She rocked herself back on the settle and looked across at him out of half-closed eyes.
"Then--if you do think," she answered slowly, "it is to be seen if you are a man."
"A man?"
"Ay, a man! A man! For if you think of these things, if you stand face to face with them, and do nothing, you are no man! And no lad for me!"
lightly. "You are well matched as it is then. Just a match and no more for your white-faced, helpless dumpling of a wife!"
"It is all very well," he muttered, "to talk!"
"Ay, but presently we shall do as well as talk! Out in the world they are doing now! They are beginning to do. But here--what do you know in this cupboard? No more than the mice."
"Fine talk!" he retorted, stung by her contempt. "But you talk without knowing. There have been parsons and squires from the beginning, and there will be parsons and squires to the end. You may talk until you are black in the face, Bess, but you won"t alter that!"
"Ay, talk!" she retorted drily. "You may talk. But if you do--as they did in France twenty years gone. Where are their squires and parsons now? The end came quick enough there, when it came."
"I don"t know much about that," he growled.
"Ay, but I do."
"But how the devil do you?" he answered, in some irritation, but more wonder. "How do you?" And he looked round the bare, sordid kitchen.
The fire, shooting warm tongues up the black cavernous chimney, made the one spot of comfort that was visible.
"Never you mind!" she answered, with a mysterious and tantalising smile. "I do. And by-and-by, if we"ve the spirit of a mouse, things will happen here! Down yonder--I see it all--there are thousands and tens of thousands starving. And stacks burning. And mobs marching, and men drilling, and more things happening than you dream of! And all that means that by-and-by I shall be knitting while Madam and Miss and that proud-faced, slim-necked chit at the inn, who faced us all down to-day----"
"Why," he struck in, in fresh surprise, "what has she done to you now?"
"That"s my business, never you mind! Only, by-and-by, they will all smile on the wrong side of their face!"
He stared morosely into the fire. And she watched him, her long lashes veiling a sly and impish amus.e.m.e.nt. If he dreamed that she loved him, if he fancied her a victim of his bow and spear, he strangely, most strangely, misread her. And a sudden turn, a single quick glance should have informed him. For as the flames by turns lit her face and left it to darkness, they wrought it to many expressions; but never to kindness.
"There"s many I"d like to see brought down a piece," he muttered at last. "Many, many. And I"m as fond of my share of good things as most.
But it"s all talk, there"s nought to be done! Nor ever will be! There have been parsons and squires from the beginning."
"Would you do it," she asked softly, "if there were anything to be done?"
"Try me."
"I doubt it. And that"s why you are no lad for me."
He rose to his feet in a temper at that. He turned his back on the fire.
"What"s the use of getting on this every time!" he cried. And he took up his hat. "I"m weary of it. I"m off. I don"t know that I shall come back again. What"s the use?" with a side-long glance at her dark, handsome face and curving figure which the firelight threw into prominence.
"If there were anything to do," she asked, as if he had never spoken, never answered the question, "would you do it?" And she smiled at him, her head thrown back, her red lips parted, her eyes tempting.
"You know I would if----" He paused.
"There were some one to be won by it?"
He nodded, his eyes kindling.
"Well----"
No more. For as she spoke the word, and he bent forward, something heavy fell on the floor overhead; and she sat up straight. Her eyes, grown suddenly hard and small--perhaps with fright--held Tyson"s eyes.
"What"s that?" he cried, frowning suspiciously. "There"s n.o.body upstairs?"
"Father"s in bed," she said. She held up a finger for silence.
"And there"s n.o.body else in the house?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Who should there be?" she said. "It"s the cat, I suppose."
"You"d better let me see," he rejoined. And he took a step towards the staircase door.
"No need," she answered listlessly, after listening anew. "I"m not afraid. The cat is not here; it must have been the cat. I"ll go up when you are gone, and see."
"It"s not safe," he grumbled, still inclined to go. "You two alone here, and the old man said to be as rich as a lord!"
"Ay, said to be," she answered, smiling "As you said you were going ten minutes ago, and you are not gone yet. But----" she rose with a yawn, partly real and partly forced, "you must go now, my lad."
"But why?" he answered. "When we were just beginning to understand one another."
"Why?" she answered pertly. "Because father wants to sleep. Because your wife will scratch my eyes out if you don"t. Because I am not going to say another word to-night--whatever I may say to-morrow. And because--it"s my will, my lad. That"s all."
He muttered his discontent, swinging his hat in his hand, and making eyes at her. But she kept him at arm"s length, and after a moment"s argument she drove him to the door.
"All the same," he said, when he stood outside, "you had better let me look upstairs."
But she laughed.
"I dare say you"d like it!" she said; and she shut the door in his face and he heard the great bar that secured it shot into its socket in the thickness of the wall. In a temper not much better than that in which he had left the inn, he groped his way round the house, and up the three steps at the corner of the building. He swore at the dog that it might know who came, and so he pa.s.sed into the road. Once he looked back at the house, but all was dark. The windows looked the other way.
CHAPTER IX
PUNISHMENT
Anthony Clyne came to a stand before her, and lifted his hat.
"I understand," he said, without letting his eyes meet hers--he was stiffness itself, but perhaps he too had his emotions--"that you preferred to see me here rather than indoors?"