Part 23 (1/2)
”I don't want any one to look at you but me!” Then he comes a little closer to her and compels her, by the very strength of his regard, to let her eyes meet his. ”Do you like Ryde?” he asks, somewhat imperiously. ”Monica, answer me.”
It is the second time he has called her by her Christian name, and a startled expression pa.s.ses over her face.
”Well, he was nice to me,” she says, with a studied hesitation that belongs to the first bit of coquetry she has ever practised in her life.
She has tasted the sweetness of power, and, fresh as her knowledge is she estimates the advantage of it to a nicety.
”I believe a man has only to be six feet one to have every woman in the world in love with him,” says Desmond, wrathfully, who is only five feet eleven.
”I am not exactly in _love_ with Mr. Ryde,” says Monica, sweetly, with averted face and a coy air, a.s.sumed for her companion's discomfiture; ”but----”
”But _what_?”
”But, I was going to say, there is nothing remarkable in that, as I am not in love with _any one_, and hope I never shall be. I wonder where Kit can have gone to: will you get up there, Mr. Desmond, and look?”
Breaking off a tiny blade of gra.s.s from the bank near her, she puts it between her pretty teeth, and slowly nibbles it with an air of utter indifference to all the world that drives Mr. Desmond nearly out of his wits.
Disdaining to take any heed of her ”notice to quit,” and quite determined to know the worst, he says, defiantly,--
”If you _do_ go to this dance, may I consider myself engaged to you for the first waltz?” There is quite a frown upon his face as he says this; but it hasn't the faintest effect upon Monica. She is not at all impressed, and is, in fact enjoying herself immensely.
”If I go, which is more than improbable, I shall certainly not dance with you at all,” she says, calmly, ”because Aunt Priscilla will be there too, and she would not hear of my doing even a mild quadrille with a Desmond.”
”I see,” with a melancholy a.s.sumption of composure. ”All your dances, then, are to be reserved for Ryde.”
”If Mr. Ryde asks me to dance, of course I shall not refuse.”
”You mean to tell me”--even the poor a.s.sumption is now gone--”that you are going to give him _all_ and me _none_?”
”I shall not give any one _all_: how can you talk like that? But I cannot defy Aunt Priscilla. It is very unkind of you to desire it. I suppose you think I should enjoy being tormented from morning till night all about you?”
”Certainly not. I don't want you to be tormented on any account, and, above all on mine,” very stiffly. ”To prevent anything of the kind, I shall not go to Cobbett's dance.”
”If you choose to get into a bad temper I can't help you.”
”I am _not_ in a bad temper, and even if I were I have cause. But it is not temper will prevent my going to the Barracks.”
”What then?”
”Why should I go there to be made miserable? _You_ can go and dance with Ryde to your heart's content, but I shall spare myself the pain of seeing you. Did you say you wanted your sister? Shall I call her now? I am sure you must want to go home.”
”I don't,” she says, unexpectedly; and then a little smile of conscious triumph wreathes her lips as she looks at him, standing moody and dejected before her. A word from her will transform him; and now, the day being all her own, she can afford to be generous. Even the very best of women can be cruel to their lovers.
”I don't,” she says, ”not _yet_. There is something I want to ask you first,” she pauses in a tantalizing fas.h.i.+on, and glances from the gra.s.s she is still holding to him, and from him back to the gra.s.s again, before she speaks. ”It is a question,” she says then, as though reluctantly, ”but you look so angry with me that I am afraid to ask it.”
This is the rankest hypocrisy, as he is as wax in her hands at this moment; but, though he knows it, he gives in to the sweetness of her manner, and lets his face clear.
”Ask me anything you like,” he says, turning upon her now a countenance ”more in sorrow than in anger.”
”It isn't much,” said Miss Beresford, sweetly, ”only--what _is_ your Christian name? I have been so _longing_ to know. It is very unpleasant to be obliged to _think_ of people by their surnames, is it not? so unfriendly!”
He is quite staggered by the excess of her geniality.