"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 ought 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.