Part 8 (1/2)
”And your silence--may I put the usual interpretation on it?”
”I suppose so,” he said, shame-facedly. ”Please don't think me ungracious,” he added.
”You very dear person!” she cried; and after that they walked for fully five minutes without exchanging a word.
The matter had been decided and, according to their wont, there was no further manifestation, no further reference to it on either side. Each understood the other's emotions, and that sufficed.
CHAPTER VIII.
”Shall I put you into a hansom?” said Morgan, looking at his watch as they pa.s.sed out of the park. ”It is getting on towards two.”
”Mayn't I come in and smoke a cigarette?” pleaded Lady Thiselton. ”My nerves have been tried a little, and a few minutes' rest will soothe me.”
”I fear the lady of the house would not approve.”
”Oh! we shall creep in quietly without disturbing her pious dreams. Do be nice, Morgan. You know I never smoke any other cigarettes than yours--I am never wicked except in your company.”
They entered almost noiselessly.
”How silent the night is,” she remarked, ”and what a feeling of sleeping mult.i.tudes there is in the air! Suppose the morrow should dawn and they should never awaken. I am s.h.i.+vering. Your room is cold, though the moonlight is quite pretty.”
He lighted his reading lamp under its big, green shade. She would not have the gas--she liked the room full of dusk and shadow. The fire was ready laid, and Morgan put a match to it, after which he proceeded to look for the cigarettes. When eventually he turned towards her, he uttered a suppressed exclamation.
She had taken off her heavy cloak and her hat and thrown them carelessly on a chair. She now stood a little to the left of the fire, her face half turned towards it, and was busy removing her long gloves. Her features, amid which nestled mystic trembling shadows, showed bloodless, as though carved of ivory, and her great, dark brown eyes were wonderfully soft and caressing. Her hair ran in a flowing curve off the warm white pallor of her brow till it was lost beyond the ear. Almost on top of her head it lay in a coil, bound with a wide, green velvet band that was fastened in front with a great emerald. Her throat, neck and shoulders rose with the same dull, smooth whiteness, and with an exquisite firmness, from the strange, green velvet costume it had pleased her to wear, and were set in its gold border that glowed and sparkled with smaller emeralds. The robe curved in at the waist, defining the adorable grace of her figure and falling to the ground in gleaming folds and strange contrasts of light and shade. And on each side hung a long, open sleeve with bright yellow lining spread out to the view--a wide, descending sweep of gold in glistening contrast with the deep green of the costume.
She had now placed her gloves on the same chair, and her long, bare arms showed in all the firm beauty of warm ivory tones, without a touch of rose in their whole length, even to the very finger tips. A thick, gold bracelet encircled the wrist of her right hand. On the other hand the gleam of ornament was given by the wedding ring and a similar ring on the same finger set with a limpid diamond.
”Well,” she said, smiling.
”You have taken me unawares. One moment you are a soberly clad person, and the next a queenly blaze.”
”The moonlight is really wonderful. Turn out the lamp and let me play the 'Moonlight Sonata.'”
”No, smoke your cigarette instead,” he suggested.
”You are afraid I might cause the good lady pleasant dreams instead of pious ones. Thank you, dear.”
He held her a light, and, after she had taken a puff or two, she pa.s.sed her cigarette to him.
”Your tribute, Morgan,” she demanded.
He took a puff and pa.s.sed it back to her. Then, when she had smoked a little:
”It is delicious,” she said. ”Your lips have given it their sweetness of honey, their fragrance of myrrh.”
She leaned leisurely against the mantel, whilst he drew a chair for himself to the opposite corner of the fire. The great emerald gleamed through a dainty cloud of smoke.
”It is lovely here,” she said at last. ”Such moments as these are the happiest of my life. One's nature must rebel sometimes against being driven along the prescribed lines. There are sides to one's soul, absolutely unallowed for in the ordinary scheme of civilized existence. But instead of letting me moralise, you might be saying some nice things.”