"And I feel just as if he had gone quietly to bed," says
Mona, pleasantly, turning away.
But Mickey is not to be outdone. "An" there"s the pigs, miss," he begins again, presently.
"What"s the matter with them?" says Mona, with some pardonable impatience.
"I didn"t give them their supper yet, miss; an" it"s very bad for the young ones to be left starvin". It"s on me mind, miss, so that I can"t even enjoy me pipe, and it"s fresh baccy I have an" all, an" it might as well be dust for what comfort I get from it. Them pigs is callin" for me now like Christians: I can a"most hear them."
"I shouldn"t think deafness is in your family," says Geoffrey, genially.
"No, sir; it isn"t, sir. We"re none of us hard of hearin" glory be to----. Miss Mona," coaxingly, "sure, it"s only a step to the house: wouldn"t Misther Rodney see ye home now, just for wanst?"
"Why, yes, of course he can," says Mona, without the smallest hesitation. She says it quite naturally, and as though it was the most usual thing in the world for a young man to see a young woman home, through dewy fields and beneath "mellow moons," at half-past ten at night. It is now fully nine, and she cannot yet bear to turn her back upon the enchanting scene before her. Surely in another hour or so it will be time enough to think of home and all other such prosaic facts.
"Thin I may go, miss?" says Mickey.
"Oh, yes, you may go," says Mona. Geoffrey says nothing. He is looking at her with curiosity, in which deep love is mingled. She is so utterly unlike all other women he has ever met, with their petty affectations and mock modesties, their would-be hesitations and their final yieldings. She has no idea she is doing anything that all the world of women might not do, and can see no reason why she should distrust her friend just because he is a man.
Even as Geoffrey is looking at her, full of tender thought, one of the dogs, as though divining the fact that she is being left somewhat alone, lays its big head upon her shoulder, and looks at her with large loving eyes. Turning to him in response, she rubs her soft cheek slowly up and down against his. Geoffrey with all his heart envies the dog. How she seems to love it! how it seems to love her!
"Mickey, if you are going, I think you may as well take the dogs with you," says Mona: "they, too, will want their suppers. Go, Spice, when I desire you. Good-night, Allspice; dear darling,--see how he clings to me."
Finally the dogs are called off, and reluctantly accompany the jubilant Mickey down the hill.
"Perhaps you are tired of staying here," says Mona, with compunction, turning to Geoffrey, "and would like to go home? I suppose every one cannot love this spot as I do. Yes," rising, "I am selfish. Do come home."
"Tired!" says Geoffrey, hastily. "No, indeed. What could tire of anything so divine? If it is your wish, it is mine also, that we should stay here for a little while longer." Then, struck by the intense relief in her face, he goes on: "How you do enjoy the beauties of Nature! Do you know I have been studying you since you came here, and I could see how your whole soul was wrapped in the glory of the surrounding prospect? You had no thoughts left for other objects,--not even one for me. For the first time," softly, "I learned to be jealous of inanimate things."
"Yet I was not so wholly engrossed as you imagine," she says, seriously.
"I thought of you many times. For one thing, I felt glad that you could see this place with my eyes. But I have been silent, I know; and--and----"
"How Rome and Spain would enchant you," he says watching her face intently, "and Switzerland, with its lakes and mountains!"
"Yes. But I shall never see them."
"Why not? You will go there, perhaps when you are married."
"No," with a little flickering smile, that has pain and sorrow in it; "for the simple reason that I shall never marry."
"But why?" persists he.
"Because"--the smile has died away now, and she is looking down upon him, as he lies stretched at her feet in the uncertain moonlight, with an expression sad but earnest,--"because, though I am only a farmer"s niece, I cannot bear farmers, and, of course, other people would not care for me."
"That is absurd," says Rodney; "and your own words refute you. That man called Moore cared for you, and very great impertinence it was on his part."
"Why, you never even saw him," says Mona, opening her eyes.
"No; but I can fancy him, with his horrid bald head. Now, you know,"
holding up his hand to stop her as she is about to speak, "you know you said he hadn"t a hair left on it."
"Well, he was different," says Mona, giving in ignominiously. "I couldn"t care for him either; but what I said is true all the same.
Other people would not like me."
"Wouldn"t they?" says Rodney, leaning on his elbow as the argument waxes warmer; "then all I can say is, I never met any "other people.""
"You have met only them, I suppose, as you belong to them."
"Do you mean to tell me that _I_ don"t care for you?" says Rodney, quickly.
Mona evades a reply.
"How cold it is!" she says, rising, with a little shiver. "Let us go home."
If she had been nurtured all her life in the fashionable world, she could scarcely have made a more correct speech. Geoffrey is puzzled, nay more, discomfited. Just in this wise would a woman in his own set answer him, did she mean to repel his advances for the moment. He forgets that no tinge of worldliness lurks in Mona"s nature, and feels a certain amount of chagrin that she should so reply to him.
"If you wish," he says, in a courteous tone, but one full of coldness; and so they commence their homeward journey.
"I am glad you have been pleased to-night," says Mona, shyly, abashed by his studied silence. "But," nervously, "Killarney is even more beautiful. You must go there."
"Yes; I mean to,--before I return to England."
She starts perceptibly, which is balm to his heart.
"To England!" she repeats, with a most mournful attempt at unconcern, "Will--will that be soon?"
"Not very soon. But some time, of course, I must go."
"I suppose so," she says, in a voice from which all joy has flown. "And it is only natural; you will be happier there." She is looking straight before her. There is no quiver in her tone; her lips do not tremble; yet he can see how pale she has grown beneath the vivid moonlight.
"Is that what you think?" he says, earnestly. "Then for once you are wrong. I have never been--I shall hardly be again--happier than I have been in Ireland."
There is a pause. Mona says nothing, but taking out the flower that has lain upon her bosom all night, pulls it to pieces petal by petal. And this is unlike Mona, because flowers are dear to her as sunshine is to them.
At this moment they come to a high bank, and Geoffrey, having helped Mona to mount it, jumps down at the other side, and holds out his arms to a.s.sist her to descend. As she reaches the ground, and while his arms are still round her, she says, with a sudden effort, and without lifting her eyes, "There is very good snipe-shooting here at Christmas."
The little pathetic insinuation is as perfect as it is touching.
"Is there? Then I shall certainly return for it," says Geoffrey, who is too much of a gentleman to pretend to understand all her words seem to imply. "It is really no journey from this to England."
"I should think it a long journey," says Mona, shaking her head.
"Oh, no, you won"t," says Rodney, absently. In truth, his mind is wandering to that last little speech of hers, and is trying to unravel it.
Mona looks at him. How oddly he has expressed himself! "You won"t," he said, instead of "you wouldn"t." Does he then deem it possible she will ever be able to cross to that land that calls him son? She sighs, and, looking down at her little lean sinewy hands, clasps and unclasps them nervously.
"Why need you go until after Christmas?" she says, in a tone so low that he can barely hear her.
"Mona! Do you want me to stay?" asks he, suddenly, taking her hands in his. "Tell me the truth."