Part 63 (1/2)
”Tell me about the snubbing.”
”It was High Art. Three words--and I knew I'd behaved like a bounder of the worst--I had to go back and get the other cab, with a broken front window and a cabby....” He chuckled. ”I've met red noses enough but you could have seen that chap's glowing through the thickest fog that ever blanketed Ludgate Hill and wrapped the Strand in greasy mystery. Don't move, please!... There's a ray of suns.h.i.+ne touching your head that makes your hair look the colour of a chestnut when the p.r.i.c.kly green hull first cracks to let it out. Or ... there's a rose grows on the pergola at home at Foltlebarre Royal, with a coppery sheen on the young leaves.... I wondered why I kept thinking of it as I looked at you. But I know now. And your skin is creamy white like the flower. Oh, if I could only gather the girl-rose and carry it home to the others!”
She was pink as the loveliest La France now.
”You ought not to talk to me in that way.”
”Don't I know it?” Beauvayse groaned out. He turned over upon his face in the gra.s.s, and lay quite still. A shuddering sigh heaved the strong young shoulders from time to time, and his hands clenched and tore at the gra.s.ses, ”Don't I know it? Lynette, Lynette!”
She longed to touch the close-cropped golden head. Unseen by him, she stretched out a hand timidly and drew it back again, unsatisfied.
”Lynette, Lynette! I'm paying at this moment for every rotten act of headlong folly I've ever committed in my life, and you're making me!” He caught at a fold of her skirt and drew it to him and hid his face in it, kissing it again and again. It was one of the caresses she had been used herself to offer where she most loved. To find yourself being wors.h.i.+pped instead of wors.h.i.+pping is an experience. She touched the golden head now, as the Mother had often touched her own. He caught the hand.
”No, no!” She grew deadly pale, and s.h.i.+vered. ”Please let me go. I--I did not----”
She tried to release the hand. He raised himself, and she started at the warm, quivering pressure of his beautiful mouth, scarcely shaded by the young, wheat-golden moustache, upon her cool, sweet flesh. She s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand away with a faint cry, and sprang to her feet, and her cheeks blazed anew as she turned to go.
”You want to leave me? You would punish me like that--just for a kissed hand?”
He barred her way, taller than herself, though he stood upon the sloping lower level. She had learned always to be true in thought and speech.
”I--don't--like to be touched.” She said it without looking at him.
”You put your hand upon my head. Why did you do it if you hate me so?”
”I--don't hate you!”
”I love you! My rose, my dove, my star, my joy! Queen of all the girls that ever I saw or dreamed of, say that you could love me back again!”
”I--must not.”
Her bosom heaved. He could see the delicate white throat vibrating with the tumultuous beating of her heart.
”Why not? n.o.body has told you anything against me? n.o.body has said to you that I have no right to love you?” he demanded.
”No.”
”Look at me.”
The golden hazel, dark-lashed eyes she shyly turned to his were full of exquisite, melting tenderness. Her lips parted to speak, and closed again.
He leaned towards her--hung over her, his own lips irresistibly attracted to those sweetest ones....
”Lord Beauvayse----” she began, and stopped.
He begged:
”Please, not the duffing t.i.tle, but 'Beauvayse' only. Tell me you love me.
Tell me that you'll wait until I'm able to come to you and say: 'My beloved, the way's clear. Be my wife to-morrow!'”
His tone was masterful. His ardent eyes thrilled her. She murmured: