Part 55 (1/2)
Rose could not see her cousin's face, for he had abruptly turned his back on her, and was staring out the window.
”You will remember, Agapit,” she went on, with gentle persistence; ”do not be irritable with her; she cannot endure it just at present.”
”And why should I be irritable?” he demanded, suddenly wheeling around.
”Is she not doing me a great honor?”
Rose fell back a few steps, and clasped her amazed hands. This transfigured face was a revelation to her. ”You, too, Agapit!” she managed to utter.
”Yes, I, too,” he said, bravely, while a dull, heavy crimson mantled his cheeks. ”I, too, as well as the Poirier boy, and half a dozen others; and why not?”
”You love her, Agapit?”
”Does it seem like hatred?”
”Yes--that is, no--but certainly you have treated her strangely, but I am glad, glad. I don't know when anything has so rejoiced me,--it takes me back through long years,” and, sitting down, she covered her face with her nervous hands.
”I did not intend to tell you,” said her cousin, hurriedly, and he laid a consoling finger on the back of her drooping head. ”I wish now I had kept it from you.”
”Ah, but I am selfish,” she cried, immediately lifting her tearful face to him. ”Forgive me,--I wish to know everything that concerns you. Is it this that has made you unhappy lately?”
With some reluctance he acknowledged that it was.
”But now you will be happy, my dear cousin. You must tell her at once.
Although she is young, she will understand. It will make her more steady. It is the best thing that could happen to her.”
Agapit surveyed her in quiet, intense affection. ”Softly, my dear girl.
You and I are too absorbed in each other. There is the omnipotent Mr.
Nimmo to consult.”
”He will not oppose. Oh, he will be pleased, enraptured,--I know that he will. I have never thought of it before, because of late years you have seemed not to give your thoughts to marriage, but now it comes to me that, in sending her here, one object might have been that she would please you; that you would please her. I am sure of it now. He is sorry for the past, he wishes to atone, yet he is still proud, and cannot say, 'Forgive me.' This young girl is the peace-offering.”
Agapit smiled uneasily. ”Pardon me for the thought, but you dispose somewhat summarily of the young girl.”
Rose threw out her hands to him. ”Your happiness is perhaps too much to me, yet I would also make her happy in giving her to you. She is so restless, so wayward,--she does not know her own mind yet.”
”She seems to be leading a pretty consistent course at present.”
Rose's face was like an exquisitely tinted sky at sunrise. ”Ah! this is wonderful, it overcomes me; and to think that I should not have suspected it! You adore this little Bidiane. She is everything to you, more than I am,--more than I am.”
”I love you for that spice of jealousy,” said Agapit, with animation.
”Go home now, dear girl, and I will follow; or do you stay here, and I will start first.”
”Yes, yes, go; I will remain a time. I will be glad to think this over.”
”You will not cry,” he said, anxiously, pausing with his hand on the door-k.n.o.b.