"Can"t you forget it?" she said.
He looked at her. Her eyes were humid, and her lips trembled a little.
"Forget what?" he asked gently.
"That I smoked!"
He hesitated a second.
"I will try!"
"You see!"--went on Maryllia, coaxingly--"we shall have to live in the same parish, and we shall be compelled to meet each other often- -and it would never do for you to be always thinking of that cigarette! Now would it?"
He was silent. The little hand on his arm gave an insistent pressure.
"Of course when you conjure up such an awful picture as Psyche smoking, I know just how you feel about it!" And her eyes sparkled up at him with an arch look which, fortunately for his peace of mind, his own eyes did not meet,--"And naturally you must hold very strong opinions on the subject,--dreadfully strong! But then--n.o.body has ever thought me at all like Psyche before--so you so--you see!-- " She paused, and John began to feel his heart beating uncomfortably fast. "It"s very nice to be compared to Psyche anyhow!--and of course she would look impossible and awful with a cigarette in her mouth! I quite understand! She couldn"t smoke,--she wouldn"t!--and-- and--_I_ won"t! I won"t really! You won"t believe me, I expect,--but I a.s.sure you, I never smoke! I only did it this evening, because,-- because,--well!--because I thought I ought to defend my own s.e.x against your censure--and also perhaps--perhaps out of a little bit of bravado! But, I"m sorry! There! Will you forgive me?"
Nearly, very nearly, John lost his head. Maryllia had used the strongest weapon in all woman"s armoury,--humility,--and he went down before it, completely overwhelmed and conquered. A swirl of emotion swept over him,--his brain grew dizzy, and for a moment he saw nothing in earth or heaven but the sweet upturned face, the soft caressing eyes, the graceful yielding form clad in its diaphanous draperies of jewelled gossamer,--then pulling himself together with a strong effort which made him well-nigh tremble, he took the small hand that lay in white confidence on his arm, and raised it to his lips with a grave, courtly, almost cold reverence.
"It is you to forgive ME, Miss Vancourt!"--he said, unsteadily. "For I am quite aware that I committed a breach of social etiquette at your table,--and--and--I know I have taken considerable liberty in speaking my mind to you as I have done. Even as your minister I fear I have overstepped my privileges---"
"Oh, please don"t apologise!" said Maryllia, quickly--"It"s all over, you know! You"ve said your say, and I"ve said mine--and I"m sure we both feel better for it. Don"t we?"
John smiled, but his face was very pale, and his eyes were troubled.
He was absorbed in the problem of his own struggling emotions--how to master them--how to keep them back from breaking into pa.s.sionate speech,--and her bewitching, childlike air, half penitent, half mischievous, was making sad havoc of his self-possession.
"We are friends again now,"--she went on--"And really,--really we MUST try and keep so!"
This, with a quaint little nod of emphatic decision.
"Do you think it will be difficult?" he asked, looking at her more earnestly and tenderly than he himself was aware of.
She laughed, and blushed a little.
"I don"t know!--it may be!" she said--"You see you"ve twice ruffled me up the wrong way! I was very angry--oh, very angry indeed, when you coolly stopped the service because we all came in late that Sunday,--and to-night I was very angry again---"
"But I was NOT angry!" said John, simply--"And it takes two to make a quarrel!"
She peeped at him from under her long lashes and again the fleeting blush swept over her fair face.
"I must go now!"--she said--"Won"t you come into the drawing-room?-- just to hear Cicely sing at her very best?"
"Not to-night,"--he answered quickly--"If you will excuse me---"
"Of course I will excuse you!" and she smiled--"I know you don"t like company."
"I very much DISLIKE it!" he said, emphatically--"But then I"m quite an unsociable person. You see I"ve lived alone here for ten years--- "
"And you want to go on living alone for another ten years--I see!"
said Maryllia--"Well! So you shall! I promise I won"t interfere!"
He looked at her half appealingly.
"I don"t think you understand,"--he said,--then paused.
"Oh yes, I understand perfectly!" And she smiled radiantly. "You like to be left quite to yourself, with your books and flowers, and the bits of gla.s.s for the rose-window in the church. By the bye, I must help you with that rose-window! I will get you some genuine old pieces--and if I find any very rare specimens of medieval blue or crimson you"ll be so pleased that you"ll forget all about that cigarette--you know you will!"
"Miss Vancourt,"--he began earnestly--"if you will only believe that it is because I think so highly of you--because you have seemed to me so much above the mere society woman that I---I---"
"I know!" she said, very softly--"I quite see your point of view!"
"You are not of the modern world,"--he went on, slowly--"Not in your heart--not in your real tastes and sentiments;--not yet, though you may possibly be forced to become one with it after your marriage---"
"And when will that be?" she interrupted him smiling.
His clear, calm blue eyes rested upon her gravely and searchingly.
"Soon surely,--if report be true!"
"Really? Well, you ought to know whether the date has been fixed yet,"--she said, very demurely--"Because, of course YOU"LL have to marry me!"
Something swayed and rocked in John"s brain, making the ground he stood upon swerve and seem unsteady. A wave of colour flushed his bronzed face up to the very roots of his grey-brown hair. Maryllia watched him with prettily critical interest, much as a kitten watches the rolling out of a ball of worsted on which it has just placed its little furry paw. Hurriedly he sought in his mind for something to say.
"I---I---don"t quite understand,"--he murmured.
"Don"t you?" and she smiled upon him blandly--"Surely you wouldn"t expect me to be married in any church but yours, or by any clergyman but you?"
"Oh, I see!" And Maryllia mentally commented--"So do I!"--while he heaved a sigh unconsciously, but whether of relief or pain it was impossible to tell. Looking up, he met her eyes,--so deep and blue, so strangely compa.s.sionate and tender! A faint smile trembled on her lips.
"Good-night, Mr. Walden!"
"Good-night!" he said; then suddenly yielding to the emotion which mastered him, he made one swift step to her side--"You will forgive me, I know!--you will think of me presently with kindness, and with patience for my old-fashioned ways!--and you will do me the justice to believe that if I seemed rude to your guests, as you say I was, it was all for your sake!--because I thought you deserved more respect from them than that they should smoke in your presence,--and also, because I felt--I could not help feeling that if your father had been alive he would not have allowed them to do so,--he would have been too precious of you,--too careful that nothing of an indecorous or unwomanly nature should ever be a.s.sociated with you;-- and--and--I spoke as I did because it seemed to me that someone SHOULD speak!--someone of years and authority, who from the point of experience alone, might defend you from the contact of modern vulgarity;--so--so--I said the first words that came to me--just as your father might have said them!--yes!--just as your father might have spoken,--for you--you know you seem little more than a child to me!--I am so much older than you are, G.o.d help me!"
Stooping, he caught her hands and kissed them with a pa.s.sion of which he was entirely unconscious,--then turned swiftly from her and was gone.
She stood where he had left her, trembling a little, but with a startled radiance in her eyes that made them doubly beautiful. She was pale to the lips;--her hands,--the hands he had kissed, were burning. Suddenly, on an impulse which she could not have explained to herself, she ran swiftly out of the picture-gallery and into the hall where,--as the great oaken door stood open to the summer night,--she could see the whole flower-garlanded square of the Tudor court, gleaming like polished silver in the intense radiance of the moon. John Walden was walking quickly across it,--she watched him, and saw him all at once pause near the old stone dial which at this season of the year was almost hidden by the clambering white roses that grew around it. He took off his hat and pa.s.sed his hand over his brows with an air of dejection and fatigue,--the moonlight fell full on the clear contour of his features,--and she drew herself and her sparkling draperies well back into the deep shadow of the portal lest he should catch a glimpse of her, and, perhaps,--so seeing her, return--
"And that would never do!" she thought, with a little tremor of fear running through her which was unaccountably delicious;--"I"m sure it wouldn"t!--not to-night!"
The air was very warm and sultry,--all the windows of the Manor were thrown open for coolness,--and through those of the drawing-room came the lovely vibrations of Cicely"s pure fresh voice. She was singing an enchanting melody on which some words of Julian Adderley"s, simple and quaint, without having any claim to particular poetic merit, floated clearly with distinct and perfect enunciation--
"A little rose on a young rose-tree Shed all its crimson blood for me, Drop by drop on the dewy gra.s.s, Its petals fell, and its life did pa.s.s; Oh little rose on the young rose-tree, Why did you shed your blood for me?
"A nightingale in a tall pine-tree Broke its heart in a song for me, Singing, with moonbeams around it spread, It fluttered, and fell at my threshold, dead;-- Oh nightingale in the tall pine-tree, Why did you break your heart for me?
"A lover of ladies, bold and free, Challenged the world to a fight for me, But I scorn"d his love in a foolish pride, And, sword in hand, he fighting died!
Oh lover of ladies, bold and free, Why did you lose your life for me?"
And again, with plaintive insistence, the last two lines were repeated, ringing out on the deep stillness of the summer night--