"Eva Beaulyon is my friend, Mr. Walden!"
"No--not your friend!"--he said steadily--"Forgive me! You asked me
to speak frankly. She is a friend to none except those of her own
particular class and type---"
"To which I also belong,"--said Maryllia, with a sudden flash of
returning rebellion--"You know I do!"
"I know you do NOT!" replied Walden, with some heat--"And I thank
God for it! I know you are no more of her class and type than the
wood lily is like the rank and poisonous marsh weed! Oh, child!--why
do you wrong yourself! If I am too blunt and plain in what I say to
you, let me cease speaking--but if you ask ME as your friend--as
your minister!"--and he emphasised the word--"to tell you honestly
my opinion, have patience with my roughness!"
"You are not rough," she murmured,--and a little contraction in her
throat warned her of the possible rising of tears--"But you are
scarcely tolerant!"
"I cannot be tolerant of the demoralisation of womanhood!"--he said,
passionately--"I cannot look on with an easy smile when I see the
sex that SHOULD be the saving purity of the world, deliberately
sinking itself by its own free will and choice into the mire of the
vulgarest social vice, and parting with every redeeming grace,
modesty and virtue that once made it sacred and beautiful! I am
quite aware that there are many men who not only look on, but even
encourage this world-wide debasement of women in order to bring them
down on a par with themselves--but I am not one of these. I know
that when women cease to be womanly, then the sorrows of the world,
already heavy, will be doubled and trebled! When men come to be
ashamed of their mothers--as many of them are to-day--there will be
but little hope of good for future generations! And the fact that
there are many women of title and position like your guest, Lady
Beaulyon, who deliberately drag their husband's honour through the
dust and publicly glory in their own disgrace, does not make their
crime the less, but rather the more criminal. You know this as well
as I do! You are not of Lady Beaulyon's class or type--if you were,
I should not waste one moment of my time in your presence!"
She gazed at him speechlessly. And now from the drawing room came
the sound of Cicely's voice, clear, powerful, and as sweet as
legends tell us the voices of the angels are--
"Luna fedel, tu chiama
Col raggio ed io col suon,
La fulgida mia dama
Sul gotico veron!"
"You know," he went on impetuously--"You know I told you before that
I am not a society man. I said that if I came to dinner to meet your
London friends, I should be very much in the way. You have found me
so. A man of my age and of my settled habits and convictions ought
to avoid society altogether. It is not possible for him to
accommodate himself to it. For instance,--see how old-fashioned and
strait-laced I am!--I wish I had been miles away from St. Rest
before I had ever seen you smoking! It is a trifle, perhaps,--but it
is one of those trifles which stick in the memory and embitter the
mind!"
Around them the air seemed to break and divide into pulsations of
melody as Cicely sang:
"Diro che sei d'argente
D'opale, d'ambra e d'or,
Diro che incanti il vento,
E che innamori i fior!"
"You have seemed to me such an ideal of English womanhood!"--he went
on dreamily, hardly aware how far his words were carrying him--"The
sweet and fitting mistress of this dear old house, richly endowed as
it is with noblest memories of the noble dead! Their proud and
tender spirit has looked out of your eyes--or so I have fancied;--
and you are naturally so kind and gentle--you have been so good to
the people in the village,--they all love you--they all wish to
think well of you;--for you have proved yourself practically as well
as emotionally sympathetic to them. And, above all things, you have
appeared so pre-eminently delicate and dainty in your tastes--so
maidenly!--I should as soon have expected to see the Greek Psyche
smoking as you!"
She took a swift step towards him, and laid her hand on his arm.
"Can't you forget it?" she said.
He looked at her. Her eyes were humid, and her lips trembled a
little.
"Forget what?" he asked gently.
"That I smoked!"
He hesitated a second.
"I will try!"
"You see!"--went on Maryllia, coaxingly--"we shall have to live in
the same parish, and we shall be compelled to meet each other often-
-and it would never do for you to be always thinking of that
cigarette! Now would it?"
He was silent. The little hand on his arm gave an insistent
pressure.
"Of course when you conjure up such an awful picture as Psyche
smoking, I know just how you feel about it!" And her eyes sparkled
up at him with an arch look which, fortunately for his peace of
mind, his own eyes did not meet,--"And naturally you must hold very
strong opinions on the subject,--dreadfully strong! But then--nobody
has ever thought me at all like Psyche before--so you so--you see!--
" She paused, and John began to feel his heart beating uncomfortably
fast. "It's very nice to be compared to Psyche anyhow!--and of
course she would look impossible and awful with a cigarette in her
mouth! I quite understand! She couldn't smoke,--she wouldn't!--and--
and--_I_ won't! I won't really! You won't believe me, I expect,--but
I assure you, I never smoke! I only did it this evening, because,--
because,--well!--because I thought I ought to defend my own sex
against your censure--and also perhaps--perhaps out of a little bit
of bravado! But, I'm sorry! There! Will you forgive me?"
Nearly, very nearly, John lost his head. Maryllia had used the
strongest weapon in all woman's armoury,--humility,--and he went
down before it, completely overwhelmed and conquered. A swirl of
emotion swept over him,--his brain grew dizzy, and for a moment he
saw nothing in earth or heaven but the sweet upturned face, the soft
caressing eyes, the graceful yielding form clad in its diaphanous
draperies of jewelled gossamer,--then pulling himself together with
a strong effort which made him well-nigh tremble, he took the small
hand that lay in white confidence on his arm, and raised it to his
lips with a grave, courtly, almost cold reverence.
"It is you to forgive ME, Miss Vancourt!"--he said, unsteadily. "For
I am quite aware that I committed a breach of social etiquette at
your table,--and--and--I know I have taken considerable liberty in
speaking my mind to you as I have done. Even as your minister I fear
I have overstepped my privileges---"
"Oh, please don't apologise!" said Maryllia, quickly--"It's all
over, you know! You've said your say, and I've said mine--and I'm
sure we both feel better for it. Don't we?"
John smiled, but his face was very pale, and his eyes were troubled.
He was absorbed in the problem of his own struggling emotions--how
to master them--how to keep them back from breaking into passionate
speech,--and her bewitching, childlike air, half penitent, half
mischievous, was making sad havoc of his self-possession.
"We are friends again now,"--she went on--"And really,--really we
MUST try and keep so!"
This, with a quaint little nod of emphatic decision.
"Do you think it will be difficult?" he asked, looking at her more
earnestly and tenderly than he himself was aware of.
She laughed, and blushed a little.
"I don't know!--it may be!" she said--"You see you've twice ruffled
me up the wrong way! I was very angry--oh, very angry indeed, when
you coolly stopped the service because we all came in late that
Sunday,--and to-night I was very angry again---"
"But I was NOT angry!" said John, simply--"And it takes two to make
a quarrel!"
She peeped at him from under her long lashes and again the fleeting
blush swept over her fair face.
"I must go now!"--she said--"Won't you come into the drawing-room?--
just to hear Cicely sing at her very best?"
"Not to-night,"--he answered quickly--"If you will excuse me---"
"Of course I will excuse you!" and she smiled--"I know you don't
like company."
"I very much DISLIKE it!" he said, emphatically--"But then I'm quite
an unsociable person. You see I've lived alone here for ten years---
"
"And you want to go on living alone for another ten years--I see!"
said Maryllia--"Well! So you shall! I promise I won't interfere!"
He looked at her half appealingly.
"I don't think you understand,"--he said,--then paused.
"Oh yes, I understand perfectly!" And she smiled radiantly. "You
like to be left quite to yourself, with your books and flowers, and
the bits of glass for the rose-window in the church. By the bye, I
must help you with that rose-window! I will get you some genuine old
pieces--and if I find any very rare specimens of medieval blue or
crimson you'll be so pleased that you'll forget all about that
cigarette--you know you will!"
"Miss Vancourt,"--he began earnestly--"if you will only believe that
it is because I think so highly of you--because you have seemed to
me so much above the mere society woman that I---I---"
"I know!" she said, very softly--"I quite see your point of view!"
"You are not of the modern world,"--he went on, slowly--"Not in your
heart--not in your real tastes and sentiments;--not yet, though you
may possibly be forced to become one with it after your marriage---"
"And when will that be?" she interrupted him smiling.
His clear, calm blue eyes rested upon her gravely and searchingly.
"Soon surely,--if report be true!"
"Really? Well, you ought to know whether the date has been fixed
yet,"--she said, very demurely--"Because, of course YOU'LL have to
marry me!"
Something swayed and rocked in John's brain, making the ground he
stood upon swerve and seem unsteady. A wave of colour flushed his
bronzed face up to the very roots of his grey-brown hair. Maryllia
watched him with prettily critical interest, much as a kitten
watches the rolling out of a ball of worsted on which it has just
placed its little furry paw. Hurriedly he sought in his mind for
something to say.
"I---I---don't quite understand,"--he murmured.
"Don't you?" and she smiled upon him blandly--"Surely you wouldn't
expect me to be married in any church but yours, or by any clergyman
but you?"
"Oh, I see!" And Maryllia mentally commented--'So do I!'--while he
heaved a sigh unconsciously, but whether of relief or pain it was
impossible to tell. Looking up, he met her eyes,--so deep and blue,
so strangely compassionate and tender! A faint smile trembled on her
lips.
"Good-night, Mr. Walden!"
"Good-night!" he said; then suddenly yielding to the emotion which
mastered him, he made one swift step to her side--"You will forgive
me, I know!--you will think of me presently with kindness, and with
patience for my old-fashioned ways!--and you will do me the justice
to believe that if I seemed rude to your guests, as you say I was,
it was all for your sake!--because I thought you deserved more
respect from them than that they should smoke in your presence,--and
also, because I felt--I could not help feeling that if your father
had been alive he would not have allowed them to do so,--he would
have been too precious of you,--too careful that nothing of an
indecorous or unwomanly nature should ever be associated with you;--
and--and--I spoke as I did because it seemed to me that someone
SHOULD speak!--someone of years and authority, who from the point of
experience alone, might defend you from the contact of modern
vulgarity;--so--so--I said the first words that came to me--just as
your father might have said them!--yes!--just as your father might
have spoken,--for you--you know you seem little more than a child to
me!--I am so much older than you are, God help me!"
Stooping, he caught her hands and kissed them with a passion of
which he was entirely unconscious,--then turned swiftly from her and
was gone.
She stood where he had left her, trembling a little, but with a
startled radiance in her eyes that made them doubly beautiful. She
was pale to the lips;--her hands,--the hands he had kissed, were
burning. Suddenly, on an impulse which she could not have explained
to herself, she ran swiftly out of the picture-gallery and into the
hall where,--as the great oaken door stood open to the summer
night,--she could see the whole flower-garlanded square of the Tudor
court, gleaming like polished silver in the intense radiance of the
moon. John Walden was walking quickly across it,--she watched him,
and saw him all at once pause near the old stone dial which at this
season of the year was almost hidden by the clambering white roses
that grew around it. He took off his hat and passed his hand over
his brows with an air of dejection and fatigue,--the moonlight fell
full on the clear contour of his features,--and she drew herself and
her sparkling draperies well back into the deep shadow of the portal
lest he should catch a glimpse of her, and, perhaps,--so seeing her,
return--
"And that would never do!" she thought, with a little tremor of fear
running through her which was unaccountably delicious;--"I'm sure it
wouldn't!--not to-night!"
The air was very warm and sultry,--all the windows of the Manor were
thrown open for coolness,--and through those of the drawing-room
came the lovely vibrations of Cicely's pure fresh voice. She was
singing an enchanting melody on which some words of Julian
Adderley's, simple and quaint, without having any claim to
particular poetic merit, floated clearly with distinct and perfect
enunciation--
"A little rose on a young rose-tree
Shed all its crimson blood for me,
Drop by drop on the dewy grass,
Its petals fell, and its life did pass;
Oh little rose on the young rose-tree,
Why did you shed your blood for me?
"A nightingale in a tall pine-tree
Broke its heart in a song for me,
Singing, with moonbeams around it spread,
It fluttered, and fell at my threshold, dead;--
Oh nightingale in the tall pine-tree,
Why did you break your heart for me?
"A lover of ladies, bold and free,
Challenged the world to a fight for me,
But I scorn'd his love in a foolish pride,
And, sword in hand, he fighting died!
Oh lover of ladies, bold and free,
Why did you lose your life for me?"
And again, with plaintive insistence, the last two lines were
repeated, ringing out on the deep stillness of the summer night--
"Oh lover of ladies, told and free,
Why did you lose yowr life for me?"
The song ceased with a clash of chords. It was followed by a subdued
clapping of hands,--a pause of silence--and then a renewed murmur of
conversation. Walden looked up as if suddenly startled from a
reverie, and resumed his quick pace across the courtyard,--and
Maryllia, seeing him go, advanced a little more into the gleaming
moonlight to follow him with her eyes till he should quite
disappear.
"Upon my word, a very quaint little comedy!" said a coldly mocking
voice behind her--"A modern Juliet gazing pathetically after the
retiring form of a somewhat elderly clerical Romeo! Let me
congratulate you, Miss Maryllia, on your newest and most brilliant
achievement,--the conquest of a country parson! It is quite worthy
of you!"
And turning, she confronted Lord Roxmouth.