Part 50 (1/2)
”Good-bye, and thank you again so much,” she says, earnestly. ”And when I am well may I come and see you?”
”You may, indeed,”--warmly. ”I shall be anxiously expecting you; I shall now”--with a gentle glance from her loving gray eyes--”have a double reason for wis.h.i.+ng you soon well.”
Moved by a sudden impulse, Lilian leans forward, and the two women as their lips meet seal a bond of friends.h.i.+p that lasts them all their lives.
For some time after they have left Cecilia's bower Lilian keeps silence, then all at once she says to Cyril, in tones of the liveliest reproach:
”I wouldn't have believed it of you.”
”Would you not?” replies he, somewhat startled by this extraordinary address, being plunged in meditation of his own. ”You don't say so! But what is it then you can't believe?”
”I think”--with keen upbraiding--”you might have told _me_.”
”So I should, my dear, instantly, if I only knew what it was,” growing more and more bewildered. ”If you don't want to bring on brain-fever, my good Lilian, you will explain what you mean.”
”You must have guessed what a treat a _real_ love-affair would be to me, who never knew a single instance of one,” says Lilian, ”and yet you meanly kept it from me.”
”Kept what?” innocently, though he has the grace to color hotly.
”Don't be deceitful, Cyril, whatever you are. I say it was downright unkind to leave me in ignorance of the fact that all this time there was a real, unmistakable, _bona fide_ lover near me, close to me, at my _very elbow_, as one might say.”
”I know I am happy enough to be at your elbow just now,” says Cyril, humbly, ”but, to confess the truth, I never yet dared to permit myself to look upon you openly with lover's eyes. I am still at a loss to know how you discovered the all-absorbing pa.s.sion that I--that _any one_ fortunate enough to know you--must feel for you.”
”Don't be a goose,” says Miss Chesney, with immeasurable scorn. ”Don't you think I have wit enough to see you are head over ears in love with that charming, beautiful creature down there in The Cottage? I don't wonder at that: I only wonder why you did not tell me of it when we were such good friends.”
”Are you quite sure I had anything to tell you?”
”Quite; I have eyes and I have ears. Did I not see how you looked at her, and how she blushed all up to the roots of her soft hair when you did so? and when you were placing me in the carriage she said, 'Oh, Cyril!' and what was the meaning of that, Master Chetwoode, eh? She is the prettiest woman I ever saw,” says Lilian, enthusiastically. ”To see her is indeed to love her. I hope _you_ love her properly, with all your heart?”
”I do,” says Cyril, simply. ”I sometimes think, Lilian, it cannot be for one's happiness to love as I do.”
”Oh, this is delightful!” cries Lilian, clapping her hands. ”I am glad you are in earnest about it; and I am glad you are both so good-looking.
I don't think ugly people ought to fall in love: they quite destroy the romance of the whole thing.”
”Thanks awfully,” says Cyril. ”I shall begin to hold up my head now you have said a word in my favor. But,”--growing serious--”you really like her, Lilian? How can you be sure you do after so short an acquaintance?”
”I always like a person at once or not at all. I cannot explain why; it is a sort of instinct. Florence I detested at first sight; your Mrs.
Arlington I love. What is her name?”
”Cecilia.”
”A pretty name, and suited to her: with her tender beautiful face she looks a saint. You are very fortunate, Cyril: something tells me you cannot fail to be happy, having gained the love of such a woman.”
”Dear little sibyl,” says Cyril, lifting one of her hands to his lips, ”I thank you for your prophecy. It does me good only to hear you say so.”
CHAPTER XXI.
”As on her couch of pain a child was lying.”--_Song._