Part 60 (2/2)
With a light step she returns to the tea-room, where she left him, and, looking gently in, finds he has neither stirred nor raised his head since her cruel words cut him to the heart. Ten minutes,--a long time,--and all consumed in thoughts of her! Feeling still more contrite, she approaches him.
”Why, Philip,” she says, with an attempt at playfulness, ”still enduring 'grinding torments?' What have I said to you? You have taken my foolish words too much to heart. That is not wise. Sometimes I hardly know myself what it is I have been saying.”
She has come very near to him,--so near that gazing up at him appealingly, she brings her face in dangerously close proximity to his.
A mad desire to kiss the lips that sue so sweetly for a pardon fills him, yet he dares not do it. Although a man not given to self-restraint where desire is at elbow urging him on, he now stands subdued, unnerved, in Molly's presence.
”Have I really distressed you?” asks she, softly, his strange silence rendering her still more remorseful. ”Come,”--laying her hand upon his arm,--”tell me what I have done.”
”'Sweet, you have trod on a heart,'” quotes Philip, in so low a tone as to be almost unheard. He crosses his hand tightly over hers for an instant; a moment later, and it is she who--this time--finds herself alone.
In the next room success is crowning their efforts. When Molly re-enters, she finds the work almost completed. Just a finis.h.i.+ng touch here and there, and all is ended.
”I suppose I should consider myself in luck: I have still a little skin left,” says Sir Penthony, examining his hand with tender solicitude. ”I don't think I fancy decorating: I shan't take to the trade.”
”You--should have put on gloves, you know, and that,” says Grainger, who is regarding his dainty fingers with undisguised sadness,--something that is _almost_ an expression on his face.
”But isn't it awfully pretty?” says Lady Stafford, gazing round her with an air of pride.
”Awfully nice,” replies Molly.
”Quite too awfully awful,” exclaims Mr. Potts, with exaggerated enthusiasm, and is instantly suppressed.
”If you cannot exhibit greater decorum, Potts, we shall be obliged to put your head in a bag,” says Sir Penthony, severely. ”I consider 'awfully' quite the correct word. What with the ivy and the gigantic size of those paper roses, the room presents quite a startling appearance.”
”Well, I'm sure they are far prettier than Lady Harriet Nitemair's; and she made such a fuss about hers last spring,” says Cecil, rather injured.
”Not to be named in the same day,” declares Luttrell, who had not been at Lady Harriet Nitemair's.
”Why, Tedcastle, you were not there; you were on your way home from India at that time.”
”Was I? By Jove! so I was. Never mind, I take your word for it, and stick to my opinion,” replies Luttrell, unabashed.
”I really think we ought to christen our work.” Mr. Potts puts in dreamily, being in a thirsty mood; and christened it is in champagne.
Potts himself, having drunk his own and every one else's health many times, grows gradually gayer and gayer. To wind up this momentous evening without making it remarkable in any way strikes him as being a tame proceeding. ”To do or die” suddenly occurs to him, and he instantly acts upon it.
Seeing his two former allies standing rather apart from the others, he makes for them and thus addresses them:
”Tell you what,” he says, with much geniality, ”it feels like Christmas, and crackers, and small games, don't it? I feel up to anything. And I have a capital idea in my head. Wouldn't it be rather a joke to frighten the others?”
”It would,” says Cecil, decidedly.
”Would it?” says Molly, diffidently.
”I have a first-rate plan; I can make you both look so like ghosts that you would frighten the unsuspecting into fits.”
”First, Plantagenet, before we go any further into your ghostly schemes, answer me this: _is_ there any gunpowder about it?”
<script>