Part 51 (1/2)
Paddy stared at the loch and remained silent.
”Patricia the Great at the head of an avenging army--leading on fools and knights-errant--devastating a peaceful, harmless land for the sake of a Dream--a Prejudice--a Chimera. I see it all.”
She looked helplessly unhappy, but he would not spare her.
”Listen to me, Patricia the Great. You shall keep your feud, and cling to your prejudice a little longer, but _I will not give in_. I want you. That at least is a plain, ungarnished truth. Perhaps if you knew me as well as some, you would realise that it is the sort of truth I have a little habit of making into a fact, in spite of dreams and prejudices. This thing has got to be, Paddy. I repeat what I said before. If I am worth my name, I will win you yet.”
”Ah, why will you talk like this, when it is so useless,” she cried.
”Why will you not be friends? Lawrence, let us be friends. Let me thank you for the other night, and, for the sake of it, drop the old feud. I will try to do this to show you I am sincere in my grat.i.tude.”
His face grew suddenly whiter than ever with concentrated pa.s.sion and determination. ”We will do nothing of the kind. I don't want your friends.h.i.+p. You can take it back. Do you hear? I refuse your kindly pat on the shoulder, and your offer to be a good girl because you think you owe me thanks. You can keep your feud and your hatred--anything is better than a soppy middle course. It is my turn now, and I refuse your offer of sisterly affection, which is what it amounts to. I will have your love some day, but until then, your hate, please. As long as you go on hating I shall know at least that you are not indifferent, and that the sound of my name does not pa.s.s unheeded by your ears. And we will continue to cross swords--we will be as we were before. If you want to show this grat.i.tude you talk of, show it that way; it is the only thing I ask of you.”
She shrank from him a little bewildered. The strength of his pa.s.sion stirred every fibre of her being, and the thought crossed her--would she be able to withstand him for long? But Lawrence cooled suddenly. He had said his say; for the present, there was nothing further to be gained. In two minutes his face was almost as impa.s.sive as of old, as he remarked cynically:
”Trust an old fool for being a big fool. I am ranting like a street preacher. Well, I will go home and find my level again. Good-by, Paddy.” He gripped her hand with such force that she uttered a little cry.
”There, I didn't mean to hurt you, only to show you how I can grip, if I make up my mind to anything. Remember I am your enemy. Go on hating as hard as you like, until I make you love. We shall meet again soon in London.”
Then he strode off through the wood, and left her by the loch alone.
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT.
GWEN'S VIEWS ON MATRIMONY.
When Paddy got back to London, her mother, and Eileen, and the doctor, and even Basil thought she was changed in some way, but they did not know how. She was quieter than she used to be, or at any rate given to moods, bursting out now and then into unusual spirits which had yet a ring of not being perfectly genuine.
Curiously enough, perhaps, Gwendoline Carew was the only one who actually knew what was affecting her. She had met Lawrence in the autumn at a shooting party at a mutual friend's, and quickly recognised some change in him too. Of course she had taken the first opportunity to tax him with it, and absolutely refused to be put off with cynicism or scoffing or anything else.
”Don't waste time talking to me like this, Lawrie,” she had said, ”as if I didn't know you too well by this time. Just have the grace to bow your superior old head for once, and own you've reached a fence you can't clear.”
”Wouldn't it be better to make sure first? I wouldn't for the world tell you an untruth.”
”I'll risk it. Besides, Lawrie, who knows! I might be able to help.”
”I have rather a weakness for managing my own affairs.”
”I know you have, and on the whole they do you credit, but it seems to me there's something on foot now, that you're just not quite so dead certain sure about as usual.”
Lawrence was silent.
”Once before it was the same,” said Gwen. ”Don't you remember when a certain father died, and you were in doubt? Well, didn't Gwen manage you then and help to keep you from running off the track!”
”I am not in doubt now,” he answered.
”No, but I strongly suspect that you are in love.”
He only looked steadily before him and made no sign.
”If it's Paddy,” said candid Gwen, ”I'll just move heaven and earth to help you. If it isn't you can 'gang yer ain gait.'”
She waited, and presently Lawrence said quietly: ”It is Paddy.”