"Am I to understand by your silence that you fear to pain me?" he says, at length, in a low voice. "Is it impossible to you to love me?
Well, do not speak. I can see by your face that the hope I have been cherishing for so many weeks has been a vain one. Forgive me for troubling you: and believe I shall never forget how tenderly you shrank from telling me you could never return my love."
Again he presses her hand to his lips; and she, turning her face slowly to his, looks up at him. Her late tears were but a summer shower, and have faded away, leaving no traces as they pa.s.sed.
"But I didn"t mean one word of all that," she says, navely, letting her long lashes fall once more over her eyes.
"Then what did you mean?" demands he, with some pardonable impatience.
"Quite the contrary, all through?"
"N--ot quite,"--with hesitation.
"At least, that some day you will be my wife?"
"N--ot altogether."
"Well, you can"t be half my wife," says Mr. Brans...o...b.. promptly.
"Darling, _darling_, put me out of my misery, and say what I want you to say."
"Well, then, yes." She gives the promise softly, shyly, but without the faintest touch of any deeper, tenderer emotion. Had Dorian been one degree less in love with her, he could have hardly failed to notice this fact. As it is, he is radiant, in a very seventh heaven of content.
"But you must promise me faithfully never to be unkind to me again,"
says Georgie, impressively, laying a finger on his lips.
"Unkind?"
"Yes; _dreadfully_ unkind: just think of all the terrible things you said, and the way you said them. Your eyes were as big as half-crowns, and you looked exactly as if you would like to eat me. Do you know, you reminded me of Aunt Elizabeth!"
"Oh, Georgie!" says Brans...o...b.., reproachfully. He has grown rather intimate with Aunt Elizabeth and her iniquities by this time, and fully understands that to be compared with her hardly tends to raise him in his beloved"s estimation.
There is silence between them after this, that lasts a full minute,--a long time for lovers freshly made.
"What are you thinking of?" asks Dorian, presently, bending to look tenderly into her downcast eyes. Perhaps he is hoping eagerly that she has been wasting a thought upon him.
"I shall never have to teach those horrid lessons again," she says, with a quick sigh of relief.
If he is disappointed, he carefully conceals it. He laughs, and, lifting her exquisite face, kisses her gently.
"Never," he says, emphatically. "When you go home, tell Mr. Redmond all about it; and to-morrow Clarissa will go down to the vicarage and bring you up to Gowran, where you must stay until we are married."
"I shall like that," says Georgie, with a sweet smile. "But, Mr.
Brans...o...b..----"
"Who on earth is Mr. Brans...o...b..?" asks Dorian. "Don"t you know my name yet?"
"I do. I think it is almost the prettiest name I ever heard,--Dorian."
"_Darling!_ I never thought it a nice name before; but now that you have called me by it, I can feel its beauty. But I dare say if I had been christened Jehoshaphat I should, under these circ.u.mstances, think just the same. Well, you were going to say----?"
"Perhaps Clarissa will not care to have me for so long."
"So long? How long? By the by, perhaps she wouldn"t; so I suppose we had better be married as soon as ever we can."
"I haven"t got any clothes," says Miss Broughton; at which they both laugh gayly, as though it were the merriest jest in the world.
"You terrify me," says Brans...o...b... "Let me beg you will rectify such a mistake as soon as possible."
"We have been here a long time," says Georgie, suddenly, glancing at the sun, that is almost sinking out of sight behind the solemn firs.
"It hasn"t been ten minutes," says Mr. Brans...o...b.., conviction making his tone brilliant.
"Oh, nonsense!" says Georgie. "I am sure it must be quite two hours since you came."
As it has been barely one, this is rather difficult to endure with equanimity.
"How long you have found it!" he says, with some regret. He is honestly pained, and his eyes grow darker. Looking at him, she sees what she has done, and, though ignorant of the very meaning of the word "love," knows that she has hurt him more than he cares to confess.
"I have been happy,--quite happy," she says, sweetly, coloring warmly as she says it. "You must not think I have found the time you have been with me dull or dreary. Only, I am afraid Clarissa will miss me."
"I should think any one would miss you," says Dorian, impulsively. He smiles at her as he speaks; but there is a curious mingling of sadness and longing and uncertainty in his face. Laying one arm round her, with his other hand he draws her head down on his breast.
"At least, before we go, you will kiss me once," he says, entreatingly. All the gayety--the gladness--has gone from his voice; only the deep and lasting love remains. He says this, too, hesitatingly, as though half afraid to demand so great a boon.
"Yes; I think I should like to kiss you," says Georgie, kindly; and then she raises herself from his embrace, and, standing on tiptoe, places both hands upon his shoulders, and with the utmost calmness lays her lips on his.
"Do you know," she says, a moment later, in no wise disconcerted because of the warmth of the caress he has given her in exchange for hers,--"do you know, I never remember kissing any one in all my life before, except poor papa, and Clarissa, and you."
Even at this avowal she does not blush. Were he her brother, or an aged nurse, she could scarcely think less about the favor she has just conferred upon the man who is standing silently regarding her, puzzled and disappointed truly, but earnestly registering a vow that sooner or later, if faithful love can accomplish it, he will make her all his own, in heart and soul.
Not that he has ever yet gone so deeply into the matter as to tell himself the love is all on his own side. Instinctively he shrinks from such inward confession. It is only when he has parted from her, and is riding quietly homeward through the wistful gloaming, that he remembers, with a pang, how, of all the thousand and one things asked and answered, one alone has been forgotten. He has never desired of her whether she loves him.
CHAPTER XXV.
"Love set me up on high: when I grew vain Of that my height, love brought me down again.
"The heart of love is with a thousand woes Pierced, which secure indifference never knows.
"The rose aye wears the silent thorn at heart, And never yet might pain for love depart."--TRENCH.
When Mrs. Redmond, next morning, is made aware of Georgie"s engagement to Dorian Brans...o...b.., her curiosity and excitement know no bounds. For once she is literally struck dumb with amazement. That Dorian, who is heir to an earldom, should have fixed his affections upon _her_ governess, seems to Mrs. Redmond like a gay continuation of the "Arabian Nights" Entertainments." When she recovers her breath, after the first great shock to her nervous system, she lays down the inevitable sock she is mending, and says as follows: