"I--will you be angry or disappointed when I confess that I cannot, that I do not love him."
"Oh, Cynthia, child; what do you know about love?" he said impatiently.
"Enough to know that it would be wrong to take a man"s love and give him nothing in return." Now her voice was steady, convincing.
He had a sudden thought. Like a vision the stalwart form of the young sailor rose before him. He had carried admiration, yes, love in his eyes. What if he had carried more than that away?
"Cynthia, is there some one else, some one you _could_ love----"
"There is some one else." Her tone was very low, but brave. That admission would settle the matter.
"Are you to wait three years for him?"
"For whom?" in surprise.
Then he glanced up. Her face, that had been lily-white, was flushed from brow to neck. What was there in the beautiful, entreating eyes?
"Cynthia?" All his firmness gave way.
His arm stole softly around her, drew her a trifle down. "Tell me! Tell me!" he cried, yet he had no idea he was asking her to lay her heart bare. There was still the boy Anthony.
"Cousin Chilian, if a woman loved very much, would it be a shame to her if, unasked, she----"
Her head sank down on his shoulder. He felt the warm, throbbing breath on his cheek. He drew her closer. Did the slim, palpitating body betray its secret?
"Oh, Cynthia, child, the most precious thing in all the world to me, tell me that I will not have to give you to another, that I may keep you to myself. For I cannot comprehend how so great a joy could come to me.
And whether I would have the right to take your sweet young life, that should be replete with the joys of youth, with the gladness that is its proper birthright."
"If I gave it to you? If I could never have given it to any other?"
He drew her down closer, and the gentle yielding, the sort of rapturous sigh, answered him better than any words. He pressed kisses on the unresisting lips, kisses that then were sacred to affianced lovers and husbands.
Was it an hour or half a lifetime? He inclined her to his knee as he had when she was a little girl, but at length he came back to his senses.
"Cynthia," he began with tender gravity, "there are many points to consider. Do you know that I am more than double your age----"
"Don"t tell that to me. Isn"t love as sweet?"
Could he deny it in the face of that ravishing smile, those appealing eyes.
"Still--the world will think about it. And you are a rich young woman, you could take your pick of lovers----"
"But they are all so troublesome," she interrupted. "And one gets affronted with the other. And if I picked very much I might be called a flirt, perhaps I have been. I didn"t want them, only to dance and be merry with, and there are so many pretty girls in the world--enough for all of them."
He smiled a little and it gave her a heartache to see how thin he had grown, and there were new creases in his forehead that had been so fair and smooth.
"And if some day you should repent?"
"I"m not going to repent. Why should one when one gets the thing one wanted?"
There was a touch of the old brightness in her tone. Had she really wanted him?
"I"ve been very naughty with all these lovers, haven"t I? But no one came near enough to really ask me that question until last night, though Mr. Marsh thought he would if he were going to stay. And Cousin Chilian, I had made up my mind truly, I thought, for I liked Mr. Saltonstall very much, and it seemed to me you wanted me to----" Her voice died away in pathos.
"I did. Oh, you must know the worst of me. When I found you were growing into my very heart, and I began to feel jealous of the young men, I took myself in hand as a most reprehensible old fellow. But I found you had entwined yourself in every fibre of my heart, and it was hard indeed to uproot you."
"And you really tried?" Her tone was upbraiding.
"I tried like an honest, upright man. I shall never be ashamed of the effort. I would not mar or spoil your life. You see you might have loved some of these brave young lads. You might have been very happy with them."
"Oh, you can"t have but one husband;" in laughing gayety.
He flushed at her mischief.
"I wonder when you began to love me? And what has made you so cold and distant, as if you were taking your affection away?"
"I was--I was--Heaven forgive me! I was learning to live without you; to go back to a life more solitary than it was before you came. And, Cynthia, you were not altogether a welcome guest. I did not know what to do with a little girl. I was set in my ways. I did not like to be disturbed. I could have sent a boy off to school. And Elizabeth thought it a trouble, too. You must read your father"s letter and see the trust he reposed in me. But you were such a strange, shy little thing, and so delicate in all your ways. You never touched an article without permission, you handled books so gently, you never made dog"s-ears, or crumpled a page. And that winter you were ill--and the faith you had in his return. How many times my heart ached for you. After that I could not have given you up, and I fell into a sort of belief that it would go on this always. When the lovers began to come, I found I must awake from my delusion. And then I knew that an oldish fellow could love a sweet girl in her first bloom, but that it would be a selfish, unpardonable thing."
"Not if she loved him!" She raised her face in all its sweet bravery of color.
"But it was his duty to let her see what pleasure there was in the world for youth; it was the promise to her dead father, who had confided his treasure to him. And even now he hesitates, lest you shall not have the best of everything."
"I shall have the best;" with winning confidence.
"I loved your mother. I was a young lad, and she some five years older.
I suppose I was like a young brother to her, because your father, her lover, had been here so much. And somehow, you slipped into the place where there never had been any other."
"It must have been kept for me," she said gravely. "And now I give you warning that I shall never go out of it. No place could ever be so dear as this house with all its memories. I am glad you knew and loved my mother."
It came noon before they were talked out, or before they had settled only one point, about which she would have her way. She wrote a pretty note to Mr. Saltonstall, reiterating some things she had said the evening before, and acknowledging that when she had tried to accept him, she had found her heart was another"s, "and you are worthy of a woman"s best love," she added, which did comfort him.
Still it puzzled him a good deal, but he finally settled upon Anthony and thought it a rather foolish choice. No doubt but that Giles Leverett was back of it all.
They told Cousin Eunice and Miss Winn. The former cried for sheer joy.
She seemed older than her years, but she was well and bid fair to live years yet.
"Then you will never go away. I could not live without you, and as for Chilian----"
"It would only be half a life," returned the lover, and he kissed Cousin Eunice.
Miss Winn hardly knew whether to be pleased or not. She liked Mr.
Saltonstall very much for his gayety, good humor, and fine presence, and then he had the divine gift of youth to match hers. Would she not tire of Chilian Leverett"s grave life?
CHAPTER XVIII