Part 32 (2/2)
”Is that you, Taffy? Where have you been all this time?--mooning?--you have had ample opportunity. But you are too young for Melancholy to mark you as her own. It is only old folk like Guy,” with a laughing though affectionate glance backward to where his brother stands, somewhat perplexed, beside the lamp, ”should fall victims to the blues.”
”A fig for melancholy!” says Taffy, vaulting lightly into the room, and by his presence putting an end to all private conversation between the brothers.
The next morning Lilian (to whom early rising is a pure delight), running down the broad stone stairs two steps at a time, finds Guy on the eve of starting, with Florence beside him, looking positively handsome in the most thrilling of morning gowns. She has forsaken her virtuous couch, and slighted the balmy slumber she so much loves, to give him his breakfast, and is still unremitting in her attentions, and untiring with regard to her smiles.
”Not gone!” says Lilian, wickedly: ”how disappointed I am, to be sure! I fancied my bonbons an hour nearer to me than they really are. Bad Guardy, why don't you hurry?” She says this with the prettiest affectation of infantile grace, accompanied by a coquettish glance from under her sweeping lashes that creates in Florence a mad desire to box her ears.
”You forget it will not hasten the train five seconds, Guy's leaving this sooner than he does,” she says, snubbingly. ”To picture him sitting in a draughty station could not--I should think--give satisfaction to any one.”
”It could”--willfully--”to me. It would show a proper anxiety to obey my behests. Guardy,” with touching concern, ”are you sure you are warm enough? Now do promise me one thing,--that you will beware of the crossings; they say any number of old men come to grief in that way yearly, and are run over through deafness, or short sight, or stupidity in general. Think how horrid it would be if they sent us home your mangled remains.”
”Go in, you naughty child, and learn to speak to your elders with respect,” says Guy, laughing, and putting her bodily inside the hall-door, from whence she trips out again to wave him a last adieu, and kiss her hand warmly to him as he disappears round the corner of the laurustinus bush.
And Sir Guy drives away full of his ward's fresh girlish loveliness, her slender lissome figure, her laughing face, the thousand tantalizing graces that go to make her what she is; forgetful of Miss Beauchamp's more matured charms,--her white gown,--her honeyed words,--everything.
All day long Lilian's image follows him. It is beside him in the crowded street, enters his club with him, haunts him in his business, laughs at him in his most serious moods; while she, at home, scarce thinks of him at all, or at the most vaguely, though when at five he does return she is the first to greet him.
”He has come home! he is here!” she cries, dancing into the hall. ”Have you escaped the crossings? and rheumatism? and your old enemy, lumbago?
Good old Guardy, let me help you off with your coat. So. Positively, he is all here,--not a bit of him gone,--and none the worse for wear!”
”Tired, Guy?” asks Florence, coming gracefully forward,--slowly, lest by unseemly haste she should disturb the perfect fold of her train, that sets off her figure to such advantage. She speaks warmly, appropriatingly, as one's wife might, after a long journey.
”Tired! not he,” returns Lilian irreverently: ”he is quite a gay old gentleman. Nor hungry either. No doubt he has lunched profusely in town, 'not wisely, but too well,' as somebody says. Where are my sweeties, Sir Ancient?”
”My dear Lilian,”--rebukingly,--”if you reflect, you will see he must be both tired and hungry.”
”So am I for my creams: I quite pine for them. Sir Guy, where _are_ my sweeties?”
”Here, little cormorant,” says Guy, as fondly as he dares, handing her a gigantic _bonbonniere_ in which chocolates and French sweetmeats fight for mastery: ”have I got you what you wanted?”
”Yes, indeed; _best_ of Guardys, I only wish I might kiss my thanks.”
”You may.”
”Better not. Such a condescension on my part might turn your old head.
Oh, Taffy,” with an exclamation, ”you bad greedy boy; you have taken half my almonds! Well, you shan't have any of the others, for punishment. Auntie and Florence and I will eat the rest.”
”Thanks,” drawls Florence, languidly, ”but I am always so terrified about toothache.”
”What a pity!” says Miss Chesney. ”If I had toothache, I should have all my teeth drawn instantly, and false ones put in their place.”
To this Miss Beauchamp, being undecided in her own mind as to whether it is or is not an impertinence, deigns no reply. Cyril, with a gravity that belies his innermost feelings, gazes hard at Lilian, only to acknowledge her innocent of desire to offend.
”You did not meet Archibald?” asks Lady Chetwoode of Guy.
”No: I suppose he will be down by next train. Chesney is always up to time.”
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