Part 47 (1/2)
”Quite true. But you don't deserve I should say it.”
”My darling! My 'one thing bright' in all this hateful world! Oh!”
throwing up his head with an impatient gesture, ”I have been so wretched all this evening! I have suffered the tortures of the----”
”Now, you musn't say naughty words,” interrupts she, with an adorable smile. ”You are glad I have forgiven you?”
This is how she puts it, and he is only too content to be friends with her on any terms, to show further fight.
”_More_ than glad.”
”And you will promise me never to be jealous again?”
This is a bitter pill, considering his former declaration that jealousy and he had nothing to do with each other; but he swallows it bravely.
”Never. And you--you will never again give me cause, darling, will you?”
”I gave you no cause now,” says the darling, shaking her pretty head obstinately. And he doesn't dare contradict her. ”You behaved really badly,” she goes on, reproachfully, ”and at such a time, too,--just when I was dying to tell you _such_ good news.”
”Good?--your aunts--” eagerly, ”have relented--they----”
”Oh, no! oh, _dear_, no!” says Miss Beresford. ”They are harder than ever against you. Adamant is a _sponge_ in comparison with them. It isn't that; but Madam O'Connor has asked me to go and stay with her next Monday for a week!--there!”
”And me too?”
”N--o. Aunt Priscilla made it a condition with regard to my going that you shouldn't be there.”
”The----And Madam O'Connor gave in to such abominable tyranny?”
”Without a murmur.”
”I thought she had a soul above that sort of thing,” says Mr. Desmond, with disgust. ”But they are all alike.”
”Who?--women?”
”Yes.”
”You mean to tell me I am like Aunt Priscilla and Madam O'Connor?”
”_Old_ women, I mean,” with anxious haste, seeing a cloud descending upon the brow of his beloved.
”Oh!”
”And, after all, it _is_ good news,” says Brian, brightening, ”because though I can't stop in the house for the week, still there is nothing to prevent my riding over there every one of the seven days.”
”That's just what I thought,” says Monica, ingenuously, with a sweet little blush.
”Ah! you wished for me, then?”
She refuses to answer this in any more direct manner than her eyes afford, but says, quickly, doubtfully,--