Part 8 (1/2)
”There does, and encounters are sometimes unpleasant for both parties,”
he remarked abruptly. ”But you'll excuse me, won't you? I see a man over there that I know, and want to speak to him.”
Valerie gracefully inclined her head, and Egerton, rising, lounged over to the man he had recognised.
The moment he was out of hearing, she turned to Trethowen, and said:
”Then you and Jack Egerton are friends?”
”Yes; I find him a very agreeable and good hearted fellow.”
”That may be.” She hesitated thoughtfully; then she added: ”You do not know him as well as I do.”
”And what is your objection to him?” asked he in surprise.
”Hugh, yesterday you told me you loved me,” she said, looking seriously into his face.
”Yes, dearest, I did. I meant it.”
”Then; as I explained to you, I have many enemies as well as friends.
Jack Egerton is one of the former, and will do all in his power to part us when he finds out our affection is mutual. Now you understand my antipathy.”
”Clearly,” he replied, puzzled. ”But I know Jack too well; he would not be guilty of an underhand action.”
”Do not trust him, but promise me _one thing_.”
”Of course, I'll promise you anything to make you happy. What is it?”
”That you will take no heed of any allegations he may make against me.”
She was intensely in earnest, and gazed at him with eyes that were entirely human in their quick sympathy, their gentleness--in their appeal to the world for a favouring word.
”Rest a.s.sured, nothing he may say will ever turn me from you, Valerie.”
She heaved a sigh of relief when he gave his answer.
”Somehow or other I am always being scandalised,” she exclaimed bitterly. ”I have done nothing of which I am ashamed, yet my select circle of enemies seem to conspire to cause the world to deride me.
Because I am unmarried, and do not believe in burying myself, they endeavour to besmirch my fair name.”
She spoke with a touch of emotion, which she ineffectually tried to hide.
Then, as Hugh addressed her in a tone in which respect melted into love, she quivered at the simple words in which he poured forth his whole soul:
”I love you. Why need you fear?”
He uttered these words with a slight pressure of the hand, and a look which sank deep into her heart.
Then they exchanged a few tremulous words--those treasured speeches which, monotonous as they seem, are as music in the ears of lovers. The artist and his friend were by this time out of sight, and they were left to themselves to enjoy those brief half-hours of happiness which seldom return, which combine the sadness of parting with the radiant hopes of a brighter day, and which we all of us grasp with sweet, trembling joy, as we stand on the threshold of a new life.
And Valerie--forgetting everything, absorbed in a dream which was now a tangible reality--sat silent, with moist and downcast eyes. Hugh continued to smile, and murmured again and again in her ear: