Part 65 (2/2)
Its _end_, mark you; for you shall never again deceive me. I have had enough of it. It is over. My love for you has died.”
”Beyond all doubt it had an easy death,” replies she, calmly. ”There could never have been much life in it. But all this is beside the question. I have yet to learn my crime. I have yet to learn what awful iniquity lies in the fact of my being with Philip Shadwell.”
”You are wonderfully innocent,” with a sneer. ”Do you think then that my sight failed me?”
”Still I do not understand,” she says, drawing herself up, with a little proud gesture. ”What is it to me whether you or all the world saw me with Philip? Explain yourself.”
”I will.” In a low voice, almost choked with pa.s.sion and despair. ”You will understand when I tell you I saw him with his arms around you--you submitting--you---- And then--I saw him--kiss you. That I should live to say it of you!”
”_Did_ you see him kiss me?” still calmly. ”Your eyesight is invaluable.”
”Ah! you no longer deny it? In your inmost heart no doubt you are laughing at me, poor fool that I have been. How many other times have you kissed him, I wonder, when I was not by to see?”
”Whatever faults you may have had, I acquitted you of brutality,” says she, in a low, carefully suppressed tone.
”You never loved me. In that one matter at least you were honest; you never professed affection. And yet I was mad enough to think that after a time I should gain the love of a flirt,--a coquette.”
”You were mad to _care_ for the love of 'a flirt,--a coquette.'”
”I have been blind all these past weeks,” goes on he, unheeding, ”determined not to see (what all the rest of the world, no doubt, too plainly saw) what there was between you and Shadwell. But I am blind no longer. I am glad,--yes, thankful,” cries the young man, throwing out one hand, as though desirous of proving by action the truth of his sad falsehood,--”thankful I have found you out at last,--before it was too late.”
”I am thankful too; but for another reason. I feel grateful that your suspicions have caused you to break off our engagement. And now that it is broken,--irremediably so,--let me tell you that for once your priceless sight has played you false. I admit that Philip placed his arm around me (but not unrebuked, as you would have it); I admit he stooped to kiss me; but,” cries Molly, with sudden pa.s.sion that leaves her pale as an early snow-drop, ”I do _not_ admit he kissed me.
Deceitful, worthless, flirt, coquette, as you think me, I have not yet fallen so low as to let one man kiss me while professing to keep faith with another.”
”You say this--after----”
”I do. And who is there shall dare give me the lie? Beware, Tedcastle; you have gone far enough already. Do not go too far. You have chosen to insult me. Be it so. I forgive you. But, for the future, let me see, and hear, and know as little of you as may be possible.”
”Molly, if what you now----”
”Stand back, sir,” cries she, with an air of majesty and with an imperious gesture, raising one white arm, that gleams like snow in the dark night, to wave him to one side.
”From henceforth remember, I am deaf when you address me!”
She sweeps past him into the house, without further glance or word, leaving him, half mad with doubt and self-reproach, to pace the gardens until far into the morning.
When he does re-enter the ball-room he finds it almost deserted. Nearly all the guests have taken their departure. Dancing is growing half-hearted; conversation is having greater sway with those that still remain.
The first person he sees--with Philip beside her--is Molly, radiant, sparkling, even more than usually gay. Two crimson spots burn upon either cheek, making her large eyes seem larger, and bright as gleaming stars.
Even as Luttrell, with concentrated bitterness, stands transfixed at some little distance from her, realizing how small a thing to her is this rupture between them, that is threatening to break his heart, she, looking up, sees him.
Turning to her companion, she whispers something to him in a low tone, and then she laughs,--a soft, rippling laugh, full of mirth and music.
”There go the chimes again,” says Mr. Potts, who has just come up, alluding to Molly's little cruel outburst of merriment. ”I never saw Miss Ma.s.sereene in such good form as she is in to-night. Oh!”--with a suppressed yawn--”'what a day we're 'aving!' I wish it were all to come over again.”
”Plantagenet, you grow daily more dissipated,” says Cecil Stafford, severely. ”A little boy like you should be in your bed hours ago; instead of which you have been allowed to sit up until half-past four, and----”
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