Why should you tell Mr. Hescott your secrets? Why is he to be your confidant?"
"I have known Tom all my life."
"Nevertheless, I object to him as a special friend for you. I don"t think married women should have special friends of the other s.e.x. I object to your confiding in him secrets that you never told to me.
You said nothing to me of Margaret"s love affairs, although she is my cousin."
"You forget, Maurice. I spoke to you several times, but you never seemed to care. And I should not have told Tom, only he called her an old maid, and that _hurt_ me, and I wanted to show him how it was. I love Margaret, and I--I am fond of Tom, and----"
The hesitation, though unmeant, is fatal. Rylton turns upon her furiously.
"It is of no consequence to me whom you love or whom you--_care_ for," says he, imitating her hesitation, with a sneer. "What _is_ of consequence to me, is your conduct as my wife, and that I object to altogether!"
There is a long pause, and then--
_"My_ conduct?" says she slowly. She lifts her hands and runs them softly though her loose hair, and looks at him all the time; so standing, few could vie with her in beauty. She pauses. "And yours?"
asks she.
"Mine?"
"Yes, yours! I don"t know what you mean about my conduct. But you, you have been dancing all the night with that horrid Mrs. Bethune.
Yes!"--letting her hands fall, and coming towards him with a face like a little angry angel--"you may say what you like, but you _have_ been dancing all night with her. And she _is_ horrid."
This is carrying the war into the enemy"s camp with a vengeance.
There is something in her tone that startles Rylton. Has she heard of that old attachment? His heart grows sick within him. Has it come to this, then? Is there to be concealment--deception on _his_ part?
Before his marriage he had thought nothing of his love for Marian in so far as it could touch his wife, but now--now, if she knows! But how can she know? And besides----
Here his wrath grows warm again. Even if she does know, how does that affect her own behaviour? Her sin is of her own making. _His_ sin---- Was it ever a sin? Was it not a true, a loyal love? And when hope of its fulfilment was denied him, when he placed a barrier between it and him, had he not been true to that barrier? Only to-night--to-night when, maddened by the folly of this girl before him--he had let his heart stir again--had given way to the love that had swayed him for two long years and more.
"You forget yourself," says he coldly.
"Oh no, I don"t," says t.i.ta, to whom this answer sounds rather overbearing. "Why should I?" She glances at him mischievously from under her long lashes. "I should be the most unselfish person alive if I did that." She hesitates for a moment, and then, "Do you ever forget yourself?" asks she saucily.
She laughs--her little saucy air suits her. She is delighted with herself for having called Mrs. Bethune "horrid," and given him such a delicious t.i.t-for-tat. She looks full of fun and mischief. There is no longer an atom of rancour about her. Rylton, in spite of himself, acknowledges her charm; but what does she mean by this sudden sweetness--this sudden sauciness? Is she holding out the olive-branch to him? If so, he will accept it. After all, he may have wronged her in many ways; and at all events, her faults--her very worst fault--must fall short of crime.
"Sometimes," replies he. He smiles. "I forgot myself just now, perhaps. But you must admit I had provocation. You----"
"Oh, don"t begin it all over again," cries she, with delightful _verve_. "Why should you scold me, or I scold you? Scolding is very nasty, like medicine." She makes a little face. "And, you know, before we married we arranged everything."
"Before?"
"Yes, before, of course. Well--good-night!"
"No; don"t go. Tell me what it was we arranged before our marriage?"
Rylton has drawn a chair for her towards the fire that is lighting in his grate, and now sinks into another.
"It"s awfully late, isn"t it?" says t.i.ta, with a yawn, "but I"ll stay a minute or two. Why, what we arranged was, that we should be friends, you and I--eh?"
"Well?"
"Well--that"s all. Poke up the fire, and let me see a blaze. Fancy your having a fire so early!"
"Haven"t you one?"
"Yes. But then I"m a woman. However, when I see one I want it poked.
I want it blazing."
At this Sir Maurice pokes the fire, until it flames well up the chimney.
"Ah! I like that," says t.i.ta. She slips from her chair to the hearthrug--a beautiful white soft Persian one--and sits upon it, as it were, one snowflake on another. "How nice it is!" says she, staring at the sparks roaring up the chimney; "such a companion!"
She leans back and rests her head against Rylton"s knees. "Now, go on," she says comfortably.
"Go on?"
"Yes. We were saying something about friends. That _we_ should be friends all our lives. So we shall be. Eh?"
"I don"t know." Rylton bends over her, and, suddenly laying his hand under her chin, lifts her face so that he can see it. "You mean that I shall be your friend, and you mine."
"Yes. Yes, of course."
"You have other friends, however. And I don"t like that."
"What! Is one to have only one friend?" She wriggles her face out of his hands, and moving her body as she reclines upon the white rug, so turns herself that she comes face to face with him. "Only one!"
says she, smiling. She flings her arms across his knees, and looks up at him.
"Is not one enough?" He is looking at her very earnestly. How lovely she is! What a strange charm lies in her deep eyes! And her smile--
"The smile that rests to play Upon her lip, foretells That musical array Tricks her sweet syllables."
"Oh, it would be a poor world with only one friend," says she, shaking he head.
"You want two?" His brow is darkening again.
"More than that. I want you, and Margaret, and----"
"Hescott?"
It is not so much that she has hesitated as he has not given her time to speak.
"Well, yes--Tom," says she. "He _is_ my friend!"
"The best of all?" She is not looking at him now, so does not see the expression in his eyes. He is listening breathlessly for her answer, but she knows nothing. She is gazing idly, happily into the fire.
"At present," says she slowly. Then once again she leans across his knees, and looks up at him. "You know Tom is very fond of me--he loves me, I think."
Here Rylton lays his hands upon her wrists, grasping them hard.
"He loves you. He has told you so?"