Part 53 (2/2)
”Have I done--that?”
”Yes. Didn't you understand? Do you suppose any other man in the world could have what you have had of me--of my real self? Do you suppose for one instant that any other man than you could ever obtain from me the confidence I offer you unasked? Do I not tell you everything that enters my head and heart? Do you not know that I care for you more than for anybody alive?”
”Gerald--”
She looked him straight in the eyes; her breath caught, but she steadied her voice:
”I've got to be truthful,” she said; ”I care for you more than for Gerald.”
”And I for you more than anybody living,” he said.
”Is it true?”
”It is the truth, Eileen.”
”You--you make me very happy, Captain Selwyn.”
”But--did you not know it before I told you?”
”I--y-yes; I hoped so.” In the exultant reaction from the delicious tension of avowal she laughed lightly, not knowing why.
”The pleasure in it,” she said, ”is the certainty that I am capable of making you happy. You have no idea how I desire to do it. I've wanted to ever since I knew you--I've wanted to be capable of doing it. And you tell me that I do; and I am utterly and foolishly happy.” The quick mischievous sparkle of _gaminerie_ flashed up, transforming her for an instant--”Ah, yes; and I can make you unhappy, too, it seems, by talking of marriage! That, too, is something--a delightful power--but”--the malice dying to a spark in her brilliant eyes--”I shall not torment you, Captain Selwyn. Will it make you happier if I say, 'No; I shall never marry as long as I have you'? Will it really? Then I say it; never, never will I marry as long as I have your confidence and friends.h.i.+p... . But I want it _all_!--every bit, please. And if ever there is another woman--if ever you fall in love!--crack!--away I go”--she snapped her white fingers--”like that!” she added, ”only quicker! Well, then! Be very, very careful, my friend! ... I wish there were some place here where I could curl up indefinitely and listen to your views on life. You brought a book to read, didn't you?”
He gave her a funny embarra.s.sed glance: ”Yes; I brought a sort of a book.”
”Then I'm all ready to be read to, thank you... . Please steady me while I try to stand up on this log--one hand will do--”
Scarcely in contact with him she crossed the log, sprang blithely to the ground, and, lifting the hem of her summer gown an inch or two, picked her way toward the bank above.
”We can see Nina when she signals us from the lawn to come to luncheon,”
she said, gazing out across the upland toward the silvery tinted hillside where Silverside stood, every pane glittering with the white eastern sunlight.
In the dry, sweet gra.s.s she found a place for a nest, and settled into it, head p.r.o.ne on a heap of scented bay leaves, elbows skyward, and fingers linked across her chin. One foot was hidden, the knee, doubled, making a tent of her white skirt, from an edge of which a russet shoe projected, revealing the contour of a slim ankle.
”What book did you bring?” she asked dreamily.
He turned red: ”It's--it's just a chapter from a little book I'm trying to write--a--a sort of suggestion for the establishment of native regiments in the Philippines. I thought, perhaps, you might not mind listening--”
Her delighted surprise and quick cordiality quite overwhelmed him, so, sitting flat on the gra.s.s, hat off and the hill wind furrowing his bright crisp hair, he began, navely, like a schoolboy; and Eileen lay watching him, touched and amused at his eager interest in reading aloud to her this ma.s.s of co-ordinated fact and detail.
There was, in her, one quality to which he had never appealed in vain--her loyalty. Confident of that, and of her intelligence, he wasted no words in preliminary explanation, but began at once his argument in favour of a native military establishment erected on the general lines of the British organisation in India.
He wrote simply and without self-consciousness; loyalty aroused her interest, intelligence sustained it; and when the end came, it came too quickly for her, and she said so frankly, which delighted him.
At her invitation he outlined for her the succeeding chapters with terse military accuracy; and what she liked best and best understood was avoidance of that false modesty which condescends, turning technicality into pabulum.
Lying there in the fragrant verdure, blue eyes skyward or slanting sideways to watch his face, she listened, answered, questioned, or responded by turns; until their voices grew lazy and the light reaction from things serious awakened the gaiety always latent when they were together.
”Proceed,” she smiled; ”_Arma virumque_--a n.o.ble theme, Captain Selwyn.
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