Part 32 (1/2)

”I understand my husband, and my husband understands me,” she is in the habit of saying to those who will take the trouble to listen; which is strictly true as regards the latter part of the speech, though perhaps the former is not so wise an a.s.sertion.

With her she brings her only child, a beautiful little boy of six.

She greets Marcia with effusion, and gushes over Molly.

”So glad, dear, so charmed to make your acquaintance. Have always felt such a deep interest in your poor dear mother's sad but romantic story.

So out of the common as it was, you know, and delightfully odd, and--and--all that. Of course you are aware there is a sort of cousins.h.i.+p between us. My father married your----” and so on, and on, and on.

She talks straight through lunch to any one and every one without partiality; although afterward no one can remember what it was she was so eloquent about.

”Tedcastle not come?” she says, presently, catching Marcia's eye. ”I quite thought he was here. What an adorable boy he was! I do hope he is not changed. If India has altered him, it will be quite too bad.”

”He may come yet,” replies Marcia; ”though I now think it unlikely.

When writing he said to-day, or to-morrow; and with him that always means to-morrow. He is fond of putting off; his second thoughts are always his best.”

”Always,” thinks Molly, angrily, feeling suddenly a keen sense of sure disappointment. What does she know about him? After all he said on parting he must, he _will_ come to-day.

Yet somehow, spite of this comforting conclusion, her spirits sink, her smile becomes less ready, her luncheon grows flavorless. Something within compels her to believe that not until the morrow shall she see her lover.

When they leave the dining-room she creeps away unnoticed, and, donning her hat, sallies forth alone into the pleasant wood that surrounds the house.

For a mile or two she walks steadily on, crunching beneath her feet with a certain sense of vicious enjoyment those early leaves that already have reached death. How very monotonous all through is a big wood! Trees, gra.s.s, sky overhead! Sky, gra.s.s, trees.

She pulls a few late wild flowers that smile up at her coaxingly, and turns them round and round within her fingers, not altogether tenderly.

What a fuss poets, and painters, and such-like, make about flowers, wild ones especially! When all is said, there is a terrible sameness about them; the same little pink ones here, the same little blue ones there; here the inevitable pale yellow, there the pure warm violet.

Well, no doubt there is certainly a wonderful variety--but still----

Looking up suddenly from her weak criticism, she sees coming quickly toward her--very close to her--Teddy Luttrell.

With a glad little cry, she flings the ill-treated flowers from her and runs to him with hands outstretched.

”You have come,” she cries, ”after all! I _knew_ you would; although she said you wouldn't. Oh, Teddy, I had _quite_ given you up.”

Luttrell takes no notice of this contradictory speech. With his arms round her, he is too full of the intense happiness of meeting after separation the beloved, to heed mere words. His eyes are fastened on her perfect face.

How more than fair she is! how in his absence he has misjudged her beauty! or is it that she grows in excellence day by day? Not in all his lover's silent raptures has he imagined her half as lovely as she now appears standing before him, her hands clasped in his, her face flushed with unmistakable joy at seeing him again.

”Darling, darling!” he says, with such earnest delight in his tones that she returns one of his many kisses, out of sheer sympathy. For though glad as she is to welcome him as a sure ally at Herst, she hardly feels the same longing for the embrace that he (with his heart full of her alone) naturally does.

”You look as if you were going to tell me I have grown tall,” she says, amused at his prolonged examination of her features. ”John always does, when he returns from London, with the wild hope of keeping me down.

Have I?”

”How can I tell? I have not taken my eyes from your face yet.”

”Silly boy, and I have seen all the disimprovements in you long ago. I have also seen that you are wearing an entirely new suit of clothes.

Such reckless extravagance! but they are very becoming, and I am fond of light gray, so you are forgiven. Why did you not come sooner? I have been _longing_ for you. Oh, Teddy, I don't like Marcia or grandpapa a bit; and Philip has been absent nearly all the time; you said you would come early.”

”So I did, by the earliest train; you could hardly have left the house when I arrived, and then I started instantly to find you. My own dear darling,” with a sigh of content, ”how good it is to see you again, and how well you are looking!”