“We have had no news yet.”
“You could scarcely have done so, could you? It was the only excuse I could think of.” He paused, the laughter arrested in his eyes as they searched her face. “What is it?” he asked, in quite another tone.
She answered with forced lightness: “Why, nothing!”
“No, don’t fob me off! Tell me!” he insisted. “Something has happened to distress you: has that spoilt child been plaguing you?”
She had known that it would be a dreadful interview, but not that he would rend her in two by so instantly perceiving the trouble in her face, or by speaking to her in that voice of concern. She managed to summon up a laugh, and to say: “Good gracious, no! Indeed, sir,—”
“Then what?”
How could you ask a man if it was true that he had several love-begotten children? It was wholly impossible: not even the boldest female could do it! Besides, it would be useless: she knew the answer, and her knowledge had not come to her from a doubtful, or a spiteful source: Lindeth had said it, not dreaming of mischief, treating it as only a slightly regrettable commonplace. The thought stiffened her resolution; she said, in a stronger voice: “Nothing more serious than a headache. I fancy there’s thunder in the air: it always gives me the headache. Tiffany isn’t feeling quite the thing either. Indeed, I should be with her, not talking to morning-visitors! I hope you may not think it uncivil in me to run away, Sir Waldo, but—”
“I don’t think you unciviclass="underline" merely untruthful! Why do you call me a morning-visitor, when you know very well I’ve been awaiting the opportunity to see you privately—and certainly not with the object of uttering social inanities?” He smiled at her. “Are you fearful of offending against the proprieties? You’re not so missish! And even the most strictly guarded girl, you know, is permitted to receive an offer of marriage unchaperoned!”
She put out her hand, in a repelling gesture, averting her head, and saying imploringly: “No, don’t say it! pray don’t!”
“But, my dear—!”
“Sir Waldo, I am very much obliged to you—much honoured—but I can’t accept your—your very flattering offer!” !
“Why not?” he asked quietly.
Dismayed, she realized that she ought to have foreseen that he would say something quite unexpected. She had not, and was betrayed into incoherence. “I don’t—I could never—I have no intention of—no thought of marriage!”
He was silent for a moment, a crease between his brows, his eyes, fixed on her profile, a little puzzled. He said at last: “Don’t you think that you might perhaps bring yourself to give marriage a thought? It’s quite easy, you know! Only consider for how many more years than you I never gave it a thought. And then I met you, and loved you, and found that I was thinking of very little else! Forgive me!—I don’t mean to sound presumptuous—but I can’t believe that you are as indifferent to me as you’d have me think!”
She flushed. “I am aware that I—that I gave you reason to suppose that it would not be disagreeable to me to receive this offer. Even that I have encouraged you! I didn’t mean it so. Circumstances have thrown us a good deal together, and—and I found you amusing and conversable, and was led, I am afraid, into—into treating you with a familiarity which you mistook for something warmer than mere liking!”
“You are wrong,” he replied. “So far from encouraging me, or treating me with familiarity, you have been at pains to hold me at arm’s length. But there has been a look in your eyes—I can’t explain, but I couldn’t mistake it, unless I were blind, or a green youth, and I’m neither!”
“I don’t doubt that you have had a great deal of experience, sir, but in this instance I assure you you have been misled.”
“Yes, I have had experience,” he said, looking gravely at her. “Is that what’s in your mind?”
“No—that is,—Sir Waldo, I must be frank with you, and tell you that even if I wished to be married, I could never wish for marriage with a man whose tastes—whose mode of life—is so much opposed to everything which I have been taught to hold in esteem!”
“My dear girl,” he said, between hurt and amusement, “I’m really not quite as frippery a fellow as you seem to think! I own that in my grasstime I committed a great many follies and extravagances, but, believe me, I’ve long since outgrown them! I don’t think they were any worse than what nine out of ten youngsters commit, but unfortunately I achieved, through certain circumstances, a notoriety which most young men escape. I was born with a natural aptitude for the sporting pursuits you regard with so much distrust, and I inherited, at far too early an age, a fortune which not only enabled me to indulge my tastes in the most expensive manner imaginable, but which made me an object of such interest that everything I did was noted, and talked of. That’s heady stuff for greenhorns, you know! There was a time when I gave the gossips plenty to talk about. But do give me credit for having seen the error of my ways!”
“Yes—oh, yes! But—Sir Waldo, I beg you to say no more! My mind is made up, and discussion can only be painful to us both! I have been very much at fault—I can only ask your forgiveness! If I had known that you were not merely flirting with me—”
“But you did know it,” he interposed. “You’re not a fool, and you can’t have supposed that when I told you I wanted to be private with you, because I had a proposition to lay before you, I was flirting with you! You didn’t suppose it. Something has occurred since I met you in the village which has brought about this change in you—and I fancy I know what it must have been!”
Her eyes lifted quickly to his face, and sank again.
“Tell me!” he said imperatively. “Have you been accused of setting your cap at me? Yes, that’s an outrageous question, isn’t it? But I know very well that a certain weasel-faced lady of our acquaintance has said it, for she did so within my hearing, and I daresay she would not scruple to say it within yours. Has she done so? Could you be so absurd as to reject me for such a reason as that?”
“No! If I returned your regard, it would not weigh with me!”
“I see. There doesn’t seem to be anything more I can say, does there?”
She could only shake her head, not daring to trust her voice. She saw that he was holding out his hand, and she reluctantly laid her own in it. He lifted it, and kissed her fingers. “I wish you did return my regard,” he said. “More than I have ever wished anything in my life! Perhaps you may yet learn to do so: I should warn you that I don’t easily despair!”
Chapter 15
The Nonesuch had gone, and Miss Trent’s only desire was to reach the refuge of her bedchamber before her overcharged emotions broke their bonds. Sobs, crowding in her chest, threatened to suffocate her; tears, spilling over her eyelids, had to be brushed hastily aside; she crossed the hall blindly, and as she groped for the baluster-rail, setting her foot upon the first stair, Tiffany came tripping down, her good humour restored by the news that Sir Waldo had come to visit her.
“Oh, were you coming to find me?” she said blithely. “Totton sent a message up, so you need not have put yourself to that trouble, Ancilla dearest! Is he in the Green Saloon? I have had such a capital notion! Now that Mr Calver has taught me to drive so well, I mean to try if I can’t coax Sir Waldo to let me drive his chestnuts! Only think what a triumph it would be! Mr Calver says no female has ever driven any of his horses!”
It was surprising how swiftly the habit of years could reassert itself. Miss Trent was sick with misery, but her spirit responded automatically to the demands made upon it. She had thought that any attempt to speak must result in a burst of tears, but she heard her own voice say, without a tremor: “He has gone. He came only to discover if we had yet had news of our travellers, and would not stay.”