Part 53 (2/2)
As she hears the well-known click of the latch she turns, and, seeing him, lets fall unheeded to the ground the basket she is holding, and runs to him with eyes alight, and soft cheeks tinged with a lovely generous pink, and holds out her hands to him with a little low glad cry.
”At last, truant!” she exclaims, joyfully; ”after three whole long, long days; and what has kept you from me? Why, Cyril, Cyril!”--recoiling, while a dull ashen shade replaces the gay tinting of her cheeks,--”what has happened? How oddly you look! You,--you are in trouble?”
”I am,” in a changed, harsh tone she scarcely realizes to be his, moving back with a gesture of contempt from the extended hands that would so gladly have clasped his. ”In so far you speak the truth: I have discovered all. One lover, it appears, was not sufficient for you; you should dupe another for your amus.e.m.e.nt. It is an old story, but none the less bitter. No, it is useless your speaking,” staying her with a pa.s.sionate movement: ”I tell you I know _all_.”
”All what?” she asks. She has not removed from his her l.u.s.trous eyes, though her lips have turned very white.
”Your perfidy.”
”Cyril, explain yourself,” she says, in a low, agonized tone, her pallor changing to a deep crimson. And to Cyril hateful certainty appears if possible more certain by reason of this luckless blush.
”Ay, you may well change countenance,” he says, with suppressed fury in which keen agony is blended; ”have you yet the grace to blush? As to explanation, I scarcely think you can require it; yet, as you demand it, you shall have it. For weeks I have been hearing of you tales in which your name and Trant's were always mingled; but I disregarded them; I madly shut my ears and was deaf to them; I would not believe, until it was too late, until I saw and learned beyond dispute the folly of my faith. I was here last Friday evening!”
”Yes?” calmly, though in her soft eyes a deep well of bitterness has sprung.
”Well, you were there, in that arbor”--pointing to it--”where _we_”--with a scornful laugh--”so often sat; but then you had a more congenial companion. Trant was with you. He held your hand, he caressed it; he called you his 'darling,' and you allowed it, though indeed why should you not? doubtless it is a customary word from him to you! And then you wept as though your heart, your _heart_”--contemptuously-- ”would break. Were you confessing to him your coquetry with me? and perhaps obtaining an easy forgiveness?”
”No, I was not,” quietly, though there is immeasurable scorn in her tone.
”No?” slightingly. ”For what, then, were you crying?”
”Sir,”--with a first outward sign of indignation,--”I refuse to tell you. By what right do you now ask the question? yesterday, nay, an hour since, I should have felt myself bound to answer any inquiry of yours, but not now. The tie between us, a frail one as it seems to me, is broken; our engagement is at an end: I shall not answer you!”
”Because you dare not,” retorts he, fiercely, stung by her manner.
”I think you dare too much when you venture so to address me,” in a low clear tone. ”And yet, as it is in all human probability the last time we shall ever meet, and as I would have you remember all your life long the gross injustice you have done me, I shall satisfy your curiosity. But recollect, sir, these are indeed the final words that shall pa.s.s between us.
”A year ago Colonel Trant so far greatly honored me as to ask me to marry him: for many reasons I then refused. Twice since I came to Chetwoode he has been to see me,--once to bring me law papers of some importance, and last Friday to again ask me to be his wife. Again I refused. I wept then, because, unworthy as I am, I know I was giving pain to the truest, and, as I know now,”--with a faint trembling in her voice, quickly subdued--”the _only_ friend I have! When declining his proposal, I gave my reason for doing so! I told him I loved another!
That other was you!”
Casting this terrible revenge in his teeth, she turns, and, walking majestically into the house, closes the door with significant haste behind her.
This is the one solitary instance of inhospitality shown by Cecilia in all her life. Never until now was she known to shut her door in the face of trouble. And surely Cyril's trouble at this moment is sore and needy!
To disbelieve Cecilia when face to face with her is impossible. Her eyes are truth itself. Her whole manner, so replete with dignity and offended pride, declares her innocent. Cyril stands just where she had left him, in stunned silence, for at least a quarter of an hour, repeating to himself miserably all that she has said, and reminding himself with cold-blooded cruelty of all he has said to her.
At the end of this awful fifteen minutes, he bethinks himself his hair must now, if ever, be turned gray; and then, a happier and more resolute thought striking him, he takes his courage in his two hands, and walking boldly up to the hall door, knocks and demands admittance with really admirable composure. Abominable composure, thinks Cecilia, who in spite of her stern determination never to know him again, has been watching him covertly from behind a handkerchief and a bedroom curtain all this time, and is now stationed at the top of the staircase, with dim eyes, but very acute ears.
”Yes,” Kate tells him, ”her mistress is at home,” and forthwith shows him into the bijou drawing-room. After which she departs to tell her mistress of his arrival.
Three minutes, that to Cyril's excited fancy lengthen themselves into twenty, pa.s.s away slowly, and then Kate returns.
”Her mistress's compliments, and she has a terrible headache, and will Mr. Chetwoode be so kind as to excuse her?”
Mr. Chetwoode on this occasion is not kind. ”He is sorry,” he stammers, ”but if Mrs. Arlington could let him see her for five minutes, he would not detain her longer. He has something of the utmost importance to say to her.”
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