Part 47 (2/2)

'And what did milady say?' inquires the young fellow a moment later, in a lighter key, growing tired of watching the racing vapours in the upper air, and bringing his eyes back to earth again. 'You have not told me what milady said. Did she recommend my being put back into long-clothes?'

'No.'

'I am not at all sure that I should not be more comfortable in a white frock and a sash,' continues Freddy, laughing; 'I do feel so ridiculously young sometimes. I do not think that either you or dear Prue quite realise how young I am. You take me too seriously, Peggy. It is rather terrible to be taken so seriously.'

He has risen while speaking, and drawn coaxingly nearer to her. She looks at him with a sort of despair. It is quite true. He is terribly, ridiculously young. As her glance takes in the beardless bloom of his face, the Will-of-the-wispy laughter of his eyes, it comes home to her with a poignant force never before fully realised how ludicrous it is--ludicrous if it were not tragic, that commonest of earthly alternatives--for an agonising human soul to trust its whole life-treasure, without one thrifty or prudent reservation, into his b.u.t.terfly keeping. Probably her thought translates itself into her sad eyes; for Freddy fidgets uneasily under them, slashes at a tree-bough with his bamboo, s.h.i.+fts from foot to foot.

'You _are_ young,' she says sorrowfully, 'but you are twenty-one; at twenty-one----'

'At twenty-one Pitt was Prime Minister, or nearly so; that is what you were going to say, dear, was not it? Do not! I shall never be Prime Minister. I am like port wine,' breaking into a smile like suns.h.i.+ne; 'I should be better for a couple of voyages round the Cape!' and he is gone.

Though Margaret has been unable to extract from Freddy the occasion of Prue's tears, she has no great difficulty in learning it from the sufferer herself.

'It was very stupid of me,' she says, though the fountain shows symptoms of opening afresh at the bare recollection, 'and very cruel to him; he always says that the sight of tears unmans him so completely, that he cannot get over it for hours afterwards' (Peggy's lip curls). 'And of course it was only out of kindness, for my own good that he said it; as he told me,' blus.h.i.+ng with pleasure at the recollection, 'when one is in possession of a gem, one naturally wishes to have it cut and polished to the highest pitch of brilliancy of which it is capable. Was not it a beautiful simile?'

'Yes, yes; but that was not what made you cry, surely?'

'Oh no, of course not; what made me cry,' clouding over again, 'was that he said--he spoke most kindly, no one could have spoken more kindly--that he was afraid that I had no critical faculty.'

'Was that all?' says Peggy, relieved. 'Well, a great many people go through life very creditably without it. I do not think I should have cried at that.'

'He was reading me some new poems of his,' continues Prue, not sensibly cheered by this rea.s.surance; 'and when he had finished, he begged me to point out any faults I saw in them. And I told him what was the truth--that there were not any--that I thought them all one more beautiful than another; and then he looked rather vexed, and said he was afraid I had no critical faculty.'

Peggy smiles, not very gaily.

'He had better show them to me next time.'

'Do you think that he would have been better pleased if I had picked holes in them?' inquires Prue anxiously. 'But how could I? They all seemed to me to be perfectly beautiful; I did not see any holes to pick.'

'Do you happen to have them by you?' asks Peggy. 'If so, we might look them over together, and provide ourselves with some criticisms to oblige him with when next he calls.'

'No--o,' replies Prue reluctantly; 'I have not. He took them away with him, I think--I suppose that he wanted to read them to somebody else--somebody more intelligent. Peggy'--after a pause--'do you suppose that Miss Hartley has a critical faculty?'

The sisters are sitting, as usual after dinner, in their little hall.

Prue stretched upon her favourite oak settle; Peggy on a stool at her feet.

'My dear,' with an impatient sigh, 'how can I tell?'

'I dare say it must be very tiresome to be always praised,' pursues Prue, after a pause, in a not very steady voice--'particularly if you are, as he is, of a nature that is always struggling up to a higher level--”agonising,” as he said to-day, ”after unrealisable ideals.”'

Peggy coughs. It pa.s.ses instead of a remark.

'I have often thought how terribly insipid he must find me,' pursues Prue, with a painful humility. 'But I suppose, in point of fact, the more brilliant you yourself are, the more lenient you are to other people's stupidity; and, after all,' with a distressingly apparent effort at rea.s.suring herself, 'he has known it all along. It is not as if it came fresh to him; and I do not think that I am any duller than I was last year. Of course, if I had profited by all the advantages I have had in his conversation, I ought to be much brighter; but at least I do not think that I am any duller--do you?' eagerly grasping her sister's arm as if to rivet her attention, which, in truth, is in no danger of wavering.

'No, dear; of course not,' very soothingly.

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