Part 12 (1/2)

”The same idea has occurred to me,” she said, ”but I dislike to hurry.

There is nothing so vulgar as haste.” Her old mocking tone had returned, and in despair he threw himself back into his seat.

Something in the pathetic grace of his att.i.tude and the beauty of his sensitive poetic face smote upon the heart that, with all its perversity, belonged alone to him. She ran to him and knelt at his side, with her white arms outstretched across his knees, and her lovely head bowed upon them. The young man realized with sharp distinctness that the fear of society is not the strongest feeling that can animate the human frame. He uttered a few pa.s.sionate words of endearment, and would have gathered her closely into his breast, but she, without looking up, sprang suddenly from him and, seizing her cloak, sped wind-like to her home.

But there were consequences. Madame Grundy, who is chief among those for whom Satan finds some mischief still, openly declared that there were some forms of imprudence that could be tolerated and some that could not, and that this particular indiscretion must, with reluctance, be relegated to the latter cla.s.s. The irate father of the erring one coincided with this view of things, and a speedy marriage was the result. ”Not guilty--but she mustn't do so again!” had evidently been the verdict of society.

A few months later, in 1818, Sir Peregrine Maitland, his affairs of love happily settled, was appointed ruler of Upper Canada, where his attention was turned to affairs of State. But there was one subject in connection with his courts.h.i.+p-days which had never been satisfactorily settled, and upon which he did not venture to question his wife until several years had elapsed. Then, late one afternoon, it recurred to him in that unaccountable way in which bygone events are accustomed to rise at odd times and lay claim to the attention.

”Dear,” he said, ”why did you object to my kissing your hand the evening you called on me in Paris?”

”You may lay out the corn-coloured silk, Emma,” said Lady Sarah to her maid, who came that moment with an inquiry upon toilette matters. Then as the girl disappeared she resumed her novel, peeping over the top of it at her husband.

”As though I wanted you to kiss my _hand_!” she said.

”_Oh_!” A sudden light seemed to dawn upon the dense masculine understanding. Sir Peregrine was very proud of his beautiful wife. At the private reception which she gave that evening the corn-coloured silk gown was the centre of a group of government officials and the social dignitaries of the time, between herself and whom the ball of conversation kept lightly moving.

She turned from them to greet an old friend. ”Ah, Commodore, so you are really settled here for the winter. Rose told me that you had some thoughts of remaining out in the bush through the cold season, in the cosy but rather too exclusive manner of a family of chipmunks. What have you been doing all summer?”

”Keeping myself unspotted from the world,” replied the gentleman, with a stately bow to the lady, and a sportive glance at the worthy representatives of the social world surrounding her.

”How very scriptural! Do Bibles grow on bushes in the backwoods that quotation of them comes so easily?”

”I don't know, I'm sure. Such searching theological questions are, I suppose, what a man must expect to confront when he forsakes the simple and sequestered life of the chipmunks.”

”Well, I am disappointed. I supposed from the expression of your eyes that you were going to say something complimentary.”

”My dear Lady Sarah, do compliments grow on street corners in the metropolis that the expectation of them comes so easily?”

”No, indeed--nor in drawing-rooms either, apparently. It is a novelty to meet a man who persists in making his conversation impersonal; but it is really cold-hearted of you to think of remaining so long away from us.”

”How can you say so! Absence, you know, makes the heart grow fonder.”

”Does it?” The lady made a feint of moving away. ”Now if it were only possible for me to absent myself,” she said, laughingly.

”Impossible! That is for me to do.” And the gentleman withdrew with flattering haste.

In his place appeared a blonde young man, with deep sea-blue eyes and a bright buoyant expression, on whose arm his hostess laid a soft detaining hand. ”Were you on the point of asking me to walk about a little?” she inquired. ”I am going to accept with alacrity.”

The young fellow, who would scarcely have made the suggestion in the face and eyes of several among the most distinguished of his fellow citizens immediately surrounding her, was not slow to respond, though he a.s.sumed an expression of alarm.

”I fear this is a deep-laid plot,” he remarked. ”I saw my father leaving you in haste a moment ago. Probably he has offended you, and you are about to visit the iniquities of the parents upon the children. Pray are you taking me apart in order to spare my sensitive feelings? So kind of you!”

”Well, it was not my benevolent intention to lecture you at all, either in public or private, but since you speak of it so feelingly no doubt the need exists. First tell me what you have been doing all summer.”

”Living out in the wild woods among the wild flowers, wild animals, wild Indians, and--”

”What a wild young man! I am positively afraid of you.”

”Delightful! Please oblige me by remaining so. It is difficult for me to be appalling for any length of time, yet the emotion of fear must be cultivated in your mind at all hazards.”

”And why?”