Part 16 (2/2)
Here, at night, the owls delight to hoot, the bats go whirring past, the moonbeams surely cast their kindest rays; by day the pigeons coo from the topmost boughs their tales of love, while squirrels sit blinking merrily, or run their Silvios on their Derby days.
Just now it is neither night nor garish day, but a soft, early twilight, and on the sward that glows as green as Erin's, sit Molly and her attendant slave.
”The reason I like you,” says Molly, reverting to something that has gone before, and tilting back her hat so that all her pretty face is laid bare to the envious suns.h.i.+ne, while the soft rippling locks on her forehead make advances to each other through the breeze, ”the reason I like you,--no,”--seeing a tendency on his part to creep nearer, ”no, stay where you are. I only said I liked you. If I had mentioned the word love, then indeed--but, as it is, it is far too warm to admit of any endearments.”
”You are right,--as you always are,” says Luttrell, with suspicious amiability, being piqued.
”You interrupted me,” says Miss Ma.s.sereene, leaning back comfortably and raising her exquisite eyes in lazy admiration of the green and leafy tangle far above her. ”I was going to say that the reason I like you so much is because you look so young, quite as young as I do,--more so, indeed, I think.”
”It is a poor case,” says Luttrell, ”when a girl of nineteen looks older than a man of twenty-seven.”
”That is not the way to put it. It is a charming and novel case when a man of twenty-seven looks younger than a girl of nineteen.”
”How much younger?” asks Luttrell, who is still sufficiently youthful to have a hankering after mature age. ”Am I fourteen or nine years old in your estimation?”
”Don't let us dispute the point,” says Molly, ”and don't get cross. I see you are on for a hot argument, and I never could follow even a mild one. I think you young, and you should be glad of it, as it is the one good thing I see about you. As a rule I prefer dark men,--but for their unhappy knack of looking old from their cradles,--and have a perfect pa.s.sion for black eyes, black skin, black locks, and a general appearance of fierceness! Indeed, I have always thought, up to this, that there was something about a fair man almost ridiculous. Have not you?”
Here she brings her eyes back to the earth again, and fastens them upon him with the most engaging frankness.
”No. I confess it never occurred to me before,” returns Luttrell, coloring slightly through his Saxon skin.
Silence. If there is any silent moment in the throbbing summer. Above them the faint music of the leaves, below the breathing of the flowers, the hum of insects. All the air is full of the sweet warblings of innumerable songsters. Mingling with these is the pleasant drip, drip of the falling water.
A great lazy bee falls, as though no longer able to sustain its mighty frame, right into Miss Ma.s.sereene's lap, and lies there humming. With a little start she shakes it off, almost fearing to touch it with her dainty rose-white fingers.
Thus rudely roused, she speaks:
”Are you asleep?” she asks, not turning her head in her companion's direction.
”No,” coldly; ”are you?”
”Yes, almost, and dreaming.”
”Dreams are the children of an idle brain,” quotes he, somewhat maliciously.
”Yes?” sweetly. ”And so you really have read your Shakespeare? And can actually apply it every now and then with effect, to the utter confusion of your friends? But I think you might have spared _me_.
Teddy!” bending forward and casting upon him a bewitching, tormenting, adorable glance from under her dark lashes, ”if you bite your moustache any harder it will come off, and then what will become of me?”
With a laugh Luttrell flings away the fern he has been reducing to ruin, and rising, throws himself upon the gra.s.s at her feet.
”Why don't I hate you?” he says, vehemently. ”Why cannot I feel even decently angry with you? You torment and charm in the same breath. At times I say to myself, 'She is cold, heartless, unfeeling,' and then a word, a look--Molly,” seizing her cool, slim little hand as it lies pa.s.sive in her lap, ”tell me, do you think you will ever--I do not mean to-morrow, or in a week, or a month, but in all the long years to come, do you think you will ever love me?” As he finishes speaking, he presses his lips with pa.s.sionate tenderness to her hand.
”Now, who gave you leave to do that?” asks Molly, _a propos_ of the kissing.
”Never mind: answer me.”
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