"You can say good night to me now, and good bye. I shall not see you again."
"Pardon me, you will see me to-morrow morning."
"No. Never again. I"ve done with you."
"My dear girl, you are absurd. Mr. Lucy is not going to marry you to-morrow morning, is he?"
"Well?"
"And until he marries you, you haven"t exactly done with me."
"I see. You want to remind me that the clothes on my back belong to you."
He flushed painfully.
"I don"t want to remind you of anything that may be unpleasant to you.
I"m only suggesting that in the circ.u.mstances--until you marry him--you can hardly refuse to see me."
"Why should I see you? It"ll make no difference."
"To me, none. To you it may possibly make a considerable difference.
There are some points you have evidently not thought of, which it would be well for us to talk over before you think of marrying."
She capitulated.
"If I see you to-morrow, will you go now?"
"I will go, my dear Kitty, the precise moment I see fit. If I were you I should wipe that expression from my face before Mr. Lucy comes in. He might not like it. The pocket-handkerchief might be used with advantage now--just there."
In obedience to his indication she pa.s.sed her hand over the flushed tear-stain. At that moment Lucy entered with his sister.
Jane, less guarded than her brother, looked candidly, steadily at Marston, whose face instantly composed itself to reverence and devotion before her young half-spiritual presence.
Kitty"s voice was scarcely audible as she murmured the ritual of introduction.
Lucy was aware of her emotion.
"I think," said he, "as Mrs. Tailleur has owned to a bad headache, Mr.
Marston and I had better say good night."
Marston said it. There was nothing else left for him to say. And as he went through the door that Lucy opened for him, he cursed him in his heart.
"Jane," said Kitty.
But Jane was looking at the door through which Marston and Robert had just gone.
"Robert did that very neatly," said she. "You wanted to get rid of him, didn"t you, Kitty?"
"I"ve been trying to get rid of Wilfrid Marston for the last three weeks."
She had such wisdom, mothered by fierce necessity, as comes to the foolish at their call. She was standing over little Jane as she spoke, looking down into her pure, uplifted eyes.
"You"ve been crying," she said.
"Yes." Jane"s eyes were very bright, new-washed with tears.
"I know why. It"s because of me."
"Yes; but it"s all right now, Kitty."
She did not tell her that ten minutes ago she, too, had been out on the Cliff-side and had had a battle with herself there, and had won it. For little Jane there couldn"t be a harder thing in the world than to give Robert up. Of course she had to do it, so there could be no virtue in that. The hard thing was to do it gracefully, beautifully.
"What are you going to say to me, Janey? He told you?"
"Yes; he told me."
"Oh, don"t look at me like that, dear. Say if you hate it for him."
"I don"t hate it. Only, oh, Kitty, dear, do you really love him?"
"Yes; I love him."
"But--you"ve only known him ten days. I don"t think I could love a man I"d only known ten days."
"It makes no difference."
"That"s what Robert said."
"Yes; he said it to me. Ah, I know what you mean. You think it"s all very well for him, because men are different. It"s me you can"t understand; you think I must be horrid."
"Oh no, no. It"s only--I think _I"m_ different, that"s all."
"_Is_ that all, Janey?"
"Yes."
"And will you love me a little if I love him a great deal? Or do you hate me for loving him?"
"Kitty--you needn"t be afraid. The more you love him the more I shall love you."
"Did--did his wife love him? Oh, ought I to have asked you that?"
Jane shook her head.
"I"m not sure that I ought to tell you."
"She didn"t, then?"
"Oh yes, she did, poor little thing. She loved him all she could."