THE THIRD TIME OF ASKING.
December was at hand soon enough, and with the month came Lord Manister
for his answer. Though more than slightly nervous he entered the modest
house in Kensington with his head very high; and certain inappropriate
sensations visited him during the few minutes he was kept waiting in the
drawing room. He did not sit down. Then it was Tiny Luttrell who opened
the door, and those sensations made good their escape from a bosom in
which they had no business. In the living presence of the person one
proposes to marry there are some misgivings that had need be
impossible--Christina little suspected her privilege of shutting the
door on Manister's with her own hand. He sat down at her example.
But if he was nervous so was she, and as he came bravely to the point
she found it more and more difficult to meet his hungry eyes. It was
rather rare for Christina to experience any difficulty of the kind. She
rose, and stood in front of the fire, with her back to the room and Lord
Manister. There, with her forehead resting on the rim of the mantelpiece
(for Tiny that was not far to bend), and while the hot fire scorched her
plain gray skirt and gave a needed color to the downcast face, she heard
what Manister had to say. Soon she knew that he was saying it with his
elbow on one end of the mantelpiece; and liked him for facing her so,
and compelling her to face him. But when she found him waiting for his
answer, she gave him it without lifting her eyes from the fire.
"No!"
He had asked her whether she had been able to make up her mind. The
answer she had given was, indeed, the truth; but it had been prepared
for a more conclusive question. She was vexed with him for the question
he had chosen to put first; and the more so because it had snatched from
her an admission which she had not intended to make. But she had not
made up her mind--that was the simple truth; and now she trusted that he
would make up his.
Instead of which he said sadly, after a pause:
"I wanted to give you six months!"
"It was very wrong of you to give me one," she answered with startling
ingratitude.
"Why wrong?"
"You might have seen that I was unworthy of you."
"I might have given up loving you, I suppose, in a second!"
"I wish you would----"
"I never shall!"
"If you ever began," Christina added to her own sentence. At last her
face was raised, and now it was his eyes that fell before the cool
acumen of her smile.
"You don't believe in me yet!" he groaned. "Not yet, though I wait,
wait, wait."
"No one asked you to wait," Lord Manister was reminded.
"But you see that I can't help it! You see that I am miserable about
you!"
This indeed was sufficiently plain; and the sight of his misery was
softening Christina by degrees. She said more kindly:
"Listen to me, Lord Manister. It is a month since you saw me. At this
moment you may feel what you are saying. Very well, then, you _do_ feel
it; but have you felt it throughout the last month? Have you felt so
patient--you are far too patient--all the time? Has it never seemed to
you that my keeping you in doubt, even for one month, was a piece of
impertinence you ought never to have stood? Wouldn't your friends simply
think you mad if they knew how you were allowing me to use you? Haven't
you yourself occasionally remembered who you are, and who I am, and
burst out laughing? I must say I have; it sometimes seems to me so
utterly absurd---- And you see you can't answer my questions!"
He could not; one after another they had penetrated to the quick.
"They are not fair questions," Manister said doggedly. "What may have
crossed my mind when I have felt worried and wretched has nothing to do
with it. Isn't it enough that I tell you I can wait your own good
time--that I feel a pride in waiting, now we are together and I am
looking in your eyes?"
"No, I don't think that's quite enough," replied Christina softly. "It
would hardly be enough, you know, if you only felt me worth waiting for
while you were with me. That would mean that for some reason I
fascinated you. And fascination isn't love, Lord Manister. I don't want
to be rude--much less unkind--but I can't believe that you have ever
been really in love with me; I simply can't!"
Yet she had never felt so near to that belief before. Her words,
however, helped Lord Manister back to his dignity.
"Of course you must believe only what you choose," said he loftily. "One
cannot force you to believe in one's sincerity. I suppose I spoilt you
for believing in mine some time since. At all events you were fond of me
once! Only a month ago you liked me all but well enough to marry me. Yet
now you do not know!"
"Therefore the decision is left to you, Lord Manister; you must give me
up."
"Never! while you are free."
His teeth were clenched.
"But do consider. Most probably I shall never care enough for you to
marry you. And oh! I wonder how you can look at me when no other girl in
the world would refuse you!"
"Can't you see that this is part of your charm?" cried the young man
impulsively. "You are the one girl I know who is not worldly. You are
the one girl I want!"
Christina shook her head.
"If I have any charm at all, you oughtn't to know what it is--you ought
to love me you can't say why--there's no sizing up real love!" she
informed him rapidly, but with a smile. "There's another thing, too. You
cannot be used to being treated as I have treated you in many ways. I
have often been intensely rude to you. I can't help thinking there must
be a good deal of pique in your feeling toward me."
"There is more real love," returned Manister, "if I know it!"
"I wonder if you do know it?" said the girl, with a laugh; but she was
wondering very seriously in her heart. He protested no more; she liked
him for that, too, as also for the briskness in his tone and manner when
he spoke next.
"You say you don't care for me enough, and you say I don't care for you
properly, and we won't argue any more about either matter for the
moment." He had flung back his head from the hand that had shaded his
eyes; his elbow remained on the chimney-piece, but now he was standing
erect. "There is something else," said Lord Manister, "that has
prevented you from coming to a decision."
"There is certainly one thing that has had something to do with it."
"May I ask what it is?"
"Certainly, Lord Manister. I am going back to Australia."
"Soon?" This was after a pause, during which their eyes had not met.
"Sooner than was intended."
"Is it--is it for any special reason that--that you have kept from me?"
He was agitated by a sudden thought, which she read. She shook her head
reassuringly.
"No, it is not to get married, nor yet engaged."
"Then there is no one out there?"
"There is no one anywhere that I could marry for love. That's the simple
truth. I am going back to Australia because Herbert is going. Cambridge
doesn't suit him, and I'm sorry to say he doesn't suit Cambridge. We
came over together, so we are going back together. That, I promise you,
is the whole and only explanation. I myself did not want to go so
soon."
"But surely you are not going this year?"
"We are--before Christmas."
As Tiny spoke her glance went to the window: she was very anxious to see
the snow before she sailed, but none had fallen yet, though December had
come in dull and raw.
"But your people here must be very much against that?"
"They were, but now it is settled."
"You must have promised to come back!"
Christina seemed surprised.
"Yes, I said I would come back some day."
"And you shall!" cried Manister passionately. "You shall come back as my
wife! Do you suppose I am going to stop short at this, when but for your
brother you would have been mine to-day? I don't mean to say he has
influenced you, except by going back so soon; you love Australia, and
you must needs go back with him. Then go! I told you to take six months;
you have taken one of them. When the other five are up I am coming to
you again wherever you may be. Till then I will take no answer; and
whatever it may be in the end I bow to it--I bow to it!"
His passion surprised and even moved Christina; but his humility stirred
up in her soul a contempt which mingled strangely with her pity. Women
of spirit cannot admire the man who will submit to anything at their
hands. Christina would willingly have given admiration in exchange for
the love in which she was beginning to believe; it would have pleased
her sense of justice, it would have promoted her self-respect to make
some such small payment on account. With Manister's patience she had
none at all. She was disappointed in him. Her foot tapped angrily on the
fender.
"But I don't want you to wait!" exclaimed Christina ungraciously. "I
have told you so already."
"Still I mean to do so, and it serves me right."
This touched her generosity.
"Ah, don't say that!" she cried earnestly. "Oh, Lord Manister, I have
forgotten all old scores--I never think of them now! The balance has
been the other way so long; and I do not deserve another chance."
"Ah, but Tiny--darling--it is I who am asking for that!"
His tone compelled her to meet his gaze--its intensity made her wince.
"You believe in me!" he cried joyously. "Say only that you believe in
me, and I will go away now. I will go away happy and proud--to wait--for
you."
Then Tiny laid her little hand on his arm, and her eyes that had filled
with tears answered him to his present satisfaction. He held her hand
for just a few seconds before he went, and in kindness she returned his
pressure. Then the shutting of the front door down below made her
realize that he was gone. And she had time to dry her eyes and to gather
herself together before Ruth, whose hopes had been dead some days, came
into the room with a dejected mien and pointedly abstained from asking
questions.
"If it interests you to hear it," Tiny said lightly, "I am converted to
your creed at last; I believe in Lord Manister!"
"But you are not engaged to him," Ruth said wearily; "I see you are
not."
"I am not; but he insists on waiting. If only he wasn't so tame! But I
can't help believing in him now; and that settles it."
"Nothing is settled until you are engaged," said the matter-of-fact
sister, with a sigh.
"Nevertheless I'm going to try with all my might to care for him, now
that I see that he must really care for me. And let me tell you that I
shall consider myself all the more bound to him because I haven't _said_
yes, and because we're _not_ actually engaged!"
"Yes?" said the other incredulously. "That is so like you, Tiny!"
And Ruth almost sneered.