"Love, like a June rose,
Buds and sweetly blows--
But tears its leaves disclose,
And among thorns it grows."
The professor had been standing inside the curtain for a full minute
before Perpetua had seen him. Spell-bound he had stood there, gazing
at the girl as if bewitched. Up to this he had seen her only in
black--black always--severe, cold--but _now!_
It is to him as though he had seen her for the first time. The
graceful curves of her neck, her snowy arms, the dead white of the
gown against the whiter glory of the soft bosom, the large, dark
eyes so full of feeling, the little dainty head! Are they _all_
new--or some sweet, fresher memory of a picture well beloved?
Then he had seen his brother!--Hastings--the disgrace, the _roué_--
and bending over _her!..._ There had been that little movement, and
the girl's calm drawing back, and----
The professor's step forward at that moment had betrayed him to
Perpetua.
She rises now, letting her fan fall without thought to the ground.
"You!" cries she, in a little, soft, quick way. _"You!"_ Indeed it
seems to her impossible that it can be he.
She almost runs to him. If she had quite understood Sir Hastings is
impossible to know, for no one has ever asked her since, but
certainly the advent of her guardian is a relief to her.
"You!" she says again, as if only half believing. Her gaze grows
bewildered. If he had never seen her in anything but black before,
she had never seen him in aught but rather antiquated morning
clothes. Is this really the professor? Her eyes ask the question
anxiously. This tall, aristocratic, perfectly appointed man; this
man who looks positively _young_. Where are the glasses that until
now hid his eyes? Where is that old, old coat?
"Yes." Yes, the professor certainly and as disagreeable as possible.
His eyes are still aflame; but Perpetua is not afraid of him. She is
angry with him, in a measure, but not afraid. One _might_ be afraid
of Sir Hastings, but of Mr. Curzon, no!
The professor had seen the glad rush of the girl towards him, and a
terrible pang of delight had run through all his veins--to be
followed by a reaction. She had come to him because she _wanted_
him, because he might be of use to her, not because-- What had
Hastings been saying to her? His wrathful eyes are on his brother
rather than on her when he says:
"You are tired?"
"Yes," says Perpetua.
"Shall I take you to Gwendoline?"
"Yes," says Perpetua again.
"Miss Wynter is in my care at present," says Sir Hastings, coming
indolently forward. "Shall I take you to Lady Baring?" asks he,
addressing Perpetua with a suave smile.
"She will come with me," says the professor, with cold decision.
"A command!" says Sir Hastings, laughing lightly. "See what it is,
Miss Wynter, to have a hard-hearted guardian." He shrugs his
shoulders. Perpetua makes him a little bow, and follows the
professor out of the conservatory.
"If you are tired," says the professor, somewhat curtly, and without
looking at her, "I should think the best thing you could do would be
to go to bed!"
This astounding advice receives but little favor at Miss Wynter's
hands.
"I am tired of your brother," says she promptly. "He is as tiresome
a creation as I know--but not of your sister's party; and--I'm too
old to be sent to bed, even by a _Guardian!!"_ She puts a very big
capital to the last word.
"I don't want to send you to bed," says the professor simply.
"Though I think little girls like you----"
"I am not a little girl," indignantly.
"Certainly you are not a big one," says he. It is an untimely
remark. Miss Wynter's hitherto ill-subdued anger now bursts into
flame.
"I can't help it if I'm not big," cries she. "It isn't my fault. I
can't help it either that papa sent me to you. _I_ didn't want to go
to you. It wasn't my fault that I was thrown upon your hands.
And--and"--her voice begins to tremble--"it isn't my fault either
that you _hate_ me."
"That I--hate you!" The professor's voice is cold and shocked.
"Yes. It is true. You need not deny it. You _know_ you hate me."
They are now in an angle of the hall where few people come and go,
and are, for the moment, virtually alone.
"Who told you that I hated you?" asks the professor in a peremptory
sort of way.
"No," says she, shaking her head, "I shall not tell you that, but I
have heard it all the same."
"One hears a great many things if one is foolish enough to listen."
Curzon's face is a little pale now. "And--I can guess who has been
talking to you."
"Why should I not listen? It is true, is it not?"
She looks up at him. She seems tremulously anxious for the answer.
"You want me to deny it then?"
"Oh no, _no!"_ she throws out one hand with a little gesture of
mingled anger and regret. "Do you think I want you to _lie_ to me?
There I am wrong. After all," with a half smile, sadder than most
sad smiles because of the youth and sweetness of it, "I do not blame
you. I _am_ a trouble, I suppose, and all troubles are hateful.
I"--holding out her hand--"shall take your advice, I think, and go
to bed."
"It was bad advice," says Curzon, taking the hand and holding it.
"Stay up, enjoy yourself, dance----"
"Oh! I am not dancing," says she as if offended.
"Why not?" eagerly. "Better dance than sleep at your age. You--you
mistook me. Why go so soon?"
She looks at him with a little whimsical expression.
"I shall not know you _at all_, presently," says she. "Your very
appearance to-night is strange to me, and now your sentiments! No, I
shall not be swayed by you. Good-night, good-bye!" She smiles at him
in the same sorrowful little way, and takes a step or two forward.
"Perpetua," says the professor sternly, "before you go, you must
listen to me. You said just now you would not hear me lie to
you--you shall hear only the truth. Whoever told you that I hated
you is the most unmitigated liar on record!"
Perpetua rubs her fan up and down against her cheek for a little
bit.
"Well--I'm glad you don't hate me," says she, "but still I'm a
worry. Never mind,"--sighing--"I daresay I shan't be so for long."
"You mean?" asks the professor anxiously.
"Nothing--nothing at all. Good-night. Good-night _indeed."_
"Must you go? Is enjoyment nothing to you?"
"Ah! you have killed all that for me," says she. This parting shaft
she hurls at him--_malice prepense_. It is effectual. By it she
murders sleep as thoroughly as ever did Macbeth. The professor
spends the remainder of the night pacing up and down his rooms.