Volume I Part 2 (1/2)
”I didn't want telling,” she said placidly. ”I knew it was all safe.”
”Then you knew what only the G.o.ds knew--for I only got in by seventeen votes.”
”Yes, so I heard. I was very sorry for Burrows.”
She put one foot on the stone fender, raised her pretty dress with one hand, and leant the other lightly against the mantelpiece. The att.i.tude was full of grace, and the little sighing voice fitted the curves of a mouth which seemed always ready to laugh, yet seldom laughed frankly.
As she made her remark about Burrows Tressady smiled.
”My prophetic soul was right,” he said deliberately; ”I knew you would be sorry for Burrows.”
”Well, it _is_ hard on him, isn't it? You can't deny you're a carpet-bagger, can you?”
”Why should I? I'm proud of it.”
Then he looked round him. The rest of the party--not without whispers and smothered laughter--had withdrawn from them. Some of the ladies had already gone up to dress. The men had wandered away into a little library and smoking-room which opened on the hall. Only the squire, safe in a capacious armchair a little way off, was absorbed in a local paper and the last humours of the election.
Satisfied with his glance, Tressady put his hands into his pockets, and leant back against the fireplace, in a way to give himself fuller command of Miss Sewell's countenance.
”Do you never give your friends any better sympathy than you have given me in this affair, Miss Sewell?” he said suddenly, as their eyes met.
She made a little face.
”Why, I've been an angel!” she said, poking at a prominent log with her foot.
George laughed.
”Then our ideas of angels agree no better than the rest. Why didn't you come and hear the poll declared, after promising me you would be there?”
”Because I had a headache, Sir George.”
He responded with a little inclination, as though ceremoniously accepting her statement.
”May I ask at what time your headache began?”
”Let me see,” she said, laughing; ”I think it was directly after breakfast.”
”Yes. It declared itself, if I remember right, immediately after certain remarks of mine about a Captain Addison?”
He looked straight before him, with a detached air.
”Yes,” said Letty, thoughtfully; ”it was a curious coincidence, wasn't it?”
There was a moment's silence. Then she broke into infectious laughter.
”Don't you know,” she said, laying her hand on his shoulder--”don't you know that you're a most foolish and wasteful person? We get along capitally, you and I--we've had a rattling time all this week--and then you will go and make uncivil remarks about my friends--in public, too!
You actually think I'm going to let you tell Aunt Watton how to manage me! You get me into no end of a fuss--it'll take me weeks to undo the mischief you've been making--and then you expect me to take it like a lamb! Now, do I look like a lamb?”
All this time she was holding him tight by the arm, and her dimpled face, alive with mirth and malice, was so close to his that a moment's wild impulse flashed through him to kiss her there and then. But the impulse pa.s.sed. He and Letty Sewell had known each other for about three weeks.