Part 52 (1/2)
She surveyed him, head a trifle on one side--the very incarnation of youthful malice in process of satisfying a desire for tormenting. Never before had she experienced that desire so keenly, so unreasoningly; never before had she found such a curious pleasure in punis.h.i.+ng without cause. A perfectly inexplicable exhilaration possessed her--a gaiety quite reasonless, until every pulse in her seemed singing with laughter and quickening with the desire for his torment.
”When I pretended I was annoyed by what men said to me, I was only a yearling,” she observed. ”Now I'm a two-year, Captain Selwyn... . Who can tell what may happen in my second season?”
”You said that you were _not_ the--the marrying sort,” he insisted.
”Nonsense. All girls are. Once I sat in a high chair and wore a bib and banqueted on cambric-tea and prunes. I don't do it now; I've advanced.
It's probably part of that progress which you are so opposed to.”
He did not answer, but stood, head bent, looping on a new leader.
”All progress is admirable,” she suggested.
No answer.
So, to goad him:
”There _are_ men,” she said dreamily, ”who might hope for a kinder reception next winter--”
”Oh, no,” he said coolly, ”there are no such gentlemen. If there were you wouldn't say so.”
”Yes, I would. And there are!”
”How many?” jeeringly, and now quite rea.s.sured.
”One!”
”You can't frighten me”--with a shade less confidence. ”You wouldn't tell if there was.”
”I'd tell _you_.”
”Me?”--with a sudden slump in his remaining stock of rea.s.surance.
”Certainly. I tell you and Nina things of that sort. And when I have fully decided to marry I shall, of course, tell you both before I inform other people.”
How the blood in her young veins was racing and singing with laughter!
How thoroughly she was enjoying something to which she could give neither reason nor name! But how satisfying it all was--whatever it was that amused her in this man's uncertainty, and in the faint traces of an irritation as unreasoning as the source of it!
”Really, Captain Selwyn,” she said, ”you are not one of those old-fas.h.i.+oned literary landmarks who objects through several chapters to a girl's marrying--are you?”
”Yes,” he said, ”I am.”
”You are quite serious?”
”Quite.”
”You won't _let_ me?”
”No, I won't.”