Part 13 (1/2)
”What! are you tired of me already?” asks she hastily, with a little tremor in her voice, that might be anger, and that might be pain.
”Tired of you? No! But I cannot help seeing that the fact of my being your guardian makes me abhorrent to you.”
”Not quite that,” says Miss Chesney, in a little soft, repentant tone.
”What a curious idea to get into your head? dismiss it; there is really no reason why it should remain.”
”You are sure?” with rather more earnestness than the occasion demands.
”Quite sure. And now tell me how it was I never saw you until now, since I was two years old.”
”Well, for one thing, your mother died; then I went to Eton, to Cambridge, got a commission in the Dragoons, tired of it, sold out, and am now as you see me.”
”What an eventful history!” says Lilian, laughing.
At this moment, who should come toward them, beneath the trees, but Cyril, walking as though for a wager.
”'Whither awa?'” asks Miss Lilian, gayly stopping him with outstretched hands.
”You have spoiled my quotation,” says Cyril, reproachfully, ”and it was on the very tip of my tongue. I call it disgraceful. I was going to say with fine effect, 'Where are you going, my pretty maid?' but I fear it would fall rather flat if I said it now.”
”Rather. Nevertheless, I accept the compliment. Are you in training? or where are you going in such a hurry?”
”A mere const.i.tutional,” says Cyril, lightly,--which is a base and ready lie. ”Good-bye, I won't detain you longer. Long ago I learned the useful lesson that where 'two is company, three is trumpery.' Don't look as though you would like to devour me, Guy: I meant no harm.”
Lilian laughs, so does Guy, and Cyril continues his hurried walk.
”Where does that path lead to?” asks Lilian, looking after him as he disappeared rapidly in the distance.
”To The Cottage first, and then to the gamekeeper's lodge, and farther on to another entrance-gate that opens on the road.”
”Perhaps he will see your pretty tenant on his way?”
”I hardly think so. It seems she never goes beyond her own garden.”
”Poor thing! I feel the greatest curiosity about her, indeed I might say an interest in her. Perhaps she is unhappy.”
”Perhaps so; though her manner is more frozen than melancholy. She is almost forbidding, she is so cold.”
”She may be in ill health.”
”She may be,” unsympathetically.
”You do not seem very prepossessed in her favor,” says Lilian, impatiently.
”Well, I confess I am not,” carelessly. ”Experience has taught me that when a woman withdraws persistently from the society of her own s.e.x, and eschews the companions.h.i.+p of her fellow-creatures, there is sure to be something radically wrong with her.”
”But you forget there are exceptions to every rule. I confess I would give anything to see her,” says Lilian, warmly.