Part 57 (1/2)
She sat up and drew her hand away. ”Lawrence, you must leave me in peace. A man cannot honestly want to marry a girl who--who--” Ah! why did she falter?
”Well, little woman! Who--who--!”
”Doesn't love him,” a trifle lamely.
”Ah, Paddy! you were going to say 'hate,' and the lie died on your lips.”
She flushed in the firelight, but continued bravely:
”It makes very little difference. The fact remains that I do not love you and I will not marry you.”
”Marry me first, and I will soon teach you to love.”
She felt her breath coming fitfully and her pulses leaping strangely, and she bit her teeth together to steady herself as she still stared into the fire. Oh! why did he give her that unnerved feeling! What in the world was the matter with her! She felt as if she only waited to hide her face in the cus.h.i.+on. He seemed to understand, for he turned his eyes away, and, leaning forward, softly kissed her hand. ”It would be difficult, little woman--you were made for love, and I--well, I somehow seem to just wors.h.i.+p you, and that's all about it.”
Once more she tried to rally herself, pressing her hands to her eyes as if to shut out everything that distracted her from her one purpose.
”It is no use,” resolutely. ”Of course, I understand you have a certain power when you like, and that you are so confident because sooner or later you have always won. But that is just what fortifies me now. I don't want to go into the old arguments. I want you to understand once for all that I _am_ fortified, and I _do_ mean what I say, and not all the loneliness in the world will change me. It is no use talking as you do, and hoping as you do, because there are barriers which neither of us could move, even if we were both agreed. Be sensible and be kind. It would be kind to leave me alone in future, and sensible to be content that you have, to a certain extent, broken down my hate.”
”Content!--_content_!” and there was a low, vibrating pa.s.sion in his voice that stirred her to her depths. ”Content to give in when I have come within sight of my goal! Content to lose my wife for a whim--a prejudice--a quixotic idea of righting a wrong that, has long since been wiped out in the most satisfactory way in the world! Do you hear, Paddy?--_my wife_?--no, by G.o.d, because I choose to think of you like that now, I will not be content and I will not give in.”
His violence frightened her, and she s.h.i.+vered a little. He saw it, and, with one of his swift changes, became suddenly penitent.
”There--I didn't mean to frighten you. You look quite bewildered, and so pale. I am a brute. Poor little woman. Don't take any notice-- don't remember anything except that I won't give in, because I know you are not as indifferent to me as you pretend, and also because you are lonely and forlorn.” His voice grew entrancingly gentle, ”Patricia the Brave, Patricia the Independent, left out in the cold, and no one to realise that she feels it except the Mourne Lodge Bear. Mavourneen-- mavourneen--bears have understanding when they love as I love you.”
Big tears gathered in her eyes and splashed down unheeded on her hands.
He leaned nearer, and a tremor pa.s.sed through her. When he spoke in that enthralling, wholly gentle cadence, it was as though her thoughts and faculties became numb. It was as though solid ground were slipping away beneath her feet--branches breaking to which she was clinging for safety. She could only clutch with a spasmodic grasp at the grim spectre of her old resolve. She hid her face in her hands, staggered at the growing feebleness of her own resistance.
”Paddy--dear little girl--my arms are still aching--_come_.”
She sprang up, white and trembling.
”Oh, Lawrence, please stop--I am not quite myself to-day. Let us go and look for the others.”
He hesitated a moment, then said:
”They don't want us, and you look too tired to walk. I expect you've been lying awake instead of going to sleep the last two or three nights, worrying about future plans. Perhaps it isn't quite fair to press you any more now. Anyhow, I've had more to-day than ever before, and I feel I can afford to wait. If I don't say any more about the future, dear, will you just sit quietly there and rest until tea-time? See, I'll give you two more days to get thoroughly readjusted to the new order of events, then I shall come to the Parsonage and claim you. Will you agree to stay here quietly, Paddy, if I promise not to worry you?”
She murmured an a.s.sent.
”That's a sensible little woman. I'll clean my gun--do you see? I like doing it myself occasionally, and I've often thought how I'd love to do those sorts of things in here with you--I fiddling round with my hobbies and you sitting there--no need to say anything, but just to see your skirts, and your little feet, and your hair, and feel in every breath of me, not only that you are there, but that you _belong_ there.” He moved away. ”I suppose we're all family men at heart, directly we pa.s.s the frivolous stage and have wearied of ba.n.a.l excitements. I never meant to be anything but a bachelor, but now I want a home and a fireside that is the real thing the same as all the rest of them. I want you--_belonging_ there.
”But I'm trespa.s.sing already. If I don't mind you'll fly yet--you're such a wild little bird. Don't take any notice; you can go to sleep if you like. There's just half an hour before tea-time. No one will know you are here; they are all too taken up with each other to think of anything else.”
Paddy closed her eyes gratefully, wondering why she felt so deathly tired.
CHAPTER FORTY TWO.
”WHAT WOULD AN IRISH FUSILIER DO?”
They thought her a little strange at home that evening, but after a time Jack and Eileen vanished, and making a tremendous effort, she contrived to chatter to the aunties about her dispensing in a fairly brisk fas.h.i.+on. She did not, however, altogether blind them, and she was glad enough when the need ceased, and she could go to bed.