
 age and perseverance a dogged fight against the most 
 powerful premier the country had ever had, and yet he 
 could talk to that packed hall as if life had been for him 
 an unchallenged success. And when the audience rose at 
 him and began to throw up hats and sticks and break the 
 chairs she found she was swirling with it. But the thing 
 that stirred her most was his reference, when speaking of 
 the local situation, to the brilliant work of the little News. 
 And she found herself flushing furiously when heads were 
 turned and nodded at her. She wondered if Dane were 
 there somewhere listening amused and apart. 
 
 The meeting was not over till after eleven o'clock, and 
 then there was the ceremony of seeing Mr. Massey and 
 his party off in three motor cars for Te Koperu, where 
 they were to cross the river and go on by cars to Auck- 
 land, riding all through the night. This over, Valerie had 
 but one idea, to get to bed, to take aspirin, and to blot 
 it all out, for she knew the next day and night would be
 
 236 THE 'STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 even more strenuous. She slipped away from Mrs. Ben- 
 ton, who was staying the night with the Boltons, and she 
 entered the hotel by the side door. 
 
 The whole house was ablaze with light and excitement 
 except at the public bars, which in accordance with the 
 law were all in darkness. 
 
 As she went up the stairs she stopped electrified. A 
 clear tenor voice rang out above the din, singing a toast. 
 It was followed by a little lull before the tumult drowned 
 it out again. 
 
 For a moment she felt a sense of shock and she could 
 not move. Then she went on into her room and stood 
 again in the middle of it, listening. She was no longer 
 weary. She was feverishly alive, burning with hurts, re- 
 sentments, and futile determinations. She did not know 
 why she was hurt, what she was resentful at, or what she 
 was determined to do. She stood by the window for some 
 minutes till these clashing pains diminished a little. 
 
 It took her some time to get hold of herself, and then 
 she told herself she was a fool. There was hardly a man 
 in the town who might not be excused for letting go that 
 night. Mrs. Benton had left Roger to the overwhelming 
 pressure of the occasion without a sign that it worried 
 her. But still she could not bear to think of Dane as 
 drunk. It hurt him more than it hurt other men. She 
 felt he hated himself afterwards, that he could not take 
 it lightly as others did. But she told herself the main 
 trouble was her own imagination, which could not bear to 
 visualize him degenerated in any way from the beautiful 
 thing he was to her when he was well. She could not bear, 
 either, the clouding in any shape or form of the spirit 
 that was in him. It was her sense of beauty, rather than 
 her code of behaviour, that was offended. But her sense 
 of beauty was perhaps the strongest thing about her. It
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 237 
 
 was at the back of all her protests, all her revolts. And[ 
 her sense of fairness had many a clash with it. 
 
 She got through her window and began to pace the 
 balcony. She stopped at times when a louder burst of 
 laughter drifted up to her, or some strong voice was raised 
 in a maudlin challenge. She was prepared to hear Dane's 
 voice above the noise again, but it did not rise to her. 
 She tried to talk herself out of her mood of hesitancy and 
 speculation. She tried to imagine what was going on 
 down in those closed rooms. She would have liked to see 
 how Mac managed his motley world on an occasion like 
 this, to know who was being put out in those rooms off 
 the yard, to know what he did to keep the constable out 
 of the way, to know whether Doc Steele succumbed, 
 whether Bob was drunk. It was a strange atmosphere, 
 and apart from the servants she was the only woman in 
 it. She was surprised to find that her thoughts had car- 
 ried her out of her first unhappiness about Dane. 
 
 Feeling hungry she wondered if she could get unseen 
 down to the kitchen. There was a fire-escape stair lead- 
 ing from the top hall outside down into the yard. The 
 door was unlocked from the inside. She stole down the 
 steps. She could hear men talking off somewhere in the 
 shadows of the buildings, but the kitchen was empty when 
 she looked in. There was plenty of food lying openly 
 about, and she knew she could have what she wanted. She 
 got bread and butter, and was cutting herself some cold 
 chicken when Mac walked in followed by Dane. 
 
 " You see I'm stealing," she said at once to Mac, hop- 
 ing he would think her sudden flush was caused by the 
 idea of being caught. 
 
 The big Irishman's eyes were a little bloodshot, but he 
 was the coolest man in the house. He got the full sig- 
 nificance of the way in which Dane moved up to Valerie.
 
 238 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 " Go ahead. Take all you want," he said, and turning 
 walked out and down the hall. 
 
 Dane took Valerie by the arm. " Where have you 
 been ? " he asked in an aggrieved tone, as if she had been 
 eluding him. " I didn't see you at the meeting." 
 
 As she saw someone cross the hall she drew quickly 
 back. " Don't, please, Dane. Someone might come in." 
 Her tone was sharper than she meant it to be. 
 
 " Oh, you are angry with me," he said pathetically. 
 " Don't be angry with me." 
 
 It was astonishing what an appeal he could put into 
 his voice. His eyes looked at her softened out of their 
 accustomed brilliancy by a slumbrous cloudiness. She 
 wondered just how conscious he was of her and of the 
 situation. 
 
 " I'm not angry, Dane." 
 
 " Yes, you are. I feel it. What is it? " He moved 
 up to her and took her arm again. 
 
 .She saw the forms of two men in the hall. She thought 
 they were coming towards the kitchen. 
 
 " Dane, please, somebody is coming. I cannot stay and 
 talk to you here." She took up her plate. " I must go. 
 Good-night." 
 
 She hurried out of the kitchen by the back door, half 
 hoping and half fearing that he would follow her. But 
 he did not. Up in her room she tried not to be too serious 
 about it. It was nothing more than she had known, noth- 
 ing more than she told herself she had to accept with him 
 either as a lover or as a husband. She was determined 
 not to let his weaknesses blind her to the other qualities 
 he possessed. 
 
 Finding there was hot water, she soothed herself with 
 a bath, ate her supper, and even without the aid of aspirin 
 fell asleep.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 239 
 
 III 
 
 When she reached the office at half-past nine, very late 
 for her, Bob was there furiously pounding out his report 
 of the Massey meeting and dinner, which Jimmy took 
 sheet by sheet to the composing-room. Bob gave Valerie 
 rather a wan smile, but she gave no sign that she noticed 
 the circles under his eyes. She wondered if he and Dane 
 had met in the bibulous meanderings of the night, and 
 what they had said to each other. As a matter of fact 
 they had met at a stage when all men were swearing 
 eternal friendship and finding the world full of dear broth- 
 ers. But this Valerie never knew. 
 
 She looked at the big pile of telegrams already in, and 
 settled down to it. It was a public holiday and the place 
 did not wake up till ten o'clock. Then it came to life in 
 an hour. The morning trains came in crowded with bush 
 and country people out to take what fun might be going 
 in the town. The shops were open for half a day for their 
 benefit. As there was a constant stream of people going 
 by the office Valerie suggested they post a bulletin of news 
 to draw attention to themselves. Bob thought it a fine 
 idea, and Jimmy was called upon to find a big sheet of 
 cardboard and to do the pasting. In her clear hand 
 Valerie wrote out in blue pencil the first most interesting 
 items. Then at intervals during the day they watched 
 Jimmy go out with a fresh sheet when several people had 
 collected, and flourishing his paste brush solemnly cover 
 up the stale news with the new, guying the lookers-on in 
 his own cheeky fashion. The facts were such as election 
 crowds feed on. It seemed that the weather was generally 
 fine throughout the dominion (the crowd thought this very 
 important and discussed it from various angles), that in 
 the cities especially a heavy vote was rolling up early,
 
 240 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 that Sir Joseph Ward was confident of victory, that Mr. 
 Massey was confident of victory, that their wives were 
 equally sure of victory, that the prohibition party was 
 sure of national prohibition, that labour was sure of sur- 
 prising gains, that everybody was sure of something or 
 other. And the crowd watching Jimmy pasting this en- 
 couraging information cheered and was sure too. 
 
 Valerie grew interested in spite of weariness in the in- 
 tensifying of the human spirit throughout that day. The 
 office glowed with faces leaning over the counter and beam- 
 ing down upon her and Bob, who had to exert all their 
 good humour to avoid showing annoyance at the constant 
 interruptions. 
 
 As she was changing her dress before dinner she heard 
 steps come quickly to her door, and then a low knock. 
 Throwing a wrapper about her she went to it, opened it 
 a little way and peered through. Dane stood there look- 
 ing ill and unhappy. 
 
 " Let me come in," he pleaded, as if it were a desperate 
 business. 
 
 She was not sure whether he was sober or not, and she 
 expected Bob to come to his room at any moment, but she 
 opened the door at once, and then closed it quietly behind 
 him. Dane faced her and looked at her as if he were ask- 
 ing for his life. He was fastidiously shaved, but his 
 clothes were crumpled as if he had lain in them. His white 
 skin showed patches of sallowness and his eyes were 
 haunted by a fear that seemed to come out of them and 
 twist his features. He knew he had been very drunk the 
 night before. And ever since he had been able to think 
 again, he had been tortured by the vague memory that 
 he had seen Valerie somewhere in the night, and that he 
 had been rude to her, and that she was very angry with 
 him.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 241 
 
 Even if she had been angry with him she would Have 
 melted at the misery in his face. Impulsively she flung 
 her arms about him and crushed his face against her own. 
 
 " Whatever has happened to you, Dane? Cheer up, for 
 heaven's sake." 
 
 He drew away, looking doubtfully at her. 
 
 " Aren't you angry with me? " he asked, in the manner 
 of a penitent child. 
 
 Valerie had kicked herself more than once that day for 
 her manner in the kitchen the night before. If she hadn't 
 been so tired, she told herself, she would have handled the 
 situation more lightly. 
 
 She looked at him, seeing much more than the reaction 
 from a night's drinking in his eyes. And whatever she 
 did or felt, she knew she must not fail this man in 
 moments when he needed her understanding so desper- 
 ately. 
 
 " I'm not angry with you, not the least little bit. I've 
 nothing to be angry about. But I am dreadfully tired, 
 dear. Perhaps that is what you feel." 
 
 She threw her arms about him again and put her lips 
 on his. 
 
 " What is the matter, Dane? Please kiss me," she said, 
 wondering why he did not respond. But he was in a diffi- 
 cult mood, confused, bruised and sick, and hating himself, 
 he could not rise to showing care for anybody else. 
 
 They heard Bob come into the next room. Valerie 
 wondered what she could do with Dane. She hated to let 
 him go from her in the mood he was in. 
 
 " Are you going to stay here to-night ? " she whispered. 
 
 " No. I'm going home now." 
 
 " Can you take me with you and get me back by nine? " 
 She saw that he softened and came nearer to her. 
 
 " Yes ; will you come? "
 
 242 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 " I will. The break will help me to get through tHe 
 night. Pick me up the other side of the railway wharf." 
 
 He looked better at once and slipped quietly out. 
 
 As she walked along towards the railway station to 
 meet him she thought of the frenzied counting that had 
 now begun behind locked doors ah 1 over the country, in 
 remote schoolhouses, little town halls, creameries, and 
 even private houses, where in the scattered settlements the 
 government considered the convenience of those who had 
 long distances to go. And in the larger centres she could 
 visualize the groups checking and rechecking those col- 
 umns of figures, so important to the careers of a few men, 
 so unimportant in the great welter of world affairs. It 
 seemed funny that those figures should matter so much. 
 
 She passed several people riding and driving in, and she 
 sauntered slowly to let them all go by before she ran for 
 the Diana which she could just see hidden in the rushes. 
 She sat down in the stern with Dane and put an arm 
 round him, and did not attempt to talk. He set his 
 engine at full speed. Round the first turn they saw close 
 upon them a big timber barque riding low, and being towed 
 down on the evening tide, bound for Australia, the men on 
 her decks curiously remote from the fuss of the New Zea- 
 land election. They would go out to sea that night oblivi- 
 ous of the results that seemed so epoch-making to the 
 wrought-up feelings of Dargaville. 
 
 The sight of that stately vessel filigreed against an 
 opal sky lifted part of the cloud from Dane's mind. As 
 he ran the launch close past her the friendly faces of 
 officers and seamen grinned down upon them. 
 
 Then, oblivious of the fact that men on the barque- 
 might be looking after them, he put his unoccupied arm 
 about her and his head against her shoulder, and felt 
 better.
 
 THE STRANGE 'ATTRACTION 243 
 
 Before he reached home he was trying to forget him- 
 self and to think entirely of her, for he saw how exhausted 
 she was. He put her straight into his hammock, and it 
 was there that she ate her dinner and stayed till it was 
 time to go. She felt a good deal better by the time he 
 landed her near the railway wharf. 
 
 rv 
 
 The News office all in darkness seemed a strange place 
 to Valerie as she passed it. It had been lit at night for 
 so long. But its part in this drama was played. Aside 
 from the fussing of a special night train that had recently 
 come in, there was no sign of life about this end of the 
 town. It was from the centre that the sounds of an ex- 
 cited, waiting crowd drifted along. 
 
 The election results were to be shown on a screen out- 
 side the second floor of Roger's store, which had the great 
 advantage, placed as it was on the corner of Queen and 
 River Streets, of facing the two main ways, of being near 
 the post-office, and of being only one block away from the 
 registrar's office to which the official results all went. Sev- 
 eral of the rooms on the second floor had been cleared out 
 to accommodate Roger's committee and supporters. It 
 was about this building, and gazing feverishly at the screen 
 for the first significant figures, that the largest crowd 
 Dargaville had ever seen clustered good-humouredly. 
 
 As she walked on towards it Valerie heard those mild 
 preliminary cheers accorded to the Royal Family and 
 popular statesmen, whose pictures lantern men show be- 
 fore the real business of the evening begins. When she 
 heard a louder and more rousing one she wondered if she 
 had missed the first big announcement, but she saw it was 
 the cheerful face of Mr. Massey that had stimulated the
 
 1244 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 extra roar. Quickening her steps, she saw Jimmy dasK- 
 ing across the street with the first important batch of 
 telegrams, and in a plain white envelope the registrar's 
 local figures for which the men upstairs were now fran- 
 tically waiting. She darted after him and seized his arm. 
 
 The boy was bursting with delightful importance as 
 the chief messenger of that eventful night. His most re- 
 liable runners were stationed at the post-office to carry the 
 press news and such private wires as came to Roger from 
 his friends, but he himself had the great job; he carried 
 the official messages direct from the registrar to Bob, the 
 only figures on which the announcements were based. 
 Jimmy had looked forward to this night as the greatest 
 thing in his life, he knew not why. He tried to be cool, 
 as became a man in a crisis, but Valerie saw with delight 
 that he could hardly contain within himself the emotions 
 that the occasion roused. 
 
 " What results, Jimmy? " she whispered hoarsely, as 
 they hurried together down the side of the building to a 
 back entrance. 
 
 " Nothing big out yet, Miss Carr. But I think this is 
 Dargaville," and reverently he indicated the plain white 
 envelope. 
 
 They went in by a door carefully guarded by several 
 men, who smiled with the ready smile of friend passing 
 friend on a day of great matters. 
 
 " Oh, it's grand, isn't it? " exploded Jimmy, half under 
 his breath. " If only Benton and Massey win." And for 
 a moment the awful possibility that they might not 
 choked him. His heart was with his paper and his side, 
 and he knew that if they lost his heart would be broken. 
 
 " They'll win all right," said Valerie hopefully, amused 
 to see she was becoming an optimism herself. 
 
 They hurried up a narrow stairway lit by smelly kero-
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 245 
 
 sene lamps hung from big nails on the wall. Three doors 
 opened upon the landing at the top where several men 
 stood smoking. From all about came the low growl of 
 men's voices, and the din of women's pitched high and 
 toned with nervous repression. The large front room, 
 where the two men who worked the lantern were the centre 
 of attention, was filled with friends of Roger and the 
 committee. Through another door Valerie caught a 
 glimpse of a supper table, of baskets and piles of sand- 
 wiches, of coffee urns, of cases of bottles, of long rows of 
 cheap tumblers, and of a number of those devoted women 
 satellites who are always ready to get their little thrill on 
 such occasions by being what they call '** the faithful few." 
 
 The men on the landing swept aside for Valerie and 
 Jimmy who swung open the third door and plunged head 
 first into a little room the real centre of Dargaville that 
 night. 
 
 Sitting at a table facing the door were Bob and Roger 
 Benton, with large blank sheets of paper and a small pile 
 of unimportant messages in front of them. Standing 
 about were Bolton and Allison and other members of the 
 committee, two prominent sheep owners, and several of 
 the biggest Massey supporters from near-by towns. Va- 
 lerie looked for George Rhodes, and then remembered that 
 he was watchdog for Roger at the registrar's office. So 
 far Mrs. Benton and other women privileged to enter here 
 had not come in. The people now in this inner sanctum 
 were all swayed by anticipative excitement. 
 
 Bob seized the batch from Jimmy's hand, instantly 
 perceived the plain envelope, dropped the others and tore 
 it open. 
 
 " Here it is," he said, and a dead silence followed. 
 
 Jimmy meanwhile, realizing his business, had shot back 
 through the door and closed it behind him.
 
 1246 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 Everybody watched Bob who jotted down figures and 
 ifrowned over them. At last he raised his face. 
 
 K You lead here by 237, Benton. But the figures repre- 
 sent far more than this town. The beggars have come 
 here from other places to vote. That will throw us out 
 now. We don't know where they have come from. But 
 there it is, a good lead." He handed Roger the paper. 
 
 Those present took it in various ways, doubtfully or 
 enthusiastically, as was their disposition, but all agreed 
 it was a good start. Valerie sat down beside Bob and 
 helped him to open and check the other items. 
 
 It is the number and the smallness of the returns in 
 country electorates that provide in any closely contested 
 election a few hours' wild fun for the waiting crowds. 
 There may often be no more than a dozen votes recorded 
 in a small booth on a gumfield. These are easily counted, 
 but the result has to be got to a post-office perhaps ten 
 miles away, and the thing to do is to get it there before 
 the congestion starts up on the main lines, because once 
 the big places begin to send out their returns the little 
 ones have to wait. And this waiting throws a number of 
 small but very telling results, that have been counted in 
 the first quarter of an hour, right out of reckoning till 
 two or three in the morning. Roger had the largest and 
 most scattered electorate in the whole country, and the 
 bulk of his figures were to come from little places. And 
 only a dozen of these small counts had managed to get 
 through to Dargaville before the wires began to rush 
 through the leads and prospects of men all over the do- 
 minion. 
 
 Valerie and Bob opened and counted and checked these, 
 and added them to Roger's local majority. This started 
 him off with a lead of 264, and half the room escorted 
 the slip for the lantern into the front and waited to see
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 247 
 
 the effect on the crowd. Roger moved at once to his wife 
 who stood near the window and whispered the first total 
 into her ear. They gave each other a warm and hopeful 
 look. 
 
 The operator received a great deal of attention as he 
 wrote the figures on his slide and slipped it into place. 
 Then from the people outside there went up a heartening 
 roar of approval. 
 
 " They're with you, Roger, old man, they're with you," 
 said Allison hoarsely, slapping his chief on the tack. 
 
 Then back to the little room they all went to await 
 Jimmy's next appearance. 
 
 Through the door he came as if shot from a gun, charg- 
 ing Bob with out-thrust hands so that not a fraction of 
 a second be lost, and back through the door he slid with 
 the precision of machinery. Grins of appreciation fol- 
 lowed him. More than one of them were to remember 
 Jimmy as one of the spectacles of that night. 
 
 Bob and Valerie halved the messages, tossing aside at 
 once those that related to other electorates till they should 
 be done with their own. 
 
 " Aratapu," said Valerie, jotting down numbers. 
 
 " And Te Koperu," said Bob. 
 
 There was a minute heavy with anxiety while tEey 
 worked. These two places might tell the final tale. 
 
 "You lead now by 198." Bob checked again. "Yes, 
 that's right, 198." 
 
 The men looked solemnly at each other. Roger Hao! 
 hoped that his two towns would give him a bigger lead 
 than that over Mobray's stronghold, for he was afraid the 
 farmer vote would come nowhere near balancing the la- 
 bour vote in the bushes and the mills. 
 
 Bob and Valerie went on opening the btHer envelopes. 
 Whatever happened they had to keep their wits clear.
 
 248 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 ** Massey's in," said Bob. 
 
 That caused no excitement. Mr. Massey was always 
 in, as far as his own electorate was concerned, and the 
 putting up of a prohibition candidate against him this 
 time had been a joke. 
 
 " Haines leads by a big majority in Whangarei," read 
 .Valerie. 
 
 " That means he's in," said Roger, wishing it were as 
 sure for himself. 
 
 They sent these results to the lantern and listened to 
 the cheers that went up. It was a Massey night sure 
 enough. 
 
 Then came Jimmy again through that snapping door. 
 
 And a deep gloom settled upon the little room for the 
 first lot of bush returns put Mobray ahead by thirty-six. 
 
 " Oh, well," said Roger valiantly, " that's all right. I 
 expected that. I won't carry the bushes. Put it out. 
 We've got to take it." 
 
 And it went to the lantern, to be followed by some 
 scattered cheers, but mostly by hisses and groans. 
 
 " You've got the crowd here, old man," repeated Alli- 
 son consolingly. 
 
 It was now half-past ten, and the fun was begun in 
 earnest. The next lot of mixed farm and bush votes put 
 Roger ahead by seventeen, and the place rocked with the 
 gambling fever as the men inside juggled with the ma- 
 jorities to make fun for those outside. As the little totals 
 in favour first of one and then of the other seesawed back 
 and forth on the screen the crowd went off its head, drunk 
 not with liquor, for the excitement here kept everyone out 
 "of the hotels, but with the frenzy of a big race. 
 
 Bob and Valerie were running through a lot of Auck- 
 land wires when Mac opened the door. He came in, fol- 
 lowed by Doctor Steele and Father Ryan. This was the
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 240 
 
 first indication that the little priest had voted for him, 
 and Roger was surprised, for Sir Joseph Ward was a 
 Catholic, but church votes, like all others, could not be 
 coerced in any given direction. 
 
 " Not too good, eh? " said Mac to Roger. 
 
 " It's going to be damned close. The bush settles it 
 now." 
 
 " You'll get more of the bush than you think," growled 
 Mac. 
 
 " I'm sure I hope so." 
 
 Then Bob read out a number of names of Massey men 
 who were safely in, and the possibility, now becoming 
 more likely with every new set of figures, that Massey 
 would come out with a majority, added to the tempest of 
 feeling surging round them. It would be awful to lose 
 here if the party won everywhere else. 
 
 " Sloan is leading well for the Bay of Islands," Valerie 
 read from her last envelope. 
 
 " Oh, I must get in," groaned Roger. 
 
 Valerie was succumbing herself now to the swell of emo- 
 tion about her. She thought while they waited of Dane, 
 and wondered if he were in bed, if he were asleep, utterly 
 aloof from this madness, utterly indifferent to the result. 
 But she did wish he could have been there to enjoy with 
 her the drama of it, the palpitating entrances and exits 
 of Jimmy bursting with his own grand and glorious feel- 
 ing as the Mercury of a cataclysmic night. 
 
 At half-past two the vibrations in the little room were 
 almost too painful to be borne. There were only six re- 
 turns to come. At that moment Roger was leading by 
 twenty-one, and of the last places three were country and 
 three were bush. 
 
 As for the outside world, it was about certain now that 
 Ward was down and Massey riding to victory.
 
 250 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 There was an ominous silence about the counting table, 
 and eyes wandered jumpily watching for Jimmy's next 
 appearance. They all started at sounds beyond the door, 
 and when the boy did appear lungs went flat for want of 
 air. Two of the next three local returns were country 
 and one was bush. They left Roger with a lead of thirty- 
 seven. 
 
 Groans went up as they thought they were likely to 
 lose by so little. The last country result was known to 
 be very small, only about a dozen, while the bush was 
 probably a hundred. They could not tell now. 
 
 Roger buried his face in his hands. 
 
 Bob went on opening the Auckland telegrams. 
 
 *' By Jove ! The Opposition's in ! Massey's got a ma- 
 jority of four certain seats, with others leading well! " 
 
 " And Haines and Sloan are both in," added Valerie. 
 . Even the personal was forgotten at this great news. 
 His friends said the next day that Roger was sublime in 
 his darkest hour. He forgot that he was about to lose 
 and led the cheers for the new premier. For several min- 
 utes the room was in an uproar, and the people outside 
 thought it meant Roger's success and heads were stuck in 
 enquiringly. The excitement spread fast throughout the 
 building. At first men could not believe that the old 
 Liberal Party, with its extraordinary record of twenty- 
 *one consecutive years in power, could possibly be down. 
 And when the news was put up on the screen hysterical 
 roars shook the town. There were many in the crowd who 
 cared more for this than for the return even of their local 
 candidate. The picture of Mr. Massey, with the words 
 *' premier of New Zealand," scrawled in underneath, was 
 shown again, and it was a matter for astonishment that 
 .anyone had voices left to welcome it. 
 
 But in the little room the success of the party only
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 251 
 
 threw into more tragic light the possible failure of poor 
 Roger, who was trembling like a boy. 
 
 The minutes dragged by. It was the longest quarter 
 of an hour that any one of them had ever known. The 
 men gathered round Roger felt almost as badly as he did. 
 As for him, if he had been waiting to be shot he could 
 hardly have felt worse. He had talked optimistically but 
 not boastfully throughout the campaign, he had borne a 
 manner considerably chastened by the difficulties in his 
 path, personally he had waged a clean fight, and only he 
 knew how much he hoped to win. As they stood waiting, 
 Mrs. Benton with her lips trembling, moved beside him 
 and put her arm through his. 
 
 After an eternity, in which no one could trust his voice 
 to break the strained silence, the door moved and Jimmy 
 shot through it as if he were beginning and not ending 
 his dashes for Bob's hand. 
 
 Almost too excited now to see, both Bob and Valerie 
 sorted fast. She was the first to tear open one of the 
 envelopes. It was from the country, and gave Roger a 
 lead of forty-three. But it was Bob they all watched, 
 and he found the last and fateful news at the bottom of 
 his pile. There was a breathless silence, while everyone 
 looked for a change in his expression. 
 
 But Bob did not dare to be too hopeful. 
 
 " For God's sake," began Bolton. 
 
 " Keep calm," replied Bob coolly. " We mustn't have 
 any mistakes on this." 
 
 He checked and rechecked. Then he bounded to his 
 feet. 
 
 " You're in," he shouted. " It's a majority for you. 
 In by seventy-three. Hurrah ! Hurrah ! " 
 
 And at that moment George Rhodes came through the 
 door with the same official final from the registrar.
 
 262 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 Valerie was amazed at the scene that followed. It 
 seemed to her that everyone in that room went suddenly 
 mad, and whether she was too tired or too detached to 
 go mad too she did not know. The committee rushed 
 Roger and wrung his hands, and rushed Mrs. Benton and 
 wrung hers, while she laughed and cried alternately, and 
 they sprang at Bob from all the corners of the room, and 
 then she found herself being seized and whirled about. 
 Men jumped on the chairs and down again and danced 
 on their hats and yelled and cheered as only a crazy lot 
 of Englishmen can cheer. Then Bob calmed himself to 
 write the last screen announcement for the night. He did 
 not trouble to open the other envelopes. 
 
 " The labour vote split. The labour vote split. That 
 did it," said Roger, dancing about. 
 
 " I thought it would," said Mac, laconically, grinning 
 &t him. " I've heard talk of it about the bars for some 
 time. Barrington got them. He knew how to handle 
 them, and they like the way he goes around." 
 
 Valerie was near enough to hear this, but she did not 
 take her eyes off Jimmy who to the delight of two farm- 
 ers was trying to stand on his head on a chair. 
 
 Bob led the way to the front room, yelling the news as 
 he went, so that everybody crowded in to congratulate 
 Roger and his wife. They were almost too excited to care 
 about the raucous cheers that the crowd still had energy 
 to give. And there were more than the roars of delight 
 'dying and swelling upon the still morning air. There 
 were loud and insistent cries for a speech repeated from 
 group to group. Members of his committee pushed 
 Roger through the window. When the wild ovation had 
 subsided he tried to speak. But he could only blurt out 
 incoherent thanks, a promise to do his best to be worthy 
 of the great honour done him, and a tribute to the decent
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 250 
 
 campaign run by his opponent. Then calling dramatically 
 for cheers for Mr. Massey, the new goyernment, the King 
 and the Empire, he stumbled back into the arms of his 
 friends. 
 
 Valerie now meant to sneak out, but a hint to Mrs. 
 Benton on the subject was received with as much amazed 
 protest as if she had declared her intention to commit 
 murder. 
 
 " My dear, you simply must stay to drink his health. 
 And it's champagne, you know." 
 
 This was the kind of thing that always made Valerie 
 want to put her thumb to her nose, but she stayed, mean- 
 ing to slip away after the first toast. 
 
 The supper room was soon so crowded that it was im- 
 possible to use the chairs set round it. There was stand- 
 ing room only. But the leaders of the campaign grouped 
 themselves about the table. Valerie manoeuvred herself 
 into the background, but she was found by George Rhodes, 
 and dragged to the front again. There was much pop- 
 ping of corks amidst hilarity. And then there was a sus- 
 pensive pause as the glasses were filled. 
 
 But before Bob, who had been deputed to act as an 
 informal toastmaster, could make a start, Roger himself 
 got on to a chair. Excited though he was, he had clear 
 in mind what he wanted to say. The mere waving of his 
 glass provoked an outburst, and when it had subsided a 
 little he began. 
 
 " Friends, I want to propose a toast to come before 
 the King and the Empire and the party and all the rest 
 of us. This election has been won for me by the splendid 
 work, the splendid devotion of many people. Compari- 
 sons are odious, my friends, but for some time my com-
 
 254 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 mittee and I have felt that if we won there was one thing 
 that counted more than anything else, and now that we 
 have won I want that thing to know what we think of it. 
 I'm sure you all know that I mean the work turned out 
 by our little paper, the Dargaville News." 
 
 He was interrupted by a spontaneous burst of applause 
 while every head turned to look at Valerie. She felt her- 
 self getting light-headed and clenched her hands as Roger 
 went on. 
 
 " And we know who has done the hardest work, kept 
 the longest hours, and been the inspiration of that office. 
 Our thanks and gratitude to you, Miss Valerie Carr, 
 who " 
 
 Valerie dropped back amazed, confused, and over- 
 whelmed by the cheer that drowned out the rest of Roger's 
 remarks. In a mist she saw excited friendly arms waving 
 glasses, and excited friendly faces beaming down upon 
 her Mrs. Benton's struggling to keep back tears, even 
 those of Mrs. Bolton, Mrs. Harris and Mrs. Allison ob- 
 livious of the slights of the past, Father Ryan's a warm 
 glow, Mac's a shrewd and guarded grin, Bob's a generous 
 pride, Jimmy's one shining adoration, and the faces of 
 other men she knew and of men she did not know one 
 broad smile of approval. Then somebody cried " Speech," 
 and the word was repeated to the beat of feet and the 
 tapping of sticks. The whole crowd was wound up now 
 and nothing would stop it. 
 
 Valerie looked round desperately. Did they expect her 
 to make a speech? She had never made a speech in her 
 life. She felt an awful funk. She did not realize that it 
 did not matter in the least what she said. She found 
 herself being lifted bodily off the ground by George 
 Rhodes, while Bob drew out a chair for her to be set 
 upon. Somehow she got to her feet upon it, while the
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 255 
 
 room swung round her for a minute, and the cheers and 
 the stamping went on. She ran her hand over her fore- 
 head and tried to do something with her paralyzed throat. 
 Her voice was hoarse enough as it was with weeks of 
 proof-reading, and she was afraid she would never be 
 heard even if she could find something to say. Then she 
 grew calm suddenly and raised her hand. And a semblance 
 of silence settled upon the room. 
 
 " My dear people," she began informally, " I can't take 
 this for myself 
 
 " Speak for yourself. We'll come to the others pres- 
 ently," interrupted Roger, amidst laughter and more ap- 
 plause. 
 
 " But I haven't done anything except enjoy it. It was 
 a lot of fun. And I want to tell you it could never have 
 been done without our staff. They did the hard 
 and dirty work without any hope of honour and glory. 
 They have been perfectly fine, never a grumble out of 
 them, I'll take it for them, the men, the women and the 
 boys- 
 
 She looked down at Jimmy as she said it, and to his 
 embarrassment he got a great cheer all to himself, while 
 Valerie slipped down into her chair, leaving out the thanks 
 she had meant to add. But the audience did not notice 
 the omission as it applauded her again. 
 
 Roger was still standing on his chair. " To continue 
 with the News. I ask all present to drink to the two 
 gentlemen connected with that paper. I don't have to 
 tell anyone present of the luck we had in getting Mr. 
 Barrington, the most brilliant journalist in the country, 
 to help us out, or of the luck we had in getting a man 
 like Mr. Lorrimer, who after being ill for six weeks could 
 come back and make up for it in three." Roger bowed 
 to Bob and drank.
 
 256 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 The toast was drunk with the wildest enthusiasm, for 
 Bob was the most popular man in the place, and at that 
 moment no one grudged the other his share in the glory 
 of the hour. Valerie dare not look at anyone but Bob, for 
 she felt eyes were upon her as well as on him. He got to 
 his feet steadily enough and spoke lightly. 
 
 " Mr. Benton and friends. I certainly can't claim any- 
 thing on the work of the News. And as Mr. Barrington 
 does not appear to be present I'm glad to have this chance 
 to pay a tribute to his work on this campaign. He con- 
 tributed more ideas than all the rest of us put together. 
 I don't think there is any question that his arguments 
 and influence split the labour vote, and he has made our 
 little News famous all over the country. And I agree 
 with Miss Carr that the News has been a happy family 
 on this job. And I'm sorry I hadn't more to do with it. 
 My part has been a very easy one. There was nothing 
 hard about going round with a candidate whom every- 
 body liked, talking stuff that everybody seemed to believe. 
 But I thank you just the same." 
 
 Valerie slipped down again into her chair. It seemed 
 to her there was a deeper note in the applause that greeted 
 these words, but no one, she thought, could have any idea 
 what a triumph of character and decency that little 
 speech was. She felt again that eyes were turned from 
 Bob to her, and then she heard his voice in a different 
 tone roaring out the toast of the evening, " To Roger 
 Benton, the successful candidate, the new member for 
 Waitemata." 
 
 In the din that followed, Valerie worked her way from 
 the table.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 ONE fine dawn in the beginning of the following 
 January the Diana ran out of the mouth of the 
 Wairoa into the gray flat expanses of the 
 Kaipara Harbour that stretched away in all directions 
 into blurred horizons. Dane sat alone on the stern seat, 
 wearing a light tweed coat over his old navy suit, for 
 though there were already indications that the day would 
 be hot, the night damp still lingered on the river and a 
 chill came off the sea. He was hatless, and the little breeze 
 made by the launch stirred his hair. He looked weary, for 
 he had been up all night, but his skin had a healthy tan 
 upon it, and his eyes had the light of a man bent upon a 
 promising pilgrimage. 
 
 He looked away towards the heads where three timber 
 vessels lay, black shapes against the tan cliffs, waiting for 
 the tugs that would take them out over the dangerous 
 bar. In the world of low shores and fleeting fog there 
 was not a sign of another moving thing. As he turned 
 the Diana round a sand-bank towards land again, heading 
 for the rather uninteresting shore that lay between the 
 moulhs of two rivers, the gorgeous fan of crimson that had 
 formed in the east burst through a bank of low-lying 
 leaden clouds, stretched itself out into boundless space, 
 and lost itself in a diffused glow in the pale luminousness 
 of the clear ether above. Dane looked up at it, enjoying 
 the idea that he had the picture to himself. 
 
 He peered ahead into the little cabin where Valerie lay 
 
 257
 
 258 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 asleep between two possum rugs, debating as to whether 
 he should wake her to see it. But he decided to let her 
 sleep on. Then he turned the Diana into the mouth of 
 the Otamatea River, the Wairoa's neighbouring waterway. 
 
 This dawn journey was the beginning of a honeymoon 
 planned since Valerie's recovery from the election. Having 
 given way in the larger issue by consenting to go through 
 the ceremony, Valerie demanded that she have her % own 
 way about some things connected with it. She would 
 never have agreed to marry Dane in any ordinary fashion. 
 The affair had to be served up to her as romance and 
 adventure, as far as possible removed from the vulgar 
 eyes of the world and the dull ways of convention. She 
 would have in connection with it none of the trappings of 
 the social world. She had no time to arrange for a trous- 
 seau. She refused an engagement ring, and swore she 
 would never wear the wedding badge of servitude. Dane 
 was astonished to find in all this how deeply the wordy 
 paraphernalia of a conventional set had antagonized her, 
 and amused to see, as he continually reminded her, that 
 she gave it a significance it did not deserve. However, he 
 let her talk. Without saying anything about it, he or- 
 dered clothes for her from Sydney, for he demanded that 
 love be adorned in fine raiment. And he gave in to her 
 in the end on the matter of having the marriage kept se- 
 cret as long as she chose. They had had considerable 
 argument about this. 
 
 " I wish to go on as I should if we did not have the 
 ceremony, Dane. I want to stay on the paper. I want 
 to go on earning my own living. I can't sit about in 
 your house doing nothing. I should be bored to death 
 in a month. At least that's how I feel now. Of course, 
 in three months' time I may be feeling differently. But 
 now I want the work. I don't want love to become a
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 259 
 
 habit. It will be so wonderful to come to you for those 
 week-ends." 
 
 " Yes, it will. But it won't help to keep the secret." 
 
 " Well, let's see how long we can keep it. There's go- 
 ing to be a row, of course. But I've promised you that 
 when the row comes, if it's going to hurt you, I shall tell. 
 I don't care whether dad helped you or not, I don't see 
 what that has to do with us, or our private lives. If he 
 ever presumes to talk morals to us I'll tell him something 
 that will shut him up." 
 
 " Sh! You everlasting spitfire ! Have it your own way. 
 What I care about is that you love me, and of course you 
 must love me in your own way. But I don't mind telling 
 you I intend to change you a little." 
 
 She had looked at him with a smile. " I have a sus- 
 picion that you will change me far more than I shall 
 change you. Love has done all it can to you, and I'm 
 just beginning with it. I have no idea what it will do to 
 me." 
 
 " I don't think love has done all it can to me," he had 
 replied softly. " There are things about it I have never 
 had, and I'm hoping you can give them to me." 
 
 But so far he had not been able to move her out of her 
 determination to go back to her work on the paper. It 
 was not only that she wanted to be occupied, to be getting 
 ahead towards a career, but she wanted to earn her own 
 money. She had never mentioned the subject of finance 
 to Dane. She had not the faintest idea whether he meant 
 to give her an allowance or intermittent presents of cash, 
 and until he did so she would never have brought up the 
 Subject. But her economic freedom, the thing for which 
 she had fought and bled, was something she would never 
 give up to anybody. 
 
 The lovers had laid elaborate plans to cover their mar-
 
 260 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 riage and disappearance. It was quite easy for Dane, 
 whose ties were casual and whose correspondence was ir- 
 regular. He departed for Auckland in the middle of De- 
 cember, gave the paper for which he wrote his real address 
 in confidence, but told men he chanced to meet that he 
 was heading for the South Island and a summer about the 
 Otago Sounds, gave a Wellington address for his mail, 
 which was to be redirected from there back to the Ota- 
 matea, and then he doubled by devious ways back on his 
 tracks to his home, and began a series of night journeys 
 to prepare the camp he had visioned in his mind. 
 
 Valerie's intriguing had involved two reliable friends, 
 Viva and Ned Landon, who, as luck would have it, were 
 wandering in the Far North above the Hokianga harbour 
 out of the reach of telegrams and regular mails. She 
 gave out that she was to go with them on a riding and 
 walking tour, and so it was that when Bob saw her off 
 one morning in the direction of Tangiteroria he had no 
 suspicion that she would get no further than the old mis- 
 sion station. He only wondered if Dane too were up in 
 the North somewhere. Valerie had arranged for her mail 
 to go to the Bay of Islands and to be redirected from 
 there to the Otamatea. And she had taken the extra pre- 
 caution of telling her family that she was too tired to 
 write letters and that they could expect news when they 
 got it. 
 
 II 
 
 Dane had at least had his own way about the choice 
 of a spot. Valerie had begged merely that it be some- 
 where by the sea. And he had chosen a place he had dis- 
 covered the summer before while cruising about the two 
 beautiful rivers that run with the Wairoa into the Kai- 
 para harbour on the northern side, chosen it not only for
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 261 
 
 the sake of its own beauty, but because it was within easy 
 reach of the one man he could trust to perform the cere- 
 mony and keep it quiet. 
 
 *' Are you sure of him? " Valerie had asked doubtfully. 
 
 ** I would trust David Bruce with anything, even as a 
 private person. And as a Justice of the Peace he is like 
 a lawyer or a priest. They call him Strong Box up there 
 because they say he knows some strange secrets, and be- 
 cause nothing you ever put into him comes out till you 
 take it out yourself." 
 
 And Valerie was very glad long before December was 
 over that she could leave all the details to Dane and sim- 
 ply be prepared like a child to be surprised and delighted 
 with each day as it came along. 
 
 When Dane had gone some three miles up the Ota- 
 matea River, between the bare and wind-swept wastes about 
 the harbour, he turned the nose of the Diana round a 
 grass-covered headland on his right and let her run on 
 her momentum into a little bay, a perfect arch of white 
 sand, that sloped gently into clear water above a hard 
 sandy bottom, a shore as different as it could be from the 
 steep, soft banks of the muddy Wairoa. On a flat that 
 curved with the bay's sweep were the remains of an old 
 house, long since tumbled into a heap of ruins, and lichen- 
 spotted and overgrown with convolvulus, honeysuckle and 
 degenerated grape-vines. About it, planted as three sides 
 of a square, the open ends reaching to within a yard or 
 two of the beach, were the double lines of poplars which 
 the early settlers in these parts seem to have regarded as 
 some kind of talisman, for they planted them so frequently. 
 Within this square and all about the ruins there flourished 
 an old garden open to the sun and wind. Dane had picked 
 moss roses there the summer before, and had lain down to 
 sleep with the fragrance of sweet briar in his nostrils.
 
 262 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 There were hydrangea bushes, mottled out of their original 
 clear blue by the bees, geraniums in wild profusion, and 
 the traces of violets and jonquil leaves turning brown in 
 the coarse grass. 
 
 On the edge of all this and a mere jump from the sand 
 Dane had pitched two tents, had made a stone fireplace, 
 and had collected a fine pile of wood. Beyond the camp, 
 near the further end of the bay's curve, was a clump of 
 green bush and fern in a little gully which sheltered the 
 spring that had beguiled the early missionary into set- 
 tling here. This spring ran into the river on the inside of 
 a rocky point that curved about to make a perfect land- 
 ing-place and shelter for boats. The Diana and the row- 
 ing boat Dane had hired could lie there unseen by people 
 passing on the river, and he had been anxious to hide his 
 launch, in which he had run about the rivers a good deal. 
 Beyond the square of poplars, trailing in a straggly fash- 
 ion up the slope, was a moss-grown orchard of fig and 
 peach and apple trees, stunted now with the swirl of the 
 westerly winds that curled over the bare hilltop behind, 
 but still capable of bearing fruit that was good to the 
 taste. 
 
 In spite of its openness to the wind and sky and its 
 position on the river, the place was remote. The nearest 
 habitation was a fish-tinning factory two miles further up, 
 and beyond that were Maori settlements long before one 
 came to those of the whites. The lovers had little to fear 
 from the curiosity of picnickers or fishers, as no one would 
 land in a place where tents showed prior possession. Dane 
 thought he had found the best thing available, and he felt 
 very happy as the sun came up on this delectable abode 
 of little birds and sweet scents. The place was alive with 
 the twittering of sparrows and yellowhammers, and a 
 delicate fragrance from the briars drifted out from the
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 263 
 
 shore. The river was so still when the launch came to 
 rest that the poplars, caught by the sun, were reflected 
 in the bay. 
 
 Throwing off his coat Dane moved along to the cabin, 
 crept in and woke Valerie with kisses on her lips. 
 
 She roused herself regretfully out of her heavy sleep. 
 " Oh, did you have to wake me? " she asked pathetically. 
 
 " You shall go straight to bed again and sleep all day 
 if you want to. But come on and look." 
 
 Weary as she was she knew this incurable romanticist of 
 hers had something to show her, and that if she did not 
 take it properly she would spoil his day. She rubbed her 
 eyes and stretched herself, crawled out and got to her 
 feet. Then she came to full awakeness in a moment. 
 Never had he given her a hint of the tents, which she saw 
 even before she took in the beauty of their setting. She 
 ran her eyes over the whole place before she turned to 
 him. 
 
 " You've just got everything I love," she said hoarsely, 
 and sat down on a seat to feast her eyes upon it. 
 
 "You really like it?" 
 
 " Oh, Dane, how could I help but like it? How do you 
 find such lovely places ? " 
 
 Pleased he went back to the engine, and ran the launch 
 into the shelter at the end of the bay, where they trans- 
 ferred their things into the rowing boat. Valerie could 
 hardly do her share of helping, so excited was she now 
 with the charm of this retreat, with the prospect of a 
 whole month with him, and when they had finally got all 
 their stuff landed and he took her with the pride of a 
 child to see how he had fixed things up inside she was over- 
 come with delight. She turned with trembling lips and 
 threw her arms about him, and stood close against him 
 very still.
 
 264 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 He rubbed his cheek against hers, understanding that 
 she felt something she could not put into words, and then 
 he kissed her face very lightly, and brought her back to a 
 mood that was less intense. 
 
 Ill 
 
 " Valerie, I hope that in your three days' sleep you 
 have at least dreamed of the solemn step we are to take 
 in the morning." 
 
 She laughed delightedly. 
 
 " You are certainly consistent in your eccentricity," he 
 went on lazily. " I have never heard of a person before 
 who snored away her last days of freedom." 
 
 " Oh, Dane, do I really snore? " 
 
 " Would it be as serious as all that if you did? " 
 
 " Dane, I firmly believe that snores have broken up as 
 many happy homes as any other cause. I simply could 
 not live in a house with a man who snored. If I snore, 
 something has got to be done about it." 
 
 " Well, you don't, dear, so the ship won't go to pieces 
 on that rock. But by God ! you can sleep. I didn't real- 
 ize a person of your age could be so tired." 
 
 " Poor old dear, it's been awfully dull for you. And 
 you have been a perfect saint. But you won't have to be 
 a disembodied spirit much longer. I shall be rested in a 
 day or two." 
 
 " I haven't been suffering, my child. I've had poems 
 piecing themselves together in my head, poems to you an'd 
 the camp. I've been quite happy." 
 
 Dane lounged on a rug and cushions against the stern 
 seat of the launch, his arms clasped above his head, and 
 Valerie sat in one of her favourite attitudes with her chin 
 on her knees beside him. They were in a little creek near
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 265 
 
 a Maori settlement, where they had come to hear the na- 
 tive band that played on fine nights. They had been still 
 for over an hour listening to it. A moon waxing to the 
 full crept up over tree tops and now shone down upon 
 them. 
 
 They had been out on the river only at night so far, 
 not only because it was pleasanter, but because Dane was 
 very anxious not to be seen, and there was more traffic 
 than he had expected. But it had been no hardship to 
 stay in the cool little gully near the tents by day, espe- 
 cially for Valerie, who could hardly stay awake long 
 enough to eat. She had slumped indeed quite badly, and 
 Dane had seen that she must have emotional as well as 
 physical rest, and putting aside his own temporary desires 
 to climb hills or make love to her he had set himself to get 
 her well again. 
 
 As she had to be three days in the neighbourhood before 
 the ceremony could be performed, Dane was still teasing 
 her about it. He looked up at her now with a whimsical 
 smile, and reaching up for her hand drew it down against 
 his cheek. 
 
 "Need any moral support for to-morrow?" he asked 
 lightly. 
 
 Her eyes gleamed down" at him. " I wasn't thinking 
 about it," she retorted. 
 
 "What then?" 
 
 " I was just wondering why people dan't keep them- 
 selves at a pitch of happiness. Why we can't be like this 
 always, what it is that comes on and changes things. It 
 seems to me that if you and I always had a boat and the 
 moon and a fine night we ought always to feel as happ}' as 
 we are now." 
 
 " But, you blessed idiot, we don't always have the boat 
 and the moon and the fine night."
 
 266 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 " I don't see it. I don't understand why we get tireo! 
 of a fine thing." 
 
 " Well, my dear, isn't that the whole damned puzzle? 
 You could not play the Moonlight Sonata over and over 
 again all day long and all night without growing to hate 
 it. You'd fatigue your sense of hearing till it drove you 
 mad. That's what life does to us. We look at the beau- 
 tiful thing and don't see it any more because we have 
 looked at it too closely or too long. What was once a 
 revelation becomes a commonplace. But what can we do 
 about it? Some of us do try to avert disaster by having 
 all the variety we can in life, by contrasting one thing 
 with another." 
 
 She looked away from him for a minute and then she 
 turned and slid down beside him. 
 
 " I know something that will never be commonplace," 
 she said softly, looking intently into his face. 
 
 " Thank you, dear. That was charmingly said." 
 
 " Dane, you're a lovely person. I wish I hope " 
 
 Her voice broke. 
 
 " Taken as meant, dear," he said lightly. 
 
 " Oh, I'm so happy, and it seems unnatural, it's just 
 all so beautiful here with you." 
 
 " Cheer up, "dear. It won't last. It's blowing up for 
 rain, and we shall have to sit in the tents, and cook by 
 the kerosene stove, and it smells horribly." 
 
 She laughed. " But you said if it rained we could go 
 fishing out on the flats." 
 
 " That's true, we can." 
 
 " Well then, that's a poor disaster to threaten me with." 
 She lay happily down beside him and yawned. 
 
 " Good Lord. You're going to sleep again," he said. 
 We'll go home." 
 
 But Valerie had almost slept herself out, and when
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 267 
 
 something startled her in the night, some bird or small 
 animal about the tent, she found herself unable to drop 
 off to sleep again. She lay looking at the pattern of the 
 poplar trees like a fretwork on the moonlit roof. It was 
 so still outside that she could hear fish jumping in the bay 
 and Dane's steady breathing in the cot beside her. She 
 drew herself up and looked across at the black head against 
 the pillow. She was glad to be able to look at him like 
 that in the soft light without his knowing. She wondered 
 as she had done several times how far his looks affected 
 her, for she knew well enough she was crazy about them. 
 She loved to move her fingers about in his hair, to feast 
 her eyes upon the beauty of his straight and sensitive fea- 
 tures, and to catch and hold as long as she could the 
 expressions that crept out of his eyes and played about 
 them. She understood well enough why women had gone 
 mad about him. And she was beginning to understand 
 why none of them had stuck to him. 
 
 Women did not stick to men they could neither domi- 
 nate nor understand, she thought, the kind of women he 
 had probably known, that was. She herself was deter- 
 mined not to try to dominate him, even where she thought 
 she might do it, and she knew now that she was probably 
 no nearer understanding him than the others. But at 
 least she meant to try. That he was a creature of strange 
 idealisms, contradictory impulses, desperate despairs, and 
 fierce protests against divisions in himself she knew. She 
 did not suppose she could fight his battles for him, save 
 him from his weaknesses, but at least she was determined 
 now to ignore them as long as possible. She had simply 
 ceased to think of the things that had worried her a few 
 weeks back, the possibility that he took drugs, his lapses 
 into drinking. 
 . As she looked at him he turned a little in his sleep and
 
 268 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 threw his arm across his face. It gave him the air of 
 fighting off some invisible enemy. It seemed to her a 
 characteristic attitude. He was so often fighting in- 
 visible enemies. And that gave to his eyes the light that 
 she had sometimes seen flash across them, the light of one 
 who has come victorious out of a battle. And she knew 
 that was why his face was so different in expression from 
 that of her father. Her father did not fight. 
 
 She grew sentimental about him as she sat there, saw 
 him again as the boy left behind in hotels, lonely and for- 
 lorn, trying to puzzle out the strange things that he saw 
 about him, pictured his erratic and undisciplined youth, 
 his sensitiveness and fastidiousness at war with the coarse- 
 ness and ruthlessness in the world about him, thought over 
 the probability that his early sex experience had been 
 soiled by the selfishness of women older than himself, as 
 she knew his wife had been. Tears came to her eyes as 
 she remembered how life had hurt him. She wanted to get 
 out of her cot then and there and put her arms round 
 him and swear that that was the one thing she would never 
 do. She did not in that moment perceive that it was the 
 one thing she would inevitably do because they loved each 
 other. 
 
 IV 
 
 David Bruce's face lit up when they walked into his 
 office to be married the next morning. Every Justice of 
 the Peace in the North could tell a tale of at least one 
 strange pair who had descended upon him pleading for 
 secrecy. Sometimes he knew the parties, but usually he 
 did not, for they came from other places. But Bruce 
 knew well who were his merry suppliants for silence. He 
 had not told Dane, and he did not dream of telling either
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 269 
 
 of them, that Davenport Carr happened to be his own 
 lawyer, and that he guessed some of the fuss that might 
 follow this marriage. All that concerned him was that 
 they were of age and of sound mind. And as they stood 
 before him, both dressed in white flannels as if they were 
 about to play a game of tennis, he thought he had never 
 seen a more engaging pair of human beings. 
 
 Valerie looked up at him and thought at once that 
 since she had to go through with this stupid affair it was 
 nice to have someone with the humorous eyes that Bruce 
 had to manage it. And she was still more attracted to 
 him when he spoke. She felt he was, as Dane had said, a 
 man with a wide knowledge of good and evil, and a mind 
 that nothing could take unawares. He smilingly reas- 
 sured her as to the secrecy of this objectionable transac- 
 tion. Nobody ever asked to see the register, he said. He 
 mightn't marry anyone again for six months, as most 
 people preferred the church. It was possible to over- 
 look a record in one quarter and to remember it at a later 
 date. One took risks in the interest of the personal equa- 
 tion. His manager, Bob Hargraves, who would have to 
 witness the ceremony, could be trusted not to tell even his 
 wife. 
 
 Immediately after the ceremony Valerie took off the 
 ring that Dane had remembered to buy in Auckland, and 
 as she signed the register she could not resist her little 
 fling. 
 
 " To think that this is all that stands between morality 
 and immorality in the eyes of this crazy world, and that 
 I'm supposed to respect the people who believe it is! My 
 God! It's unbelievable. Three minutes' rigmarole to do 
 a thing that it takes courts and lawyers and witnesses 
 weeks of beastly mess and tangle to undo ! It's beyond 
 me. And I vowed I'd never go through it." She turned
 
 270 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 to Dane almost resentfully. " I hope you're proud of 
 the surrender." 
 
 " If I thought it was that I should commence divorce 
 proceedings to-morrow," he retorted. " I could live with 
 anything but a surrender." 
 
 David Bruce stood by his window to watch them go 
 along to the Diana. He felt he would like to know how 
 they got on. 
 
 " How many years do you give those two? " asked Bob, 
 with a grin on his face. 
 
 " Bob, I don't think time will matter very much in this 
 case. They care more about the quality of life than the 
 length of it those two." 
 
 There followed wonderful days and wonderful nights for 
 the lovers. For a week the weather was hot and fine, and 
 they began the day with a plunge right out of bed into 
 their little bay. Then after their housekeeping was done 
 he retired into the cooler tent to write, and Valerie either 
 read or walked about the hills or went off rowing to limber 
 up her limbs, stiffened by long months of sitting. If she 
 returned before he was out calling for her she kept very 
 still. After their lunch they played in the bay or dozed 
 in hammocks in the gully till it was time for tea, and then, 
 as the day became cooler and they felt energetic, they 
 would get ready for a night picnic, an excursion up the 
 river, or a long walk over the slopes to the harbour. 
 
 At first Dane had insisted on doing most of the work, 
 and she had been convulsed the first time she saw him 
 clean the frying-pan. She tried to see him back in his 
 own setting at the old station, where, except for the care 
 of the Diana, he never did a stroke of work. She watched 
 him here doing the washing up, shaking the matting on the 
 ground floor, airing the bedding, as he did in the first 
 days while she was so tired, as if it were some other man
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 271 
 
 who had taken possession of him. But it was love that 
 had taken possession of him, that had made him more 
 velvety and less nervous than she had ever seen him, and 
 that had made him come alive. 
 
 It did rain, and the kerosene stove did smell, but it 
 would have taken more than such material trials to de- 
 press them. Nor did they get bored with the living at 
 close quarters, because they knew how to be quiet and how 
 to let each other alone. And because the open air life 
 made them both sleepy it was possible for them, highly 
 strung though they were, to share the same tent at night. 
 
 As they packed up Valerie felt the month had been the 
 most beautiful thing she had ever known and because she 
 felt that she was the more enraged at what happened soon 
 after they got back. 
 
 About the time the lovers went to the Otamatea there 
 began to leak out in Auckland rumours concerning their 
 friendship. As usual no one knew where the nods and 
 suggestions and shrugs of the shoulders began, whether 
 they arose out of the visits of Dargaville people to rela- 
 tives in the city or from hints in letters. But by devious 
 ways they got to the Lorrimer family and so to the Carrs. 
 At the first breath Doris Lorrimer had written to Bob for 
 the truth of the matter, and he had replied at once with 
 a loyally positive statement that it was all nonsense, and 
 that he ought to know. But this had no effect on the 
 rumours. 
 
 Davenport Carr was worried. He was ready to excuse 
 any wildmjss, any independence on the part of his daugh- 
 ter except the one unpardonable sin, that of getting mixed 
 up publicly with the wrong man. And from his point of 
 view Dane was the wrong man, much as he admired him.
 
 272 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 And like most fathers he made the mistake of thinking 
 that his daughter had never got beyond the age of sixteen. 
 He was annoyed at the rumours for two other reasons 
 he regarded Dane's association with Valerie as a breach 
 of a code and an act of treachery, and he had recently 
 made the acquaintance of a rich Englishman of family 
 and personalit}' who he thought would make a splendid 
 husband for her. He had not supposed he could choose 
 her husband for her, but he did not believe any woman 
 knew her own mind so well that a little clever manauvring 
 would not turn her in another direction. And it must be 
 said for him that he had had little demonstration to the 
 contrary. 
 
 The last week in January he took his yacht to the Bay 
 of Islands intending to pick up Valerie and the Landons 
 and bring them home by the coast. As luck would have 
 it, the day before the Landons returned from the North 
 Carr ran into the driver who had taken them on the first 
 stage of their wanderings, and learned from him that no 
 Miss Carr had gone with them, nor had she been seen any- 
 where in the neighbourhood. Then he went to the post- 
 office, where he was well known, and on the plea of urgent 
 necessity to get at his daughter learned the illuminating 
 fact that her mail was being readdressed to the Otamatea. 
 He returned to Auckland that night in a very bad temper, 
 and telegraphed to Bob to find out when Valerie would be 
 back on the paper. Learning that it was only to be a 
 few days he waited. His next source of information was 
 Roger Benton into whom he ran two days later in the 
 club to which they both belonged. They dined together, 
 and Davenport Carr led the talk back to the election, the 
 News and the work done by Dane Barrington. A few 
 cleverly worded questions which Roger tried to evade told 
 Carr all he wanted to know.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 273 
 
 VI 
 
 As Dane lay reading in his hammock the Wednesday 
 afternoon of the following week his chained dogs set up a 
 fierce growling on the other side of the house, and Lee 
 glided to his side. 
 
 " A strange man coming in," he said. 
 
 " Well, stop him at once, Lee. Say I'm away. Miss 
 Carr will be here any minute. So get him out somehow. 
 Threaten him with the dogs if he won't go." 
 
 He lay on in the hammock for a few minutes, and then 
 exceedingly annoyed he got up to see who it was who had 
 had the cheek to defy the notice at the gate. He walked 
 into the study and was astonished to see Davenport Carr 
 talking angrily to Lee. 
 
 The boy had met the stranger near the front steps. 
 He was no respecter of persons where his obedience was 
 concerned. 
 
 " Meester Barrington not home. You please to go 
 away," he said. 
 
 Davenport Carr looked down coolly enough at him. He 
 had no intention of getting angry with a servant. 
 
 " I happen to know he is home. And I'm Miss Carr's 
 father. You go and tell him who it is." 
 
 " It no good, Meester Carr. He away." And Lee 
 looked meaningly at the dogs. 
 
 That look made Davenport Carr suddenly furious, but 
 he made an effort to control himself. 
 
 " It's no use your telling me he's away. And even if 
 he is I'm going to wait till he comes back. You needn't 
 look at those dogs again, you damned little fool." 
 
 " You mistake," said Lee, with great dignity. " Meester 
 Barrington away, gone to town." 
 
 At that moment Dane came through the front door.
 
 274 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 " Thank you, Lee," he said, very quietly, and the boy 
 much relieved, but not at all embarrassed, disappeared in- 
 side. 
 
 The two men looked at one another for a minute. 
 
 " I say, Carr, whatever you may have come to say to 
 me, I'll thank you not to insult my servants." His cool 
 voice still further irritated his visitor. 
 
 " Damn it, Barrington, he had the cheek to threaten me 
 with those dogs." 
 
 " I told him to, but without knowing who it was who 
 had come past the notice on my gate. I don't allow peo- 
 ple in here unless I ask them. But I'm not in hiding, and 
 if you had let me know you were coming I should have 
 come down for you in my launch." 
 
 " Oh, you would, would you? " Davenport Carr strug- 
 gled for control. He knew it was useless to be angry, but 
 something about Dane's manner nettled him, threw him 
 into the wrong mood for this interview. 
 
 " Why, certainly. May I ask why you doubt it? And 
 will you please come in." 
 
 Carr followed him. He was vaguely aware of the at- 
 mosphere of the study he was passing through, and more 
 vividly aware of the peace and comfort of the verandah, 
 the beauty of the shrubs and bush heavy with the sensu- 
 ousness of the afternoon warmth, the panel of sunny river 
 framed in the leafy ravine, and the curiosity of a fantail 
 that flitted about the verandah posts. 
 
 He had an unpleasant feeling even then that he was in 
 the wrong, that he should never have come. The quiet 
 assurance with which Dane indicated a chair was not lost 
 upon him. But he made no move to take it. 
 
 " Look here, Barrington, I've come to talk plainly to 
 you." 
 
 " I understand that. And since vou have chosen to
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 275 
 
 come to my house I must listen to you now, and I'm ready 
 to hear all you have to say. But will you please remem- 
 ber that it is my house, and that I do not allow any man 
 to come here and behave as he pleases. I insist that you 
 act according to my sense of hospitality or we will go 
 out on the public road. Will you please sit down? " 
 
 Davenport Carr had never been spoken to like that in 
 all his life, but angry as he was he recognized Dane's right 
 to deliver that extraordinary speech. He sat down. 
 
 Dane got into his hammock and lit a cigarette with a 
 detachment that did not help the temper of the man who 
 was staring at him. The minute he had seen through 
 his study window who his unwelcome guest was he knew 
 he was in for it and set himself to face the music. But he 
 did not mind what he would hear half so much as he did the 
 scene that was likely to ensue when Valerie arrived. But 
 whatever happened he was determined to keep his own 
 temper, to bear in mind the point of view of a father in 
 the matter, and also the point of view of the man brought 
 up as Carr had been. 
 
 He was no sooner in his hammock than Lee came 
 through the door with a tray and glasses. Dane could 
 hardly keep from showing his appreciation of the match- 
 less behaviour of his servant, who, gliding like a spirit, 
 placed the things on the red table, moved it near the ham- 
 mock, and looked at Davenport Carr as if he saw him for 
 the first time. 
 
 " What you have, Meester Carr, wine or whisky? " he 
 asked, with his impassive urbanity. 
 
 " I I nothing. I won't drink." Carr stared furiously 
 past him out into the garden. He felt he was in some 
 conspiracy of management. 
 
 " Meester Barrington? " 
 
 " Pour out two whiskies, Lee."
 
 1276 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 Davenport Carr gave one withering look into Dane's 
 insolently quiet face, and then he stared at the fantail 
 that was now perched on a rocking twig of honeysuckle 
 chirping impertinently at him. 
 
 When he had poured out the drinks Lee looked uncer- 
 tainly at Dane. 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " The other? " suggested the boy. " What do I say? " 
 
 " Oh, Miss Carr? Is she here? " 
 
 " No, but she come soon, you say." 
 
 " That's all right, Lee, Let her come here as soon as 
 she arrives." 
 
 Davenport Carr tapped his feet nervously on the floor 
 and the minute Lee had disappeared he stood up. 
 
 " Look here, Barrington, I didn't mean to lose my tem- 
 per when I came, and I didn't come here to talk morals to 
 you either, but I'm not going to let you insult me by your 
 manner, especially when you know well enough why I have 
 come." 
 
 " I'm sorry I've seemed insulting, Carr. That is the 
 last thing I wish to be under any circumstances, or to 
 anybody. I don't know what kind of manner you expect 
 from me, but I'm not going to get angry just because you 
 'do." 
 
 Dane did not move his head from his red cushions. 
 Something about his ease and beauty fascinated his visitor 
 even while it enraged him. 
 
 " Good God, haven't I a right to be angry ? You've 
 got Valerie talked about here and in Auckland. Do you 
 tell me you don't know that? " He took a step nearer the 
 hammock. 
 
 Dane's expression did not change. " I didn't know it, 
 and I'm very sorry to hear it. I did my best to avoid it." 
 
 " Oh, you did, did you? That at least is something to
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 277 
 
 your credit. How long have you been living with Va- 
 lerie? " 
 
 " You mean, am I living with Valerie? Well, Carr, I 
 once heard you say that was an unfair and impertinent 
 question outside a court of law, and that it should never 
 in any case be asked of a man, as he had no right to 
 speak for the woman concerned. I agreed with you at the 
 time and I still do." 
 
 For a moment Dane thought the other man was going 
 to strike him as he lay, but he kept still, looking him fair 
 in the eyes. 
 
 " Barrington, will you get out of that damned thing ! 
 I can't talk to you while you lie there like a woman. Get 
 up!" 
 
 " Well, if I get out of this thing we'll go out on the 
 road. I repeat this is my house, and you can't dictate to 
 me whether I shall sit or stand. And I always use this 
 hammock when I'm out here. Now will you please say 
 what you came to say. I'm anxious to have it over before 
 Valerie comes, and for God's sake, Carr, be careful what 
 you say to her." 
 
 " Be careful what I say to her ! " The moment would 
 have been critical for an apoplectic man. " By God, you 
 are a grim humourist ! " 
 
 " I don't mean to be funny, I assure you. But I repeat 
 it. You know what advice and interference do to her. 
 They seem to give her inflammation of the brain. You 
 see she is not a person moved merely by impulse; she has 
 the fanaticism of strong conviction." 
 
 " Oh, the deuce ! Anyone can make a conviction out of 
 an impulse." 
 
 " I don't doubt that has been your method, my dear 
 Carr, but it is not your daughter's. I know a thorough- 
 bred conviction when I see it and she is full of them. I
 
 278 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 should be suspicious of your convictions and even o? my 
 own " 
 
 Davenport Carr swung round on his heel, stamped 
 along the verandah to the steps and down them to relieve 
 his feelings, and then after a minute, he stamped up 
 again. 
 
 " Get out of that thing, Barrington," he shouted. 
 
 But Dane turned wearily away from him with a gesture 
 of impatience that showed his visitor what a fool he was 
 making of himself. He dropped down into the nearest 
 chair making a desperate effort at control. 
 
 " Won't you have a whisky, and tell me what it is you 
 wish to say," said Dane, very quietly. 
 
 " I won't drink thanks." Carr sat for some minutes 
 alternately diverted and irritated by the fantail which 
 kept squeaking at him. 
 
 " I came to appeal to you, Barrington, if you have a 
 spark of decency left in you. You've lived a hot life and 
 you know the world as well as I do. I didn't come here to 
 blame you for being attracted by Valerie. I wish to be 
 fair. Benton told me he begged you to go on the paper, 
 and I've no doubt that she met you half-way. And I 
 could have overlooked well some secret meetings with 
 you both thrown together up here. God knows I've done 
 things I don't care to think about. But you should never 
 have got her talked about. That is the thing I can't 
 forgive. And I liked and trusted you. Now this with my 
 daughter. You should have gone away in the beginning." 
 
 The moderation in this impressed Dane. He had not 
 quite expected it. 
 
 " I did, Carr. I did go away." 
 
 " Well, you came back, then." 
 
 " Yes, I came back." He turned in the hammock and 
 looked out into the garden. The light on his face ar-
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 279 
 
 rested the other man, but he saw it as something to be 
 taken advantage of. 
 
 " Well, if you have any respect for her, Harrington, 
 you must see that whatever there is between you must end 
 at once. I'm here to beg you to end it. You can't pre- 
 tend that there is anything between you that will last. 
 If I cannot get her to leave Dargaville you must go away 
 yourself, and then what talk there has been will die down. 
 It is the only thing you can do now. Will you do it ? " 
 
 Dane turned to look at him. " Honestly, Carr, I don't 
 think you have any right to ask me to do that." 
 
 " What ! Do you mean to tell me you don't know what 
 the result will be to her if you go on ? " 
 
 " I wasn't thinking of that. I was thinking that she is 
 twenty-six, and a free agent, and that she doesn't care." 
 
 Carr felt his anger mounting again. 
 
 "Doesn't she? She will care, silly fool. She will care 
 well enough when she comes out of the self-indulgent mess 
 you've got her into." 
 
 Try as he would Dane could not keep a shadow of a 
 pitying smile out of his eyes. " Carr, the man was never 
 born who could make your daughter self-indulgent. And 
 love is not the only indulgence. You can be self-indulgent 
 on milk and potatoes if you're made that way. But it is 
 a matter of being born that way. So please don't at- 
 tribute to me powers over your daughter that I don't 
 possess." 
 
 Davenport Carr sprang up again. " Stop your 
 damned philosophizing. It's not helping your case at all. 
 You have behaved like a cad. I can't help saying it. 
 You have seduced an inexperienced girl " 
 
 " I did not seduce Valerie, and I never seduced any 
 girl." 
 
 " You have had her here overnight. What the devil do
 
 280 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 you call that? And I believe you have been away witH 
 her this last month. It is ridiculous for you to pre- 
 tend " 
 
 " I'm not pretending anything, Carr. I tell you 
 frankly I have wished to marry her ever since the begin- 
 ning of last winter." 
 
 "What!" Valerie's father lost the little control he 
 now had left. " Of course you did! Your object is plain 
 enough. Of course you'd like to marry her! Of course 
 you'd like to get back so easily after two divorce scandals 
 and the other mess. And a fine husband you would be 
 for my daughter with all that hanging round your neck. 
 By God, marriage is the one thing I will prevent if I can. 
 I tell you that plainly. Damn you! How you can have 
 the infernal cheek after what I did for you I'd believe 
 anything after this. And you can get your business out 
 of my hands at once, do you hear? At once. I will not 
 be your lawyer a week longer. If you ruin my daughter, 
 
 you blackguard But you shall not. If you'd ever 
 
 had the decency to be a parent you'd know how one feels 
 about a child " 
 
 The torrent stopped abruptly for Valerie swung 
 through the study door with a livid, quivering face, and 
 clapped her hand on her father's mouth with the sudden- 
 ness and the appearance of a blow. 
 
 " You rotten coward, to taunt a man because he never 
 had a child. Apologize for that at once or I will never 
 speak to you again as long as I live." 
 
 Davenport Carr fell back a step and Dane sprang from 
 the hammock and snatched her riding-whip from her hand. 
 
 "For God's sake, Val! " he exclaimed, horrified. 
 
 " Oh, I wasn't going to hit him. Please get away, 
 Dane. Are you going to apologize ? " 
 
 ' ' Val, I insist, please. I will not have any scene. It
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 281 
 
 doesn't matter what your father said to me. Do be rea- 
 sonable " 
 
 " Dane, go away. I won't be reasonable. Was he rea- 
 sonable? I heard what he said to you. He called you a 
 blackguard you! And that brutal taunt! You damned 
 coward ! " She swung round on her startled father like 
 an avenging fury. " You heard what I said. Apologize 
 or I will never speak to you again after this day." 
 
 And Davenport Carr saw a terrible look in the eyes of 
 the child that he had come to shelter and defend, and it 
 was a look that took small account of his eminence as a 
 parent, and a look that made his assumptions as protector 
 seem absurd. But in spite of all his confused anger he 
 was big enough to see that he had said an uncalled-for 
 thing. 
 
 " I do apologize for that, Barrington," he said un- 
 steadily, dropping back into the chair. 
 
 " It's forgotten, sir." Dane turned to Valerie, his eyes 
 trying to hold hers with a compelling look. " Now, Va- 
 lerie, please say what you have to say quietly. And you 
 know one thing you ought to say." 
 
 But it was unfortunate that Valerie had arrived primed 
 as she had not been for years for a row. 
 
 VII 
 
 Bob had told her when she returned to the hotel the 
 previous Sunday night that her father had wired to know 
 when she would be back, and then after a little hesitation 
 he had told her also that his sister had written about the 
 rumours. 
 
 " Please don't think I'm interfering. But I thought you 
 might prefer to know." 
 
 She did prefer to know, and was grateful to Bob and
 
 282 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 told him so. She waited to see if she would hear more 
 and did not suppose am'thing would happen before she saw 
 Dane, as she had arranged, on the Wednesday evening. 
 It was on that day soon after the paper was out that 
 she quite unexpectedly got the news of her father's 
 arrival. 
 
 Riding along from Te Koperu Doctor Steele had met 
 the buggy from the stables, had recognized Davenport 
 Carr as the only occupant and had seen that his nod was 
 absent-mindedly returned, and then had begun to wonder 
 what Carr was doing out on that road. With a presenti- 
 ment that something was in the air he stopped at the News 
 office as he occasionally did when passing at that hour of 
 the day to get his paper. He walked in, saw Valerie sit- 
 ting there with Bob, and after he had been given a copy 
 of the News he said casually, " So your father is paying 
 us a visit again, Miss Carr." 
 
 He saw her face cloud and Bob look quickly at her. 
 But Valerie didn't pretend she had expected him. 
 
 " Why, where did you see him, Doctor? He likes to be 
 surprising." 
 
 " I met him on the road here driving out towards Bar- 
 rington's. Perhaps we'll have a game to-night," and he 
 walked out as if he had said nothing significant. 
 
 Bob and Valerie gave one look at each other. They 
 had not seen the buggy pass the office, nor had it, for 
 Carr had taken a back cut. 
 
 "You'd better go after him, hadn't you?" said Bob 
 quietly. 
 
 And without knowing exactly what she feared she had 
 hurried to the hotel where her horse was waiting for her, 
 and caring nothing as to who might have seen her father, 
 she dashed through the town in the heat in pursuit of 
 him. And before she was half-way out she was beside her-
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 283 
 
 self with rage that he had come up at all to impose the 
 outside world upon their peace. She had heard the voices 
 directly she reached the front steps, and she stole silently 
 into the study. They were not fighting, she was relieved 
 to find, but the things her father was saying boiled the 
 blood already over-heated in her veins. 
 
 And Dane saw, as he tried to calm her after her father's 
 apology, that he was wasting his time. 
 
 " Dane, I'll say what I want to say and nothing else. 
 My father came here and said what he wanted to say, and 
 now he can listen to me." 
 
 He turned away very hurt for here they were quarrel- 
 ling for the first time. He began to pace back and forth 
 on the verandah, growing more resentful every moment at 
 the scene that followed, though he could not but admit 
 the grim justice of much that Valerie said to her father, 
 and admire the passionate eloquence with which she said 
 it. 
 
 She stood against the hammock opposite her father, 
 making at first an effort at control as she wiped her hot 
 face, but after she got started she was like an over-wound 
 spring that had been suddenly released. 
 
 " I never heard you talk such rubbish before, and I 
 didn't think anyone could talk such stuff to-day. You 
 mentioned my ruin. Why, Dane couldn't ruin me if he 
 tried. You can't ruin a person who isn't ruinable, who 
 refuses to be ruined. Do you think I'm the Second Mrs. 
 Tanqueray that you come out with that tosh? What 
 about all the women you've been living with? Are they 
 ruined? And me? Am I going to sit round in the dark 
 with the blinds drawn waiting for people to call ? Can you 
 see me doing it? How can you be so ridiculous? Nothing 
 can ruin me but my own attitude of mind. Do you hear 
 that? And what do you think I live for? Invitations to
 
 284 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 dinner? Are they the cure for ruin? My heavens, I'd 
 call myself ruined if I gave them the importance you do. 
 It's you who are being ruined, not I. When you can take 
 away from me my Beethoven, and the stars and the sun- 
 sets and the sea, and my own thoughts and my capacity 
 to love all the things I do love I might agree that I was 
 ruined. And Dane is only making me love all these things 
 the more. For heaven's sake, don't come here and talk 
 such drivel to us." 
 
 She paused for breath, and her father, who had forgot- 
 ten Dane for the present, and was roused to defend him- 
 self against her, broke in with fierce irritation. 
 
 " You silly fool ! Do you think you're the first person 
 to talk this way and to live to find out you're wrong? 
 You're going to lose all your friends " 
 
 " There you go again, insulting good words. Friends ! 
 The people I will lose were never friends and I'll be glad 
 to lose them. What earthly use to me at any time are 
 people who don't understand? Don't you suppose I've 
 learned how few friends I have? Will you get it into your 
 head that I don't care a damn about Government House 
 dinners, about meeting people in their cheapest and most 
 stupid moods? You want to frighten me with the ostra- 
 cism of a set. Why, I ostracized that set years ago my- 
 self, and the hardest thing in my life has been to get the 
 damned thing to let go of me. It persists in coming after 
 me. I came here to get away from it and here you come 
 after me slinging it at me again. What in the name of 
 reason it can do to me that I have not done to it I don't 
 know. And you have the cheek to say I'll miss it. If 
 there is one thing on earth I want, it is to miss it, to lose 
 it forever. I wish a tidal wave would come up and sweep 
 it off the face of the earth. Honestly, if you don't want 
 me to go mad, stop talking about it."
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 285 
 
 Dane turned abruptly a few feet away so that they 
 might not see him smile. As far as he was concerned this 
 was beginning to be funny. 
 
 But it was not funny to Davenport Carr, now power- 
 less against her. 
 
 " Do you know that the whole place knows you are liv- 
 ing with Barrington? " 
 
 " It can't know it. But it loves to feed its nasty minds 
 on the idea. It loves to whisper about it and tell tales 
 about it and lick its lips over it. Yes, of course it does. 
 And just because it is like that I despise it, and won't 
 have anything to do with it. But if you want to know, 
 I am living with Dane. There's nothing extraordinary 
 about that, is there? " 
 
 Her father half rose out of his chair and fell back 
 again. 
 
 " You don't mean to tell me you have come up here to 
 talk to us about morals! Really, my dear father but 
 your advice is a few years too late. And when I think 
 back over those yachting parties " 
 
 " Look here, Val, you can leave my morals out of this. 
 I did not come to talk morals to either of you. I came 
 to talk sense. You know as well as I do, unless you're 
 mad, that you can't do what I did or what any man does, 
 and there are things a man can do and things he cannot 
 do " 
 
 " Oh, yes, I remember. You told Dane he had seduced 
 an inexperienced girl. I thank you for the compliment, 
 but I was not an inexperienced girl." 
 
 " What do you mean? " He stared up at her, grasping 
 the arms of his chair. 
 
 She went on much more quietly. 
 
 " Just what I said. I was not an inexperienced girl, 
 not by a long shot. How anyone could be an inexperi-
 
 286 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 enced girl after the life on that yacht of yours well 
 and you were right about my being seduced I was but 
 Dane was not the man. It was when I was under twenty, 
 and it was on one of those trips of yours. The atmos- 
 phere of your yacht did rather favour seduction, you 
 know, father. And the man was one of the dear, friendly 
 souls prominent to-day in your set. You often have him 
 to dinner, smiling upon mother who would refuse to meet 
 Dane I say, hadn't you better have a whisky? Sit down. 
 I have a lot more to say " 
 
 "Who the hell is that man?" Davenport Carr stood 
 shaking with rage in front of her. 
 
 " Oh, my heavens ! If you men could only see how 
 funny you are about us women! Sit down, and listen to 
 me as Dane listened to you." 
 
 The cold contempt in her tone staggered her father. 
 As if he were in a dream he sat down. 
 
 Dane moved up a step or two, as if he would try to 
 stop her. But he saw it was no use. She went on remorse- 
 lessly. 
 
 " I shall not tell you the name of that man. Why should 
 I? I understand mood and impulse now better than I did 
 then. He is a charming man, much older than I. But 
 then, most of them were. You had very clever and per- 
 suasive friends, my dear father. I will say that for them. 
 And I was an inexperienced girl, emotional and idealistic 
 and trusting the men you introduced me to. And I was 
 flattered by their attention, and I got a little drunk with 
 it. And I did not see what they were after all of them. 
 And then one night this man was too much for me, for 
 like a silly kid I thought it was a wonderful thing to have 
 a clever man like that tell me he loved me, and I lost my 
 head, and left the future to him sit still " 
 
 " Valerie, I will not sit still ! By God, I will not ! I
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 287 
 
 will have the name of that man we may be asking him 
 to dinner next week." 
 
 " You may, indeed. That would Be one of the pleasant 
 little contretemps of your set, one of the reasons why I 
 despise it so heartily, even though I see the humour of it. 
 I'm sorry it's lost on you." 
 
 Valerie moved to the red table, and took up one of the 
 goblets of whisky. " Here, father ! " 
 
 But he ignored it, and dropped speechless and shaking 
 back into the chair. 
 
 She went on quietly now, and Dane stood leaning against 
 a post listening to her. " Well, it was a tragic experience 
 for me, for the man was such a cur afterwards. He was 
 scared to death, was terrified lest I should tell you. He 
 made it all so ugly. And I had no one to turn to. Can 
 you see me telling mother or anybody? I had such a 
 helpful lot of relatives ! And I knew then what it was to 
 need a friend. I nearly told dear old Marie, but I thought 
 it would worry her so. So I had to puzzle it out alone. 
 Most of us do when we're struggling kids. And it was 
 awfully hard, because I saw that so many were doing the 
 thing I had done and thought nothing of it, but I knew my 
 one night was all wrong, and it became more and more 
 horrid as I thought about it, and it was awful to have the 
 man so scared and so distrustful. Oh, it made me so sick. 
 And I could feel it all in the air about me when I went on 
 the yacht, but I played the game and went as if nothing 
 had ever happened to me. I had learned my lesson. That 
 would never happen to me again. But I felt it about me 
 and I knew you were in it too. And I began to think 
 about it. I saw that just being sick about it and despis- 
 ing everybody didn't settle it. I began to read books, t;nd 
 that helped me a lot. I got a different point of view. 
 And I tried to piece you all together again, to be fair to
 
 288 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 you. And I tried to see how little you had had at home 
 except a lot of meaningless show, and that it was no wonder 
 you had taken refuge with women who might give you some- 
 thing that looked real. For I came to see that we were all 
 after something that was real, deep down inside us, only 
 it is so hard to know what is, especially when you're 
 young. And then I went after it myself. I needed some- 
 thing to blot out that ugly memory, something that looked 
 beautiful to me. And I thought I was in love, and I lived 
 with another man, before I came up here. I told Dane 
 that. I thought it was the fine thing I wanted. But it 
 didn't turn out right. I wanted it too much as a refuge, I 
 see that now. But it taught me what one must have to be 
 fine in love, and then up here " 
 
 She paused, seeing Lee give a preliminary peep through 
 the door as if to decide whether it was an appropriate mo- 
 ment to bring out the tea. He came forward, removed the 
 decanter and glasses to a large table, and put the tea tray 
 on the red one, saw that tobacco and matches were where 
 they should be and went ouL . 
 
 His exit was followed by a curious silence. Dane stood 
 where he had been for some minutes, with the fantail, its 
 curiosity about the other man apparently satisfied, now 
 flitting about his head. He looked up at it once and 
 smiled at it. Davenport Carr sat doubled up, his head 
 down on his clenched hands, pulverized into speechlessness. 
 Valerie looked down at him, and her anger now expended, 
 pity began to soften the contemptuous coldness of her 
 face. She moved to the tea-table and sat down and began 
 to pour the tea. 
 
 Dane turned, caught her eye, looked meaningly from 
 her to her father and walked off towards the back of the 
 house. Her nerves were still raw enough to be irritated 
 by this hint. But she spoke quietly to her father.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 289 
 
 " You'd better have some tea." 
 
 He raised his rather distracted face and saw that they 
 .were alone. 
 
 " Do you think I can drink tea after all you've told me? 
 My God ! my game little kid " 
 
 To her astonishment his shoulders shook, and his head 
 fell again into his hands. As she had never seen him any- 
 where near the border of tears her first impulse was to put 
 her arms round him. But because she could not tell ex- 
 actly what was in his mind she did not move. 
 
 " For heaven's sake, dad, buck up. I'm all right. I'm 
 not going to have my life spoiled, you know. It was so 
 silly of you to say that. I didn't mean to lose my temper 
 so badly, but you know it does make me so mad to hear all 
 that rot. And then it made me so mad to hear what you 
 said to Dane, as if he were to blame." 
 
 He looked up, and seeing her as he thought softened, he 
 leaned towards her. 
 
 " Look here, old girl, there was only one reason why I 
 came up here. I did not come to call Barrington names, 
 but I got mad in spite of myself, he was so damned cool. 
 But I came to beg you to stop this. And even after all 
 you've said I still do. The other things are dead and 
 buried. But you'll never bury this." 
 
 " And what if I don't, and don't want to? " 
 
 " Oh, Dick, old girl, please listen to me. Don't get mad 
 again." 
 
 " All right, go on." 
 
 " You're infatuated now, Dick. And you can't see the 
 thing in any proportion " 
 
 " Suppose I married him," she interrupted. 
 
 " Oh, that would be madness. It would never last. 
 Nothing ever did with him as far as I can make out. His 
 relations with women are just hopeless. He'd desert you,
 
 290 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 or you would have to leave him in a year or two. Any- 
 thing but that. Get away from it now and it will all blow 
 over. You've got a future, my dear girl. You could 
 marry anybody. I want you to get away from it at once, 
 Dick. I'm going to give you a couple of thousand pounds 
 to go to London, Europe, travel for a year or two, and get 
 over it." 
 
 " That's awfully good of you, dad. But you are over- 
 looking something. What am I to do with my moral 
 sense? I've let him care for me, in fact I made him care 
 for me, you know." 
 
 The coldness of her tone chilled her father. 
 
 " Oh, we all think it's our moral sense. Don't you sup- 
 pose I know something about human nature? " he said, a 
 little impatiently. "And of course you think his heart 
 will be broken. That's where you women are all so silly. 
 If Barrington told the truth he'd be the first person to be 
 amused at that idea." 
 
 " He might be. Indeed, I think he would. But the 
 point of all this is that I care, that I believe he cares. I 
 have to live with that belief for the present at least. 
 What have you to say to that ? " 
 
 " It's just romantic nonsense. And you'll live to see 
 it." 
 
 " It's romantic indeed, dad, but it isn't nonsense. And 
 now that I know what you think about it it amuses me to 
 think that Dane insisted on marrying me a month ago, 
 really out of consideration for you, out of respect for 
 your code now you needn't look like that 
 
 "Married! You're married! Why the deuce wasn't I 
 told this before? " 
 
 " Goodness me, what Hifference does it make? Do } r ou 
 forget what you've been saying about it? " 
 
 Her father gave her one look, got to his feet, took up
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 291 
 
 His hat and without another word stumbled off down the 
 steps, and went round the front of the house. 
 
 She sat still for a minute and then her lips began to 
 quiver. She bit them into steadiness, and getting up went 
 in to change her clothes, and bathe her hot face. She 
 went back to the verandah dressed in white, feeling shaken 
 now herself by the temper she had been in. Seeing no sign 
 of Dane she whistled for him, and he came from the back 
 of the house. 
 
 " Why, where is he? " he asked as he came up the steps. 
 
 " He's gone." 
 
 " Gone! My dear, you haven't let him go, have you? " 
 He stopped at the top of the steps looking at her. 
 
 " Oh, I told him we were married, Dane. And he got 
 up and went without a word. It's the only sensible thing 
 he's done since he came." 
 
 A pained look flashed over his eyes. He walked to the 
 tea-table, lifted the lid of the pot, and then rang the bell. 
 
 " Make us some fresh tea, would you please, Lee." 
 
 Valerie stood still, stung by the fact that he was ignor- 
 ing her. 
 
 Turning at the table he looked at her a little wearily. 
 " Well, old girl, what have you gained by keeping the 
 marriage secret? If you call this kind of thing freedom, 
 I don't." 
 
 " I don't care what you call it. He had no business to 
 come and interfere, to call you names " 
 
 " Oh, forget them, please." 
 
 " But that wasn't the worst. He came here to bribe 
 me to bribe me to go away from you. He offered me the 
 thing he knows I've wanted for years tried my weakest 
 spot and now and now " 
 
 He took a step towards her and stopped, drooping his 
 shoulders and putting his head on one side.
 
 292 THE STRANGE 'ATTRACTION 
 
 " Come Here, Valerie," He said in a voice of irresistible 
 appeal. And at the light in his eyes she felt as if she had 
 come out of a long black tunnel into the sweet freshness of 
 a sunlit glade. 
 
 She moved slowly to him and all her anger and resent- 
 ment died down as she felt his arms close about her. 
 
 " I want you to promise me something, dear," he said, 
 lifting his lips from hers. 
 
 " Oh, anything." 
 
 " Don't be reckless." 
 
 "Well, what is it?" 
 
 " Don't get angry like that again. And don't make a 
 ghost of your father." 
 
 " Why, I can't help it. He is a ghost now. He made 
 himself a ghost." 
 
 " No, no. Let's start him all over again as something 
 else. I like him, you know." 
 
 Her eyes glistened, and she was preparing to throw her 
 arms about him when Lee came through the door with the 
 fresh pot of tea.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 AS far as Dargaville was concerned, Valerie's mar- 
 riage to Dane did not cause anything like the 
 talk her staying on the paper afterwards aroused. 
 It was strange that certain feminist claims were almost 
 unheard of in the country that boasted the most advanced 
 legislation in the world for women. A married woman 
 who had struck disaster in her husband or in her financial 
 affairs could, of course, earn her own living with the un- 
 derstanding and blessing of the community. But that a 
 bride of established position should wish to do so was 
 carrying the theory of independence a little further than 
 it had so far been carried, even in that land. It could 
 only mean, it was thought, that she was eccentric or un- 
 duly desirous of attention. Still, though it talked, Dar- 
 gaville soon calmed down. It was her relatives who con- 
 tinued to be disgusted and indignant, and the more so as 
 she utterly ignored their letters on the subject. 
 
 Dane went to Auckland two weeks after Davenport 
 Carr's visit, and when he returned he waited in the town 
 till Valerie was finished on the paper and took her home 
 with him. He had been away less than a week, but she 
 had missed him, and she was delighted to get away this 
 sizzling February day to the shades of his garden. She 
 could have gone out in his absence, as he had begged her 
 to, but she had not done so. She had walked out to the 
 coast at night instead. 
 
 " Did you see dad? " she asked, when they were out in 
 the launch. 
 
 293
 
 294 THE STRANGE ATTRACTIOX 
 
 " Yes, dear, I went to see him. I told you I was going 
 on business." 
 
 " Oh. And what did he say to you ? " 
 
 " Well, he was rather pathetic, if you want to know. 
 Absurdly hurt that you had not told him before about the 
 marriage." 
 
 " What ! But he would have opposed it." 
 
 " Yes, he would." 
 
 " Well, Dane," she stared at him. 
 
 " Absurd, I know, dear. But he is not opposing us 
 now. He's beastly humble." 
 
 " You've made him so, then." 
 
 " No, no. He did some thinking after what you said." 
 
 " I'm glad to hear it." 
 
 " He wants to get me into his club." 
 
 rt What!" 
 
 " I know, it is funny, isn't it? But I told him I'd never 
 use the damned thing, that I did not want it anyway." 
 
 " Oh, I am glad. You never want to go back to that 
 kind of thing, do you? " 
 
 " No, dear, I do not." And his tone was emphatic 
 enough to please even her. 
 
 That night after dinner as they lay together in the 
 hammock he took a paper out of his pocket and handed 
 it to her. She opened it and stared at it in astonishment. 
 It was a cheque for a thousand pounds. He thought her 
 reception of it was the most extraordinary thing of the 
 kind he had ever seen. 
 
 "Why, what is this?" she asked, raising puzzled 
 eyes. 
 
 " Have you never seen a cheque before? " he smiled. 
 
 " You are giving me this ? " 
 
 "Well, what is surprising atiout it, dear? You are my 
 wife, you know, and a man may give money to his wife.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 295 
 
 He may even give money to his lover, if you wish us to 
 ignore the ceremony terms in our dealings with each other. 
 I'm not buying you, you ridiculous child. Good Lord! 
 you do carry your theories over the mountains and into 
 the sea, don't you? What is it you suspect me of? For 
 I can see suspicion in your eyes." 
 
 " I'm beginning to suspect you of the sinister innocence 
 of the drop of water that wears away the stone," she said, 
 half smiling, half glaring at him. 
 
 " The stone doesn't mind." 
 
 She had risen, and she now dropped down into his arms. 
 
 " I must seem a bit queer, dear. And, please, I think 
 it's lovely of you." 
 
 Two weeks later her father sent her five hundred pounds 
 as a peace offering and as a wedding present. The night 
 she received it she sat out late by herself on the balcony. 
 She had now almost two thousand pounds, and one of the 
 reasons for her staying on the News had ceased to exist. 
 It was this fact that she sat there considering. 
 
 But she had considered other things besides money in 
 her decision to go on with her work. She felt very 
 strongly that love was soonest killed by its own tendency 
 to burn itself up. She had already learned that she and 
 Dane were potently stimulating to each other, and that it 
 would be difficult living together every day to preserve the 
 balance between abandonment and discipline that she de- 
 sired. 
 
 And then she liked the contrast between her week of 
 activity and her week-end of petting and luxurious relaxa- 
 tion. She had a fresh thrill every Saturday afternoon 
 when she met Dane at the launch, and she had another 
 kind of stimulation when she walked into the office on 
 Monday morning. 
 
 He had not said one word to shake her decision. But
 
 296 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 he thought with a smile of the heat and the flies and the 
 ugliness of Mac's hotel. And he made her week-ends al- 
 luring and beautiful. 
 
 About the middle of the autumn Valerie asked herself 
 again, as she walked on the coast road one night, if she 
 really did want to go through the winter on the paper. 
 Various influences had been at work upon her in the last 
 month. As a place of residence, Mac's was becoming un- 
 bearable, her room more like a box every day, and the 
 dining-room the last word in sordidness. The curtains, 
 always sagging and uneven, had become intolerably so by 
 the number of times noticed. The serrated and ravined 
 cut glass on the sideboard, viewed with indifference for a 
 thousand times, had become painful at one thousand and 
 one. And always as she lay in bed now she could smell 
 the amalgamated pungency of the beer from the front and 
 the stables at the back. Even Bob and Father Ryan had 
 suffered some kind of eclipse, and as table company, had 
 become dull. 
 
 And as she walked there drifted through her mind with 
 the force of a warning the lines Dane had humorously 
 quoted to her one night when she had read to him the first 
 letter her mother had written after hearing of the mar- 
 riage " Some little talk a while of me and thee There 
 seemed, and then no more of thee and me." 
 
 " No more of thee and me." The words repeated them- 
 selves over and over in her brain. Then she told herself 
 for the hundredth time that she was thinking only of her- 
 self, that she had done nothing but think of herself. And 
 after all her own contract demanded that she think of 
 Dane. She was not keeping her own terms. 
 
 He saw two nights later, as she lay with him in the 
 hammock, that she had something on her mind. 
 
 When she had smoked half her cigarette she threw it
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 297 
 
 out into the garden, and wriggled up and looked down at 
 his face below her in the dusk. 
 
 " Dane." 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 " I am getting a bit sick of the paper." 
 
 A smile flashed across his eyes. " I've teen wondering 
 what you thought you were getting out of it now." 
 
 " Well, that's it. I think I've learned all I can from 
 it." 
 
 " I should think you had. If you want to do original 
 writing you ought to get at it. You have to practise 
 writing as you do the piano. That ought to give you 
 some idea of what is before you, especially if you want to 
 do a novel." 
 
 She looked down at him. She had expected him to ask 
 at once when she would come to live with him. 
 
 " Yes, I suppose it isn't as easy as I think it is," she 
 said slowly. Then she looked past his head into the 
 shadows deepening in the garden. 
 
 " I've decided this week that I'll go to Sydney for the 
 winter. I want to see about getting my poems published 
 over there. Would you like to come with me? " He said 
 it very lightly, as if he were proposing a walk round the 
 house. 
 
 .Valerie sat up and stared down into his face. 
 
 " You are going to Sydney in any case? " 
 
 " Why certainly. I want to arrange about getting 
 some more work in Australian papers." 
 
 She continued to stare at him. 
 
 " What's the trouble, Miss Freedom? " 
 
 " You would go away? " 
 
 " On business, dear. I have to. And I'm asking you 
 to come. Of course, you're a free agent " 
 
 Her hand smothered the rest, and half fiercely, half
 
 298 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 caressingly she seized his head and beat it against the 
 cushions. 
 
 She gave Bob a month's notice the next day. 
 
 II 
 
 At the end of June they slipped away to Sydney, pass- 
 ing through Auckland without seeing anyone but Valerie's 
 father, and they returned at the end of August in the 
 same secretive manner. 
 
 Valerie was delighted with Sydney, delighted with 
 Dane's friends, and meeting for the first time in her life 
 a friendly community of artists, found it the thing she 
 had dreamed about, the world in which she wanted to 
 shine. But there was a fly in the honey. The dining 
 and wining were not good for Dane. And there were two 
 occasions on which he disappeared for the best part of 
 three days. 
 
 So that by the time they returned to settle down to 
 life together at the old mission house she knew well he 
 had chosen the better half of wisdom when he had left the 
 life of cities behind him. And she was by no means sorry 
 herself to have the prospect of work and peace ahead of 
 her there for a while. She was content to leave a remoter 
 future to take care of itself. 
 
 They had discussed on the voyage home what they 
 would do to the house to make it a proper custodian of 
 the rights of two such individualistic beings as they were. 
 The first thing they agreed on was that unless one of them 
 felt an overwhelming urge, which was not to be encour- 
 aged, they should not meet till lunch time. Dane did a 
 good deal of his work at night and often slept late. Va- 
 lerie was very anxious that his ways should not be inter- 
 fered with, and he was as anxious as she that parts of his
 
 TSE STRANGE ATTRACTION 299 
 
 house should be private, that he should be able to e alone 
 when he wished, and particularly that he should be able 
 to keep his moods from her as much as possible. 
 
 The changes were inexpensively made. Across the hall 
 from the study were two rooms, one of which had been 
 occupied by Dane as an indoor bedroom and the other by 
 the boys. This space was now given over to Valerie, and 
 an extension was added at the rear of the house giving the 
 boys a large and sunny room off the kitchen, and Dane 
 himself a bedroom and a small study where he could write 
 at night when Valerie wished to play the piano. This lat- 
 ter room opened directly into his den. This arrangement 
 put Valerie on one side of the hall and him on the other, 
 with common ground in the front study, and in the bath- 
 room which was on her side next the kitchen. It was un- 
 derstood they would not invade each other's privacy with- 
 out invitation. 
 
 Valerie had her section of the verandah, too, that out- 
 side her own rooms, fitted up with a sleeping-cot and a 
 table and chairs. 
 
 As there was no dining-room, lunch, always a tray 
 affair, was to be served as he or she might fancy. The 
 location of dinner had the same pleasant uncertainty. In 
 some moods Dane liked it served ceremoniously in his den, 
 in others he liked it in the study. More often, and when 
 it was fine, he liked it out-of-doors. 
 
 She had seen at once that she must take no part in the 
 running of the house. Beyond making her own bed, dust- 
 ing her own things, keeping her own writing-table tidy, 
 and arranging with the boys to take her laundry in and 
 out of Dargaville, there was nothing for her to do. It 
 seemed that never in her wildest dreams could she have 
 hoped for a more harmonious atmosphere in which to try 
 to write.
 
 Dane told himself he had never been happier in his life. 
 He did not know what she did to him, but with her he was 
 less disturbed with the sense of his own futility, and better 
 able to work than he had been for some time. And now, 
 too, he had a real need to work. It had cut a little into 
 his income to give Valerie the money and the holiday, and 
 to make the changes to the house. And though his poems 
 had been published in a blaze of publicity and were selling 
 well as things went there, he saw he must keep up a certain 
 output if he was to give his wife things he now wished to 
 give her. He had got along very comfortably before 
 without doing much. He had set aside a sum he would 
 never under any circumstances cut down to leave to his 
 boys and to see them back to China, in the event of any- 
 thing happening to himself. That was in the hands of 
 Davenport Carr as a trust. He now wished to get ahead 
 of his expenses and provide something for Valerie. This 
 was a stimulus that did him good, reinforced his rather 
 feeble sense of being of some use in the world. 
 
 Ill 
 
 " Now aren't you glad I stuck out and refused to go? " 
 " Oh yes, I really am, dear. I loathe Christmas parties 
 as much as 3 T ou do. But I think you might have tempered 
 the refusal with a little well " Dane waved his hands ex- 
 pressively, " been a little more delicate " 
 
 " My dear boy, relatives don't understand delicacy. 
 The only thing that will make a dent in their egotism is a 
 brick. Even then their eclipse is only temporary. If 
 there is a more vital thing on earth than the egotism of a 
 relative I'd like to meet it. I assure you the minute I 
 show signs of delicacy they think I'm weakening, or re-
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 301 
 
 forming, or learning to appreciate the wisdom of their 
 ways, and then they begin to wheedle and bribe." 
 
 " Well, I must admit that when I hear you talk I feel 
 I ought to be glad I never had any." He looked up from 
 the hammock at a crack in the verandah roof where a frail 
 twig of honeysuckle had defied the opposition of shingles 
 and was wriggling through. 
 
 Valerie, who was sitting in a chair beside him, took one 
 of his hands and laid it against her cheek. 
 
 " You had two very effective ones, old dear, and they 
 got a wonderful inspiration in a certain hour thirty-eight 
 years ago." 
 
 His eyes glowed over the edge of the hammock at her. 
 
 " You know, you're going to spoil me." 
 
 " Oh no, you'd nothing to do with this. They did it, 
 and then they had the sense to die and leave you free." 
 
 He smiled whimsically at her. "Ah, I sometimes won- 
 der how free they left me. That is the funny part of it. 
 I'm not nearly so free as you are, after all. Just see how 
 powerless I have been against your father. In spite of all 
 I could say he elects me to his club with a flourish, pays 
 my dues, insists on my dining there in full view of Auck- 
 land's greatest, and hey presto! I'm back in society and 
 may be invited to a Christmas dinner. Ye gods and little 
 fishes!" 
 
 " Well, he felt he had to do something for you after the 
 way he behaved." 
 
 " That's not the point. The point is I could not resist 
 him, and yet they cannot move you one inch." 
 
 " They would move me fast enough if they had one 
 honest decent emotion about us, if they had anything in 
 their minds but their beastly curiosity and their conde- 
 scension. I can see them sitting round discussing us with 
 an awful solemnity. Mother would gather them together,
 
 302 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 and they would go into the problem as to which of the 
 heads would be implicated in dinner invitations, as to 
 which of them would give us a lunch or a tea, as to how 
 much further they would have to go, as to whether the 
 younger children should be allowed a glimpse of the star 
 sinner of the da} 7 , and so on. You see I've heard it all 
 before. Not a single spontaneous feeling about us, just a 
 calculating fitting of us in to their scheme of things, and 
 underneath the rules and regulations the women would 
 want to see us, because they want to feed their nasty 
 dribbling sensations on what they think marriage to you 
 has done to me and on what they think being a sinner has 
 done to you. Those aunts of mine are like radium, they 
 bore into your insides looking for things, and they just 
 gloat on brides and bridegrooms what's the matter? 
 Am I talking too much? " 
 
 " Well, honestly, dear, though you are very eloquent 
 about your relatives, I am a bit sick of them. Since you 
 have turned them all into ghosts why not let them be 
 peacefully laid? " 
 
 " But they won't behave like proper ghosts. You see 
 how they appear at our elbows every now and then and 
 wave a skinny hand." She smiled over the edge of the 
 hammock at him. 
 
 " Oh Val, delicious Val. You ought to be on the stage. 
 Come in here, I want to kiss you." 
 
 " I don't want to be kissed. I want to play Chopin." 
 
 " You'll play all the better if I kiss you first." 
 
 She laughed and clambered in to him. 
 
 After a while she started up. " Oh, I forgot to give 
 something to Michael," she said regretfully. 
 
 " Oh, did you ? Well, I gave him a sovereign, so that 
 will do for both of us. But I thought you didn't believe 
 in Christmas."
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 303 
 
 " Well, now, Dane, I do have some sentiment." 
 
 " I should think you had. There are times when you 
 are sticky with it." 
 
 "All right, beast. I won't kiss you for a week." She 
 wriggled out of the hammock, pretending to be mightily 
 offended, and stood frowning at him. She was piqued 
 that he had made no move to hold her back. He merely 
 smiled mockingly up at her. 
 
 " I suppose you think you could keep that resolution," 
 he said, his eyes on hers. 
 
 " I could." She glared back defiantly. 
 
 " Well, it would be a pyrrhic victory if ever there was 
 one," he smiled. 
 
 She rudely poked out her tongue at him, and walked to 
 the verandah steps, and looked out into the garden. 
 
 He looked at her for a few minutes as she stood profiled 
 against a mass of honeysuckle, then he reached for his 
 pipe and tobacco and began to smoke. 
 
 It was a clear evening, with the promise of fine weather 
 for Christmas and Boxing days. The first stars projected 
 their feeble light through the last reflection of a very red 
 sunset. Now and again the sharp cry of a weka in the 
 bush behind or the call of a morepork in the pines cut the 
 air. A few crickets already reminded an optimistic world 
 that this summer would go the way of all others as they 
 sang of the falling of the leaves and the coming of the 
 deadly winds. 
 
 Valerie turned from the steps, walked back to the ham- 
 mock, leaned down over Dane and kissed his hair. Then 
 she went off through the door into the study. 
 
 After a short silence the opening bars of one of his 
 favourite Preludes floated out to Dane. He put down his 
 pipe, settled back in his cushions, and threw his arm across 
 his face with a feeling of great content. It was a perfect 
 Christmas Eve.
 
 304 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 IV 
 
 One close night the following February Valerie rose 
 from the piano a little worn out. But it had relieved her 
 enormously to crash through the Appassionata and the 
 Pathetique and two of Rachmaninof's Preludes. She had 
 played them in a tense and rageful manner, and the sounds 
 had swelled about the house and echoed about the garden. 
 
 She walked out to the verandah expecting to see Dane 
 in the hammock where she had left him earlier in the even- 
 ing. But he was not there. She glanced into his den, to 
 which all three doors were wide open. He was not there 
 either. She sat down and lit a cigarette waiting for him 
 to appear. But he did not appear. She wondered if he 
 had gone into his back room to write. She got up and 
 stole softly along the path, but there was no glow or sign 
 of light there. Then she began to wonder if he had gone 
 off to Mac's while she was playing, gone off to escape from 
 the mood that had overwhelmed him all day. 
 
 It was a mood that had shaken her and the whole coun- 
 try. The news of the discovery of the death of Captain 
 Scott and his companions on their return from the South 
 Pole had reached New Zealand two days before, and that 
 afternoon Dane had gone into Dargaville for the Auck- 
 land papers and the latest telegrams on the subject, and 
 since his return both he and she had been speechless. 
 
 Valerie had shut herself in her room with one paper, and 
 when she appeared for dinner her eyes were a little red. 
 Neither she nor Dane were able to more than pick at their 
 food. They did not attempt to talk about the tragedy. 
 It depressed Dane terribly. He had been nervous and 
 irritable for a week, not irritable at Valerie, that he never 
 was. She could have borne it better if he had been, for 
 then she could have snapped back at him. But as there
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 305 
 
 was nothing personal in such moods there was nothing she 
 could do but ignore them. 
 
 This was the first bad one he had had since they had 
 been in Sydney. Up till then he had been so much better 
 that she had even begun to hope that love would get the 
 best of the weaknesses that had, she thought, been encour- 
 aged a good deal by loneliness. When she had seen him 
 growing listless and eating less a week before, she had 
 suggested he go down to the coast, as he had done when 
 alone, but when he saw she did not want to go with the 
 cottagers there he did not want to either. He was be- 
 coming more and more dependent on her for company. 
 Even when he did not want to talk he liked to know she 
 was near him. 
 
 She walked round the house and about the garden. 
 She did not like to call for him, knowing that when he 
 wanted her he would come for her himself. But she would 
 have liked to have known he was there, and that he had 
 not gone to Mac's. 
 
 Then she told herself she was silly to anticipate. That 
 was what so many women did. She began to think again 
 of the end of Captain Scott and his gallant little band. 
 What a story! She sat abashed and shaken before it. 
 It seemed to her the most wonderful thing in the world 
 that men could face death and make of it what those men 
 made of it. Surely when men could die like that there was 
 something beyond. Unconsciously her mind began to 
 work on it, and she wondered if she could write what she 
 felt about it. Dane had been wired to from three papers 
 for an article. Perhaps he had gone off to think about 
 that, and it would be fine, she thought, if she could do 
 anything that was good enough for publication. After 
 walking about for a while she went inside, and seeing the 
 supper tray with wine and cold food that was usually left
 
 306 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 in the study she found she was hungry. She ate some cold 
 chicken and drank some wine. Then she went into her 
 front room and sat down at her writing-table. 
 
 But she could not think of anything to say now. She 
 stared at the beautiful Norman Lindsay drawing of 
 Dane's head that he had given her for his Christmas pres- 
 ent, and it seemed to her that she had never before noticed 
 how well the artist had reproduced the sensitiveness of that 
 disturbing face. And she began to think that though she 
 had lived with him for over a year, and loved him more it 
 seemed to her every month, she understood him no better 
 than she had done in the first week. It was strange to 
 love a thing one could not understand. 
 
 She deliberately turned away from it trying to forget 
 it, looked round her attractive study, and had a momen- 
 tary delight in the peace she had in it. Her rooms were 
 small and furnished plainly enough, except for the rugs 
 and hangings that Dane insisted she have to provide 
 warmth and colour. With the exception of her piano, she 
 had brought up her own things from Auckland, and her 
 own books and some of her own pictures were there against 
 the tinted walls. But she had been amused to discover the 
 changes that had come over her taste. No longer did her 
 prints of popular Academy pictures please her. The 
 Laughing Cavalier and her Watts and Rossetti things 
 were stuck away in a drawer. Her bits of Crown Derby 
 and Doulton looked merely pretty and feeble beside Dane's 
 porcelain and jade and ivory and enamel. So her rooms 
 were bare of ornament, and she preferred to keep them so. 
 She had plain and comfortable modern furniture that 
 fitted well enough in the available space. 
 
 She had settled down to work here now, though so far 
 she was struggling with large expanses of words which she 
 had been unable to reduce to the form and shape that she
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 307 
 
 felt they must have. She had been encouraged liy Dane's 
 assurance that this was nothing to be alarmed at, that she 
 might go on for some time before she achieved a sense for 
 technique. 
 
 But it annoyed her this night that she could not man- 
 age words well enough to put down what was simmering 
 in her mind about the South Pole explorers. Her mood 
 was too emotional. She took up a newspaper and tried 
 to read the story calmly, to view it in a detached manner. 
 But it was too much for her. She began to cry again, 
 and gave way unreservedly. But she knew that she was 
 not crying solely because a few men had died heroically 
 away down there in the snow. 
 
 As she sat still at last, feeling very lonely and sorry for 
 herself, she heard the launch come into the bay below; she 
 sat up listening, and because she had assumptions in her 
 mind she thought she heard Dane stumble on the track 
 through the trees. 
 
 With a quick movement she put out her lamp. Then 
 she hurried into her bedroom and began to undress in the 
 dark. She did not want him to see that she was still up, 
 as if she had been waiting to see what time he came home. 
 And above all things she did not want him to come to her 
 the worse for drink. He had never done so, but she had 
 the persistent fear that he might. 
 
 Dane saw her light as he came from the top of the 
 steps, and he stood to wonder why it had so suddenly gone 
 out. He knew it was after one o'clock. Had she been 
 working, or was she anxious about him? 
 
 He knew he had been very depressed and disagreeable 
 for days, but it had relieved him enormously to see that 
 apparently she was not worried by it. She was wonder- 
 ful, he thought. She did not fuss, and yet he felt her as a 
 warm and understanding person. It would have driven
 
 308 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 him mad to think she was wording about him. What 
 earthly use was it to worry about another's moods? 
 
 And now after racing recklessly about on the river he 
 had conquered his mood. He had been more shaken by 
 the story of those deaths in the snow than he had been 
 about anything for years. What it had done to him he 
 did not know, but it had given him a kind of melancholy 
 exaltation, had put vivid pictures into his mind and si 
 curious peace into his soul. And he had come back unable 
 to think about it any more for the present. 
 
 As he stood there he began to think of Valerie as a 
 warmth to blot out now the trouble of his recent days. 
 He felt suddenly lonely for her. He had expected to find 
 she had gone to bed, in which case he would not have dis- 
 turbed her, but now that he had seen her light he wanted 
 to feel her arms about him. He walked on past the front 
 of the house and saw that her rooms were in darkness. 
 But he knew she could not yet be asleep. 
 
 He stepped up to the verandah, raised the screen, and 
 saw she was not in her cot. 
 
 " Valerie, where are you? " he called a little urgently. 
 
 " I'm undressing, here," she answered from within. Her 
 voice sounded ragged. 
 
 He vaulted over the railing, pushing back the light 
 screen, and went to her window. 
 
 " Come here, dear. Why are you in the dark? " 
 
 Then she knew her assumptions had been wrong, and 
 she was afraid he would suspect she had been worrying 
 about him. She could not make her mood light all in a 
 moment. 
 
 " Come here, Val," he repeated. It was a tone that 
 always gave her a little thrill. 
 
 She went to him as she was in her white lingerie, and he 
 put his arms round her as he sat on the window ledge.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 309 
 
 <? Why have you been crying, old girl ? " he asked softly, 
 gripping one of her bare shoulders. 
 
 " I can't help it those men " 
 
 He did not believe that was the whole truth, but he was 
 comforted by her good intention. And it was much easier 
 to believe her than to question her. And there are moods 
 when half truths do not trouble one very much. He be- 
 gan to kiss her hair. 
 
 " I know, dear. But don't let's think about it any 
 more. It's made me feel awfully lonely." 
 
 "And me too," she said settling against him.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 "^T 11 THERE you like your lunch, Meesis Barring- 
 
 %/%/ ton? Meester Barrington not very well. He 
 ^ stay alone." 
 
 IValerie turned in her chair, her expression as impassive 
 as Lee's. "It's rather cold outside, isn't it?" 
 
 " Yes. It windy too. There is a fire in the study, 
 Meesis Barrington." 
 
 " Then I'll have it there, thank you." 
 
 She put down her pencil, and after he had gone she sat 
 staring at nothing in particular. Then she shook to- 
 gether the sheets of paper scrawled in her flowing hand 
 that littered the table in front of her. She got up and 
 went to the bathroom to wash her hands. When she en- 
 tered the study she saw at once there was no sign that 
 Dane had been working there that morning, as he usually 
 did when he wrote at that time of the day. A fine fire 
 crackled its preliminary way to a solid blaze. 
 
 The restrained beauty of the room affected Valerie 
 every time she entered it, but her pleasure in it was a 
 little clouded now by a pang of loneliness. She was al- 
 ways ready to meet Dane by lunch time. She liked to 
 have his suggestions and criticisms on what she had been 
 trying to do in the morning. His interest and encourage- 
 ment were a fine stimulus to her uncertainty. And she 
 had lately been very pleased with herself because an Aus- 
 tralian magazine had accepted her humorous article on 
 the evolution of personal taste. Dane had liked it too, 
 
 310
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 311 
 
 and had given her an idea for another in the same tone. 
 It was this she had been working on this day. So she 
 missed him all the more. 
 
 But she sat down determined to eat, and to shut off 
 disturbing thoughts. However, something about the situ- 
 ation hurt her. Once before that autumn he had Been 
 away from her for a couple of days. She had not known 
 then, any more than she did now, whether he was at home 
 or at Mac's. She had taken the information as Lee had 
 given it to her, and without asking any question, had 
 waited for Dane to reappear. But she had found that 
 her love was being denied something it desired, that if he 
 were ill she wanted to take care of him, and yet she did not 
 want to see him ill. She would have shrunk from him 
 unshaved, been shocked by any demoralization of his looks, 
 that was one of the penalties of her passion for his beauty, 
 but at the same time she could not bear to think that she 
 was not equal to that test. 
 
 And she knew, also, that he detested being fussed over. 
 When she had spoken that autumn of his loss of appetite 
 he had irritabl} 7 begged her to ignore it as nothing un- 
 usual. Like all sensitive people he hated to think he was 
 under any kind of inspection, and hating it as much as he 
 did, she had been very careful not to make the same kind 
 of observation again. She was more than ever determined 
 to help him by being happy in herself. 
 
 And so she ate a good lunch, and then changed her 
 clothes and went out to prepare a bed for winter bulbs. 
 She had renewed a childhood passion that year, and all 
 the past summer and autumn there had been gorgeous 
 patches of colour in the sunshiny spaces of the garden. 
 After two hours she put away her tools, and sat on the 
 front verandah to smoke a cigarette and to relax. She 
 did hope Lee would come to tell her that Dane wanted her
 
 312 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION" 
 
 to have tea with him. But no, he brought a fully equipped 
 tray for one out to her. 
 
 As it depressed her to take it alone she did the most 
 sensible thing she could afterwards. She got up her horse 
 and went off riding in the direction of Te Koperu, turning 
 up a track on the ranges to get a fine view. There was a 
 fresh, cool wind that stimulated her, and she was suffi- 
 ciently philosophical when she reached home to face the 
 rest of the day with her own company. She played to 
 herself all the evening. She was now working through the 
 piano scores of the Beethoven symphonies, so that she 
 would the more enjoy them when she came to hear them 
 played by the great orchestras of the world. They were 
 an endless source of delight to her, and this night she lost 
 herself in the art she loved, and forgot all about Dane 
 until Lee brought in the supper tray. 
 
 II 
 
 Dane had waked late that morning from an intermittent 
 dozing to find himself in a wretched state of nerves. He 
 had been sleeping badly for a week or two, and had fought 
 every night the temptation to take morphia. He won- 
 dered why some men were born to sleep so well and others 
 so ill. He had seen bushmen sound asleep on the tops of 
 logs that were being drawn along tramways by patient, re- 
 liable horses that needed no guidance, he had seen men 
 asleep on wagon loads of hay, men asleep about the decks 
 of timber ships, men asleep in the fields, men asleep on 
 timber stacks in the dinner hour at the mills, men asleep 
 on chairs and on benches in the pubs. And it seemed to 
 him as if he were the only person he knew to whom the 
 dark goddess denied that elementary right of man. 
 
 He wondered sometimes if his erratic, ill-regulate3
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 313 
 
 childhood was the cause. Whatever it was, his terrible 
 awakeness was the curse of his life. He had done what 
 he could in recent years. He had lived more and more in 
 the open air, and that had helped a good deal. And 
 marriage with Valerie had helped him. He had been bet- 
 ter in the first year than he had been for a decade. But 
 this autumn the shadow had fallen on him again, and he 
 had as well the fits of indigestion and nausea and depres- 
 sion that he was beginning to dread. 
 
 Even the strong coffee that he took did little to buck 
 him up this day. He paced the garden on his side of the 
 house for an hour and found himself exhausted. He went 
 into his den and drank a stiff whisky and lay down on his 
 lounge, hoping the warmth of the room would help him to 
 doze the morning and the mood away. But it was no use. 
 When he got up the bones in his body seemed to dance 
 under his skin like the ridiculous antics of marionettes 
 moved by the jerks of a capricious string. His nerves 
 were driving him mad. 
 
 He forced himself to eat a little of the chicken jelly Lee 
 brought him for lunch. He asked about Valerie, and was 
 glad to hear she had gone out to garden. He went out 
 to his verandah and tried to get some distraction from the 
 whistling of the wind in the trees and the scurrying of the 
 leaves about the paths. But he was beyond the stage 
 when nature was any use to him. He went into his back 
 room, and from the window caught a glimpse of Valerie 
 wheeling a barrow of manure to her flower-beds. He 
 heard her whistling. It did not hurt him that she could 
 be happy without him. It was the one thing that helped 
 him to bear himself, when he did bear himself. As he 
 looked at her then he was hardly conscious of her as a 
 woman he loved ; he was so weary and so hounded by some 
 insatiable demon within. When he heard she had gone oil
 
 314 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 riding, he went down to his launch and turned up the 
 river, as he had done before when he was away from her. 
 At least it would not be at Mac's, and under the eye of Bob 
 Lorrimer, that he went under. 
 
 in 
 
 In spite of her determination to be detached, Valerie felt 
 a chill when Lee came to ask her at lunch the next day 
 where she would have it. 
 
 She knew she would learn nothing if she asked that boy 
 questions. She was both irritated by having him as a 
 buffer between her and Dane and attracted by his ad- 
 mirable matter-of-fact air. As she ate again by herself 
 the situation began to get on her nerves. 
 
 As before she went out to soothe herself by working 
 with the earth, and as she dug she heard the launch come 
 into the bay. She slipped back quietly to her rooms and 
 was in time to see Dane emerge from the trees and dis- 
 appear on his own side of the house. He slouched along 
 with a stoop like an old man. She had not been able to 
 see his face. She sat down so overwhelmed with pity for 
 him that hot tears oozed painfully out of her eyes and 
 dropped upon her grubby hands. But she tried to com- 
 fort herself with the thought that perhaps men did not 
 suffer nearly as much about this kind of thing as women 
 did for them. Perhaps he felt much better now that he 
 had fed that demon in him. He would be weak and sick 
 for a day or two, but his mind might be at rest. She 
 knew well enough he drank for no mere self-indulgent rea- 
 son. Whatever it was, it was not tKat. There was a 
 continual fight going on there, and it was knowledge of 
 that that saved him from her condemnation. 
 
 She decided to ride into Dargaville, so that if he had
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 315 
 
 been at Mac's the night before, as she supposed, the town 
 should know she was not crushed by the fact. She stopped 
 as she usually did at the News office, and learned that 
 Dane had not called for the paper. She stopped at the 
 post-office and found he had not got the mail. 
 
 When she got home she took the papers and the mail 
 into her room with her. There were several letters for 
 Dane. She separated them, thinking that having this ex- 
 cuse she would go to his verandah, and that if he were not 
 there she would call him. She felt it ridiculous that she 
 could not make a move towards him. But even as she 
 thought it, Lee knocked on her door. 
 
 " You have the mail, Meesis Barrington? " he asked. 
 
 She gave him the papers and the letters for Dane. 
 
 But something about this incident annoyed her ex- 
 tremely. And it was humiliating to be cut off from the 
 man she loved by this boy. And yet, if the man she loved 
 preferred it this way, she had to abide by his wish. 
 
 She ate her dinner alone again that night, and became 
 so restless and upset by her isolation that she was in no 
 mood to play the piano afterwards. She went out into 
 the dark and began to pace the drive between the house 
 and the gate. The quality of the night did not help her. 
 There was still a wind, but it was not the fresh wind of 
 the west with a tonic in its rushing air. It was a brooding 
 northeaster of the three-day kind, swaying the pines to a 
 melancholy whine and the poplars to a metallic hiss. It 
 was a wind that preceded a storm of rain. It was a wind 
 that hinted at pain and trouble and unutterable sadnesses. 
 It was a wind that glued one to the earth, that put weights 
 in one's boots and turned one's muscles to lead. 
 
 At last she felt she was tired enough to sleep. She 
 found her supper in the study. She was able to drink a 
 glass of wine and eat some crackers, but she felt so lonely
 
 316 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 when she got to bed that it was a long time before she fell 
 into an uneasy dream. 
 
 " Come in," she said at one o'clock the next day, as she 
 heard the knock. 
 
 She had expected Lee, but it was Dane who walked in, 
 closing the door behind him. He looked pale and tired, 
 and there were circles round his eyes, but he was not 
 frantic any more. He seemed relaxed and a little drowsy. 
 There was a delicate scent about his fresh white shirt, and 
 he was wearing the navy suit and the blue tie she liked 
 best. His obvious attention to her likes touched her. 
 
 Afraid though he was of her judgment, he stumbled in 
 to her like a child, with an appeal radiating from his whole 
 expressive body. But he had no need to fear her. Her 
 eyes flashed when she saw who it was. She sprang to her 
 feet with her arms out, as if he had returned unexpectedly 
 from a journey, and before he could speak he felt her 
 kisses upon his lips and her hands caressing his head. 
 
 " I've been a beast to leave you alone, dear," he said 
 Hoarsely, when he could find his voice. 
 
 " Oh, don't, please. I understand." 
 
 " I'm better alone." 
 
 " Yes, yes, I know. Don't think about it. Kiss me." 
 
 He thought it wonderful that she could blot it out like 
 that. But she was only too glad to blot it out, only too 
 glad to have him restored to some measure of peace with 
 himself. 
 
 It was the storm that broke upon the place that night, 
 lasting for three days, that brought them to talk of going 
 away. He did not particularly want to go. Changes in 
 food upset him and he could not work so well, but he saw 
 Valerie thought a change would do him good, and he 
 thought she wanted it for herself. Each was thinking of 
 the other and thinking wrong, as is the strange way of so
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 317 
 
 many people who care. So they went to Rotorua for a) 
 month. And on the whole it did Dane a lot of good. 
 The fine winter climate of the Dominion's most famous re- 
 sort helped him to eat, and the mineral baths and electric 
 treatment he took restored his nerves. They spent most 
 of the time walking and driving about the hills and launch- 
 ing about the lakes, and Valerie was rejoiced to see how, 
 much better he seemed when they returned home.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 ONE warm night in the following February Valerie 
 lounged on Dane's verandah, as near as she could 
 to the edge without letting the chair topple over. 
 Such little coolness as there was on the river came up 
 through the clearing to be dissipated by the lingering 
 warmth and heavy scents of the garden. 
 
 A half-finished cigarette disintegrated into ash in a 
 copper tray beside her. She had put it down when Dane 
 had begun to sing L'heure Exquise. She always for- 
 got that there could be any other kind of hour when he 
 sang to her. He had not a strong voice, but it had a 
 quality that filled her with a tingling delight. She forgot 
 now her hours of anxiety about him in the last months, 
 her increasing sense of some invisible disrupting influence 
 that was coming up between them. But they still loved 
 each other after two years, loved each other beyond any 
 doubt, she told herself. 
 
 Valerie had changed in those two years. Her manner 
 had softened. Her voice was fuller and lower. She was 
 less positive in expression, more sympathetic in judgment. 
 Physically she was more alive than she had ever been. 
 Her maiden leanness had disappeared, and her shapely 
 limbs were rounded to alluring curves. And about her 
 there was always the glow of splendid health. It was this 
 that made it hard for her to realize at times what it could 
 mean to lack vitality. 
 
 But as Dane sang she was not thinking of his health, 
 
 318
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 819 
 
 she was not looking into any doubtful future. She was 
 lost in a subjective sweetness, conscious only of the flute- 
 like notes that floated out to her. She felt a jar when 
 jthey stopped. 
 
 He came out through the study door looking for her. 
 He leaned over the back of her chair, putting his face 
 against her hair, and one hand under her chin. 
 
 " I'm not in much of a mood to sing, dear, I feel lazy." 
 
 He moved round her chair and dropped into his ham- 
 mock with the motions of a man who is tired. 
 
 One of the boys came into the den and lit two of the 
 lamps, and by the streamer of light that fell across Dane's 
 face Valerie saw with a little pang that there were heavy 
 circles under his eyes. She could never bear to think of 
 anything but beauty on his face. She wondered at times 
 how far she was hypnotized by it, how far she loved the 
 man behind that face. Of course there were definite quali- 
 ties there that she could name as lovable, his appealing 
 affectionateness, his whimsical sense of humour, his soft- 
 ness, his uncanny understanding, his personal charm, but 
 behind all these was that baffling man she did not know, 
 the man she could not help. She had speculated a good 
 deal about his duality, the spartan mind in the hedonist 
 body, as she put it to herself, and she wondered if the fight 
 was between those two, if it were as simple as that. She 
 knew now there was a deadly battle going on behind those 
 eyes, but she could not tell what the opponents were, what 
 armour they wore, what gods they fought for. But she 
 could see the smoke of it, like a person watching from a 
 far-off hill. 
 
 As she looked at him she was afraid that the trip they 
 had taken that summer, a wandering trip about the North, 
 had not toned him up as she had hoped it might. 
 
 The warm weather lasted for two more days before it
 
 '320 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 biroke with a thunderstorm that left the air fresh. The 
 change seemed to make a difference to Dane. He recov- 
 ered some of the fire he had lately lost. As Valerie sat 
 with him after dinner, and saw the good mood he was in, 
 she ventured to make an observation that she had wanted 
 to make for some time. 
 
 " Dane, I do wish you would do something about your 
 indigestion. You are better to-day, but you have been 
 getting worse for months. You know diet can do wonders 
 for that. Now don't frown, dear. You men are all so de- 
 plorably careless about your health, and you know I hap- 
 pen to care a lot about yours." 
 
 " I've always had a weak stomach, Valerie. I can't do 
 anything about the damned thing. Please don't worry 
 about it. It's really going away that upsets me this 
 last trip we had such a lot of greasy stuff." 
 
 " Well, then, we mustn't go to the wilds again." 
 
 " Oh, please, dear, don't bother about it. I'm all 
 right." 
 
 She saw that her reference to it had chilled and irritated 
 him. To make amends, she moved her chair beside the 
 hammock, and took one of his hands and kissed it and 
 rubbed it against her cheek. They smoked and sat still 
 for a while, and then, seeing that he was aloof in mood 
 from her, she began deliberately to try to bring him back 
 to her again, to put him in the mood when he could forget 
 everything but her. 
 
 He felt her vitality about him like a glow in the night. 
 There had never yet been a time when she could not stimu- 
 late him, but to-night he felt as if the springs of his forces 
 had run dry. There was a fierce inhibition somewhere. 
 
 Valerie got up abruptly, walked to the steps, and looked 
 up at the velvety sky where the Milky Way was like a trail 
 of quicksilver pulverized to luminous dust. She stood still
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 321 
 
 there for a few minutes, and then she went in and began to 
 play. 
 
 He was lying with his arm across his face when she came 
 after an hour to the study door. 
 
 " I'm going to have some supper. Do you want any? " 
 
 " No, thanks. I'll stay here for a while longer." 
 
 Chilled by his manner she went back and ate alone, and 
 then restless and unhappy she went out to walk on the 
 other side of the house. 
 
 Something in the mysterious depths of the range 
 stretching up to the stars, in its potent silence, the weight 
 of life it carried so secretively, stirred her out of her little 
 petty mood, calmed her senses. She told herself it was 
 absurd to put the significance she had been doing on 
 Dane's manner. He could not always be responsive, but 
 it was the fact that this was the first time he had not been 
 so that arrested her. 
 
 He lay still for a few minutes after she had gone to eat 
 her supper. Then he turned over and buried his face in 
 the cushions. 
 
 " Oh God, if I were only ten years younger ! " He 
 stretched his lips on his set teeth. He thought rather 
 bitterly of the fate that had brought Valerie to him as the 
 last woman he should love instead of the first. He was 
 romantic enough to think his life might have been very 
 different. They had had two years together, even more 
 than he had hoped in the beginning, and there was still 
 more of it. She still loved him, he knew that. She was 
 still happy there. They were not yet looking at each 
 other with that premeditated and deliberate politeness 
 that decent people used to disguise the death of spon- 
 taneity. Whenever he was well life was wonderful between 
 them. 
 
 He did wish she had not spoken of his health. It was
 
 322 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 the one thing he could not bear to be reminded of, the one 
 thing he was trying to forget. He simply must not think 
 of it yet. That awful suspicion and her words had had 
 an appalling effect upon it, had given it a kind of stability 
 as fact. All at once he felt terribly alone. He could not 
 lie there and think of that. He wanted her arms about 
 him, wanted her life beating against his own to assure him 
 that it was a sure and positive thing, and that it could 
 not be spirited away from him. He got out of the ham- 
 mock and went in to look for her. He had not heard her 
 go out. He knocked on her door, and getting no response 
 he went into her room wondering now if she had been hurt 
 by his coldness. When he could not find her he was sure 
 she had. He could have kicked himself. 
 
 He went round the house calling for her, and down to 
 the boathouse, and back along the drive to the gate. He 
 worked himself into the state of a lost child when she did 
 not answer. When at last he saw her coming along the 
 road, he hurried to meet her and caught her to him. 
 
 " Oh, don't go away from me," he begged, clinging to 
 her. 
 
 " Why, my dear, my dear, I I thought " 
 
 She wondered whatever had changed him so, and she 
 wondered it again many times during the night. 
 
 II 
 
 " Valerie, I want to go to Roland's Mills for a day or 
 two to hunt up some fresh stories. I've heard of an Eng- 
 lishman over that way I'd like to see." 
 
 " Oh, good. Give my love to David Bruce, and tell him 
 we haven't been divorced yet," she answered lightly. 
 
 He smiled back at her. 
 
 They had just finished lunch on a cool April day.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 323 
 
 Dane's proposal did not disturb her in the least. He had 
 many times gone off for a day or two after copy, and had 
 never suggested that she go with him, nor had she asked to 
 do so, knowing that she could not sleep in men's camps or 
 lonely huts. She was glad now to hear that he was to be 
 out in his launch, for he had been depressed the last two 
 days, and she felt the trip would do him good. She saw 
 him off later with a supply of food without a question in 
 her eyes. 
 
 She spent the rest of the day with no sense of loneliness. 
 She was becoming used, in a measure, to his absences. 
 This was partly because they were not, as yet, so frequent 
 as to be continually depressing. The interludes meant so 
 much. 
 
 And then she was becoming absorbed in her first novel. 
 It was crudely written as far as she had gone, she knew, 
 and would take a lot of polishing, but the thing that inter- 
 ested her was the power to create people in her own imagi- 
 nation. It was a wonderful diversion. She had starved 
 considerably for companionship till she had met Dane, and 
 now she discovered she could make people to please her- 
 self, she could make them talk as she wanted people to 
 talk, make them live as she wanted people to live, and she 
 found they became extraordinarily real. And it was be- 
 coming more and more interesting to explore her own mind, 
 to see what would come out of it in a morning, to see what 
 her people would say and do, for they had surprising ways 
 of their own; they would defy her intentions sometimes, 
 and scamper off on her pages and do things of their own 
 accord. The whole thing enormously diverted her, and 
 she felt now that if she kept on she would some day suc- 
 ceed with this thing. 
 
 And so it was that she worked and played away the day 
 after Dane left without thinking much about him. In the
 
 324 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 evening she lay in his hammock listening to the crickets 
 and rather enjoying the mood of sweet melancholy that 
 the autumn night gave her. The wind had changed from 
 the west to the east, but she hoped the rain would not 
 come before Dane got back. 
 
 She wished the boys would light up the den, for she 
 liked to look into it from the outside, but when their mas- 
 ter was away they always kept his rooms in darkness, and 
 she had never attempted to go into them or change a 
 single one of his ways. She had no vulgar curiosity about 
 him. It would never have occurred to her to look over his 
 desk or papers in his absence. She had never thought 
 about possible relics of other women. What did those 
 things matter? She sneered at the people who thought 
 they did. She had never even tried the doors of his back 
 rooms to see if they were locked, and she had never yet set 
 her foot in those two rooms. She knew that the things 
 she did not know about Dane would never be learned by 
 poking about among his belongings. 
 
 She drew the possum rug up over her and drifted into 
 speculation about the future. She was absorbed and con- 
 tented at present, realizing the chance she had to work, 
 but she wondered what she would do when her novel was 
 finished. Of course she wanted it to come out in London. 
 She was rather sniffy about colonial undertakings. And 
 how would she get it to London? Would Dane be willing 
 to go with her, and if not, what? 
 
 But she shelved that disturbing question. She went in- 
 side, closed the study door, and ate her supper by the 
 dying fire, mooning there for some time because she found 
 the coals good company. It was nearly midnight when 
 she stepped out of her bedroom window to her cot. She 
 stood by the railing a moment looking up at the faintly 
 clouded stars before she lowered her screen. Something
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 325 
 
 startled her to stretch out her head and to listen. Then 
 she heard the launch more distinct!} 7 , and she knew well the 
 pulse of its engine. It came at slow speed into the bay, 
 and a little later she heard the rattle of a chain and the 
 closing of the boathouse doors. And then the stumbling 
 steps on the other side of the house. The dogs roused a 
 minute to growl and then lay still. 
 
 Valerie found herself very wide awake. Why had Dane 
 come back? He had hardly had time to get to Roland's 
 Mills, even if he had gone at top speed all the way. She 
 sat down on the edge of her cot with a hard pain inside 
 her. If he had meant to get drunk why had he lied to 
 her? He had never lied before. For the first time a real 
 despair took possession of her. This thing was growing 
 on him, was getting ahead of him. The time would soon 
 come when the interludes would not balance the black 
 moods, would not compensate. 
 
 She got into bed and lay with her eyes open staring into 
 the blackness under the verandah roof. 
 
 She asked no questions of Lee at breakfast, and the boy 
 said nothing about his master. She wondered if she was 
 supposed to know that Dane was back so that she would 
 keep away from his side of the house. At times like these 
 she felt like an outsider in the place, as if she had no part 
 there at all. She felt more than usually upset that morn- 
 ing, and could only make a pretence of working. Her 
 characters seemed unreal, their actions trivial and their 
 emotions silly. She could not get hold of them at all. 
 
 When he brought her lunch Lee said : " Meester Bar- 
 rington back. He not well. He wish himself alone." 
 
 Valerie knew it was useless to be angry with the boy who 
 could do so much more for the sick man than she could. 
 But it was just this that maddened her. And she reflected 
 what a grim Nemesis it was that should have brought to
 
 326 THE STRANGE r ATTRACTION 
 
 her the kind of thing she had supposed she wanteo!. One of 
 her reasons for hating marriage had been the boring &nd 
 ugly physical intimacy of so much of it. But Dane had 
 imposed none of the things she feared upon her. She ha'd 
 never seen him unshaved. She had never seen him dress or 
 undress. He had been even more fastidious and delicate 
 than she was. He had never come near her when he was 
 ill. She had never been asked to lift her finger to do a 
 thing for him. And now she hated what she had thought 
 she desired. It seemed so cold and inhuman. It made her 
 feel she was failing him in vital ways. But there was 
 nothing she could do about it* 
 
 That afternoon she rode through Dargaville and out to 
 the coast. The gully was deserted, and the tent no longer 
 there. They had been down together after the cottagers 
 left, but the things had been brought home two weeks be- 
 fore. She looked at the place where she had first heard 
 of Dane, and thought of the glorious hours they had had 
 down there. Try as she would she could not keep from 
 her mind the ominous sense that the glory of their adven- 
 ture was departing. She galloped back and forth on the 
 beach till she felt better. 
 
 It was gaily enough on the way home that she stopped 
 in front of the News and whistled for her paper. She 
 fancied Bob looked at her a little intently as he came out 
 with it. And then as she rested before dinner she read 
 what had happened to Dane. 
 
 HI 
 
 He had left her with every intention, as he had said, of 
 going to Roland's Mills. He intended to get to Aoroa 
 for the night, to make an early start, and to get round 
 into the Otamatea and to pass their honeymooning place
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 327 
 
 in the early morning. It did not alarm him that he 
 wanted to get away from Valerie for a few days. There 
 were times when he liked to get away from her because he 
 so enjoyed going back to find her there. 
 
 He was about a mile above Dargaville, and looking up 
 at a pile of cumulous clouds, when he felt the launch bump 
 something. He had not noticed anything conspicuous on 
 the water ahead of him. Looking back he saw a horrible 
 thing, the water-bloated face of a man. He gave a shud- 
 dering groan and felt instantly nauseated. Automatic- 
 ally he ran on for a few yards, then he slowed down and 
 began a tormenting wrestle with himself. He wanted to 
 run on and leave it. It made him sick even to think of it. 
 What did it matter what happened to it, a hideous dead 
 thing? But somebody would want it. And if he left it 
 now it might sink, and never be heard of again, and women 
 and children might go on crying for it. And he could not 
 face anyone with the tale that he was afraid of it, that he 
 loathed it. He looked up and down the river. There was 
 nothing in sight. No one would ever know he had seen it. 
 But he would know himself that he had seen it and de- 
 serted it. 
 
 " God damn it ! " he raged. " Why does this happen to 
 me?" 
 
 He turned the launch back, went alongside it and looked 
 at it. He broke out with an oath, an explosion rare to 
 him. He knew the dreadful face. It was that of an 
 Australian, who had drifted six months before to one of 
 the mills on the river. He had been a jolly reckless chap, 
 and Dane had had many a drink with him. Now he knew 
 he could not leave him to drift down the river. There was 
 'an irresistible human cry in the pulpy eyes upturned to 
 the sky and in the peeling face. Grinding his teeth Dane 
 took a handkerchief out of his pocket, and with nausea
 
 328 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 threatening to overcome him, he tied it round the head, 
 for he could not bear to feel it staring at him. He saw 
 he could never get the body into the launch. Indeed, he 
 could not have borne to have it there. And he was afraid 
 it would fall to bits. He had an appalling moment won- 
 dering what on earth he was to do with it. Then with his 
 pocket knife he cut holes in the coat. He tied a rope 
 through them and fixed it to the stern of the launch. He 
 tried to wash his hands, shrinking from them. The per- 
 spiration stood out on his forehead when he was finished. 
 He started slowly down the river, feeling he would go mad 
 with that trailing after him. 
 
 Bob Lorrimer, Doctor Steele and Mac were standing 
 near the barroom door when Dane plunged in as if he 
 were followed by all the devils in hell. 
 
 " What is it, Barrington? " asked Bob anxiously, think- 
 ing at once of Valerie. 
 
 Dane did not see what he meant. " A corpse," 
 he shuddered, " at my boat. I ran into it coming 
 down." And he went on up the stairs to wash his 
 hands. 
 
 Even before Doctor Steele and Bob had got the body 
 into the hotel on a stretcher Dane was at the bar drink- 
 ing whisky, and when he was called upon by the constable 
 for evidence he was already reckless. 
 
 " What the hell do you want in the way of evidence? " 
 he raged. " Isn't it a corpse? I found it in the river, 
 curse it ! What more is there to say ? " 
 
 " Look here, Mac, don't let him get drunk," said Bob 
 aside. 
 
 Mac grinne'd. " You bloody fool, you can't stop a man 
 in that mood. He's got stacks of stuff at home anyway. 
 
 And he's better drunk than seeing that corpse 
 
 all night."
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 329 
 
 Later on in the evening Mac and Doctor Steele got 
 Dane upstairs. 
 
 " I wonder why he had to find that thing? " said the 
 doctor, looking down upon him as he lay on the bed. 
 " Borrow came down half an hour before. It wouldn't 
 have hurt him to pick it up." 
 
 " Oh, there ain't no reason in this world," 
 
 growled Mac. 
 
 IV 
 
 Valerie also felt there was no reason in the world when 
 she read that Dane had run into that calamitous object. 
 Her first feeling was one of blind rage that such things 
 were always imposed on the people who could least endure 
 them. She stamped about the garden that night shouting 
 her little defiance at the stars. She was roused against 
 the fates on behalf of Dane. But when this mood wore 
 itself out she was a little weary, and though she would 
 not have admitted it, a little resentful that he should be 
 so sensitive to hurt. 
 
 As it grew near lunch time the next day she hoped she 
 was going to hear from him. Not only because she missed 
 him, but because it would mean that he was better. She 
 had not worked well that morning. His personality 
 seemed to clutch at her through the walls. She might 
 have worked if she had known he was away, but now the 
 thought of him lying alone there somewhere distracted 
 her. 
 
 But he did not appear at lunch. She went out to 
 garden afterwards, for nothing so well soothed her. 
 
 At half-past four Lee called from the verandah. 
 *' Your tea, Meesis Barrington." 
 
 There was no sign of Dane, and almost before she had
 
 330 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 finished dusk came down upon the garden. The days 
 were shortening fast, and when it was cloudy as it now 
 was it was dark at five. The atmosphere was heavy, 
 threatening rain. 
 
 Valerie tried to settle down to read till dinner. She 
 did not like to play the piano lest Dane be out in his cot 
 asleep and be wakened by it. But she could not sit still. 
 She was desperately restless. She went out to walk on 
 the drive. For the twentieth time she told herself this 
 way of living could not go on. When Dane was well again 
 she would talk it out with him. It made her feel like an 
 alien in the house. She could not stand it any longer. 
 She told herself she would rather see him drunk, unshaved, 
 sick, if it had to be that kind of thing, than go on with 
 this disrupting isolation. She would enter into the fight 
 with him, make him win. 
 
 Where was he now, she wondered. She sneaked round 
 in the shrubs to his side of the house with a strange feel- 
 ing that she had no business to spy upon him. The canvas 
 blinds on the sleeping end of his verandah were down, and 
 she could see nothing there, and the blinds of his den were 
 down also, but the room was lit within. She stood hidden 
 looking from one French door to the other, looking for 
 what she knew not. But she could not get it out of her 
 head that something tragic beyond her imagining was 
 going on in that room. It was as if she could see the 
 shadows of battling figures posed against the blinds. 
 
 She grew frantic thinking of it. Inaction was the one 
 unendurable thing to a person of her disposition. A clod 
 might have stood it, but not a person of her imagination. 
 
 She stole back to the front verandah and sat down. 
 The glow from the study fire streamed out through the 
 window and cast distorted streaks of light up and down 
 the trunks of trees. She turned her chair to look into
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 331 
 
 the room. This was her favourite room. It expressed 
 the best of Dane, she thought. She liked the den well 
 enough for exotic hours, but she always felt she wanted 
 to go out into the air afterwards, or to come to sit in the 
 study with its satisfying balance. Everything about it 
 seemed just right. It was a beautiful room to play in, to 
 read in, to eat in, to talk in, or to dream in by the fire. 
 There was only one .thing lacking in it now the presence 
 of the man who had made it. 
 
 As she looked in, Lee carried in the dinner tray set only 
 for one. With a chill at her heart she went inside. 
 
 But there was a folded note on the tray. She did not 
 see it till she had eaten her soup. 
 
 " Val, dear, play to me to-night, and please don't worry 
 about me. I'll be all right in a day or two." 
 
 Tears oozed out of her eyes and ran unheeded down 
 her cheeks. 
 
 She sat down at the piano at eight o'clock, determined 
 that she would play her way back into his mind. Abnor- 
 mally intensified, she never played better than she did 
 that night. As she went on the wind, which had been in- 
 creasing all the evening, blew up to a gale, and moaned 
 and whined about the chimneys and the eaves. Her mood 
 moved with it. She played the stormiest things she knew 
 from Tschaikovsky, Beethoven and Chopin, and when her 
 hands dropped from the keys it was well after eleven, and 
 the fire behind her had burned low. The room moved with 
 shadows from the two candles which flickered in the 
 draught that came under the doors from the open window 
 on her side of the house. 
 
 Valerie sat still at the keyboard for a few minutes, af- 
 fected by the troublous suggestion in the wind. Then she 
 sprang to her feet electrified. She had heard her name 
 called, called as if it had come out of a long distance, a
 
 332 THE STRANGE 'ATTRACTION 
 
 weird sound like a wailing from the storm. Her pulses 
 raced as she stood listening for it again. But she heard 
 nothing more than the moaning about the old house and 
 the swishing of the poplars and the pines. She walked to 
 the hall door and opened it, straining her ears for sounds 
 inside the house. She saw her supper on the hall table. 
 She stole softly along as far as the bathroom. There 
 was no light under the kitchen door. But there was a 
 light under the door of the den. 
 
 She could see there was a fire by the ebb and flow of the 
 light. There was no sound of any kind. She felt Dane 
 was in there alone. He must have been listening to her 
 playing. She felt a fierce impulse to open the door, to 
 go in and see what he looked like, what he was doing. It 
 seemed ridiculous that she could not. The first thing 
 that restrained her was the thought that he might have 
 fallen asleep, and not for worlds would she have disturbed 
 him so. But she played with the impulse for some min- 
 utes. And then she hesitated, because whatever was go- 
 ing on in there was in a large sense his own affair, at least 
 more his than hers, she felt. And that was the thought 
 that turned her back. 
 
 She carried her supper tray into the study and sat 
 down. Then she heard her name called again. She won- 
 dered if her nerves were playing tricks with her. But it 
 seemed a clearer call. This time she acted without 
 thought. She went straight to the door of the den, opened 
 it, and went in, closing it at once behind her. What she 
 had expected she did not know, but she stood with her 
 heart beating furiously. She looked at once at the lounge 
 placed in front of a fire that had been banked up to burn 
 most of the night. 
 
 Stretched out on his back upon it, with his face turned 
 to the ceiling, Dane lay in a curiousty lifeless way, with
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 333 
 
 one arm hanging over the side and the other flung across 
 his breast. His skin was so colourless and his features so 
 peaceful that for a shattering second she thought him 
 dead. Then she saw a smile play about his mouth. She 
 recovered herself, but was afraid to stir, thinking him 
 asleep. She saw that he was partly dressed under his 
 blue silk dressing-gown, that he had on socks and evening 
 slippers, and that he had evidently recently shaved. 
 There was a small cut on his chin and a tiny streak of 
 blood. She wondered if he had meant to have dinner with 
 her, but had been unequal to the effort. 
 
 A piece of wood fell in the fireplace making quite a 
 startling noise. She jumped nervously herself. But she 
 saw he did not stir. Then something about the dead 
 whiteness of his face arrested her. She spoke his name 
 fearfully. She moved up to the lounge and spoke again. 
 He did not move. 
 
 Seeing him thus for the first time unmistakably under 
 a drug it came to her with the force of a blow, though 
 she had felt for some time that he was using something to 
 put himself to sleep. She looked at his wrists, and it was 
 not the first time she had looked there for significant 
 marks. She knew nothing of the effect of narcotics. 
 She had thought once or twice lately that he had had a 
 strange expression in his eyes, that he had looked through 
 her and beyond her as if he were seeing things not of the 
 earth. How far he had gone with this thing she did not 
 know. Whether he was powerless against it she did not 
 know. How long it would be before he was unbearable 
 because of it she did not know. But she imagined the 
 worst. 
 
 And then as she looked at him a smile again mysteri- 
 ously came to life upon his face, and flitted about it, and 
 faded away. She felt a sudden choking pity for him. At
 
 334 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 least, poor soul, he was at peace. At least he had a 
 respite from that invisible and pitiless foe that she knew 
 he fought. She moved him a little on the lounge, and sat 
 down on the edge of it and stared into his face. It had 
 never seemed more beautiful in spite of the bluish hollows 
 under the eyes. 
 
 She wondered when he had taken the drug, whether it 
 was after she started to play, and if so why then? Had 
 the thought of her been too much for him? Something 
 happened to her as she sat there looking at him, a crisis 
 in the evolution of feeling. But she was not conscious of 
 it till afterwards. She was caught now by a flood of pity 
 and affection. The impulse came to her to lie down with 
 him, to be with him when he waked, and to help him to 
 fight back to himself. She went out to the supper tray, 
 and drank a glass of wine. She put out the candles in the 
 study, and saw that the fire was safe. 
 
 He did not stir as she moved him to make room for 
 herself. She thought she could stay there all night. But 
 her mood of passionate affection wore itself out as she 
 lay there uncomfortable and fiercely awake, listening to 
 the storm break upon the house. And there was some- 
 thing uncanny about Dane, not himself, lying there be- 
 side her, like a dead man. The hot air of the scented 
 room suffocated her. Something absolutely alien to her 
 health and balance irritated her. The lashing of the sleet 
 upon the roof, and the queer straining sounds made by 
 the creepers fighting for their hold against the wind kept 
 her nerves continually on the jump. And she got a hope- 
 less feeling about her ability to help him when he woke. 
 
 After all, she was doing him no good by being there. 
 And she had satisfied the sacrificial mood she had been 
 in. With more of a dull dismay in her mind than any- 
 thing else she got up about one o'clock and went back to
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 335 
 
 her room. It was too wet to go outside. The rain beat 
 against her canvas blind, and underneath it along the 
 floor. She stood by her open window till she began to 
 shiver, but the cold air made her feel better. Her nerves 
 calmed down. She felt very tired. She got into her in- 
 door bed and before very long fell asleep. 
 
 V 
 
 The storm wore itself out during the night, and the 
 next day was fresh and clear. Early in the morning Dane 
 staggered out of his room with a couple of rugs, and got 
 into his hammock. After he had revived himself with the 
 coffee Lee brought him he began to wonder what had hap- 
 pened to him. It was some time before he got it clearly 
 in his mind. He remembered coming home, he remembered 
 his struggle with his nerves the previous day. He remem- 
 bered he had wanted music. And then he had gone into 
 his den to listen to it, and he had seen that dreadful face, 
 the face of the drowned man. He could remember no 
 more. He was distressed to learn what day it was. What 
 would Valerie think of him? He had told her he was go- 
 ing to Roland's Mills. She would think he had lied. 
 
 He lay still all the morning fighting nausea, wishing he 
 were dead, wondering why he had not ended it all up there 
 on the Hokianga harbour that night. He told himself he 
 was a miserable weakling, and that it was a wonder Va- 
 lerie had ever loved him, but she had, and still did in spite 
 of all this, that was the wonderful thing. And thinking 
 of that his will began again its fight with his body. 
 
 At lunch time he asked Lee what she was doing, and 
 was glad to hear she had gone out to garden. He made 
 a desperate effort to shave so that he could take tea with 
 her, but he did not feel equal to meeting her till dinner.
 
 336 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 Then he sent a message to her. It seemed to him that 
 she came as buoyantly as usual onto the verandah where 
 he lay in the dusk. He felt like a sick child as she came 
 up to him and leaned over him and put her arms under 
 him. It was the most comforting thing he had ever felt. 
 
 " Val, I did mean to go to Roland's Mills," he said 
 miserably. 
 
 " I know you did, Dane. I read in the paper what 
 happened. Please get well, and don't think about it any 
 more. I know you were not lying to me." 
 
 Happily he did not see that it took some resolution to 
 put the tenderness and understanding she did into her 
 voice. 
 
 She sat down by him and took his hand and stroked it, 
 and did not attempt to talk. It grew dark. Lee came 
 to the door and asked where they would have the meal. 
 
 " Is it too cold for you out here, Val? I want to stay 
 outside." 
 
 " Not at all. I'll get a coat." 
 
 And afterwards she sat and then lay there with him 
 till two in the morning, keeping the longest and strangest 
 silence she had ever kept with any human being. But 
 he was afraid to be alone, she saw that. Once when she 
 moved he clutched at her fearfully, and that pathetic 
 appeal had given her a strange thrill. Only when she 
 saw that he had gone to sleep did she very carefully work 
 her way out of the hammock, cover him up carefully, and 
 steal inside. 
 
 He was much better the next morning and walked in to 
 her as she sat in her study. She got up and kissed him 
 and found that she was really as glad as ever to have him 
 restored to her. 
 
 " Valerie, dear, you are very good to me," he said 
 humbly. " And will you come on the launch with me for
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 337 
 
 a run about the rivers? Three or four days. I want to 
 
 stay out in the air. We can keep warm." 
 
 " Why, of course I will, Dane. I'd love it myself." 
 And he was so much better at the end of the trip that 
 
 Valerie almost forgot what she had felt as she sat beside 
 
 him on the lounge in his den.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 VALERIE and Dane were at Rotorua when the 
 war cloud burst over Europe at the end of July. 
 For two weeks he had been much in the company 
 of some Englishmen talking over the rumours. One of 
 the travellers had been only recently in the Balkans. They 
 all thought it would blow over till they read the cable 
 telling of the Russian mobilization. 
 
 Dane was much more roused than Valerie over the news 
 of the next few days. His health, much improved by a 
 month at the resort, was further improved by his pre- 
 occupation with the outbreak of war. On the first of 
 August they packed up, weeks before they had intended to, 
 and returned to Auckland, where Dane could get the news 
 as it reached the newspaper offices. He spent a good deal 
 of time in them with the little groups of men who sat 
 waiting for news, frantically waiting for news, cursing the 
 lack of news, hating their isolation from the maelstrom of 
 action. There seemed to be a conspiracy of silence against 
 newspaper men. The cables were meagre and fragmen- 
 tary. The Government, probably left much in doubt it- 
 self, kept a maddening silence. 
 
 And because of this lack of information, any man who 
 had any European knowledge, any wide knowledge of in- 
 ternational affairs, above all, any knowledge of German 
 schemes and philosophy, was listened to with keen atten- 
 tion. Dane had lived in Germany, and had read and seen 
 something of the policy of blood and iron. He knew 
 Nietzsche and Treitschke. He knew German history, and 
 
 338
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 339 
 
 he had seen in man}' countries of the world how their 
 tentacles were reaching out into the entrails of other na- 
 tions. So when he walked into his club men gathered 
 round him to congratulate him on the articles he was 
 writing on the crisis, and to his amusement his reinstate- 
 ment was complete. 
 
 And Valerie, with her imagination now fired by his, as 
 the possibilities of the war's lasting were discussed, began 
 to look ahead and to wonder what her part and his in it 
 might be. And forgetting personal things she consented 
 at last to go home to dine with her father and mother, 
 providing relatives she disliked were not present. 
 
 In the week before they returned to Dargaville Daven- 
 port Carr invited several men to dinner to meet Dane. 
 Valerie, the only woman present besides her mother, was 
 content to be still, to sit back, and to watch Dane lead 
 the talk. In her eyes he had never looked handsomer, and 
 he had certainly never talked better. She did not mind 
 that he had forgotten her, that he was lost in the subject 
 of the Belgian opposition. She had again that curious 
 feeling as to his phantom-like quality that arrested her at 
 most unlikely times. She forgot all about his weaknesses 
 as she listened to him talk that night. They did not 
 matter at all. What mattered was that he could rise 
 above them as he had done that last month or two. In- 
 deed, as far as she knew, he had never touched drugs or 
 drunk to excess since the night she had sat by him in his 
 den. All she saw that night was the picture of his pale 
 and brilliant face surrounded by a ring of tense and in- 
 terested faces, listening fascinated to all he had to say. 
 
 Valerie's spirits went down as they packed up to go 
 home. Things were just beginning to happen about them. 
 The little Dominion was moving. Men were coming into 
 the cities from the back-blocks everywhere to form the
 
 340 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 Legion of Frontiersmen. Everybody remembered the 
 Boer war and the contingents that had sprung up in a 
 night. It was this stirring all about them that caught 
 Valerie's spirit of adventure, that excited her, and that 
 made the return to Dargaville seem a very flat affair. 
 
 Most of the way home she was wondering what she 
 could do if the war went on. No one had begun to think 
 yet of the part women would play, but they had gone to 
 the Boer war in all kinds of capacity. And both she and 
 Dane were free, and had the money to go. She did not 
 'doubt then that she would be able to persuade him to 
 go, or that it would take any persuading. 
 
 When the steamer reached Dargaville Roger Benton, 
 George Rhodes, Bob, Allison and Bolton and several other 
 men were gathered together on the wharf. It did not 
 strike Valerie at first that, eager for news, they had come 
 to meet her and Dane. It ended by their all going to 
 Mac's to dinner. Mysteriously the hotel filled up with 
 men, and seeing what they wanted Dane turned himself 
 into an informal lecturer, and stood half-way up the stairs 
 talking all he knew of the last week's doings to a tense 
 group gathered about in the hall and round the bar door. 
 
 It was after ten o'clock when they went out to the 
 Diana, which Dane had left in one of Mac's boathouses. 
 Valerie had a funny feeling as she got into it that she was 
 being cut off from the world, as if she had been dropped 
 down a deep well. It was bad enough to live in a place 
 like New Zealand at such a time, isolated from the biggest 
 thing in history, a thing that was actually going on in 
 your own day and not in dreams, but it was worse to be 
 going away from such avenues of information as there 
 were. She wondered how Dane could do it. And just for 
 a minute she felt a hostility to him of which she was 
 ashamed.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 341 
 
 She wondered what he was thinking of as they went in 
 silence up the Wairoa. He had been talking continuously 
 for hours and was tired. Was he thinking as she was of 
 the marching men, of the men who were being huddled into 
 hastily improvised camps, of the men hurrying into spe- 
 cial night trains, of the scares from the sea, of the ru- 
 mours that had sprung up everywhere ? She did not know. 
 
 He ran the Diana at full speed by the light of a half 
 moon, and sat tense, his head a little forward, his hair 
 pressed under a tweed cap, his hand ready to turn the 
 launch from any snag that the river, flooded by heavy 
 rains, might spring upon him. 
 
 Valerie had a sense of unreality when they turned into 
 their own little bay. The peace of it was a challenge to 
 the folly of a world gone mad. And why not turn one's 
 back on a foolish world and wait in peace for it to come to 
 its senses again? 
 
 As they stood on the landing stage, their bags beside 
 them, Dane took off his cap, turned to her, and put an 
 arm about her shoulders. 
 
 " It's good to come back to this, dear, isn't it? " 
 
 She gave one look into his face and forgot the war. 
 
 The house was lit up. The dogs bounded to welcome 
 them. The boys came out to the verandah. The light 
 streamed through the three windows of the den into the 
 shadows. And there was a delicate breath of spring about 
 the still garden. The world was falling to pieces outside, 
 but the old station kept its air of incorruptible peace. 
 
 II 
 
 Two months later Valerie rode alone one afternoon into 
 Dargaville to get the papers and the mail. Dane had not 
 'been well for a day or two, and he had lain in his ham-
 
 342 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 mock all that morning reading papers and feasting Ris 
 ejes on a bed of anemones and rununculas that she had 
 made on that side of the house. In spite of the fine 
 spring weather Valerie did not feel at all cheerful. And 
 it was not the news from the outside world that was the 
 sole cause. 
 
 She stopped in front of the News and whistled the call 
 of the tui. As Bob came out to her with the paper she 
 sensed something from his manner. He looked up soberly 
 into her face. 
 
 " Val, I'm off," he said simply. 
 
 " Off," she repeated. 
 
 " Yes, Johnson and I are off in two weeks' time. We're 
 volunteering for the Expeditionary Force. Why do you 
 look surprised? We'll all be in it soon, if it goes on." 
 
 " You are off," she repeated again. " Oh. I'm not. 
 surprised, Bob. Dash it! I wish I could go, could do 
 something." 
 
 " Well, the women will be in before long. And you can 
 start now, if you want to. Benton asked me if I thought 
 you would come back here. I don't know whom he can 
 get. Men are going to be scarce." 
 
 " Oh, good Lord, Bob ! I don't want to come back 
 here. I want to go to the war, to Egypt, or wherever it 
 is you men are all going." 
 
 " Think you could stand it ? " grinned Bob. " It's go- 
 ing to be pretty ugly, you know." 
 
 " Dash it, Bob ! I can stand a thing if I have to. 
 You never will understand me, will you? I could nurse a 
 man the war had smashed up, but I'd hate to nurse a man 
 who had deliberately fooled about in the rain and got 
 pneumonia." 
 
 Bob looked up at her wondering what it was she was 
 regretting. But he was not preoccupied with women now.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 343 
 
 He was concerned excitedly, doubtfully, and a little fear- 
 fully with very different things. 
 
 As she rode home Valerie's mind was in a ferment. The 
 thing that Bob had told her had shown her with the force 
 of a revelation the tormenting division of her own inter- 
 ests. 
 
 For a month after she and Dane had come home he had 
 been absorbed in the war, had written excellently about it, 
 and had seemed so much better in health that her fears 
 about him had subsided. Then for no reason that she 
 could see he had slumped. He had kept on writing, but 
 under stimulants again, she feared. Sometimes she had 
 not seen him till night and then he was often listless. 
 
 But they were still in love with each other. It was still 
 possible for him to surprise her, to move to her like a 
 shining presence. She loved not a bit the less his looks, 
 his grace, and the compelling music of his voice. She 
 cared more than ever for his love-making. But he did not 
 overwhelm her as he had done in the beginning. She was 
 recovering dominant factors in her personality that he 
 had submerged for a time. There was a large part of her 
 that loved a fight, that loved riding head first at obstacles 
 and sweeping over them, and the work on the News had 
 taught her what she could do in that direction, that she 
 could think and act quickly, revel in responsibility, and 
 make people do their best for her. And she craved to use 
 these gifts, to show what she could do now. But she 
 wanted the big field, not the little one. 
 
 And though life at the old station had now its own 
 tests for endurance they were not the ones she wanted. 
 
 Dane was still lying in his hammock when she took him 
 the mail. As she sat down, Lee brought out the tea-tray. 
 Dane put his correspondence aside, ready to be sociable. 
 
 " Don't you want to read your letters ? " she asked.
 
 344 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 " iYes, presently." He took his cup from her, sipped 
 from it and put it down on the red table beside him. 
 
 " What is it, Val? " She felt annoyed that she had 
 let him see something was the matter with her. 
 
 " Bob's going, and Johnson. They're off in two weeks." 
 
 Dane took another sip of tea and lit a cigarette. Then 
 he looked out into the garden before turning his face to 
 her. 
 
 " We needn't be sorry for them. I guess they want to 
 
 go-" 
 
 " Oh, I'm not sorry for them, Dane. I'm envying them. 
 I never wanted to be a man before, but I do now." She 
 spoke with a little impatience. 
 
 He gave her a quick look. " What do you want to do, 
 Val? Aren't you going on with your novel? " 
 
 " Well, I've not been getting on very well with it 
 lately." 
 
 " Do you want to stop it and get into something? " 
 
 This was the first time he had put the question to her. 
 He had been thinking about asking it for a week or two, 
 for it had seemed to him that something was working in 
 her. But he had seen no sign that she wished to get away. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know," she answered evasively, wondering 
 why she could not tell him frankly what she did want. 
 
 " Do you want to go back to the News now that Bob 
 is going away? " 
 
 " Oh, heavens no ! Not there, no." 
 
 " Well, what is it, dear? Do you want to go to Auck- 
 land, to get into something bigger there ? " 
 
 " Would you come too? " 
 
 He looked at her and away again. He knew it was the 
 first serious challenge that had passed between them. 
 
 " I don't know about going for any length of time," he 
 said quietly. " I can work better here. But wouldn't
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 345 
 
 you go without me? You 'can if you wish to, you 
 know." 
 
 The words fell like clumps of lead on Valerie's ears, and 
 she must have shown something of what she felt. He 
 turned his face away from her and stared out into the 
 trees. The way he set his mouth, as if he were shutting 
 off intolerably painful things from expression, upset her. 
 She could never bear to hurt him. To his astonishment 
 she got up from the table, and struggled into the ham- 
 mock beside him and clung to him. 
 
 He turned to her and pressed her face against his own. 
 
 " What the devil is it, old girl ? If anything is trou- 
 bling you won't you tell me? " 
 
 " I don't want to go without you. I couldn't go with- 
 out you." 
 
 " But you want to go? " 
 
 " Well, I feel I ought to do something." 
 
 He said nothing to that, and they lay still for some 
 time. Then she raised herself and looked at him. 
 
 " Please, dear, I'm silly. I really don't want to go 
 away at all." 
 
 She got up and went in to change her clothes, and in a 
 short time he heard her playing softly a berceuse of 
 Chopin's that he particularly loved. 
 
 He lay as she had left him, his cigarette burned out, 
 his eyes watching the flitting of a fantail about the honey- 
 suckle, and his mind working on the question as to how 
 much she really did wish to go. 
 
 Two weeks later they stood in the early morning with a 
 large portion of the population of Dargaville to see Bob 
 and Johnson and a number of other men off to Auckland. 
 Father Ryan was on board to accompany the men as far 
 as the city. Valerie stood with Bob till the last minute. 
 Dane kept away from them, talking to men from up the
 
 346 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 river. And he made himself very detached in manner all 
 that day. 
 
 Ill 
 
 It was late on in the spring when they had finished 
 lunch, that he handed her a cable from one of the largest 
 of the Sydney papers asking if he would consider going 
 to Egypt as its correspondent. 
 
 Her face lit up, and she became vividly alive in a mo- 
 ment. 
 
 " Oh, how wonderful ! That's the very thing, isn't it ? " 
 Her eyes flashed at him. Then she sobered at the look in 
 his. 
 
 " Oh, Dane, don't say you won't take it ! " 
 
 "Would that hurt you very much? " He was looking 
 intently at her. 
 
 " Good heavens ! You wouldn't think of turning down 
 such a chance, would you? " 
 
 " Well, you couldn't go with me, Val, you know." 
 
 " But, but I could go in some capacity separately 
 from you. Dad can manage anything, you know. We 
 have all the pull we want. And then we could meet there 
 really I don't see oh, do consider it, Dane." 
 
 She saw his mouth stretch on his teeth. She looked 
 down at the cable again and read the date. It was a 
 week old. She raised her face. She looked at him and 
 past him. 
 
 " You've refused." 
 
 " Yes, Val, I've refused. Don't look like that, old girl. 
 I cannot bear it." 
 
 He got up from the table, went down the steps into 
 the garden and round the front of the house. " She 
 thinks I'm afraid to go," he kept saying to himself. 
 
 She sat still, feeling that the bottom had fallen out of
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 347 
 
 the world. She felt rooted to her chair. But she saw 
 that every minute only widened the gulf of that misunder- 
 standing. And something in the expression of his eyes 
 gripped her heart, as if she had seen a child falling onto a 
 red-hot stove. She jumped up, ran through the house, 
 and saw that he was stumbling along the drive to the gate, 
 going like a man who neither knew nor cared where he 
 was going. He did not stop nor turn as she ran calling 
 after him. Near the gate she pulled him to a standstill. 
 
 "Dane, I didn't mean to hurt you. What did I say? 
 Please don't be hurt. It makes me sick." Her voice 
 broke. "Dane, do you hear? Please listen to me. I 
 want to know why you refused. Is there anything you are 
 keeping from me? Won't you tell me, please? " 
 
 He let his arms fall over the top rail of the gate, and 
 dropped his head upon them. 
 
 "What is it, Dane? Aren't you well enough to go? 
 What is the matter? Please, I'm going to know now." 
 
 Then he looked up. " Part of it is that I am not well 
 enough to go, Val. I'm not afraid to go. But a man has 
 to be awfully fit to travel in all weathers and eat all kinds 
 of grub. It is my stupid stomach. I'd be sick most of 
 the time, and that is not fair to the paper or to the man. 
 who could go and stick it." 
 
 "And the rest?" 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " The rest of the reason? " 
 
 For answer he dropped his head onto her shoulder. 
 And she knew she could never go as long as he felt like 
 that. 
 
 Then she felt him stiffen himself. He stood up straight 
 as if he were bracing himself against an obstacle. 
 
 " Val dear, I wish you to do what you want to do with- 
 out thinking of me. I quite understand your wanting to
 
 348 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 be in this thing. I do really. And if you want to go I 
 want you to go. You see the work I can do is here. The 
 papers want my stuff, and I can write it here, better here 
 than anywhere, as you know. But that is no reason why 
 you should not go to Auckland if you want to go, and 
 further, Val, if you want to go further. Please believe 
 you are free, once you make up your mind. But you 
 must be happy about it, Val, about staying here, if you 
 stay. I cannot have you unhappy about it." His voice 
 ended harshly. 
 
 She could not look at him and tell him she wished to 
 go. She could not look at him as he stood there and even 
 feel that she wished to go. She threw her arms about him. 
 
 " Dane, I won't consider going away without you. Do 
 you hear, dear? " 
 
 " Yes," he said, much comforted, putting his lips to 
 hers. 
 
 There followed days of peace and understanding be- 
 tween them, an interlude, a deliberate shelving of the 
 future, for Dane knew she was not completely happy, and 
 she knew she could not keep up the appearance of being 
 so forever. But because they had so much in common, 
 because they could always be happy in the launch, always 
 aware of the beauty of the garden, they could keep the 
 other side out of sight. But, watching her when he could, 
 he saw that she was growing paler, that often she looked 
 as if she had not slept, that her manner was becoming de- 
 liberately cheerful. 
 
 He wondered how he could really get at her state of 
 mind, at how much she was keeping from him.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 ONE night in the beginning of January Valerie 
 walked alone back and forth along the drive on 
 what she called her side of the house. She had 
 not seen Dane all day. She had asked nothing about him, 
 and supposed him gone to Dargaville. For a week he 
 had been aloof from her, tired and listless. She did not 
 know whether he had done any work. He had looked at 
 her in a queer appealing way, she had thought, several 
 times, and she thought she had done wonders in the way 
 of ignoring his mood. 
 
 She had remembered when she woke that morning that 
 it was the third anniversary of their wedding day. 
 Though she was as unsentimental as ever about the 
 conventional ceremony she had wondered if Dane would 
 give any sign of memory, and was absurdly hurt that he 
 had not. It was the first time he had forgotten to tease 
 her about it. And now she had not even seen him. 
 
 Whether it was remembering it or what, she had come to 
 another crisis this night. She was taking stock again of 
 her endurance, wondering desperately how many months 
 she could go on. For it seemed to her now that Dane 
 was going down hill fast, and she had lost every scrap of 
 hope that he would ever be better. She was certain be- 
 yond all doubt that he could not save himself, and that 
 she could not save him. If their love could not do it noth- 
 ing could. She had suffered tortures during the last two 
 months over the lines that were deepening on his face and 
 over the sallowness that was tainting his fine skin. And 
 
 349
 
 350 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 she knew she could no more bear to stay and helplessly 
 watch that descent than she could have borne to stand on 
 a beach and watch a gallant ship going to pieces on the 
 rocks. For that was the most tragic thing about it, it 
 was a gallant ship. If he would only degenerate com- 
 fortably as her father had done ! But he was dying hard. 
 And he was only forty. She could not stand it. And the 
 war, which was remaking so many men, could do nothing 
 now for him. 
 
 But when was she to go from him ? How was she to go 
 from him? 
 
 She could not forget the pledge she had given him in 
 her own mind, her determination to be fair, to give him 
 what she owed him. But there was the rub. What ex- 
 actly did she owe him when it came to considering con- 
 crete things? How was she to decide when she had reached 
 that obscure boundary line, that elusive boundary line, 
 that disconcertingly wavering boundary line where con- 
 sideration for him must end and consideration for herself 
 begin? Could fairness and loyalty be computed in so 
 many months or 3 r ears of one's company, in carefully mod- 
 ulated tones and carefully regulated moods? How many 
 hours and nights of sleepless struggle were to be endured 
 before one came to the last? What was endurable? What 
 was unendurable? How many chances should one give a 
 person? How many times should one renew one's hope, 
 how many times make the effort to forget? 
 
 And there was the strange fact that she still cared, that 
 when he came to a high mood (he had not had one for 
 weeks, she remembered) he could still carry her with him. 
 But she could not bear to think that sex was the best 
 she could do for him now. She did not realize how much, 
 apart from that, her company still meant to him. And 
 she was afraid of being chained to him by that alone. She
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 351 
 
 knew she would come to hate him if that were the chief 
 bond. 
 
 " I don't want to stay till I hate him. I cannot stay 
 till I hate him. It wouM ruin it all. But is that what I 
 have to do? And why should I ever hate him? What is 
 the matter with me? Why can't I just stay, and stay, 
 and wait oh, why? " 
 
 The fact that he had told her to go did not help her at 
 all. He could look at her and say go, but his eyes and 
 his spirit chained her there. And she could not face the 
 actual packing up and going out of the gate for the last 
 time. Kissing him for the last time. Eating the last 
 meal. Impossible ! Good Lord ! How did people ever get 
 away from each other? And she was not thinking of 
 herself then. She could see him left alone, lying alone in 
 his hammock, wishing she were there to play to him, look- 
 ing for her to come through the study door. She could 
 see him pacing the verandah and the garden alone with 
 those terrible despairs of his. She could see him sitting 
 down with his knees drawn up to his chin and the dogs 
 licking his face and hands. The lost child. She wished 
 he had never told her that story of his boyhood; she al- 
 ways saw him like that when she thought of leaving him, 
 that forlorn boy deserted by his father. And she knew 
 she could never bear herself again in life if she deserted 
 him. 
 
 And so after all, as she walked, she decided again as 
 she had decided before. She would not leave him so long 
 as his eyes could light up when she went through the 
 study door, as long as anything she could do helped him 
 to write, as long as he counted for something among peo- 
 ple who were helped by the thing he was still able to do. 
 
 Sacrifice, was it? That bogy of her free and inde- 
 pendent youth. That Frankenstein foe of individuality.
 
 352 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 Well, what of it? She thought of what was happening in 
 Gallipoli and France. 
 
 She had run through many shades of feeling as she 
 walked. She had shed tears and stumbled, and had used 
 her handkerchief frequently. She had stopped and 
 looked up at the stars, and had stood still and stared at 
 the ground. She had walked twice into the stream of 
 light from a lamp in the study. Two hours of it, and 
 worn out and ready to go on again, she went inside. 
 
 n 
 
 Dane had not gone to Dargaville as she supposed. Un- 
 able to sleep the night before he had gone out on the river 
 and had wandered up and down creeks till at last he had 
 fallen into a doze on the floor of the Diana. The sun was 
 well up when he waked but he did not go home. He went 
 to Te Koperu for some coffee, had some sandwiches made 
 up, and drifted along up the shady bank of the Wairoa 
 trying to screw himself up to the action he had known for 
 some time to be inevitable. 
 
 He had been far more abstemious in the last months 
 than Valerie had any idea of. He was suffering from 
 abstemiousness. For weeks the only stimulant he had 
 taken was coffee. He knew well enough as he drifted about 
 in the launch that he had been listless and aloof from 
 Valerie. For days now he had been wondering most of 
 the time just how much of a mask she was wearing, 
 whether she had come to the time when she would be 
 happier away from him than with him. He had been 
 puzzling about it. How was he to find out how much she 
 wrrted to go, how far she was disguising her feeling for 
 his sake? He could only do it by getting her off her 
 guard somehow. But she was never off her guard.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 353 
 
 Then he got the idea that he would sneak home after 
 dark that night and spy upon her. He did not take the 
 launch into the bay, but secured it on the point further 
 on, the point, he remembered, where she had trespassed. 
 Then he made his way cautiously along the rocks among 
 the trees and into the shrubbery in front of his house. 
 As he moved forward he saw her white dress on the drive. 
 In a dark suit himself he was invisible as he stood in a 
 thicket of micracarpa. 
 
 Valerie came towards him, blowing her nose. She did 
 not swing along. She walked unevenly kicking at stones 
 in the path, stopping, going on again. She turned and 
 disappeared along the drive, and appeared again. That 
 time, as she moved in the line of light from the study, he 
 was able to see her face. It startled him. Four times 
 he saw it thus, desperate and haggard. He clenched his 
 hands and set his teeth. Good God! Had she got as far 
 as that in disillusionment without his knowing it? He was 
 stunned. 
 
 He watched her go inside. A match came to light in 
 her own front room, and then the lamp. He stole nearer 
 till he could clearly see her face against a background of 
 red curtain. He saw her take his picture and look at it. 
 But there was no hatred in her face as she stared at it. 
 The meaning in her expression came over him with the 
 force of sudden revelation. 
 
 He crept off through the bushes and round to his back 
 room and sat down on the step of the one door that 
 opened outside. How long he sat there he did not know. 
 It was a fine warm night. Weary of sitting and staring 
 at the sandy path, weary of trying to think, of trying 
 not to think, he got up at last and went to lie in his 
 hammock. He dozed off in spite of himself, and did not 
 wake till the sun came streaming through his cutting upon
 
 354 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 his face. It was half-past five. He went very quietly into 
 the house to the kitchen and washed and shaved there, as 
 he often did when he did not wish to disturb Valerie by 
 making sounds in the bathroom. Lee came in in his 
 pajamas to know if he wanted anything, and Dane had 
 him get the remains of a cold chicken for him, and told 
 him to tell Valerie that he wanted to take her out on the 
 river that afternoon. After he had changed his clothes 
 and drunk a glass of wine, he went out and along to the 
 place where he had left the launch the night before. 
 
 As he went down the river to Dargaville he thought it 
 funny thab the mere resolving to do a thing he had long 
 shelved should give him such a feeling of strength. He 
 remembered the mood of exaltation he had had up at 
 Hokianga for days after he had decided not to shoot him- 
 self. Was it that when one had accepted Fate the re- 
 lentless goddess gave one some potent stimulant to enable 
 one to live calmly by her stern decrees? 
 
 As it was very early he went some distance beyond the 
 town. Nothing was stirring there except men on the 
 decks of a timber barque at the railway wharf. He was 
 soothed by his aloneness in the new day. There had been 
 a time in his life when eleven o'clock at night began the 
 thrilling hours, but now, of all the twenty-four, he liked 
 best the dawn. 
 
 But the dawns were tragic these days, he remembered, 
 and he began to wonder how many men in Europe 
 would be out of the world by night, never to see another 
 day. 
 
 He turned back, and walked into Mac's pub as the 
 first lot of breakfasters were finishing their second cup of 
 coffee. He drank his with the big Irishman who asked 
 him no questions, nor cast at him enquiring looks, though 
 Mac did wonder what mood had brought him there so
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 355 
 
 early. Then Dane found Michael, and asked him to get 
 a message to Doctor Steele to come to him there. When 
 the physician arrived he took him upstairs to the room he 
 always occupied when he spent nights in the hotel. 
 
 The doctor sat down on the one chair and waited. 
 Dane walked to the window, where he stared out a 
 moment. Then he turned back and looked down at the 
 other man. 
 
 " Doc, do you know much about cancer ? " he asked 
 quietly. 
 
 The gloomy brown eyes did not change their expression 
 as they looked up at him. 
 
 " I wouldn't call myself an expert. I wouldn't operate. 
 Why do you ask? " 
 
 " My father died of cancer in the stomach. I've been 
 wondering for some time if that is what I have." 
 
 There was a dead silence for a few seconds. Then the 
 doctor spoke in his low monotonous manner. 
 
 " Cancer is hardly a thing to go wondering about. 
 And there's a theory now that it is not hereditary. It 
 may only be indigestion." He asked him several questions 
 which Dane answered in a hard detached tone. 
 
 " It looks bad, Barrington, but really, it may only be 
 indigestion." 
 
 " That's what I've preferred to think, Doc. I've shirked 
 finding out. But I've got to know now." 
 
 " Go at once to Alleyne, and get him to make the tests. 
 If it is that, he's the best man to operate, none better in 
 the colonies. You mustn't let it go on." 
 
 " I guess * letting ' has nothing to do with it, Doc," 
 said Dane with a twisted smile. " There is an inevita- 
 bility about cancer, a damnable inevitability. It's that I 
 don't like. I resent it. God! what a rottenly feeble 
 thing a man is! Limited by his stomach! Regulated by
 
 356 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 his stomach ! Hounded by his stomach ! Made or marred 
 by his stomach! To think that that ugly uninterest- 
 ing organ, a mess of a place, should be one's dictator, a 
 thing made beyond one's control, ruined in one's youth 
 beyond one's control ! Ugh ! Excuse me, Doc. I've faced 
 it long enough. I ought to be used to the idea." 
 
 He walked to the window and looked out again before 
 turning back. 
 
 " I say, Doc. You must promise me something." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " You mustn't hint this to a soul. Under no circum- 
 stances must Valerie get a suspicion of it. She thinks 
 I've got indigestion. You promise ? " 
 
 " If you wish it, certainly." 
 
 " I more than wish it, I insist on it." He went on feel- 
 ing a relief in talking to someone remote like the doctor. 
 " You see, she wants to go to the war, and I want her to 
 go. I particularly want her to get away now before I get 
 any worse. If she knew of this, thought my days were 
 limited, she'd think it her duty to stay by me to the end. 
 She's so damned conscientious. And women, some women, 
 have a ghastly capacity for self-sacrifice, and then they 
 grow to hate the thing they have sacrificed themselves for. 
 Many wives have told me that. And perhaps she would, 
 and I couldn't bear it. I couldn't stand having her about 
 me if she knew. I should be driven to end it. I shall do 
 that some day when I can't stick it any longer. But she 
 must get away. And then one has no right to impose 
 such a thing as cancer in the stomach on any human soul 
 don't pity me, Doc ; that's the last thing on earth I can 
 stand " 
 
 " God damn you, I'm not pitying you, Barrington." 
 
 Dane smiled at him. 
 
 " I don't know that you've got cancer. And if you
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 357 
 
 Have, Alleyne may save you. For the Lord's sake, though, 
 
 go at once and find out." 
 
 " I will. I'll go down to-morrow. And not a word, 
 
 please, Doc." 
 
 " Oh, shut up, D. B. It's part of my work to be silent." 
 But all the same the doctor told himself that Valerie 
 
 should know some day. 
 
 Ill 
 
 When Dane left the hotel he walked through the town 
 and onto the flat above. He had a craving to get out to 
 the open sea. Though the interview with the doctor was 
 not final it made no difference to his own feeling about it. 
 But it struck him as he wandered across the hot sandspit 
 that it would be funny if he discovered he had nothing 
 but indigestion. Would that knowledge help him to get 
 well enough to go away with Valerie? Perhaps it would. 
 He had been hypnotized by the fear of the other thing for 
 a good while, or rather he had accepted it as inevitable. 
 He wandered aimlessly along, oblivious of the glaring sun, 
 till he came by chance upon the little hollow on the cliffs 
 where he and Valerie had had their first attaching talk. 
 Thinking of it he remembered that he had left her very 
 much alone for some time, and that here was a day, per- 
 haps the last (though he had not at all clearly in his 
 mind what he was going to do), a day that he could make 
 a pleasant memory. For he felt fairly well, and now he 
 wanted to comfort her for the night he felt she must have 
 spent. 
 
 He walked back to the town hardly feeling the heat, and 
 ran home as fast as he could. It was much too early for 
 lunch, but he wanted to see her at once. He walked past 
 the front steps and saw that she was sitting at her desk.
 
 358 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 " Hello, Val, are you very busy? " he called. 
 
 The question seemed absurd to her. It seemed so long 
 since she had done anything that was worth a pin. 
 But she was glad to hear him call like that, and not dis- 
 posed to question the reason for it. 
 
 " Not if you want me, Dane," she answered cheerfully 
 enough. 
 
 As he came to the verandah she scrambled through the 
 window. She was surprised at his air and saw that he had 
 not been drinking, and that his eyes looked clear. 
 
 " Why, you are burned," she said. 
 
 " I've been running about in the launch a good deal, 
 dear. I've been very unsociable lately, Valerie, but I feel 
 better to-day. Let's go off now in the launch and find a 
 cool spot." 
 
 Her face lit up as she felt he had come back to her. 
 She had spent a lonely, wretched, sleepless night, and she 
 was much afraid her eyes showed it. They did, but he 
 made no remark upon them. He was lost in admiration 
 of the manner in which she had greeted him. He delib- 
 erately shelved the past and the future, and determined, 
 as he had many times in his life, to live for that day alone. 
 And he knew he could make her live with him. 
 
 They went off with their lunch. At first he thought he 
 would go to the rimu pool, and then he thought he could 
 not face it. He chose another place, beautiful enough, a 
 willow-girdled backwater, where they ate their lunch, and 
 dozed happily in each other's arms. 
 
 Then they landed, made a fire and had tea, and went 
 back as the sun dropped behind the range. They were 
 both now in a real party mood. Valerie wondered what 
 had happened to him. In moods like this he was irre- 
 sistible. They dressed up for dinner and had it by one 
 of the open doors of the den. Dane wore his black dinner
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 359 
 
 suit and a tucked white silk shirt that she thought very 
 swagger. She knew he was trying to atone for his past 
 aloofness, and she was only too glad to have him atone. 
 What man could ever atone as he could, she thought. She 
 herself wore one of her most charming garments, a diaph- 
 anous blue thing, appropriate not only to her mood, but 
 to the climate of the day. They drank Benedictine in a 
 mood of strange gaiety, and then he teased her about the 
 three years. 
 
 " Why, I thought you had forgotten all about it," she 
 said. 
 
 " Oh, no," he smiled over his glass at her, " I've been 
 thinking of it." He looked round. Lee was not in the 
 room. " And you still love me, don't you? " His eyes 
 bored into hers. 
 
 " Indeed I do," she said, over-emphasizing her tone a 
 little. He put his glass to her lips, and his at the same 
 place. And then Lee came in with the chicken. 
 
 They smoked together in the hammock afterwards until 
 he asked for music. When she had been playing for an 
 hour he went round to the front and looked through the 
 window at her. He saw that for the time being she was 
 lost, lost in that wonderful world of harmony where she 
 could forget even him. He was glad that she had that. 
 He forgot what she was playing as he looked at her, try- 
 ing to fix that picture of her in his mind. He wanted it 
 to blot out the one of the night before. 
 
 How near had he come to her, he wondered. What 
 secrets had she still hidden from him? Love had not 
 meant domination for either of them, nor had either tried 
 to clutch at the other's personality. They had kept their 
 own freedom side by side, he thought, but even so, love 
 was not enough. And he knew the end would have come 
 some time, somehow.
 
 360 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 He did not know exactly what he was going to do as 
 he stood there watching her. He did not try to see be- 
 yond the fact that some time in the night when she had 
 fallen asleep he would steal away from her, and would 
 dress and pack and go off to catch the steamer in the 
 morning. What happened after that would depend on 
 what Dr. Alleyne had to say. 
 
 He came back to thinking of the picture she made at 
 the piano. He wished now he had taken her hair down 
 so that she would look what he had often called her, a 
 goddess in lapus lazuli and gold. He had to smile a little 
 sadly to himself. He was incurably a lover of colour and 
 light. And she was colour and light. He suddenly re- 
 membered the hours were going. He went up the steps 
 and in to her and flung his arms about her. 
 
 " Don't play any more. I want you," he said, taking 
 her face in his hands. 
 
 IV 
 
 Dane managed to get an appointment the day after he 
 arrived in Auckland with Dr. Alleyne, a fine and sensitive 
 London surgeon who had come to the colonies for his own 
 health a few years before. 
 
 " Where's the trouble, Barrington? " he asked as soon 
 as Dane sat down, for he could give him only ten minutes 
 that day. 
 
 " It's probably cancer of the stomach." 
 
 The doctor raised his eyebrows at the man who said 
 this as if it were a matter of no concern. 
 
 " What makes you think that? " 
 
 His patient told him all he knew about it. 
 
 " Good heavens, man ! Why haven't you come to me 
 before? "
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 361 
 
 " Oh, I've shirked it. It won't make much difference in 
 the end, will it? " 
 
 " It might have, if you had come to me a year ago. 
 Look here, I'm pretty rushed these days. Can you be 
 here at eight- thirty to-morrow morning? " 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 At the end of four days Dane knew his fears were justi- 
 fied. 
 
 " You must be operated on at once, Barrington." 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 " What for ? " Dr. Alleyne looked at him. He had 
 already discovered he had an unusual patient. 
 
 " I was really speaking to myself," said Dane with a 
 twisted smile. " Might the operation be fatal? " 
 
 " Well, I don't want to boast, but I don't have fatal 
 operations." 
 
 " So I've heard, but you could make one fatal, couldn't 
 you?" 
 
 The doctor stared across his desk at him. 
 
 *' You might have a year or two after an operation, if 
 you were careful, kept off stimulants, meat and drugs. 
 Isn't it worth it? It seems to me the stuff you're writing 
 these days " 
 
 Again the smile on the other man's face stopped him. 
 
 " If I don't have the operation how much time do you 
 give me? " 
 
 "It will depend largely on yourself, whether you do as 
 I've told you. But it is pretty far gone, and sometimes 
 those things go quickly at the end. You might have six 
 months. You might even have a year. It would depend 
 on your endurance. It's a matter of slow starvation." 
 
 Dane got up from his chair and walked to the window. 
 But he saw nothing of the street below. Indeed, he saw 
 nothing that bore any relation to his immediate environ-
 
 362 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 ment or to anything he had just heard. What He saw 
 was a picture that had come into his mind many times 
 in the last two years, a picture that had etched itself upon 
 his brain. It was a picture of a snow-bound world, of a 
 little hut, of a certain Captain Gates taking a " little 
 walk " out into that undiscovered country, and of a cer- 
 tain Captain Scott, and his friends Wilson and Bowers, 
 left behind to die composing a story that would never die. 
 
 He turned back to the doctor and dropped into the 
 chair facing him. 
 
 " Alleyne, it's this way. If I have the operation, my 
 wife will find out. She thinks now that I have indigestion. 
 She wants to go to the war, and I want her to go. She 
 must not know what is the matter with me if I live. So 
 unless you will guarantee to finish me I won't have the 
 operation." 
 
 They looked at each other, and the doctor put this 
 story among the small collection of things he liked to 
 think about when he got despairful of the human race. 
 
 " Barrington, I might agree that your life is in } r our 
 own hands, but it isn't in mine. I couldn't do it yet, not 
 with as much left to you as I think there is. If it came 
 to the last weeks and one could be pretty certain there 
 was nothing left but pain well, I won't say. But you 
 are asking too much of me now." 
 
 Dane stood up. " All right. Then I won't have it. 
 I can stick it out for a while I hear you are going to 
 the front, Doctor?" 
 
 The surgeon looked up at him. "iYes, I go in about 
 two weeks." 
 
 " As soon as that? I wish I could have gone and ended 
 it that way. I'm going to stay here two or three days to 
 fix up some business. If you have time to dine " 
 
 " I shall make time with pleasure."
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 363 
 
 Valerie felt chilled when she read the note Dane had 
 slipped under her door before leaving for Auckland. This 
 erratic behaviour seemed so unnecessary. If he had had 
 to go to town suddenly about a change in investments 
 why had he not told her the day before? There was 
 nothing disturbing about his having to go. But there 
 was about the way he had done it. He was really carry- 
 ing her own theories of independence much further than 
 she carried them herself. And it seemed unfriendly. 
 
 She tried to console herself with thoughts of the day 
 before, of the high mood he had been in, and of the fact 
 that he really seemed better than she had seen him for 
 some time. But something puzzled her. He had looked 
 at her at times in such a curious way. 
 
 She tried to work that morning. She had put her 
 novel aside, and was working dis j ointedly, jotting down in 
 a note-book things she felt from day to day, her feelings 
 about the war, stories of men going away, of women left 
 behind, even some of her feeling about Dane. It did not 
 satisfy her. It was at best something to pass the time. 
 She was really frantic for action. She could picture her- 
 self leading groups of women, doing heroic things, work- 
 ing as few people could work. And here she was in a 
 pampered garden, waited on by servants, her heaviest task 
 the making of her own bed. She made up her mind the 
 second day of Dane's absence that when he came back 
 she would join Mrs. Benton in the organizing of the 
 women of Dargaville; anything now but this sitting 
 around. 
 
 On the third day she got a letter from Dane, affection- 
 ate and humorous, telling her the latest news, and on the
 
 364 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 next she received one saying he would be delayed a few 
 days longer. Then the temptation came to her to go 
 while he was away. In spite of her attempts to put it out 
 of mind the idea obsessed her, but always when it came to 
 standing in her room and visualizing the packing process 
 she could get no farther. 
 
 One morning it came over her more clearly than ever 
 how strange her life with him had been. She had never 
 really belonged there. She was like a person passing by. 
 She had had that feeling often. The place was in no 
 sense hers. She had never asked a person to it. She did 
 not feel that even in Dane's absence she could have asked 
 Mrs. Benton to come to tea, or to stay the night. It was 
 completely his place, and even when he was away his spirit 
 seemed to hover over it. His personality dominated it. 
 And she had left no mark on it save the flower-beds. 
 Perhaps that was one reason why she wanted to go. And 
 yet she had been so happy here. She wondered if she 
 would ever be as happy anywhere else. 
 
 She gardened, she rode, she walked, she played, she tried 
 to write. She tried not to think. She tried to see some 
 glory still ahead in the future for her and Dane. 
 
 And then she got the letter. 
 
 " Dear Valerie : I think you will understand what I 
 am going to say. You and I went through a conventional 
 ceremon}' three years ago that seemed absurd to us be- 
 cause it made impossible demands upon us, and so we 
 made a ceremony of our own that we did mean to live up 
 to. I don't know what you said in yours, but I can guess 
 a little. But the thing I'm remembering now is what I said 
 in mine. I wanted a little of your life, a little of your 
 youth and love. There were times when I thought I had 
 no right to it, and then I felt I had a right if you cared
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 365 
 
 enough, and if I was prepared to live up to my contract 
 with you. 
 
 " Now, my dear, you have given me three years of your 
 life, of your youth and love, and with them you have given 
 me more than I ever dreamed you could. You have given 
 me more than any woman ever gave me. You have done 
 for me the greatest thing one person can do for another 
 you have justified my continued existence to myself. 
 
 " I have always known that some time there would be a 
 descent from the mountain top. I have not unhappily 
 anticipated it. I have been content with what the days 
 brought. And as long as you were happy the garden was 
 fair. But } 7 ou have not been happy lately. You have 
 been very fine about it. You have tried to keep it from 
 me. But I know it now, and I cannot be happy in my 
 old place any longer with you unsatisfied there. One 
 side of you is being starved, and I will not have it go on. 
 You want to go, and because you do I want you to, I in- 
 sist that you do. And I cannot face thinking about it, 
 arguing about it. I'm not going to let my health inter- 
 fere. My mind is made up about that. And it would 
 have come just the same if there had been no war. In the 
 end you would have had to go. 
 
 " And Valerie dear, you will go now while we still love 
 each other. You will go because we love each other. I 
 will not have our three years spoiled by any silly ideas 
 about sacrifice. Our three years shall end with that night 
 last week. I shall keep the picture of you as you stood 
 in my den with me after dinner, and as you sat at the 
 piano. And you shall keep some picture you had of me 
 that night. I insist that the dust of lingering farewells 
 be not allowed to settle on them. 
 
 " Now, old girl, I cannot command you, but I beg you 
 to carry out the spirit of this letter. I am getting out
 
 366 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 of Auckland to-morrow for a week, and I wish to come 
 home at the end of that time. Will you please be gone 
 by then? You see I am turning you out, turning you out 
 because you won't go of your own accord. And I know 
 why you won't go. It is very wonderful of you, but you 
 must go now, please. And I am a coward. I cannot stand 
 in my garden and see you go out of it. So you must go 
 before I come back. 
 
 " I have had a long talk with your father. He under- 
 stands my action thoroughly. He will ask you no ques- 
 tions. The war will blanket your going away. So many 
 are going now. I have left money with him for you, and 
 later when you need more you shall have it. Of course, 
 dear, I'm not regarding this as the end of everything. 
 Please understand that. It is merely a change. Of course 
 we shall write to each other. I want to hear from you 
 before you leave Auckland. But please, please, do not 
 think it necessary to leave any letter for me in the house. 
 Please, don't, Val 
 
 " Dear old girl, I write all this because I am sure you 
 will understand. Ever since I met you I have been, and 
 for the rest of my life I shall be yours. And for a time at 
 least you have been mine, perhaps as much as you will 
 ever be anybody's. I'm not afraid that you will forget 
 me. Perhaps you will remember too well. 
 
 " I'm rambling on it is hard to end this. 
 
 " I'm not going to say good-bye. 
 
 " Just good-night dear Valerie. Dane. 
 
 " P. S. Please don't turn me into a ghost. I should 
 be the most uneasy spirit you have ever known. But if 
 you do, let me have a cemetery all to myself. I insist on 
 it. I will not be put with the relatives."
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 367 
 
 VI 
 
 Valerie read it in the middle of a lovely summer after- 
 noon after she returned from Dargaville, and it blotted 
 out the sun for her and turned the day to blank despair. 
 She stumbled through it twice, and though her eyes ap- 
 peared to move she did not see the flower-beds, or the 
 oleander bushes, or the magnolia tree. She sat as if para- 
 lyzed in every limb and in her mind as well. When Lee 
 brought out her dinner she stared strangely at the boy as 
 if he were a phenomenon. She tried to eat, but her throat 
 seemed to be swollen shut. 
 
 As she paced the garden afterwards the opposing 
 statements " I must go," " I cannot go " began a tor- 
 menting fire back and forth in her mind. But apart from 
 that she could not think that night. She could only feel 
 that she was one hard pain from head to foot. And she 
 did not know why she was suffering so much about it. 
 Here it was, her freedom to go. The one thing she 
 thought she most wanted. And it meant nothing but 
 pain to think of it. She slept at last and woke to wonder 
 what had happened to her. Then she remembered the 
 letter. She got out of her cot, clambered through her 
 window, and took it out of the box on her dressing-table, 
 and sat down in her nightgown to read it again. And 
 now she perceived the strength of it, the finality of it, the 
 something between the lines. There was something she did 
 not know. Should she try to find it out or leave it? 
 There was a desperate appeal in the letter. What was 
 it he knew that she did not? The conviction came to her 
 that whatever it was he did not think her equal to the 
 knowledge. Or was it that he wanted to save her? In 
 either case she felt she was failing him. That was a 
 terrible thought on which to begin the day.
 
 368 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 Then the postscript arrested her. She had not taken 
 it in the night before. That humorous protest coming at 
 the end of the rest of it astonished her. But he need have 
 no fear, she told herself. She did not make the ghosts. 
 They made themselves. And he had done the one thing 
 that would keep him alive forever. She had a presentiment 
 that henceforth all men who came into her life would have 
 to stand or fall in comparison with him, that perhaps no 
 man would ever again be seen by her for himself alone, 
 but be merely a substitute. She might, indeed, remember 
 him too well. 
 
 Then she saw that she was really thinking about going, 
 that in spite of what he had said she was seeing the end 
 of things as they had been. All the morning she walked 
 about the garden unable to make a move. She looked 
 about the beautiful old place, hearing the birds and the 
 bees. Oh, no, she wasn't going away from here. It was 
 absurd. She began to think of his coming back to it 
 alone. She could see him coming along the path from 
 the boathouse steps, to the verandah, listening for her 
 no, no, she must not think of it. She had to go, at tKe 
 back of her mind she knew that, even though she went on 
 all day protesting against the idea of it. And she pro- 
 tested against it all through a second day, making no 
 attempt to pack. 
 
 She read his letter every day, and every day it seemed 
 to be a greater thing, more heroic, more uncannily right. 
 But every day the fact that they could not go on to- 
 gether seemed more hopelessly stupid and wrong. 
 
 On the third day she was surprised to read in an Auck- 
 land paper an article by him written to calm the feelings 
 of people wrought up by recent alarms. It was a moving 
 piece of work. It called to mind the picture of courage 
 and endurance that Captain Scott and his companions
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 369 
 
 had given to the world. There was nothing in it to show 
 that the man who wrote it was sitting in the midst of the 
 ruin of his own hopes. Valerie wondered why she was 
 amazed that he could write it at that time. Then she 
 remembered that she could still play the piano. 
 
 That night she played for the first time since she had 
 received his letter, and found that she could forget him. 
 When she had played for a little over an hour she jumped 
 from the keyboard electrified. She thought she had heard 
 her name called. She was sure she had heard it called. 
 It was a still warm night. There were no confusing sounds 
 to deceive her. She stood rooted to the study floor, but 
 she heard nothing more. She told herself she must not 
 let her nerves play tricks on her. But she was afraid to 
 go out of the room, afraid to look round, what of, she did 
 not know. It was some time before she convinced herself 
 there had been no call. 
 
 She went into her own study and sat down. What if 
 Dane were back watching her? She had never known in 
 his absences whether he were really away from the house 
 or not. Supposing he had come back to try to keep her 
 after all. Then she saw how much in those three days 
 her mind had turned towards going, and the thought that 
 he might come, that there might be a tragic scene or a 
 battle of wills, tormented her. Her nerves got into a fer- 
 ment. The thought that he was there grew upon her. But 
 she could not bring herself to go through the house and 
 see. 
 
 She had had the boys that afternoon bring her trunks 
 and boxes from a room at the stables where they had 
 been kept. They were now on her front verandah. The 
 idea came to her to get away the next day. She could not 
 stay another night in this place with the thought that 
 Dane was watching her. She closed her window, drew the
 
 370 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 blind, and began feverishly to prepare things to go into 
 her boxes. She packed most of the night. It was a 
 horrible business, and her lips bled from the setting of 
 her teeth into them. She could not take her own furni- 
 ture, and yet she felt she should leave as few reminders 
 of herself as possible. The things one left behind were al- 
 ways so terribly pathetic. And yet if she left her furni- 
 ture and her books it might give him the idea that she 
 would come back. That might be a comfort. And she 
 could not take those things with her out of New Zealand. 
 Finally she packed only her clothes, and of the things he 
 had given her, took only a little jewellery and the Lindsay 
 drawing of his head. 
 
 The first thing in the morning she sent Lee into Darga- 
 ville to arrange for a carter to come that afternoon after 
 the steamer had arrived so that her things could be put 
 directly on board. She meant to get away without seeing 
 a soul, or having anyone in the town know. They might 
 be hurt afterwards, but she could not help it. She went 
 through the day as if she were in a dream. It took her 
 most of it to pack, and she was only just ready for the 
 carter when he came. 
 
 The boys had not shown the least surprise at her orders 
 or at her strange behaviour. She had been on the point 
 that morning of asking Lee whether his master were home, 
 but she decided not. It would have been worse to know he 
 was than merely to fear it. After the carter had left she 
 had Lee make her some sandwiches, and then told him she 
 would not be there to dinner, and that she was going to 
 town to join Dane. 
 
 " Yes, Meesis Harrington," he said, and she learned 
 nothing from his tone. 
 
 She could not bring herself to take a last walk about 
 the old garden. She had no need to assist her memory
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 371 
 
 with any last walk. She would never forget that garden, 
 or any corner of it. And once she had put her rooms 
 straight after her trunks had gone she was frantic to get 
 away from it, and come to some peace of mind, if she ever 
 would again. 
 
 It was with dry eyes, but with a heart of lead, that she 
 walked out in the early evening, trying not to think of 
 the glorious day when she had first walked in. 
 
 She did not go straight into the town. She went round 
 the back of it out on the flat to the coast road, and by a 
 track she knew well to the cliffs. There in the dusk she 
 managed to eat a sandwich, and there she stayed soothed 
 till late at night. Then she went back to the town, and 
 to the steamer, and astonished the steward at midnight by 
 demanding the whole of the small ladies' cabin of four 
 berths all to herself for the trip the next day. She got 
 it because she paid for it. And there she stayed alone 
 till the little steamer chugged into Helensville. She re- 
 vived a little in the train, and looked at things out of the 
 window as if she knew them for what they were. 
 
 She had not told her father she was coming. She had 
 sent no word to anyone. She wanted to land in the city 
 alone, to go to a hotel alone, to stay alone for a day or 
 two, till the life and movement about her should help her 
 to put out of mind the picture that haunted her, the pic- 
 ture of Dane in the garden alone. But even before she 
 reached the first suburban station the sense of forward 
 movement began to stir within her, a vague exciting sense 
 of the adventure that might come with a to-morrow, and 
 she saw that already she was beginning again. 
 
 VII 
 
 Dane wrote the letter to Valerie the night he dined
 
 372 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 with Dr. Alleyne. The two men had had a great talk, 
 somewhat coloured by presentiment. They knew at least 
 that they would never meet again, but neither guessed that 
 the man who had just pronounced the sentence of death on 
 the other would himself go first. 
 
 Dane walked afterwards to his hotel. He thought it 
 strange he should be feeling so cynically indifferent to his 
 limited future, and also that he should be feeling fairly 
 well. He had these respites in which he recovered his 
 nerve. 
 
 He had, after several conferences, finally told Daven- 
 port Carr that day the real reason why he wished Valerie 
 to get away at once, to get off to Egypt, London, any- 
 where. As he walked to his hotel he saw his father-in-law 
 as he had left him, standing speechless in the middle of 
 his comfortable office. And for a minute he rather pitied 
 Davenport Carr. 
 
 When he got into his room he knew he would never be 
 in a better frame of mind to take the step he had rather 
 dreaded for days, the irrevocable step of writing to Va- 
 lerie. The talk with the doctor had keyed him up. So 
 he sat down and began steadily enough. But he wobbled 
 towards the end, his head dropped on his hands, and it 
 took him over an hour to pen the last few lines. Then 
 his head went down again, and stayed still for some time. 
 Then he took up the letter and looked at it. He was not 
 trying to read it through. He was hoping it would not 
 hurt Valerie too much. Then an imp whispered in his ear, 
 and he added the postscript. With a spurt of decision he 
 sealed the envelope and stamped it, and took it out to the 
 hotel letter box, afraid to leave it with himself till the 
 morning. 
 
 He went to bed feeling it did not matter whether he slept 
 or not. But the fates were kind that night. He slept
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 373 
 
 till well on in the next morning. But the force of what 
 he had done came over him as he dressed. And lie be- 
 came a lost child, with no idea what to do with himself 
 that week. With a small bag he wandered into the Auck- 
 land station and took the first train out, without knowing 
 where it was going. He was exceedingly hurt by the 
 surly manner of the guard who thought him drunk be- 
 cause he had not got a ticket, did not know where the 
 train was going, and could not say where he wanted to 
 get off. He paid his fine and the fare for the whole dis- 
 tance to Wellington, though he had no intention of going 
 there. He found he was on a train that was carrying 
 officers and men to the Trentham camp. For a while he 
 was a little distracted by their talk of the war, their spec- 
 ulation as to what was going to happen to themselves. 
 
 " Dear me, we're all lost," he thought. 
 
 Later in the day he got off at Hamilton in the Waikato. 
 He had never been in Hamilton, and had never wanted to 
 be in it, though it was a pretty little town, but he could 
 not sit in the train another moment. After some enquiries 
 he found an elderly man with a motor car who was at 
 liberty to drive him anywhere he chose to go. The elderly 
 man thought it strange that he had to think for some time 
 before he decided on his destination, and wondered if he 
 were in the secret service. Finally Dane said Rotorua, 
 and paid him in advance, or his driver would have hesi- 
 tated at setting out with so desperate-eyed a customer. 
 
 It occurred to Dane the next night, as he bathed the 
 dust of his long drive off his weary body, that he had 
 come in the wrong direction, that he would have to pass 
 through Auckland in order to get home, and he must not 
 do that after Valerie had come there. He was now mor- 
 bidly afraid of meeting her. He was trying to blot her 
 out of his consciousness. What a fool he had been to
 
 374 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 start SOuth. He should have gone north. The next 
 morning he took the train back to Auckland, and was 
 almost afraid to walk out of it, lest she should be at the 
 station. He Hurried into the nearest hotel, and found 
 that a feat was leaving that night for Whangarei. He 
 had some food seat up to his room where he stayed till 
 it was time to go aboard. He talked to the first officer 
 at the wheel till two in the morning. At Whangarei he 
 took the boat train to Kawakawa, not that he wanted to 
 see Kawakawa again, nobody would, but he had this ter- 
 rible craving to keep moving, to keep a constant succession 
 of objects passing before his eyes so that he might not see 
 Valerie's face. He was so afraid he would be drawn back 
 to the mission station before she left, so afraid he would 
 lose his nerve and go to beg her to stay. 
 
 At Kawakawa he hired a horse and buggy and started 
 to drive towards Hokianga. But that night, in a little 
 pub he met two men from the Far North on their way to 
 enlist, and he and they drank themselves into forgetfulness 
 of all the things that trouble man. In the morning they 
 had gone on, and he was left to lie ill and wretched for 
 three days, nursed by the fat wife of the pub owner, who 
 bestowed the tenderness of a kind and sentimental heart 
 upon this strange man who seemed to have lost his hold 
 upon the earth. . 
 
 Coming finally to his miserable self, Dane saw that it 
 was more than a week since he had written to Valerie. He 
 sent an enigmatical telegram to Doctor Steele, and the 
 answer came back in one word " Gone." 
 
 Dane drove back to Kawakawa, took the train to 
 Whangarei, was driven to Tangiteroria, and took the little 
 black steamer down the Wairoa to Dargaville. It was 
 nine o'clock in the evening when he arrived there. He 
 went at once to his launch and turned her homewards.
 
 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 375 
 
 His little bay was still and warm under the summer 
 stars. His trees shadowed the rocks. He was conscious 
 of the peace of it all. But as he stepped from the path 
 through the trees into the open spaces of his garden his 
 eyes lit on a bed of stocks, and the thing he dreaded, the 
 remembrance that something was gone from this forever, 
 struck him with the force of a blow. But he went on. 
 His dogs bounded round the house barking joyously. A 
 door opened and Lee looked out, and hurried in again to 
 light lamps and to prepare something to eat. 
 
 Dane dropped into his hammock and lay still. He did 
 not rouse himself till after eleven. Then his mind cleared 
 for a little, and he told himself to go and face it. He 
 knew perfectly well that she was gone. But he knew he 
 would have no peace till he did the thing he shirked doing. 
 He went into his study and looked at the piano. Yes, her 
 music was gone. He went on to her front room. From 
 the force of habit he almost knocked on the door. Inside 
 he stood staggered a moment at the sight of her books, 
 her furniture. Then a piteous smile twisted his face. 
 Those things hurt too much. He staggered back into his 
 library. He stumbled against one of his little red tables. 
 Something snapped in his brain. He kicked at it, and it 
 overturned, and the bronze things on it scattered on the 
 floor with a harsh sound that clanged through the house. 
 In a frenzy he seized the table by the legs and dashed it 
 down again. Then he stumbled into his den and to the 
 cabinet where he kept morphia. 
 
 The temptation came to end it all there and then, but 
 he remembered even in that black moment that done that 
 way it wouJd reflect on Valerie, haunt her going away. 
 He took merely enough to blot out the world for the night. 
 Then he stumbled back to his hammock. 
 
 As he got into it the boys, who had been startled by
 
 376 THE STRANGE ATTRACTION 
 
 the crash, came cautiously into the study. San stopped 
 to gather up the things that had scattered over the floor. 
 Lee looked out at the hammock, and took up a possum 
 rug and laid it over Dane's feet. Then he closed the door, 
 and put out the lamps within. 
 
 And a late moon coming up at the end of the cutting 
 cast a streak across the white and tired face of the man 
 who had ceased to care for the present whether she ever 
 rose again or not.
 
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