Part 51 (1/2)
”A telegram from Mr. Chesney: he cannot be home to dinner. My hair will do very well. Hardy: go and tell Sir Guy he need not expect him.”
Hardy, going, meets Sir Guy in the hall below, and imparts her information.
Naturally enough, he too thinks first of Lilian. Much as it displeases his pride, he knows he must in common courtesy again offer her his rejected services. There is bitterness in the thought, and perhaps a little happiness also, as he draws his breath rather quickly, and angrily suppresses a half smile as it curls about his lips. To ask her again, to be again perhaps refused! He gazes irresolutely at the staircase, and then, with a secret protest against his own weakness, mounts it.
The second dinner-bell has already sounded: there is no time for further deliberation. Going reluctantly up-stairs, he seeks with slow and lingering footsteps his mother's boudoir.
The room is unlit, save by the glorious fire, half wood, half coal, that crackles and laughs and leaps in the joy of its own fast living. Upon a couch close to it, bathed in its warm flames, lies the little slender black-robed figure so inexpressibly dear to him. She is so motionless that but for her wide eyes, gazing so earnestly into the fire, one might imagine her wrapt in slumber. Her left arm is thrown upward so that her head rests upon it, the other hangs listlessly downward, almost touching the carpet beneath her.
She looks pale, but lovely. Her golden hair s.h.i.+nes richly against the crimson satin of the cus.h.i.+on on which she leans. As Guy approaches her she never raises her eyes, although without doubt she sees him. Even when he stands beside her and gazes down upon her, wrathful at her insolent disregard, she never pretends to be aware of his near presence.
”Dinner will be ready in three minutes,” he says, coldly: ”do you intend coming down to-night?”
”Certainly. I am waiting for my cousin,” she answers, with her eyes still fixed upon the fire.
”I am sorry to be the conveyer of news that must necessarily cause you disappointment. My mother has had a telegram from Chesney saying he cannot be home until to-morrow. Business detains him.”
”He promised me he would return in time for dinner,” she says, turning toward him at last, and speaking doubtfully.
”No doubt he is more upset than you can be at his unintended defection.
But it is the case for all that. He will not be home to-night.”
”Well, I suppose he could not help it.”
”I am positive he couldn't!” coldly.
”You have great faith in him,” with an unpleasant little smile. ”Thank you, Sir Guy: it was very kind of you to bring me such disagreeable news.” As she ceases speaking she turns back again to the contemplation of the fire, as though desirous of giving him his _conge_.
”I can hardly say I came to inform you of your cousin's movements,”
replies he, haughtily; ”rather to ask you if you will accept my aid to get down-stairs?”
”Yours!”
”Even mine.”
”No, thank you,” with slow surprise, as though she yet doubts the fact of his having again dared to offer his services: ”I would not trouble you for worlds!”
”The trouble is slight,” he answers, with an expressive glance at the fragile figure below him.
”But yet a trouble! Do not distress yourself, Sir Guy: Parkins will help me, if you will be so kind as to desire him.”
”Your nurse”--hastily--”would be able, I dare say.”
”Oh, no. I can't bear trusting myself to women. I am an arrant coward. I always think they are going to trip, or let me drop, at every corner.”
”Then why refuse my aid?” he says, even at the price of his self-respect.
”No; I prefer Parkins!”
”Oh, if you prefer the a.s.sistance of a _footman_, there is nothing more to be said,” he exclaims, angrily, going toward the door much offended, and with just a touch of disgust in his tone.