Well," slowly, "good-night! good-bye!"
She goes to the door.
"You cannot go like this," says Rylton, with some agitation. "Stay here to-night. I shall have time to catch the up-train, and I have business in town; and besides----"
"Do not lie!" says she. She stops and faces him; her eyes are aflame, and she throws out her right arm with a gesture that must be called magnificent. It fills him with a sort of admiration. "I want no hollow courtesies from you." She stoops, and gathering up her wraps, folds them around her. Then she turns to him again. "As all is dead between us." She stops short. "Oh no!"--laying her hand upon her heart.--"As all is dead in _you_----"
Whether her strength forsakes her here, or whether she refuses to say more, he never knows. She opens the door and goes into the hall, and, seeing a servant, beckons to him.
Rylton follows her, but, seeing him coming, she turns and waves him back. One last word she flings at him.
"Remember your reputation."
He can hear the bitterness of her laugh as she runs down the stone steps into the fly outside. She had evidently told the man to wait.
CHAPTER XXIV.
HOW t.i.tA PLEADS HER CAUSE WITH MARGARET; AND HOW MARGARET REBUKES HER; AND HOW STEPS ARE HEARD, AND t.i.tA SEEKS SECLUSION BEHIND A j.a.pANESE SCREEN; AND WHAT COMES OF IT.
"What hour did he say he was coming?" asks t.i.ta, looking up suddenly from the book she has been pretending to read.
"About four. I wish, dearest, you would consent to see him."
"_I_ consent? Four, you say? And it is just three now. A whole hour before I feel his hated presence in the house. Where are you going to receive him?"
"In the small drawing-room, I suppose."
"You _suppose._ Margaret, is it possible you have not given directions to James? Why, he might show him in _here."_
"Well, even if he did," says Margaret impatiently, "I don"t suppose he would do you any bodily harm. Once you saw him the ice would be broken, and----"
"We should both fall in and be drowned. It would only make matters worse, I a.s.sure you."
"It would be a change at all events, and "variety is charming." As it is, you have both fallen out."
"You are getting too funny for anything," says t.i.ta, tilting her chin saucily.
"Now, if you were to do as you suggest, fall in--in _love_--with each other----"
"Really, Margaret, this is beneath you," says t.i.ta, laughing in spite of herself. "No! no! no! I tell you," starting to her feet, "I"d rather _die_ than meet him again. When you and Colonel Neilson are married----"
"Oh! as to _that,"_ says Margaret, but she colours faintly.
"I shall take a tiny cottage in the country, and a tiny maid; and I"ll have chickens, and a big dog, and a pony and trap, and----"
"A desolate hearth. No, t.i.ta, you were not born for the old maid"s joys."
"Well, I was not born to be tyrannized over, any way," says t.i.ta, raising her arms above her head, her fingers interlaced, and yawning lightly. "And old maid has liberty, at all events."
"I don"t see that mine does me much good," says Margaret ruefully.
"That"s why you are going to give it up. Though anyone who could call _you_ an old maid would be a fool. I sometimes"--wistfully-- "wish you _were_ going to be one, Meg, because then I could live with you for ever."
"Well, you shall."
"No; not I. Three is trumpery."
"There won"t be three."
"I wish I had a big bet on that. I wish someone would bet me my old dear home, my Oakdean, upon that. I should be a happy girl again."
A great sadness grows within her eyes.
"t.i.ta, you could be happy if you chose."
"You are always saying that," says Lady Rylton, looking full at her.
"But how--_how_ can I be happy!"
_"See_ Maurice! Make it up with him. Put an end to this foolish quarrel."
"What should I gain by agreeing to live again with a man who cares nothing for me? I tell you, Margaret, that I desire no great things.
I did not expect to wring from life extraordinary joys. I have never been exorbitant in my demands. I did not even ask that Maurice should _love_ me. I asked only that he should _like_ me--be--be _fond_ of me. I"--her voice beginning to tremble--"have had _so_ few people to be fond of me; and to _live_ with anyone, Margaret, to see him all day long, and know he cared nothing for me, that he thought me in his way, that he so hated me that he couldn"t speak to me without scolding me, or saying hurtful words! Oh, no! I could not do that again."
"Maurice has been most unfortunate," says Margaret, very sadly. "Do you really believe all this of him, t.i.ta?"
"I believe he loved Mrs. Bethune all the time," returns she simply.
"And even if it be true what you say, that he does not love her now--still he does not love me either."
"And you?"
"Oh, I--I am like the "miller of the Dee."" She had been on the verge of tears, but now she laughs.
""I care for n.o.body, no, not I, And n.o.body cares for me."
I told you that before. Why do you persist in thinking I am in love?
Such a silly phrase! At all events"--disdainfully--"I"m not in love with Maurice."
"I am afraid not, indeed," says Margaret, in a low voice. "And yet you seem to have such a capacity for loving. Me I _know_ you love--and that old home."
"Ah yes--that! But that is gone. And soon you will be gone, too."
"Never! never!" says Margaret earnestly. "And all this is so morbid, t.i.ta. You must rouse yourself; you know some of our old friends are coming to see me on Sunday next. You will meet them?"
"If you like." She pauses. "Is Mrs. Chichester coming?"