Part 47 (1/2)

There's an end to all argument while you are sniffing like that.' Then as the girl rises to go, but imperfectly strangling her sobs, she adds in a still vexed but rather remorseful voice: 'You make me feel quite choky too. You have no right to make me feel choky! Run away! run away!

What do I care for any of you? I have got my dairy-house!'

CHAPTER x.x.xI

'And such a boat!' The words ring in Peggy's ears through her homeward walk. After all, she had heard no new thing. That Freddy was an unseaworthy craft to which to commit the precious things of a life, the gems and spices of a throbbing human soul, has long been a patent fact to her. But there is a wide difference between a fact that has only been presented gently to one by one's self, and the same fact rudely thrust under one's eyes and into one's reluctant hands by some officious outsider.

'And such a boat!' She is unconsciously repeating milady's simple yet pregnant commentary on her nephew's character as she re-enters her own garden. Almost as she does so she is aware of Prue flying past her without seeing her, a condition of things explained by the fact of her handkerchief being held to her eyes in obvious pa.s.sionate weeping.

Prue, too, crying! An idea dazedly flashes across her brain that Prue must have overheard, and before common-sense can correct it, the girl is gone.

With a still more uncomfortable feeling at her heart than that which had been already there, Margaret continues her course to the Judas-tree. One of the pair she had left smiling beneath its shade is still there, and still smiling; or, if not actually smiling, at least in a mood that has no relation to tears.

He is lying all along on the garden-seat--Prue's departure, though no doubt deplored, has at least given him more room to stretch his legs--and is murmuring something, apparently of a rhythmic nature, half under his breath, as he stares up at the clouds.

'What have you been making Prue cry about?' asks Peggy, abruptly stopping before him.

Freddy starts a little, and reluctantly begins to draw back his legs, which, being too long for the bench, are elevated upon and protruding beyond its rustic arm.

'I am sure you are not aware of it, dear,' he says pleasantly, 'but your question has taken rather an offensive form. Prue _is_ crying, I regret to say; but why you should instantly conclude that it is I that have made her cry, I am at a loss to imagine. I think, Peg, I must refer you to 1 Corinthians xiii.'

'You used to tell me that _I_ always made her cry,' returns Peggy sternly; 'that _I_ was hard upon her; that she ”needed very tender handling.”'

'Did I indeed?' says the young man, with a sort of wondering interest.

'It shows how cautious one ought to be in one's judgment of others.

Thank you for telling me, Peg!'

'What have you been talking about to make her cry?' repeats Peggy, with a sad pertinacity. 'She was not in the least inclined to cry when I went away. I never saw her more joyous, poor little soul!'

'I may return the compliment, dear,' retorts Freddy, carrying the war into the enemy's quarters, and staring up with a brotherly familiarity into her still flushed and tear-betraying face from under the brim of Prue's garden-hat, which, as being more comfortable and wider-brimmed than his own, he has worn all afternoon. 'What have you been talking about to milady to make _you_ cry?'

She puts up her hand with a hasty gesture. She had not known or thought about the ravages wrought on her face by her late weeping; but now that the consciousness of it has been brought home to her, she is for a moment put out of countenance. But in a second she has recovered herself.

'We were talking of _you_,' she replies gravely. 'Milady knows; she has found out about you and Prue.'

Freddy has abandoned his p.r.o.ne posture; he is sitting up, lightly switching the end of his own boot with a small bamboo; Prue's hat, being capacious, veils his face almost entirely.

'I should have thought that the information would have come more gracefully from you,' continues Peggy coldly. 'I should have thought it would have been better if _you_ had told her.'

'If I had told her,' repeats Freddy dreamily, without looking up; 'after all, Peggy, there was not much to tell: ”I love;” ”I am loved.” The whole scheme of Creation lies in those two phrases; but when you come to telling--to putting it into brutal words----'

It is a warm evening, but Peggy feels a slight sensation of cold.

'It will have to be put into _brutal words_ some day or other,' she says doggedly, with an indignant emphasis on the three syllables quoted from Mr. Ducane's speech.

'”Some day, some day!”' echoes he dreamily, humming the refrain of the hackneyed song. 'Of course it will,' lifting his head again, and staring at the heavens. 'Good Lord, Peggy, what a pace that upper strata of cloud is driving at! there must be a strong current up there, though it is so still down here. You know, dear, you and I have never been quite at one upon that head. I have always thought that it took the bloom off one's sacred things to blare them prematurely about.'

There is such a tone of firm yet gentle reproach in his voice, that, for a second, Peggy asks herself dazedly, 'Is it possible that he is in the right?'