"Oh, we fell out,--I know not why,--
And kissed again with tears."
--Tennyson.
They are now drawing toward the close of July. To Luttrell it appears
as though the moments are taking to themselves wings to fly away; to
more prosaic mortals they drag. Ever since that first day in the garden
when he betrayed his love to Molly, he had been silent on the subject,
fearful lest he gain a more decided repulse.
Yet this enforced silence is to him a lingering torture; and as a
school-boy with money in his pocket burns till he spend it, so he, with
his heart brimful of love, is in torment until he can fling its rich
treasures at his mistress's feet. Only a very agony of doubt restrains
him.
Not that this doubt contains all pain; there is blended with it a deep
ecstasy of joy, made to be felt, not spoken; and all the grace and
poetry and sweetness of a first great passion,--that thing that in all
the chilling after-years never wholly dies,--that earliest, purest dew
that falls from the awakening heart.
"O love! young love!
Let saints and cynics cavil as they will,
One throb of yours is worth whole years of ill."
So thinks Luttrell; so think I.
To-day Molly has deserted him, and left him to follow his own devices.
John has gone into the next town on some important errand connected
with the farm: so perforce our warrior shoulders his gun and sallies
forth savagely, bent on slaying aught that comes in his way. As two
crows, a dejected rabbit, and an intelligent squirrel are all that
present themselves to his notice, he wearies toward three o'clock, and
thinks with affection of home. For so far has his air-castle mounted
that, were Molly to inhabit a hovel, that hovel to him would be home.
Crossing a stile and a high wall, he finds himself in the middle of the
grounds that adjoin the more modest Brooklyn. The shimmer of a small
lake makes itself seen through the branches to his right, and as he
gains its bank a boat shoots forth from behind the willows, and a gay
voice sings:
"There was a little man,
And he had a little gun,
And his bullets they were made of lead, lead, lead;
He went to a brook,
And he saw a little----"
"Oh, Mr. Luttrell, please, please don't shoot _me_," cries Molly,
breaking down in the song with an exaggerated show of feigned terror.
"Do _you_ call yourself a 'duck'?" demands Luttrell, with much
scorn. "Is there any limit to a woman's conceit? Duck, indeed! say
rather----"
"Swan? Well, yes, I will, if you wish it: I don't mind," says Molly,
amiably. "And now tell me, are you not surprised to see me here?"
"I am, indeed. Are you ubiquitous? I thought I left you safe at home."
"So you did. But I never counted on your staying so long away. I was
tired of waiting for you. I thought you would _never_ come. So in
despair I came out here by myself."
"So you absolutely missed me?" says Luttrell, quietly, although his
heart is beating rapidly. Too well he knows her words are from the lips
alone.
"Oh, didn't I!" exclaims she, heartily. "You should have seen me
standing at the gate peering up and down for you and bemoaning my fate,
like that silly Mariana in the moated grange. Indeed, if I had been
photographed then and there and named 'Forsaken,' I'm positive I would
have sold well."
"I don't doubt it."
"Then I grew enraged, and determined to trouble my head no more about
you; and then---- It was lucky I came here, wasn't it?"
"Very lucky,--for me. But you never told me you had a boat on the
lake."
"Because I hadn't,--at least not for the last two months,--until
yesterday. It got broken in the spring, and they have been ever since
mending it. They are so slow down here. I kept the news of its return
from you a secret all yesterday, meaning to bring you here and show it
you as a surprise; and this is how my plan has ended."
"But are you allowed? I thought you did not know the owners of this
place."
"Neither do we. He is a retired butcher, I fancy (he doesn't look
anything like as respectable as a grocer), with a fine disregard for
the Queen's English. We called there one day, Letitia and I (nothing
would induce John to accompany us), but Mrs. Butcher was too much for
Letitia,--too much for even me," cries Molly, with a laugh, "and I'm
not particular: so we never called again. They don't bear malice,
however, and rather affect our having our boat here than otherwise.
Jump in and row me for a little while."
Over the water, under the hanging branches they glide to the sweet
music of the wooing wind, and scarcely care to speak, so perfect is the
motion and the stillness.
Luttrell, with his hat off and a cigar between his lips, is far happier
than he himself is at all aware. Being of necessity opposite her, he is
calmly feasting himself upon the sweet scenery of Molly's face, or else
letting his eyes wander to where her slender fingers drag their way
through the cool water, leaving small bubbles in their track.
"It is a pity the country is so stupid, is it not?" says Molly,
breaking the silence at length, and speaking in a regretful tone.
"Because otherwise there is no place like it."
"Some country places are not at all stupid. There are generally too
many people about. I think Brooklyn's principal charm is its repose,
its complete separation from the world."
"Well, for my own part," seriously, "I think I would excuse the repose
and the separation from the world, by which, I suppose, you mean
society. I have no admiration for cloisters and convents myself; I like
amusement, excitement. If I could, I would live in London all the year
round," concludes Molly, with growing animation.
"Oh, horror!" exclaims Luttrell, who, seven years before, thought
exactly as she does now, and who occasionally thinks so still. "Who that
ever lived for six months among all its grime and smoke and turmoil but
would pine for this calmer life?"
"I lived there for more than six months," says Molly, "and I didn't
pine for anything. I thought it charming. It is all very well for
you"--dejectedly--"who are tired of gayety, to go into raptures over
calmness and tranquillity, and that; but if you lived in Brooklyn from
summer until winter and from winter back again to summer, and if you
could count your balls on one hand,"--holding up five wet open
fingers,--"you would think just as I do, and long for change."
"I never knew you had been to London."
"Yes: when I was sixteen I spent a whole year there, with a cousin of
my father's, who went to Canada with her husband's regiment afterward.
But I didn't go out much, she thought me too young, though I was quite
as tall as I am now. She heard me sing once, and insisted on carrying
me up with her to get me lessons from Marigny. He took great pains with
me: that is why I sing so well," says Molly, modestly.
"I confess I often wondered where your exquisite voice received its
cultivation, its finish. Now I know. You were fortunate in securing
Marigny. I have known him refuse dozens through want of time; or so he
said. More probably he would not trouble himself to teach where there
was no certainty of success. Well, and so you dislike the country?"
"No, no. Not so much that. What I dislike is having no one to speak to.
When John is away and Letty on the tread-mill--that is, in the
nursery--I am rather thrown on my own resources; and they are not much.
Your coming was the greatest blessing that ever befell me. When I
actually beheld you in your own proper person on the garden path that
night, I could have hugged you in the exuberance of my joy."
"Then why on earth didn't you?" says Luttrell, reproachfully, as though
he had been done out of something.
"A lingering sense of maiden modesty and a faint idea that perhaps you
might not like it alone restrained me. But for that I must have given
way to my feelings. Just think, if I had," says Molly, breaking into a
merry laugh, "what a horrible fright I would have given you!"
"Not a horrible one, at all events. Molly," bending to examine some
imaginary thing in the side of the boat, "have you never--had
a--lover?"
"A lover? Oh, yes, I have had any amount of them," says Molly, with an
alacrity that makes his heart sink. "I don't believe I could count my
adorers: it quite puzzles me to know where to begin. There were the
curates,--our rector is not sweet-tempered, so we have a fresh one
every year,--and they never fail me. Three months after they come, as
regular as clock-work, they ask me to be their wife. Now, I appeal to
you,"--clasping her hands and wrinkling up all her pretty
forehead,--"_do_ I look like a curate's wife?"
"You do not," replies Luttrell, emphatically, regarding with interest
the _debonnaire, spirituelle_ face before him: "no, you most
certainly do not."
"Well, I thought not myself; yet each of those deluded young men saw
something angelic about me, and would insist on asking me to share his
lot. They kept themselves sternly blind to the fact that I detest with
equal vigor broth and old women."
"Intolerable presumption!" says Luttrell, parenthetically.
"Was it? I don't think I looked at it in that light. They were all very
estimable men, and Mr. Rochfort was positively handsome. You, you may
well stare, but some curates, you know, are good-looking, and he was
decidedly High Church. In fact, he wasn't half so bad as the generality
of them," says Molly, relentingly. "Only--it may be wrong, but the
truth is I hate curates. I think nothing of them. They are a mixture of
tea and small jokes, and are ever at a stand-still. They are always in
the act of budding,--they never bloom; and then they are so afraid of
the bishop."
"I thank my stars I'm not a curate," says Luttrell, devoutly.
"However,"--regretfully,--"they were _something_: a proposal is
always an excitement. But the present man is married; so that makes it
impossible for this present year. There was positively nothing to which
to look forward. So you may fancy with what rapture I hailed your
coming."
"You are very good," says Luttrell, in an uncertain tone, not being
quite sure whether he is intensely amused or outrageously angry, or
both. "Had you--any other lovers?"
"Yes. There was the last doctor. He poisoned a poor man afterward by
mistake, and had to go away."
"After what?"
"After I declined to assist him in the surgery," says Molly, demurely.
"It was a dreadful thing,--the poisoning, I mean,--and caused a great
deal of scandal. I don't believe it was anybody's fault, but I
certainly did pity the man he killed. And--it might have been me, you
know; think of that! He was very much attached to me; and so was the
Lefroys' eldest son, and James Warder, and the organist, to say nothing
of the baker's boy, who, I am convinced, would cut his throat to oblige
me to-morrow morning, if I asked him."
"Well, don't ask him," says Luttrell, imploringly. "He might do it on
the door-step, and then think of the horrid mess! Promise me you won't
even hint at it until after I am gone."
"I promise," says Molly, laughing.
Onward glides the boat; the oars rise and fall with a tuneful splash.
Miss Massereene, throwing her hat with reckless extravagance into the
bottom of the punt, bares her white arm to the elbow and essays to
catch the grasses as she sweeps by them.
"Look at those lilies," she says, eagerly; "how exquisite, in their
broad green frames! Water-sprites! how they elude one!" as she makes a
vigorous but unsuccessful grab at some on her right hand.
"Very beautiful," says Luttrell, dreamily, with his eyes on Molly, not
on the lilies.
"I want some," says Molly, revengefully; "I always do want what don't
want me, and _vice versa_. Oh! look at those beauties near you.
Catch them."
"I don't think I can; they are too far off."
"Not if you stoop very much for them. I think if you were to bend over
a good deal you might do it."
"I might; I might do something else, too," says Luttrell, calmly,
seeing it would be as easy for him to grasp the lilies in question as
last night's moon: "I might fall in."
"Oh, never mind that," responds Molly, with charming though
premeditated unconcern, a little wicked desire to tease getting the
better of her amiability.
Luttrell, hardly sure whether she jests or is in sober earnest, opens
his large eyes to their fullest, the better to judge, but, seeing no
signs of merriment in his companion, gives way to his feelings a
little.
"Well, you _are_ cool," he says, slowly.
"I am not, indeed," replies innocent Molly. "How I wish I _were_
'cool,' on such a day as this! Are _you_?"
"No," shortly. "Perhaps that is the reason you recommended me a plunge;
or is it for your amusement?"
"You are afraid," asserts Molly, with a little mischievous, scornful
laugh, not to be endured for a moment.
"Afraid!" angrily. "Nonsense! I don't care about wetting my clothes,
certainly, and I don't want to put out my cigar; but"--throwing away
the choice Havana in question--"you shall have your lilies, of course,
if you have set your heart on them."
Here, standing up, he strips off his coat with an air that means
business.
"I don't want them now," says Molly, in a degree frightened, "at least
not those. See, there are others close behind you. But I will pluck
them myself, thank you: I hate giving trouble. No, don't put your hands
near them. I won't have them if you do."
"Why?"
"Because you are cross, and I detest cross people."
"Because I didn't throw myself into the water head foremost to please
you?" with impatient wrath. "They used to call that chivalry long ago.
I call it folly. You should be reasonable."
"Oh, don't lose your temper about it," says Molly.
Now, to have a person implore you at any time "not to lose your temper"
is simply abominable; but to be so implored when you have lost it is
about the most aggravating thing that can occur to any one. So Luttrell
finds it.
"I never lose my temper about trifles," he says, loftily.
"Well, I don't know what you call it, but when one puts on a frown, and
drags down the corners of one's mouth, and looks as if one was going to
devour some one, and makes one's self generally disagreeable, _I_
know what _I_ call it," says Molly, viciously.
"Would you like to return home?" asks Mr. Luttrell, with prompt
solicitude. "You are tired, I think."
"'Tired'? Not in the least, thank you. I should like to stay out here
for the next two hours, if----"
"Yes?"
"If you think you could find amusement for yourself--elsewhere!"
"I'll try," says Tedcastle, quietly taking up the oars and proceeding
to row with much appearance of haste toward the landing-place.
By the time they reach it, Miss Massereene's bad temper--not being at
any time a lengthened affair--has cooled considerably, though still a
very handsome allowance remains. As he steps ashore, with the evident
intention of not addressing her again, she feels it incumbent on her to
speak just a word or so, if only to convince him that his ill-humor is
the worst of the two.
"Are you going home?" asks she, with cold politeness.
"No,"--his eyebrows are raised, and he wears an expression half
nonchalant, wholly bored,--"I am going to Grantham."
Now, Grantham is nine miles distant. He must be very angry if he has
decided on going to Grantham. It will take him a long, long time to get
there, and a long, long time to get back; and in the meantime what is
to become of her?
"That is a long way, is it not?" she says, her manner a degree more
frigid, lest he mistake the meaning of her words.
"The longer the better," ungraciously.
"And on so hot a day!"
"There are worse things than heat." Getting himself into his coat in
such a violent fashion as would make his tailor shed bitter tears over
the cruel straining of that garment.
"You will be glad to get away from----" hesitates Molly, who has also
stepped ashore, speaking in a tone that would freeze a salamander.
"_Very_ glad." With much unnecessary emphasis.
"Go then," cries she, with sudden passion, throwing down the oar she
still holds with a decided bang, "and I hope you will _never_ come
back. There!"
And--will you believe it?--even after this there is no deluge.
So she goes to the right, and he goes to the left, and when too late
repent their haste. But pride is ever at hand to tread down tenderness,
and obstinacy is always at the heels of pride; and out of this "trivial
cause" see what a "pretty quarrel" has been sprung.
* * * * *
"The long and weary day" at length has "passed away." The dinner has
come to an unsuccessful end, leaving both Luttrell and his divinity
still at daggers drawn. There are no signs of relenting about Molly, no
symptoms of weakness about Tedcastle: the war is civil but energetic.
They glower at each other through each course, and are positively
devoted in their attentions to John and Letitia. Indeed, they seem bent
on bestowing all their conversational outbreaks on these two worthies,
to their unmitigated astonishment. As a rule, Mr. and Mrs. Massereene
have been accustomed to occupy the background; to-night they are
brought to the front with a vehemence that takes away their breath, and
is, to say the least of it, embarrassing.
Letitia,--dear soul,--who, though the most charming of women, could
hardly be thought to endanger the Thames, understands nothing; John, on
the contrary, comprehends fully, and takes a low but exquisite delight
in compelling the antagonists to be attentive to each other.
For instance:
"Luttrell, my dear fellow, what is the matter with you this evening?
How remiss you are! Why don't you break some walnuts for Molly? I would
but I don't wish Letitia to feel slighted."
"No, thank you, John,"--with a touch of asperity from Molly,--"I don't
care for walnuts."
"Oh, Molly Bawn! what a tarididdle! Only last night I quite shuddered
at the amount of shells you left upon your plate. 'How can that
wretched child play such pranks with her digestion?' thought I, and
indeed felt thankful it had not occurred to you to swallow the shells
also."
"Shall I break you some, Miss Massereene?" asks Luttrell, very coldly.
"No, thank you," ungraciously.
"Luttrell, did you see that apple-tree in the orchard? I never beheld
such a show of fruit in my life. The branches will hardly bear the
weight when it comes to perfection. It is very worthy of admiration.
Molly will show it to you to-morrow: won't you, Molly?"
Luttrell, hastily: "I will go round there myself after breakfast and
have a look at it."
John: "You will never find it by yourself. Molly will take you; eh,
Molly?"
Molly, cruelly: "I fear I shall be busy all the morning; and in the
afternoon I intend going with Letitia to spend the day with the
Laytons."
Letitia, agreeably surprised: "Oh, will you, dear? That is very good of
you. I thought this morning you said nothing would induce you to come
with me. I shall be so glad to have you; they are so intensely dull and
difficult."
Molly, still more cruelly: "Well, I have been thinking it over, and it
seems, do you know, rather rude my not going. Besides, I hear their
brother Maxwell (a few more strawberries, if you please, John) is home
from India, and--he used to be _so_ good-looking."
John, with much unction: "Oh, has he come at last! I am glad to hear
it. (Luttrell, give Molly some strawberries.) You underrate him, I
think: he was downright handsome. When Molly Bawn was in short
petticoats he used to adore her. I suppose it would be presumptuous to
pretend to measure the admiration he will undoubtedly feel for her now.
I have a presentiment that fortune is going to favor you in the end,
Molly. He must inherit a considerable property."
"Rich and handsome," says Luttrell, with exemplary composure and a
growing conviction that he will soon hate with an undying hatred his
whilom friend John Massereene. "He must be a favorite of the gods: let
us hope he will not die young."
"He can't," says Letitia, comfortably: "he must be forty if he is a
day."
"And a good, sensible age, too," remarks John; whereupon Molly, who is
too much akin to him in spirit not to fully understand his manoeuvering,
laughs outright.
Then Letitia rises, and the two women move toward the door; and Molly,
coming last, pauses a moment on the threshold, while Luttrell holds the
door open for her. His heart beats high. Is she going to speak to him,
to throw him even one poor word, to gladden him with a smile, however
frozen?
Alas! no. Miss Massereene, with a little curve of her neck, glances
back expressively to where an unkind nail has caught the tail of her
long soft gown. That miserable nail--not he--has caused her delay.
Stooping, he extricates the dress. She bows coldly, without raising her
eyes to his. A moment later she is free; still another moment, and she
is gone; and Luttrell, with a suppressed but naughty word upon his
lips, returns to his despondency and John; while Molly, who, though she
has never once looked at him, has read correctly his fond hope and
final disappointment, allows a covert smile of pleased malevolence to
cross her face as she walks into the drawing-room.
Mr. Massereene is holding a long and very one-sided argument on the
subject of the barbarous Mussulman. As Luttrell evinces no faintest
desire to disagree with him in his opinions, the subject wears itself
out in due course of time; and John, winding up with an amiable wish
that every Turk that ever has seen the light or is likely to see the
light may be blown into fine dust, finishes his claret and rises, with
a yawn.
"I must leave you for awhile," he says: "so get out your cigars, and
don't wait for me. I'll join you later. I have had the writing of a
letter on my conscience for a week, and I must write it now or never. I
really do believe I have grasped my own meaning at last. Did you notice
my unusual taciturnity between the fish and the joint?"
"I can't say I did. I imagined you talking the entire time."
"My dear fellow, of what were you thinking. I sincerely trust you are
not going to be ill; but altogether your whole manner this evening----
Well, just at that moment a sudden inspiration seized me, and then and
there my letter rose up before me, couched in such eloquent language as
astonished even myself. If I don't write it down at once I am a lost
man."
"But now you have composed it to your satisfaction, why not leave the
writing of it until to-morrow?" expostulates Luttrell, trying to look
hearty, as he expresses a hypocritical desire for his society.
"I always remark," says John, "that sleeping on those treacherous
flights of fancy has the effect of taking the gilt off them. When I
rise in the morning they are hardly up to the mark, and appear by no
means so brilliant as they did over-night. Something within warns me if
I don't do it now I won't do it at all. There is more claret on the
sideboard,--or brandy, if you prefer it," says Mr. Massereene,
tenderly.
"Thanks,--I want nothing more," replies Luttrell, whose spirits are at
zero. As Massereene leaves him, he saunters toward the open window and
gazes on the sleeping garden. Outside, the heavens are alive with stars
that light the world in a cold, sweet way, although as yet the moon has
not risen. All is
"Clear, and bright, and deep;
Soft as love, and calm as death;
Sweet as a summer night without a breath."
Lighting a cigar (by the bye, can any one tell me at what stage of
suffering it is a man abandons this unfailing friend as being powerless
to soothe?), he walks down the balcony steps, and, still grim and
unhappy, makes up his mind to a solitary promenade.
Perhaps he himself is scarcely conscious of the direction he takes, but
his footsteps guide him straight over the lawn and down to the very end
of it, where a broad stream runs babbling in one corner. It is a
veritable love-retreat, hedged in by larches and low-lying evergreens,
so as to be completely concealed from view, and a favorite haunt of
Molly's,--indeed, such a favorite that now as he enters it he finds
himself face to face with her.
An impromptu tableau follows. For a full minute they regard each other
unwillingly, too surprised for disdain, and then, with a laudable
desire to show how unworthy of consideration either deems the other,
they turn slowly away until a shoulder and half a face alone are
visible.
Now, Luttrell has the best of it, because he is the happy possessor of
the cigar: this gives him something to do, and he smokes on
persistently, not to say viciously. Miss Massereene, being without
occupation beyond what one's thumbs may afford, is conscious of being
at a disadvantage, and wishes she had earlier in life cultivated a
passion for tobacco.
Meanwhile, the noisy brook flows on merrily, chattering as it goes, and
reflecting the twinkling stars, with their more sedate brethren, the
planets. Deep down in the very heart of the water they lie, quivering,
changing, gleaming, while the stream whispers their lullaby and dashes
its cool soft sides against the banks. A solitary bird drops down to
crave a drink, terrifying the other inhabitants of the rushes by the
trembling of its wings; a frog creeps in with a dull splash; to all the
stream makes kind response; while on its bosom
"Broad water-lilies lay tremulously,
And starry river-buds glimmered by;
And round them the soft stream did glide and dance,
With a motion of sweet sound and radiance."
A little way above, a miniature cataract adds its tiny roar to the many
"breathings of the night;" at Molly's feet lie great bunches of blue
forget-me-nots.
Stooping, she gathers a handful to fasten at her breast; a few sprays
still remain in her hands idle; she has turned so that her full face is
to her companion: he has never stirred.
He is still puffing away in a somewhat indignant fashion at the
unoffending cigar, looking taller, more unbending in his evening
clothes, helped by the dignity of his wrongs. Miss Massereene, having
indulged in a long examination of his would-be stern profile, decides
on the spot that if there is one thing on earth toward which she bears
a rancorous hatred it is an ill-tempered man. What does he mean by
standing there without speaking to her? She makes an undying vow that,
were he so to stand forever, she would not open her lips to him; and
exactly sixty seconds after making that terrible vow she says,--oh, so
sweetly!--"Mr. Luttrell!"
He instantly pitches the obnoxious cigar into the water, where it dies
away with an angry fizz, and turns to her.
She is standing a few yards distant from him, with her head a little
bent and the bunch of forget-me-nots in one hand, moving them slowly,
slowly across her lips. There is penitence, coquetry, mischief, a
thousand graces in her attitude.
Now, feeling his eyes upon her, she moves the flowers about three
inches from her mouth, and, regarding them lovingly, says, "Are not
they pretty!" as though her whole soul is wrapt in contemplation of
their beauty, and as though no other deeper thought has led her to
address him.
"Very. They are like your eyes," replies he, gravely, and with some
hesitation, as if the words came reluctantly.
This is a concession, and so she feels it. A compliment to a true woman
comes never amiss; and the knowledge that it has been wrung from him
against his will, being but a tribute to its truth, adds yet another
charm. Without appearing conscious of the fact, she moves a few steps
nearer to him, always with her eyes bent upon the flowers, the grass,
anywhere but on him: because you will understand how impossible it is
for one person to drink in the full beauty of another if checked by
that other's watchfulness. Molly, at all events, understands it
thoroughly.
When she is quite close to him, so close that if she stirs her dress
must touch him, so close that her flower-like face is dangerously near
his arm, she whispers, softly:
"I am sorry."
"Are you?" says Luttrell, stupidly, although his heart is throbbing
passionately, although every pulse is beating almost to pain. If his
life depended upon it, or perhaps because of it, he can frame no more
eloquent speech.
"Yes," murmurs Molly, with a thorough comprehension of all he is
feeling. "And now we will be friends again, will we not?" Holding out
to him a little cool, shy hand.
"Not _friends_," says the young man, in a low, passionate tone,
clasping her hand eagerly: "it is too cold a word. I _cannot_ be
your friend. Your lover, your slave, if you will; only let me feel
_near_ to you. Molly,"--abandoning her slender fingers for the far
sweeter possession of herself, and folding his arms around her with
gentle audacity,--"speak to me. Why are you so silent? Why do you not
even look at me? You cannot want me to tell you of the love that is
consuming me, because you know of it."
"I don't think you ought to speak to me like this at all," says Molly,
severely, drawing herself out of his embrace, not hurriedly or angrily,
but surely; "I am almost positive you should not; and--and John might
not like it."
"I don't care a farthing what John likes," exclaims Luttrell, rather
forcibly, giving wings to his manners, as his wrongs of the evening
blossom. "What has he or any one to do with it but you and I alone? The
question is, do _you_ like it?"
"I am not at all sure that I do," says Molly, doubtfully, with a little
distracting shake of her head. "You are so vehement, and I----"
"Don't go on," interrupts he, hastily. "You are going to say something
unkind, and I won't listen to it. I know it by your eyes. Darling, why
are you so cruel to me? Surely you must care for me, be it ever such a
little. To think otherwise would---- But I will _not_ think it.
Molly,"--with increasing fervor,--"say you will marry me."
"But indeed I can't," exclaims Miss Massereene, retreating a step or
two, and glancing at him furtively from under her long lashes. "At
least"--relenting a little, as she sees his face change and whiten at
her words--"not _yet_. It is all so sudden, so unexpected; and you
forget I am not accustomed to this sort of thing. Now, the
curates"--with an irrepressible smile--"never went on like this: they
always behaved modestly and with such propriety."
"'The curates!' What do they know about it?" returns this young man,
most unjustly. "Do you suppose I love you like a curate?"
"And yet, when all is told, I suppose a curate is a man," says Molly,
uncertainly, as one doubtful of the truth of her assertion, "and a
well-behaved one, too. Now, you are quite different; and you have known
me such a little time."
"What has time to do with it? The beginning and the ending of the whole
matter is this: I love you!"
He is holding her hands and gazing down into her face with all his
heart in his eyes, waiting for her next words,--may they not decide his
fate?--while she is feeling nothing in the world but a mad desire to
break into laughter,--a desire that arises half from nervousness, half
from an irrepressible longing to destroy the solemnity of the scene.
"A pinch for stale news," says she, at last, with a frivolity most
unworthy of the occasion, but in the softest, merriest whisper.
They are both young. The laugh is contagious. After a moment's struggle
with his dignity, he echoes it.
"You can jest," says he: "surely that is a good sign. If you were going
to refuse me you would not laugh. Beloved,"--taking her into his fond
arms again,--"say one little word to make me happy."
"Will any little word do? Long ago, in the dark ages when I was a
child, I remember being asked a riddle _a propos_ of short words.
I will ask it to you now. What three letters contain everything in the
world? Guess."
"No need to guess: I know. YES would contain everything in the world
for me."
"You are wrong, then. It is ALL,--all. Absurd, isn't it? I must have
been very young when I thought that clever. But to return: would
_that_ little word do you?"
"Say 'Yes,' Molly."
"And if I say 'No,' what then? Will you throw yourself into this small
river? Or perhaps hang yourself to the nearest tree? Or, worse still,
refuse to speak to me ever again? Or 'go to skin and bone,' as my old
nurse used to say I would when I refused a fifth meal in the day? Tell
me which?"
"A greater evil than all those would befall me: I should live with no
nearer companion than a perpetual regret. But"--with a shudder--"I will
not believe myself so doomed. Molly, say what I ask you."
"Well, 'Yes,' then, since you will have it so. Though why you are so
bent on your own destruction puzzles me. Do you know you never spoke to
me all this evening? I don't believe you love me as well as you say."
"Don't I?" wistfully. Then, with sudden excitement, "I wish with all my
heart I did not," he says, "or at least with only half the strength I
do. If I could regulate my affections so, I might have some small
chance of happiness; but as it is I doubt--I fear. Molly, do you care
for me?"
"At times,"--mischievously--"I do--a _little_."
"And you know I love you?"
"Yes,--it may be,--when it suits you."
"And you,"--tightening his arms round her,--"some time you will love
me, my sweet?"
"Yes,--perhaps so,--when it suits me."
"Molly," says Luttrell after a pause, "won't you kiss me?"
As he speaks he stoops, bringing his cheek very close to hers.
"'Kiss you'?" says Molly, shrinking away from him, while flushing and
reddening honestly now. "No, I think not. I never in all my life kissed
any man but John, and--I don't believe I should like it. No, no; if I
cannot be engaged to you without kissing you, I will not be engaged to
you at all."
"It shall be as you wish," says Luttrell, very patiently, considering
all things.
"You mean it?" Still keeping well away from him, and hesitating about
giving the hand he is holding out his to receive.
"Certainly I do."
"And"--anxiously--"you don't _mind_?"
"Mind?" says he, with wrathful reproach. "Of course I mind. Am I a
stick or a stone, do you think? You might as well tell me in so many
words of your utter indifference to me as refuse to kiss me."
"Do all women kiss the men they promise to marry?"
"All women kiss the men they love."
"What, whether they ask them or not?"
"Of course I mean when they are asked."
"Even if at the time they happen to be married to somebody else?"
"I don't know anything about that," says Luttrell, growing ashamed of
himself and his argument beneath the large, horror-stricken eyes of his
companion. "I was merely supposing a case where marriage and love went
hand in hand."
"Don't suppose," says Miss Massereene; "there is nothing so tiresome.
It is like 'fourthly' and 'fifthly' in a sermon: you never know where
it may lead you. Am I to understand that all women want to kiss the man
they love?"
"Certainly they do," stoutly.
"How very odd!" says Molly.
After which there is a most decided pause.
Presently, as though she had been pondering all things, she says:
"Well, there is one thing: I don't mind your having your arms round me
a bit, not in the _least_. That must be something. I would quite
as soon they were there as not."
"I suppose that is a step in the right direction," says Luttrell,
trying not to see the meaning in her words, because too depressed to
accept the comic side of it.
"You are unhappy," says Molly, remorsefully, heaving a quickly
suppressed sigh. "Why? Because I won't be good to you? Well,"--coloring
crimson and leaning her head back against his shoulder with the air of
a martyr, so that her face is upturned,--"you may kiss me once, if you
wish,--but only once, mind,--because I can't bear to see you
miserable."
"No," returns Luttrell, valiantly, refusing by a supreme effort to
allow himself to be tempted by a look at her beauty, "I will not kiss
you so. Why should you be made unhappy, and by me? Keep such gifts,
Molly, until you can bestow them of your own free will."
But Molly is determined to be generous.
"See, I will give you this one freely," she says, with unwonted
sweetness, knowing that she is gaining more than she is giving; and
thus persuaded, he presses his lips to the warm tender ones so near his
own, while for one mad moment he is absurdly happy.
"You really do love me?" asks Molly, presently, as though just
awakening to the fact.
"My darling!--my angel!" whispers he, which is conclusive; because when
a man can honestly bring himself to believe a woman an angel he must be
very far gone indeed.
"I fancy we ought to go in," says Molly, a little later; "they will be
wondering where we are."
"They cannot have missed us yet; it is too soon."
"Soon! Why, it must be hours since we came out here," says Molly, with
uplifted brows.
"Have you found it so very long?" asks he, aggrieved.
"No,"--resenting his tone in a degree,--"I have not been bored to
death, if you mean that; but I am not so dead to the outer world that I
cannot tell whether time has been short or long. And it _is_
long," viciously.
"At that rate, I think we had better go in," replies he, somewhat
stiffly.
As they draw near the house, so near that the lights from the open
drawing-room windows make yellow paths across the grass that runs their
points almost to their feet,--Luttrell stops short to say:
"Shall I speak to John to-night or to-morrow morning?"
"Oh! neither to-night nor to-morrow," cries Molly, frightened. "Not for
ever so long. Why talk about it at all? Only a few minutes ago nothing
was farther from my thoughts, and now you would publish it on the
house-tops! Just think what it will be to have every one wondering and
whispering about one, and saying, 'Now they have had a quarrel,' and
'Now they have made it up again.' Or, 'See now she is flirting with
somebody else.' I could not bear it," says Molly, blind to the growing
anger on the young man's face as he listens to and fully takes in the
suggestions contained in these imaginary speeches; "it would make me
wretched. It might make me hate you!"
"Molly!"
"Yes, it might; and then what would you do? Let us keep it a secret,"
says Molly, coaxingly, slipping her hand into his, with a little
persuasive pressure. "You see, everything about it is so far distant;
and perhaps--who knows?--it may never come to anything."
"What do you mean by that?" demands he, passionately, drawing her to
him, and bending to examine her face in the uncertain light. "Do you
suppose I am a boy or a fool, that you so speak to me? Am I so very
happy that you deem it necessary to blast my joy like this? or is it
merely to try me? Tell me the truth now, at once: do you mean to throw
me over?"
"I do not," with surprise. "What has put such an idea into your head?
If I did, why be engaged to you at any time? It is a great deal more
likely, when you come to know me better, that you will throw me over."
"Don't build your hopes on that," says Luttrell, grimly, with a rather
sad smile. "I am not the sort of fellow likely to commit suicide; and
to resign you would be to resign life."
"Well," says Molly, "if I am ever to say anything on the subject I may
as well say it now; and I must confess I think you are behaving very
foolishly. I may be--I probably am--good to look at; but what is the
use of that? You, who have seen so much of the world, have, of course,
known people ten times prettier than I am, and--perhaps--fonder of you.
And still you come all the way down here to this stupid place to fall
in love with me, a girl without a penny! I really think," winds up
Molly, growing positively melancholy over his lack of sense, "it is the
most absurd thing I ever heard in my life."
"I wish I could argue with your admirable indifference," says he,
bitterly.
"If I was indifferent I would not argue," says Molly, offended. "I
would not trouble myself to utter a word of warning. You ought to be
immensely obliged to me instead of sneering and wrinkling up all your
forehead into one big frown. Are you going to be angry again? I do
hope," says Molly, anxiously, "you are not naturally ill-tempered,
because, if so, on no account would I have anything to do with you."
"I am not," replies he, compelled to laughter by her perturbed face.
"Reassure yourself. I seldom forget myself in this way. And you?"
"Oh, I have a fearful temper," says Molly, with a charming smile; "that
is why I want to make sure of yours. Because two tyrants in one house
would infallibly bring the roof about their ears. Now, Mr. Luttrell,
that I have made this confession, will you still tell me you are not
frightened?"
"Nothing frightens me," whispers he, holding her to his heart and
pressing his lips to her fair, cool cheek, "since you are my own,--my
sweet,--my beloved. But call me Tedcastle, won't you?"
"It is too long a name."
"Then alter it, and call me----"
"Teddy? I think I like that best; and perhaps I shall have it all to
myself."
"I am afraid not," laughing. "All the fellows in the regiment
christened me 'Teddy' before I had been in a week."
"Did they? Well, never mind; it only shows what good taste they had.
The name just suits you, you are so fair and young, and handsome," says
Molly, patting his cheek with considerable condescension. "Now, one
thing more before we go in to receive our scolding: you are not to make
love to me again--not even to mention the word--until a whole week has
passed: promise."
"I could not."
"You must."
"Well, then, it will be a pie-crust promise."
"No, I forbid you to break it. I can endure a little of it now and
again," says Molly, with intense seriousness, "but to be made love to
always, every day, would kill me."