The whole affair seems to be trembling in the balance. A sense of amus.e.m.e.nt has most unfortunately seized on Rylton, and is shaking him to his very heart"s core. To marry a girl who even objected to a kiss! It sounds like a French play. He subdues his untimely mirth by an effort, and says gravely, "How can I promise you that I shall never want to kiss you? I may grow very fond of you in time, and you--but, of course, that is far more improbable--may grow fond of me."
"Even so," begins she hotly. She pauses, however, as if some thought had struck her. "Well, let it stay so," says she. "If ever I do grow to like you as much as you fancy, why, then you may kiss me--sometimes."
"That"s a bargain," says he.
Again he suppresses a desire to laugh. It seems to him that she is intensely interesting in some way.
"In the meantime," says he, with quite a polite air, "may I not kiss you now?"
"No!" says she. It is the lightest monosyllable, but fraught with much energy. She tilts the shoulder nearest to him, and peeps at him over it, with a half-merry little air.
She sets Rylton"s mind at work. Is she only a silly charming child, or an embryo flirt of the first water? Whatever she is, at all events, she is very new, very fresh--an innovation! He continues to look at her.
"Really no?" questions he.
She nods her head.
"And yet you have said "Yes" to everything else?"
She nods her head again. She nods it even twice.
"Yes, I shall marry you," says she.
"I may tell my mother?"
Miss Bolton sits up. A little troubled expression grows within her eyes.
"Oh! must you?" cried she. "She _will_ be mad. She won"t let you marry me--I know she won"t. She--hates me."
"My dear child, why?" Rylton"s tone is shocked. The very truth in her declaration makes it the more shocking. And how does she know?
His mother has been sweetness itself to her _before_ the curtain.
"Never mind, I know," says t.i.ta. "I feel things. They come to me. I don"t blame her. I"m sure I"m often horrid. I know that, when I look at other people. When I look at----"
She pauses.
"Look at whom?"
"At your cousin."
"My cousin!"
"Yes! You love her, don"t you?"
"Love her!" He has turned suddenly as pale as death. "What do you mean?" asks he in a low voice.
"I love her, any way," says t.i.ta. "I think Miss Knollys is the nicest person in all the world."
"Oh, Margaret?" says he. He says it involuntarily. The relief is so great that it compels him to give himself away.
"Why, who else?" says t.i.ta. "Who did _you_ think I meant?"
"Who _could_ I think?" says he, recovering. "Even now I am surprised. Margaret, though very superior in most ways, is not always beloved."
"But you love her?"
"Oh yes, _I_ do!"
"I am glad of that," says t.i.ta. "Because I love her more than anyone I know. And I have been thinking"--she looks at him quickly--"I have been thinking that"--nervously--"that when I marry you, Miss Knollys will be my cousin, too, in a sort of way, and that perhaps she will let me call her by her name. Do you," anxiously, "think she will?"
"I know she will." His answer is terse. He has barely yet recovered from the shock she had innocently given him.
"And your mother?" asks she, going back to the first question. "Do you think she will like you to marry me? Oh, do persuade her!"
"Make no mistake about my mother, t.i.ta; she will receive you with open arms." He feels as if he were lying when he says this, yet is it not the truth? "She will be glad to receive you as a daughter."
"Will she? She doesn"t look like it," says t.i.ta, "not sometimes when I--_look back at her!"_
She rises, and makes a step towards the door of the conservatory that will lead her to the balcony, and so back to the dancing-room.
"t.i.ta? Bear with my mother," says he gently, and in a low voice.
The girl turns to him, her whole young, generous heart in her voice.
"Oh, I shall! I shall indeed!"
They traverse the long balcony in silence. The moon is flooding it with brilliant light. Here and there are groups in twos or threes--the twos are most popular. Just as they come to the entrance to the dancing-room, an alcove now deserted, t.i.ta stops short and looks at him.
"You have promised to be kind to me!" says she, her voice trembling.
For the first time the solemnity of this marriage arrangement of hers seems to have dawned upon her.
"I have," says Rylton earnestly.
"I am often very troublesome," says the poor child. "Uncle George says so. But you----" She hesitates, looking at him always. Her gaze is intense. He feels as if she is watching him, taking his mental temperature, as it were.
"Be kind to me in turn, t.i.ta," says he. "Don"t mistrust me. Try to _know_ that I like you."
"I wish," says she, a little forlornly, "that you could be fond of me. I"m--you don"t know it--n.o.body knows it--but I"m often very lonely. I"ve been lonely all the time since pappy died."
"You shall never be lonely again," says Rylton. "I"m your friend from this hour--your friend for ever." He is touched to his very heart by her words and her small face. He stoops over her, and in spite of all that has been said against kissing, presses his lips to her soft cheek!
"Ah! You are kind. I _do_ like you," says she, gazing at him with earnest eyes. "Yes, I know I shall be happy with you." She is evidently comparing him most favourably with Uncle George. "And you will be fond of me, won"t you? You will be good to me?"
"I will, so help me G.o.d!" says Rylton very solemnly.
To her it seems an oath of allegiance--kindly, tender, rea.s.suring.
To him it is a solemn abjuration of all his devotion to--the other.