Part 21 (1/2)

”Ah, so it is. How stupid of me to make the mistake!” says Cyril, who in reality knows as much about roses as about the man in the Iron Mask.

As he speaks, two or three drops of rain fall heavily upon his face,--one upon his nose, two into his earnest eyes, a large one finds its way cleverly between his parted lips. This latter has more effect upon him than the other three combined.

”It is raining,” he says, naturally but superfluously, glancing at his coat-sleeve for confirmation of his words.

Heavier and heavier fall the drops. A regular shower comes pattering from the heavens right upon their devoted heads. The skies grow black with rain.

”You will get awfully wet. Do go into the house,” Cyril says, anxiously glancing at her bare head.

”So will you,” with hesitation, gazing with longing upon the distant arbor, toward which she is evidently bent on rus.h.i.+ng.

”I dare say,”--laughing,--”but I don't much mind even if I do catch it before I get home.”

”Perhaps”--unwillingly, and somewhat coldly--”you would like to stand in the arbor until the shower is over?”

”I should,” replies Mr. Chetwoode, with alacrity, ”if you think there will be room for two.”

There _is_ room for two, but undoubtedly not for three.

The little green bower is pretty but small, and there is only one seat.

”It is extremely kind of you to give me standing-room,” says Cyril, politely.

”I am very sorry I cannot give you sitting-room,” replies Mrs.

Arlington, quite as politely, after which conversation languishes.

Cyril looks at Mrs. Arlington; Mrs. Arlington looks at Marshal Neil, and apparently finds something singularly attractive in his appearance. She even raises him to her lips once or twice in a fit of abstraction: whereupon Cyril thinks that, were he a marshal ten times over, too much honor has been done him.

Presently Mrs. Arlington breaks the silence.

”A little while ago,” she says, ”I saw your brother and a young lady pa.s.s my gate. She seemed very pretty.”

”She is very pretty,” says Cyril, with a singular want of judgment in so wise a young man. ”It must have been Lilian Chesney, my brother's ward.”

”He is rather young to have a ward.”

”He is, rather.”

”He is older than you?”

”Unfortunately, yes, a little.”

”You, then, are very young?”

”Well, I'm not exactly an infant,”--rather piqued at the cool superiority of her tone: ”I am twenty-six.”

”So I should have thought,” says Mrs. Arlington, quietly, which a.s.sertion is as balm to his wounded spirit.

”Are your brother and his ward much attached to each other?” asks she, idly, with a very palpable endeavor to make conversation.