She surveyed him, head a trifle on one side--the very incarnation of youthful malice in process of satisfying a desire for tormenting. Never before had she experienced that desire so keenly, so unreasoningly; never before had she found such a curious pleasure in punishing without cause. A perfectly inexplicable exhilaration possessed her--a gaiety quite reasonless, until every pulse in her seemed singing with laughter and quickening with the desire for his torment.
"When I pretended I was annoyed by what men said to me, I was only a yearling," she observed. "Now I"m a two-year, Captain Selwyn... . Who can tell what may happen in my second season?"
"You said that you were _not_ the--the marrying sort," he insisted.
"Nonsense. All girls are. Once I sat in a high chair and wore a bib and banqueted on cambric-tea and prunes. I don"t do it now; I"ve advanced.
It"s probably part of that progress which you are so opposed to."
He did not answer, but stood, head bent, looping on a new leader.
"All progress is admirable," she suggested.
No answer.
So, to goad him:
"There _are_ men," she said dreamily, "who might hope for a kinder reception next winter--"
"Oh, no," he said coolly, "there are no such gentlemen. If there were you wouldn"t say so."
"Yes, I would. And there are!"
"How many?" jeeringly, and now quite rea.s.sured.
"One!"
"You can"t frighten me"--with a shade less confidence. "You wouldn"t tell if there was."
"I"d tell _you_."
"Me?"--with a sudden slump in his remaining stock of rea.s.surance.
"Certainly. I tell you and Nina things of that sort. And when I have fully decided to marry I shall, of course, tell you both before I inform other people."
How the blood in her young veins was racing and singing with laughter!
How thoroughly she was enjoying something to which she could give neither reason nor name! But how satisfying it all was--whatever it was that amused her in this man"s uncertainty, and in the faint traces of an irritation as unreasoning as the source of it!
"Really, Captain Selwyn," she said, "you are not one of those old-fashioned literary landmarks who objects through several chapters to a girl"s marrying--are you?"
"Yes," he said, "I am."
"You are quite serious?"
"Quite."
"You won"t _let_ me?"
"No, I won"t."
"Why?"
"I want you myself," he said, smiling at last.
"That is flattering but horridly selfish. In other words you won"t marry me and you won"t let anybody else do it."
"That is the situation," he admitted, freeing his line and trying to catch the crinkled silvery snell of the new leader. It persistently avoided him; he lowered the rod toward Miss Erroll; she gingerly imprisoned the feathered fly between pink-tipped thumb and forefinger and looked questioningly at him.
"Am I to sit here holding this?" she inquired.
"Only a moment; I"ll have to soak that leader. Is the water visible under that log you"re sitting on?"
She nodded.
So he made his way through the brush toward her, mounted the log, and, seating himself beside her, legs dangling, thrust the rod tip and leader straight down into the stream below.
Glancing around at her he caught her eyes, bright with mischief.
"You"re capable of anything to-day," he said. "Were you considering the advisability of starting me overboard?" And he nodded toward the water beneath their feet.
"But you say that you won"t let me throw you overboard, Captain Selwyn!"
"I mean it, too," he returned.
"And I"m not to marry that nice young man?"--mockingly sweet. "No?
What!--not anybody at all--ever and ever?"
"Me," he suggested, "if you"re as thoroughly demoralised as that."
"Oh! Must a girl be pretty thoroughly demoralised to marry you?"
"I don"t suppose she"d do it if she wasn"t," he admitted, laughing.
She considered him, head on one side:
"You are ornamental, anyway," she concluded.
"Well, then," he said, lifting the leader from the water to inspect it, "will you have me?"
"Oh, but is there nothing to recommend you except your fatal beauty?"
"My moustache," he ventured; "it"s considered very useful when I"m mentally perplexed."
"It"s clipped too close; I have told you again and again that I don"t care for it clipped like that. Your mind would be a perfect blank if you couldn"t get hold of it."
"And to become imbecile," he said, "I"ve only to shave it."
She threw back her head and her clear laughter thrilled the silence. He laughed, too, and sat with elbows on his thighs, dabbling the crinkled leader to and fro in the pool below.