Part 93 (1/2)
Drawing a deep breath, she shrinks within the shelter of a friendly laurel until he is close to her; then, stepping from her hiding-place, she advances toward him.
As she does so, as she meets him face to face, all her nervousness, all her inward trembling, vanishes, and she declares to herself that victory shall lie with her.
He has grown decidedly thinner. Around his beautiful mouth a line of sadness has fallen, not to be concealed even by his drooping moustache.
He looks five years older. His blue eyes, too, have lost their laughter, and are full of a settled melancholy. Altogether, he presents such an appearance as should make the woman who loves him rejoice, provided she knows the cause.
When he sees her he stops short and grows extremely pale.
”You here!” he says, in tones of displeased surprise. ”I understood from Mrs. Ma.s.sereene you were at Herst. Had I known the truth, I should not have come.”
”I knew that; and the lie was mine,--not Let.i.tia's. I made her write it because I was determined to see you again. How do you do, Teddy?” says Miss Ma.s.sereene, coming up to him, smiling saucily, although a little tremulously. ”Will you not even shake hands with me?”
He takes her hand, presses it coldly, and drops it again almost instantly.
”I am glad to see you looking so well,” he says, gravely, perhaps reproachfully.
”I am sorry to see you looking so ill,” replies she, softly, and then begins to wonder what on earth she shall say next.
Mr. Luttrell, with his cane, takes the heads off two unoffending crocuses that, most unwisely, have started up within his reach. He is the gentlest-natured fellow alive, but he feels a vicious pleasure in the decapitation of those yellow, harmless flowers. His eyes are on the ground. He is evidently bent on silence. On such occasions what is there that can be matched in stupidity with a man?
”I got your letter,” Molly says, awkwardly, when the silence has gone past bearing.
”I know.”
”I did not answer it.”
”I know that too,” with some faint bitterness.
”It was too foolish a letter to answer,” returns she, hastily, detecting the drop of acid in his tone. ”And, even if I had written then, I should only have said some harsh things that might have hurt you. I think I was wise in keeping silence.”
”You were. But I cannot see how you have followed up your wisdom by having me here to-day.”
There is a little pause, and, then:
”I wanted so much to see you,” murmurs she, in the softest, sweetest of voices.
He winces, and s.h.i.+fts his position uneasily, but steadily refuses to meet her beseeching eyes. He visits two more unhappy crocuses with capital punishment, and something that is almost a sigh escapes him; but he will not look up, and he will not trust himself to answer her.
”Have you grown cruel, Teddy?” goes on Molly, in a carefully modulated tone. ”You are killing those poor crocuses that have done you no harm.
And you are killing me too, and what harm have _I_ done you? Just as I began to see some chance of happiness before us, you ran away (you a soldier, to show the white feather!), and thereby ruined all the enjoyment I might have known in my good fortune. Was that kind?”
”I meant to be kind, Molly; I am kind,” replies he huskily.
”Very cruel kindness, it seems to me.”
”Later on you will not think so.”
”It strikes me, Teddy,” says Miss Ma.s.sereene, reprovingly, ”you are angry because poor grandpapa chose to leave me Herst.”
”Angry? Why should I be angry?”