Part 22 (1/2)

Nonsense, Daisy; that is _his_ affair. I know you are as good a girl as ever lived. Your father was poor, no doubt, and that wretched Mr.

Cranley--yes, he was a wretch--had a spite against you. I don't know why, and you won't help me to guess. But Mr. Barton is too much of a man to let that kind of thing disturb him, I'm sure. You are afraid of something, Margaret Your nerves have been unstrung. I'm sure I don't wonder at it. I know what it is to lose one's nerve. I could no more drive now, as I used to do, or go at the fences I used to think _nothing_ of! But once you are married to a man like Mr. Barton, who is there can frighten you? And as to being poor,” and Mrs. St. John Deloraine explained her generous views as to arrangements on her part, which would leave Margaret far from portionless.

Then Margaret would cry a little, and lay her head on her friend's shoulder, and the friend would shed some natural tears for company; and they would have tea, and Barton would call, and look a great deal at his boots, and fidget with his hat.

”I've no patience with you, Mr. Barton,” said Mrs. St. John Deloraine at last, when she had so manouvred as to have some private conversation with him, and Barton had unpacked his heart. ”I've no patience with you.

Why, where is your courage? 'She has a history?' She's been persecuted.

Well, where's your chivalry? Why don't you try your fortune? There never was a better girl, nor a pleasanter companion when she's not--when she's not disturbed by the nervousness of an undecided young man. If you don't take your courage in both hands, I will carry Margaret off on a yachting voyage to the Solomon Islands, or Jericho, or somewhere. Look here, I am going to take her for a drive in Battersea Park; it is handy, and looking very pretty, and as lonely as Tadmor in the wilderness. We will get out and saunter among the ponds. I shall be tired and sit down; you will show Margaret the marvels of natural history in the other pond, and when you come back you will both have made up your minds!”

With this highly transparent ruse Barton expressed his content. The carriage was sent for, and in less than half an hour Barton and Margaret were standing alone, remote, isolated from the hum of men, looking at a pond where some water-hens were diving, while a fish (”coa.r.s.e,” but not uninteresting) occasionally flopped on the surface, The trees--it was the last week of May--were in the earliest freshness of their foliage; the air, for a wonder, was warm and still.

”How quiet and pretty it is!” said Margaret ”Who would think we were in London?”

Barton said nothing. Like the French parrot, mentioned by Sir Walter Scott, he thought the more.

”Miss Burnside!” he exclaimed suddenly, ”we have known each other now for some time.”

This was a self evident proposition; but Margaret felt what was coming, and trembled. She turned for a moment, pretending to watch the movements of one of the water-fowls. Inwardly she was nerving herself to face the hard part of her duty, and to remind Barton of the mystery in her life.

”Yes,” she said at last; ”we have known each other for some time, and yet--you know nothing about me.”

With these words she lifted her eyes and looked him straight in the face. There seemed a certain pride and n.o.bility in her he had not seen before, though her beautiful brown eyes were troubled, and there was a mark of pain on her brow. What was she going to tell him?

Barton felt his courage come back to him.

”I know one thing about you, and that is enough for me. I know I love you!” he said. ”Margaret, can't you care for me a little? Don't tell me anything you think you should not say. I'm not curious.”

Margaret turned back again to her inspection of the pond and its inmates, grasping the iron railing in front of her and gazing down into the waters, so that he could not see her face.

”No,” she said at last, in a very low voice; ”it would not be fair.”

Then, after another pause, ”There is someone--” she murmured, and stopped.

This was the last thing Barton had expected. If she did not care for _him_, he fancied she cared for n.o.body.

”If you like someone better--” he was beginning.

”But I don't like him at all,” interrupted Margaret. ”He was very kind, but--”

”Then can't you like _me_?” asked Barton; and by this time he was very near her, and was looking down into her face, as curiously as she was still studying the natural history of Battersea Ponds.

”Perhaps I should not; it is so difficult to know,” murmured Margaret.

And yet her rosy confusion, and beautiful lowered eyes, tender and ashamed, proved that she knew very well. Love is not always so blind but that Barton saw his opportunity, and was a.s.sured that she had surrendered. And he prepared, a conqueror, to march in with all the honors and rewards of war; for the place was lonely, and a covenant is no covenant until it is sealed.

But when he would have kissed her, Margaret disengaged herself gently, with a little sigh, and returned to the strong defensible position by the iron railings.

”I must tell you about myself,” she said. ”I have promised never to tell, but I must. I have been so tossed about, and so weak, and so many things have happened.” And she sighed.

However impa.s.sioned a lover may be, he does naturally prefer that there should be no mystery about her he adores. Barton had convinced himself (aided by the eloquence and reposing on the feminine judgment of Mrs.

St. John Deloraine) that Margaret could have nothing that was wrong to conceal. He could not look at her frank eyes and kind face and suspect her; though, to anyone but a lover, these natural advantages are no argument. He, therefore, prepared to gratify an extreme curiosity, and, by way of comforting and aiding Margaret, was on the point of a.s.suming an affectionate att.i.tude. But she moved a little away, and, still turning toward the friendly ponds, began her story: