I have a great deal to write, and yet it is only a few hours since I shut
up this book and replaced the key on my bracelet.
By a quarter-past three I was making my way through Grosvenor Square.
Everything was misty and blurred, but not actually a thick fog--or any
chance of being lost. By the time I got into the park it had lifted a
little. It seemed close and warm, and as I went on I got more depressed. I
have never been out alone before--that in itself seemed strange, and ought
to have amused me.
The image of Christopher kept floating in front of me; his face seemed to
have the expression of a satyr. Well, at all events, he would never be
able to break my heart like "Alicia Verney's"--nothing could ever make me
care for him. I tried to think of all the good I was going to get out of
the affair, and how really fond I was of Branches.
I walked very fast; people loomed at me, and then disappeared in the mist.
It was getting almost dusk, and suddenly I felt tired and sat down on a
bench.
I had wandered into a side path where there were no chairs. On the bench
before mine I saw, as I passed, a tramp huddled up. I wondered what his
thoughts were, and if he felt any more miserable than I did. I dare say I
was crouching in a depressed position, too.
Not many people went by, and every moment it grew darker. In all my life,
even on the days when Mrs. Carruthers taunted me about mamma being nobody,
I have never felt so wretched. Tears kept rising in my eyes, and I did not
even worry to blink them away. Who would see me, and who in the world
would care if they did see?
Suddenly I was conscious that a very perfect figure was coming out of the
mist towards me, but not until he was close to me, and stopping, with a
start, peered into my face, did I recognize it was Lord Robert.
"Evangeline!" he exclaimed, in a voice of consternation. "I--what, oh!
what is the matter?"
No wonder he was surprised. Why he had not taken me for some tramp, too,
and passed on, I don't know.
"Nothing," I said, as well as I could, and tried to tilt my hat over my
eyes. I had no veil on, unfortunately.
"I have just been for a walk. Why do you call me Evangeline and why are
you not in Northumberland?"
He looked so tall and beautiful, and his face had no expression of
contempt or anger now, only distress and sympathy.
"I was suddenly put on guard yesterday, and could not get leave. I am
going to-morrow," he said, not answering the first part, "but, oh, I can't
bear to see you sitting here alone and looking so, so miserable. Mayn't I
take you home? You will catch cold in the damp."
"Oh no, not yet. I won't go back yet," I said, hardly realizing what I was
saying. He sat down beside me and slipped his hand into my muff, pressing
my clasped fingers, the gentlest, friendliest caress a child might have
made in sympathy. It touched some foolish chord in my nature, some want of
self-control inherited from mamma's ordinary mother, I suppose; anyway the
tears poured down my face. I could not help it. Oh, the shame of it! To
sit crying in the park, in front of Lord Robert, of all people in the
world, too!
"Dear, dear little girl," he said, "tell me about it," and he held my hand
in my muff with his strong, warm hand.
"I--I have nothing to tell," I said, choking down a sob. "I am ashamed
for you to see me like this, only--I am feeling so very miserable."
"Dear child!" he said. "Well, you are not to be--I won't have it. Has some
one been unkind to you? Tell me, tell me." His voice was trembling with
distress.
"It's--it's nothing," I mumbled.
I dared not look at him, I knew his eyebrows would be up in that way that
attracts me so dreadfully.
"Listen," he whispered almost, and bent over me. "I want you to be friends
with me so that I can help you. I want you to go back to the time we
packed your books together. God knows what has come between us since--it
is not of my doing. But I want to take care of you, dear little girl,
to-day. It--oh, it hurts me so to see you crying here!"
"I--would like to be friends," I said. "I never wanted to be anything
else, but I could not help it, and I can't now."
"Won't you tell me the reason?" he pleaded. "You have made me so
dreadfully unhappy about it. I thought all sorts of things. You know I am
a jealous beast."
There can't in the world be another voice as engaging as Lord Robert's,
and he has a trick of pronouncing words that is too attractive; and the
way his mouth goes when he is speaking, showing his perfectly chiselled
lips under the little mustache! There is no use pretending. I was sitting
there on the bench going through thrills of emotion and longing for him to
take me in his arms. It is too frightful to think of. I must be bad, after
all.
"Now you are going to tell me everything about it," he commanded. "To
begin with: what made you suddenly change at Trylands after the first
afternoon--and then, what is it that makes you so unhappy now?"
"I can't tell you either," I said, very low. I hoped the common
grandmother would not take me as far as doing mean tricks to Lady Ver.
"Oh, you have made me wild!" he exclaimed, letting go my hand and leaning
both elbows on his knees, while he pushed his hat to the back of his
head--"perfectly mad with fury and jealousy! That brute Malcolm! And then
looking at Campion at dinner, and, worst of all, Christopher in the box at
'Carmen'! Wicked, naughty little thing! And yet underneath I have a
feeling it is for some absurd reason, and not for sheer devilment. If I
thought that, I would soon get not to care. I did think it at 'Carmen.'"
"Yes, I know," I said.
"You know what?" he looked up, startled; then he took my hand again and
sat close to me.
"Oh, please, please don't, Lord Robert!" I said.
It really made me quiver so with the loveliest feeling I have ever known,
that I knew I should never be able to keep my head if he went on.
"Please, please don't hold my hand," I said. "It--it makes me not able to
behave nicely."
"Darling," he whispered, "then it shows that you like me, and I sha'n't
let go until you tell me every little bit."
"Oh, I can't, I can't!" I felt too tortured, and yet, waves of joy were
rushing over me. That _is_ a word, "darling," for giving feelings down the
back.
"Evangeline," he said, quite sternly, "will you answer this question,
then: Do you like me, or do you hate me? Because, as you must know very
well, I love you."
Oh, the wild joy of hearing him say that! What in the world did anything
else matter? For a moment there was a singing in my ears, and I forgot
everything but our two selves. Then the picture of Christopher waiting for
me, with his cold cynic's face and eyes blazing with passion, rushed into
my vision, and the duke's critical, suspicious, disapproving scrutiny,
and I felt as if a cry of pain, like a wounded animal, escaped me.
"Darling, darling, what is it? Did I hurt your dear little hand?" Lord
Robert exclaimed, tenderly.
"No," I whispered, brokenly; "but I cannot listen to you. I am going back
to Claridge's now, and I am going to marry Mr. Carruthers."
He dropped my hand as if it stung him.
"Good God! Then it is true," was all he said.
In fear I glanced at him, his face looked gray in the quickly gathering
mist.
"Oh, Robert!" I said, in anguish, unable to help myself. "It isn't because
I want to. I--I--oh, probably I love you, but I must; there is nothing
else to be done."
"Isn't there?" he said, all the life and joy coming back to his face. "Do
you think I will let Christopher, or any other man in the world have you,
now that you have confessed that?" and, fortunately, there was no one in
sight, because he put his arms round my neck and drew me close and kissed
my lips.
Oh, what nonsense people talk of heaven! Sitting on clouds and singing
psalms and things like that! There can't be any heaven half so lovely as
being kissed by Robert. I felt quite giddy with happiness for several
exquisite seconds, then I woke up. It was all absolutely impossible, I
knew, and I must keep my head.
"Now you belong to me," he said, letting his arm slip down to my waist,
"so you must begin at the beginning, and tell me everything."
"No, no," I said, struggling feebly to free myself, and feeling so glad he
held me tight. "It is impossible, all the same, and that only makes it
harder. Christopher is coming to see me at four, and I promised Lady Ver I
would not be a fool, and would marry him."
"A fig for Lady Ver," he said, calmly. "If that is all, you leave her to
me--she never argues with me."
"It is not only that; I--I promised I would never play with you."
"And you certainly never shall," he said, and I could see a look in his
eye as he purposely misconstrued my words, and then he deliberately kissed
me again. Oh, I like it better than anything else in the world! How could
any one keep their head with Robert quite close, making love like that?
"You certainly never--never--shall," he said again, with a kiss between
each word. "I will take care of that. Your time of playing with people is
over, mademoiselle. When you are married to me, I shall fight with any one
who dares to look at you."
"But I shall never be married to you, Robert," I said, though as I could
only be happy for such a few moments I did not think it necessary to move
away out of his arms. How thankful I was to the fog! and no one passing! I
shall always adore fogs.
"Yes, you will," he announced, with perfect certainty, "in about a
fortnight, I should think. I can't and won't have you staying at
Claridge's by yourself. I shall take you back this afternoon to Aunt
Sophia. Only all that we can settle presently; now for the moment I want
you to tell me you love me, and that you are sorry for being such a little
brute all this time."
"I did not know it until just now, but I think--I probably do love
you--Robert," I said.
He was holding my hand in my muff again, the other arm round my waist.
Absolutely disgraceful behavior in the park. We might have been Susan Jane
and Thomas Augustus, and yet I was perfectly happy, and felt it was the
only natural way to sit.
A figure appeared in the distance--we started apart.
"Oh, really, really--" I gasped--"we---- you--must be different."
He leaned back and laughed.
"You sweet darling! Well, come, we will go for a drive in a hansom; we
will choose one without a light inside. Albert Gate is quite close--come!"
and he rose, and taking my arm, not offering his to me, like in books, he
drew me on down the path.
I am sure any one would be terribly shocked to read what I have written,
but not so much if they knew Robert, and how utterly adorable he is, and
how masterful, and simple, and direct. He does not split straws or bandy
words. I had made the admission that I loved him, and that was enough to
go upon.
As we walked along I tried to tell him it was impossible, that I must go
back to Christopher, that Lady Ver would think I had broken my word about
it. I did not, of course, tell him of her bargain with me over him, but he
probably guessed that, because before we got into the hansom even, he had
begun to put me through a searching cross-examination as to the reasons
for my behavior at Tryland, and Park Street, and the opera. I felt like a
child with a strong man, and every moment more idiotically happy and in
love with him.
He told the cabman to drive to Hammersmith, and then put his arm round my
waist again, and held my hand, pulling my glove off backward first. It is
a great, big, granny muff of sable I have, Mrs. Carruthers's present on my
last birthday. I never thought then to what charming use it would be put.
"Now I think we have demolished all your silly little reasons for making
me miserable," he said. "What others have you to bring forward as to why
you can't marry me in a fortnight?"