"So I was, the moment I saw you walk down the lawn. But you really needn"t look so indignant. I was working for you, at the same time."
"Working for me?"
"Yes, dear. I told Martha her wisps would look nicer if she curled them. I also suggested "invisible pins." If you like I will tell you how I came to know about "invisible pins"; but it is a very long story, and not _specially_ interesting, for the lady in the case was my great-aunt."
"Oh, Boy," said Miss Charteris, laughing in spite of herself; "I wish you were the size of my Little Boy Blue on the sands at Dovercourt. I would dearly like to shake you."
"Well," he said, "you did more than shake me, just now. You gave me about the worst five minutes I ever had in my life. Christobel? You don"t really care about the Professor?"
"Boy, dear, I really do. I have cared about him very much, for years."
"Yes, as a woman loves a book; but not as a woman loves a man."
"Explain your meaning, please."
"Oh, hang it all!" exclaimed the Boy, violently. "Do you love his mouth, his eyes, his hair----?" The Boy choked, and stopped short.
Miss Charteris considered, and replied with careful deliberation. "I do not know that I have ever seen his mouth; he wears a beard. His eyes are not strong, but they look very kind through his gla.s.ses. His hair? Well, really, he has not much to speak of. But all these things matter very little. His _mind_ is great and beautiful; his thoughts appeal to me. I understand his way of viewing things: he understands mine. It would be a wonderful privilege to be able to make life easy and happy for one for whom I have so profound a respect and esteem. I have looked upon it, during the last few years, as a privilege which is, eventually, to be mine."
"Christobel," cried the Boy, "it is wrong, it is terrible! It is not the highest. I can"t stand it, and I won"t. I will not let you give yourself to a wizened old bookworm----"
"Be quiet, Boy," she said, sharply. "Do you wish to make me really angry? The Professor is not old. He is only fourteen years my senior.
To your extreme youth, fifty may seem old. The Professor is in his prime. I am afraid we have nothing to gain, Boy, by prolonging this discussion."
"But we can"t leave it at this," said the Boy, desperately. "Where do I come in?"
"My Little Boy Blue, I am afraid you don"t come in at all, excepting as a very sweet idyll which, all through the years to come, I shall never forget. You begged for your seven days, and I gave them. But I never led you to a.s.sume I could say "Yes." Now listen, Boy, and I will tell you the honest truth. I do not know that I am ever going to marry the Professor. I only feel pledged to him from the vague belief that we each consider the other is waiting. Don"t break your heart over it, Boy; because it is more than likely it will never come to pa.s.s.
But--even were there no Professor--oh, Boy dear, I could not marry you.
I love my Little Boy Blue more tenderly and deeply than I have ever before loved anything or any one on this earth. But I could not marry a boy, however dearly I loved him; however sweet was his love to me. I am a woman grown, and I could surrender myself wholly, only to a man who would wholly be my mate and master. I cannot pretend to call my Little Boy Blue "the _man_ I love," because he is really dearest to me when I think of him, with expectation in his baby-eyes, trotting down the sands to find his cannon-ball.... Oh, Boy, I am hurting you! I hate to hurt you, Boy. Your love is so beautiful. Nothing as perfect will ever touch my life again. Yet I cannot, honestly, give what you ask.... Boy dear, ought I to have told you, quite plainly, sooner? If so, you must forgive me."
The Boy had risen, and stood before her. "You always do the right thing," he said, "and never, under any circ.u.mstances, could there be anything for me to forgive you. I have been an egregious young a.s.s. I have taken things for granted, all along the line. What must you think of me! Why should you care? _You_, with your intellectual attainments, your honours, your high standing in the world of books?
_Why_ should you care, Christobel? Why _should_ you care?"
He stood before her, straight and tall and desperately implacable. The exuberant youth had died out of his face. For the first time, she could not see in him her Little Boy Blue.
"Why should you care?" he said again.
She rose and faced him. "But I _do_ care, Boy," she said. "How dare you pretend to think I don"t? I care very tenderly and deeply."
"Pooh!" said the Boy. "Do you suppose I wished you to marry a bare-toed baby, with sand on its nose?" He laughed wildly; paused and looked at her, then laughed again. "A silly little a.s.s that said it didn"t like girls? Oh, I say! I think it"s about time I was off.
Will you walk down to the gate? ... Thanks. You are always most awfully good to me. I say, Miss Charteris, may I ask the Professor"s name?"
"Harvey," she said, quietly. "Kenrick Harvey." The dull anguish at her heart seemed almost more than she could bear. Yet what could she say or do? He was merely accepting her own decision.
"Harvey?" he said. "Why of course I know him. He"s not much to look at, is he? But we always thought him an awfully good sort, and kind as they make "em. We considered him a confirmed bachelor; but--well, we didn"t know he was waiting."
They had reached the postern gate. Oh, would he see the growing pain in her eyes? What was she losing? What had she lost? Why did her whole life seem pa.s.sing out through that green gate?
"Good-bye," he said, "and please forget all the rot I talked about Jericho. It goes with the spade and bucket, and all the rest. You have been most awfully kind to me, all along. But the very kindest thing you can do now, is to forget all the impossible things I thought and said... Allow me.... I"ll shut the door."
He put up his hand, to lift his cap; but he was bareheaded. He laughed again; turned, and pa.s.sed out.
"Boy! Boy! Come back," said Christobel. But the door had closed on the first word.
She stood alone.
This time she did not wait. Where was the good of waiting?
She turned and walked slowly up the lawn, pausing to look at the flowers in the border. The yellow roses still looked golden. The jolly little "what-d"-you-call-"ems" lifted pale purple faces to the sky.
But the Boy was gone.
She reached her chair, where he had placed it, deep in the shade of the mulberry-tree. She felt tired; worn-out; old.
The Boy was gone.
She leaned back with closed eyes. She had hurt him so. She remembered all the glad, sweet confident things he had said each day. Now she had hurt him so.... What radiant faith, in love and in life, had been his.
But she had spoiled that faith, and dimmed that brightness.
Suddenly she remembered his dead mother"s prayer for him. "_I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not_." And under those words she had written "_Christobel_." Would he want to obliterate that name?
No, she knew he would not. Nothing approaching a hard or a bitter thought could ever find a place in his heart. It would always be the golden heart of her little Boy Blue.
Tears forced their way beneath her closed lashes, and rolled slowly down her cheeks.
"Oh, Boy dear," she said aloud, "I love you so--I love you so!"
"I know you do, dear," he said. "It"s almost unbelievable--yet I know you do."
She opened her eyes. The Boy had come back. She had not heard his light step, on the springy turf. He knelt in his favourite place, on the left of her chair, and bent over her. Once more his face was radiant. His faith had not failed.
She looked up into his shining eyes, and the joy in her own heart made her dizzy.
"Boy dear," she whispered, "not my lips, because--I am not altogether yours--I may have to--you know?--the Professor. But, oh Boy, I can"t help it! I"m afraid I care terribly."
He was quite silent; yet it seemed to her that he had shouted. A burst of trumpet-triumph seemed to fill the air.
He bent lower. "Of course I wouldn"t, Christobel," he said; "not before the seventh day. But there"s a lot beside lips, and it"s all so dear."
Then she felt the Boy"s kisses on her hair, on her brow, on her eyes.
"Dear eyes," he said, "shedding tears for my pain. Ah, dear eyes!"
And he kissed them again.
She put up her hand, to push him gently away. He captured it, and held it to his lips.
"Stop, Boy dear," she said. "Be good now, and sit down."
He slipped to the gra.s.s at her feet, and rested his head against her knee.
She stroked his hair, with gentle, tender touch. Her Little Boy Blue had come back to her. Oh, bliss unutterable! Why worry about the future?