A KISS TOO LONG.
“Alas, how easily things go wrong!
A sigh too much or a kiss too long;
There comes a mist and a blinding rain,
And things are never the same again!”
Stella had never heard the verses, but something of the same thought
entered into her mind as she drew back, pale and quivering, after that
one passionate kiss interchanged between her and Hilary.
In one magical moment she had learned so much--had learned that she
loved Hilary, that he loved her, and, moreover, that the thought of
marrying her suitor of the morning, which up to now she had been able
to cherish at least without aversion, had suddenly grown intolerable
to her. All this had been taught her by a kiss, the first which ever a
man had laid upon her lips.
With downcast eyes and rapidly beating heart, she stood now before
Hilary, as he rose from the sofa and bent down toward her, holding
both her little trembling hands in one of his.
“It was my fault,” he whispered, humbly. “Forgive me.”
“I--I have nothing to forgive,” the girl said, unsteadily, still
without looking up. “I must go, Lord Carthew.”
“If I were really Lord Carthew,” he said, “there might be some excuse.
But I am not. By a freak of my friend’s, we had changed names for a
while when that accident happened to me. But I never intended the
trick to continue. It is true that he begged me, as a favor, to keep
silence on the subject, especially before you. But, after my folly and
imprudence, I must confess the truth. I cannot masquerade any longer.
Miss Cranstoun, try to forgive me.”
“I have nothing to forgive.”
“You see,” he went on, unheeding, letting her hands go, and standing
at some distance from her, “I was half-dreaming--weakness, I dare say,
proceeding from the ridiculous semi-invalid position I’ve been in
during the last eighteen hours. Suddenly, on opening my eyes, I saw a
face, a very lovely woman’s face, close to me. It seemed a part of my
dreams; I did not stop to consider who she was, and I kissed her.”
“You thought it was some one else, then?”
“I did not say so. But will you forgive me?”
“I forgive you. I understand; I was only a part of your dream. Please
tell me again what you were saying just now. I could not quite grasp
it. What is your real name?”
“Hilary Pritchard. Here,” he continued, fumbling with one hand in his
pocket, “here are cards, letters, and papers, to prove it. No one who
knows the Northborough family could suppose that I belong to it. But
Lord Carthew was my college chum, and I like him as well almost as one
man can like another. I am all the more sorry because I have annoyed
a lady whom I know he very greatly admires.”
“So it is Lord Carthew I have been talking to all last evening and
this morning,” Stella observed, reflectively. “That explains a great
deal.”
She broke off abruptly. What she really meant was that it explained
the fact of her father’s acquiescence to the proposed marriage between
herself and his younger guest; and also to the latter’s way of talking
as though he were wealthy and heir to a title, as well as other points
which had puzzled her.
The door of the sitting-room in which they stood was wide open, and
Dakin, the housemaid, passed along the corridor, apparently without
paying any particular attention to Stella and Hilary; but Stella
disliked and distrusted the woman, and moved toward the door as Dakin
made a great pretence of going down the staircase to the ground-floor.
“I will say good-by now, Miss Cranstoun,” said Hilary, in a
constrained voice. “I shall be leaving the house almost immediately.
May I leave it to you to make my apologies to Lady Cranstoun?”
“But you will stay to luncheon, surely?” Stella suggested. “It will
seem so strange if you go like this. And besides, you are not nearly
strong enough to be moved yet. You can hardly walk, and last night you
were delirious, I know.”
“How do you know?”
She blushed deeply.
“I charm away mamma’s headaches,” she answered, in confusion. “I
believe I have some kind of magnetism in my touch. So I asked Margaret
to let me soothe you.”
“It was you, then. I woke out of a horrid nightmare, and felt your
touch, and heard your voice.”
His tones vibrated with deep feeling, which he was trying vainly to
suppress. Stella, on her part, was torn between a desire to escape and
a longing to remain near him.
The first luncheon-gong rang out in the interval of silence. Stella
held out her hand to him.
“Won’t you stay?” she asked.
“I cannot.”
He was holding her hand close, and through both their frames electric
currents seemed to tingle. The very air about them was charged with
electricity to them, so that both were quivering and excited.
They were standing near the open door, when suddenly Stella turned,
laid her two small hands lightly upon Hilary’s sleeve, and looked up
in his face, her own pale, but transfigured into more than its usual
loveliness by passionate feeling.
“Was it only a dream?” she breathed rather than said. “Or do you love
me?”
Mortal man could hold out in pride no longer. In an instant he had
gathered her up in his arms, and was covering her cheeks, her eyes,
and her lips with close, hot kisses, while he murmured incoherent
words of love into her ear.
Only for one mad, never-to-be-forgotten moment did he hold her thus,
she unresisting, clinging timidly to him, letting her soft lips meet
his in answering passion.
Then he remembered all the difference between them, all the barriers,
all the impossibilities. As in a flash he realized her father’s wrath,
her mother’s astonishment, and the indignation of his loyal friend,
Lord Carthew, and leading Stella gently to the door, he kissed her
hands in token of farewell.
“Good-by,” he whispered. “I will write.”
Then he shut the door, and finding herself alone in the corridor,
dazed and agitated, Stella fled to her own room, and kneeling down
before an arm-chair by the fire, buried her face in her hands, to
enact in imagination the scene again which she had just gone through,
to thrill with ecstasy as she recalled Hilary’s kisses, to blush until
her delicate skin seemed scorched as she remembered her own timid
response, and to long with every fibre of her being for the moment
when she would see him again.
She knew full well now what even to herself she would not own, she
hardly understood before, that from the moment when that man of superb
figure and perfect face had laid his hand upon Zephyr’s bridle on the
preceding evening, and looked into her eyes, she had loved him, and
that but for that she would hardly have braved her father’s anger by
insisting upon Hilary’s removal to the Chase.
She had believed that he positively disliked her, and had secretly
reproached herself for letting her thoughts dwell so persistently upon
a man who scorned her. Only during the past ten minutes had she
learned the truth, that against his will he loved her as passionately
as she loved him. That one glorious fact outweighed all other
considerations in her mind. As to Lord Carthew, he was as completely
forgotten as though he had never existed. His intelligence, his kindly
sympathy, his interesting talk, were of no more account in her eyes
than his wealth and title. The strain of wild gypsy blood in her veins
was showing itself fully now. She loved as gypsy natures can, with a
passionate self-abandonment, counting the world and all that it
contains of no value when compared with the love of the one person
existing who could make life worth living.
Yet she was a Cranstoun, too--trained in habits of strict self-control
from her infancy; and when the second summons to luncheon came, she
sprang up instinctively, smoothed her hair, looked at herself fixedly
in the glass, and hoped that others would not notice the strange glow
in her cheeks and light in her eyes, and went down to lunch in her
plain serge gown, her eyes like two dancing stars, and her mouth all
tremulous with smiles.
It was almost with a start that she came face to face with Lord
Carthew, and realized that he was staying in the house. Lady Cranstoun
glanced at her nervously. She was a few minutes late, and Sir Philip
never overlooked the least unpunctuality. To-day, however, to her
great astonishment, he made no comment upon it. He and Lord Carthew
seemed to get on unusually well together; both had travelled a good
deal in Europe, the former unaccompanied by his wife and daughter, and
they naturally fell to discussing the various hotels at which they had
stayed.
Stella was heartily glad that no part of the conversation devolved
upon her. She sat in her usual place at the head of the table, Lady
Cranstoun not being equal to any of the duties of hostess,
mechanically doing all that was required of her, and all the time
wondering whether Hilary had left the house yet, how he would stand
the journey in his weak condition, whether by any chance she should
see him again before his departure, and if not, how soon he would
write to her. Lord Carthew noticed the brightness of her eyes and her
absent-minded expression, and with a thrill of joy hoped it might
arise from her half-given promise to himself. His interview with her
father had been short, but characteristic of both men.
He had followed the dreaded gray wolf into his vast library,
surrounded by well-filled oaken bookcases, and had watched him take
his accustomed place with his back to the fire, sarcastic, and
critical.
“Sir Philip,” Lord Carthew had begun, plunging at once into his
subject, as he seated himself deliberately in a deep arm-chair,
“first, I must thank you for the hospitality extended to my friend and
myself since yesterday evening. You have no doubt heard of my friend’s
unlucky accident, entirely the result of our trespassing in your
grounds. Next, I must inform you that while out riding this morning, I
made your daughter an offer of marriage.”
“Indeed, Mr.--Pritchard, I think the name is?”
“No, that is not my name, but that of my friend upstairs. To please a
whimsical fancy of my own, we had changed names for the nonce during
our travels. My name is Lord Carthew, and my father, Lord
Northborough, is connected with Lady Cranstoun’s family.”
“May I ask if you are in the habit of going about under an _alias_?”
“I don’t think I have ever had occasion to use any name but my own
until yesterday. The point is, that as Miss Cranstoun expressed an
indifference to titles which almost amounted to hostility, I took
advantage of the fact to continue the jest, and to do my wooing in the
name of my old college friend, whose people are gentlemen farmers in
Yorkshire.”
“Very romantic,” sneered Sir Philip. “May I ask whether this ‘Lord of
Burleigh’ style of courtship won my daughter’s heart?”
“I could not say that. Miss Cranstoun has known me a few hours only,
and I am not possessed of those graces and attractions which charm at
first sight. But at least she did not repel me, and even promised to
think about the matter, subject, of course, to your approval.”
It was difficult for Sir Philip to keep all signs of his satisfaction
from his hard and impassive face.
“I will tell you plainly, Lord Carthew,” he said, after a moment’s
pause, “that after what you have told me, I shall require better
proofs of your identity than your bare word if you wish me to consider
you in the light of a suitor to my daughter’s hand. We Cranstouns are,
as you may know, among the oldest, absolutely the oldest families in
England, and on her mother’s side my daughter is granddaughter to the
Duke of Lanark. I do not think my daughter is especially attached to
me, although she is most devoted to my wife. But she has been brought
up in habits of the strictest obedience, and would not think of
encouraging any admirer without my full sanction. Had you been this
Mr. Pritchard you were pleased to personate, I should most certainly
have never given it.”
“My friend is a gentleman, sir,” returned Lord Carthew, coldly; “and a
man of such high character and superb appearance that any girl might
well fall in love with him, and any father be proud to be connected
with him.”
“In that case, you must pardon me for saying so, but are you not
committing an error of judgment in taking him with you when you go
wife-hunting?”
The bitterness of the sarcasm, reflecting as it did upon his
undistinguished appearance, stung Lord Carthew for one moment only,
and he winced. Then, recovering himself, with an easy smile, he
answered that fortunately for him Mr. Pritchard was not a marrying
man, and proposed, indeed, shortly to leave England and seek his
fortune out West. In the mean time he should be glad to know whether
Sir Philip had any objection to offer against him, Lord Carthew, in
the character of candidate for his daughter’s hand.
“My parents are extremely desirous that I should at once marry some
lady of birth and beauty,” he continued. “My father intends settling
fifteen thousand a year and a house in town upon me as soon as my
choice is made. But I have hardly ever hoped to see my ideals all
realized so perfectly as they are in your lovely and charming
daughter.”
The two men having come to a thorough understanding, it was hard to
say which was the more eager to hurry on the marriage. Even the
strongest and hardest of men, to all appearance, usually have one weak
spot, one touch of human foolishness about them, and in Sir Philip
Cranstoun’s mind there lingered always a haunting fear lest the old
gypsy woman’s prophecy of disgrace and shame to be brought upon him by
his descendants might some day be verified. Over his wife he exercised
the same unquestioned, domineering authority as over the servants of
his household; but he had long ago recognized the proud, dumb protest
in his daughter’s obedience, and had realized that she inherited
something of his own will-power, together with a capability for
passionate resentment and other qualities at the existence of which he
could but guess.
He was all the more relieved at the thought that she would, by her
brilliant marriage with the future Earl of Northborough, at once
retrieve the mistake he himself had made twenty years ago in wedding
Clare Carewe, and relieve his mind from all lurking anxiety on her
account. Lord Carthew was evidently a man of originality and strength
of purpose; even Sir Philip, who cherished a chronic contempt for
nearly all his kind, was compelled to recognize this, and he
congratulated himself heartily on his own sagacity in keeping as
secret, even from herself, his daughter’s half humble origin.
After luncheon Lord Carthew, instead of joining his host in the
smoking-room, repaired to the drawing-room, which Stella quitted
almost as soon as he entered.
He noted her action, and erroneously attributed it to her natural
modesty and shyness in not wishing his offer of marriage to be
discussed before her mother. But in truth, Stella was not thinking of
him at all. She merely wished to be alone that she might think over
the emotions of the morning, and she had hardly given a moment’s
thought to Lord Carthew and his proposal after that brief but
momentous interview with Hilary Pritchard.
It was easy enough, so Lord Carthew found, to win Lady Cranstoun’s
approval of the match. Seating himself near her sofa, he told her in a
few well-chosen words of his love for her daughter, and the ruse he
had practised in pleading his cause in his friend’s name.
“I can never understand my dear Stella’s extraordinary objections
against wealth and position!” exclaimed Lady Cranstoun. “For my part I
am delighted about the whole affair. I thought from the moment when I
first saw you that you had the Douglas eyes. Do you know, with her
strange opinions, I have always been nervous as to whom Stella would
marry? She is so utterly unlike ordinary girls, you see, and I am the
more relieved that it has all turned out so well.”
“You really think she will have me, then?”
“Certainly I do,” returned Lady Cranstoun, opening her pale blue eyes
in surprise. “Of course, as she says, she has not known you long
enough to love you; but she has a very high regard for you, and you
seem to have similar tastes. She even--I hope I am not betraying her
confidence--but she even asked me if I should like to go for a voyage
with you after you were married, and drew a most charming picture of
the deck of a ship with all of us assembled there.”
A faint color came into the poor lady’s face as she spoke. The
prospect of leaving the Chase, and her husband’s cold, tyrannical
dislike, seemed to momentarily restore her lost youth and health. Lord
Carthew was delighted at her encouraging words.
“There is no breach of confidence,” he said. “Your daughter said as
much to me. I think I may consider myself as the happiest man in
England at this moment.”
Meanwhile, under the trees of the same shrubbery where her
grandfather, Hiram Carewe, was shot down and murdered nineteen years
before, Stella Cranstoun walked, with feet that seemed hardly to touch
the ground, her thoughts absorbed by Hilary. She would not think of
the future. The fact that he loved her should be enough for her for
one happy day at least, until she could hear from him.
Turning into a fresh glade, where the branches overarched above her,
she came unexpectedly face to face with her father. The flush died
from her cheeks, the light from her eyes. She bowed coldly and would
have passed on, when he barred her progress with his arm.
“Wait!” he said. “I have something to ask you. What is this about a
proposal of marriage made to you this morning by a Mr. Hilary
Pritchard?”
She looked at him scornfully. She knew quite well that he was trying
to deceive her.
“You have been misinformed,” she said. “The gentleman who asked me to
marry him was Viscount Carthew.”
“And what was your answer?”
“I have not yet given it. But it will most certainly be ‘No!’”