Part 54 (1/2)
”No! Am I? Because I wish to be like other women?”
”A hopeless wish, and a very unwise one.”
”'Hopeless!' And why, pray?” With a little uplifting of the straight brows and a little gleam from under the long curled lashes.
”Because,” says her lover, with fond conviction, ”you are so infinitely superior to them, that they would have to be born all over again before you could bring yourself to fall into their ways.”
”What! every woman in the known world?”
”Every one of them, I am eternally convinced.”
”Teddy,” says Molly, rubbing her cheek in her old caressing fas.h.i.+on against his sleeve, and slipping her fingers into his, ”you may go on.
Say anything you like,--call me any name you choose,--and I promise not to be one bit angry. There!”
When Luttrell has allowed himself time to let his own strong brown fingers close upon hers, and has solaced himself still further by pressing his lips to them, he takes courage and goes on, with a slightly accelerated color:
”Well, you see, Molly, you have made the subject a forbidden one, and--er--it is about our engagement I want to speak. Now, remember your promise, darling, and don't be vexed with me if I ask you to shorten it. Many people marry and are quite comfortable on five hundred pounds a year; why should not we? I know a lot of fellows who are doing uncommonly well on less.”
”Poor fellows!” says Molly, full of sympathy.
”I know I am asking you a great deal,”--rather nervously,--”but won't you think of it, Molly?”
”I am afraid I won't, just yet,” replies that lady, suavely. ”Be sensible, Teddy; remember all we said to John, and think how foolish we should look going back of it all. Why should things not go on safely and secretly, as at present, and let us put marriage out of our heads until something turns up? I am like Mr. Micawber; I have an almost religious belief in the power things have of turning up.”
”_I_ haven't,” says Luttrell, with terse melancholy.
”So much the worse for you. And besides, Teddy, instinct tells me you are much nicer as a lover than you will be as a husband. Once you attain to that position, I doubt I shall be able to order you about as I do at present.”
”Try me.”
”Not for a while. There, don't look so dismal, Ted; are we not perfectly happy as we are?”
”You may be, perhaps.”
”Don't say, 'perhaps;' you may be certain of it,” says she, gayly. ”I haven't a doubt on the subject. Come, do look cheerful again. Men as fair as you should cultivate a perpetual smile.”
”I wish I was a n.i.g.g.e.r,” says Luttrell, impatiently. ”You have such an admiration for blackamoors, that then, perhaps, you might learn to care for me a degree more than you do just now. Shadwell is dark enough for you.”
”Yes; isn't he handsome?” With much innocent enthusiasm. ”I thought last night at dinner, when----”
”I don't in the least want to know what you thought last night of Shadwell's personal appearance,” Luttrell interrupts her, angrily.
”And I don't in the least want you to hold my hand a moment longer,”
replies Miss Ma.s.sereene, with saucy retaliation, drawing her fingers from his with a sudden movement, and running away from him up the stone steps of the balcony into the house.
All through the night, both when waking and in dreams, the remembrance of the slight cast upon her absent mother by Mr. Amherst, and her own silent acceptance of it, has disturbed the mind of Marcia. ”A dancer!”
The word enrages her.