Part 56 (2/2)
”Is that a threat?”
”No; it is a warning. Take it as such if you are wise. If you go against my wishes in this matter, I shall refuse to take charge of you any longer.”
”I don't want you to take charge of me,” cries Lilian, tears of pa.s.sion and wounded feeling in her eyes. In her excitement she has risen to her feet and stands confronting him, the Dresden cup still within her hand.
”I am not a beggar, that I should crave your hospitality. I can no doubt find a home with some one who will not hate me as you do.” With this, the foolish child, losing her temper _in toto_, raises her hand and, because it is the nearest thing to her, flings the cherished cup upon the floor, where it lies shattered into a thousand pieces.
In silence Guy contemplates the ruins, in silence Lilian watches him; no faintest trace of remorse shows itself in her angry fair little face. I think the keenest regret Guy knows at this moment is that she isn't a boy, for the simple reason that he would dearly like to box her ears.
Being a woman, and an extremely lovely one, he is necessarily disarmed.
”So now!” says Miss Lilian, still defiant.
”I have a great mind,” replies Guy, raising his eyes slowly to hers, ”to desire you to pick up every one of those fragments.”
This remark is unworthy of him, proving that in his madness there is not even method. His speech falls as a red spark into the hot fire of Miss Chesney's wrath.
”_You_ desire!” she says, blazing instantly. ”What is it you would say?
'Desire!' On the contrary, _I_ desire _you_ to pick them up, and I shall stay here to see my commands obeyed.”
She has come a little closer to him, and is now standing opposite him with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes. With one firm little finger she points to the _debris_. She looks such a fragile creature possessed with such an angry spirit that Chetwoode, in spite of himself acknowledging the comicality of the situation, cannot altogether conceal a smile.
”Pick them up,” says Lilian imperatively, for the second time.
”What a little Fury you are!” says Guy; and then, with a faint shrug, he succ.u.mbs, and, stooping, does pick up the pieces of discord.
”I do it,” he says, raising himself when his task is completed, and letting severity once more harden his features, ”to prevent my mother's being grieved by such an exhibition of----”
”No, you do not,” interrupts she; ”you do it because I wished it. For the future understand that, though you are my guardian, I will not be treated as though I were a wayward child.”
”Well, you _have_ a wicked temper!” says Guy, who is very pale, drawing his breath quickly. He smiles as he says it, but it is a smile more likely to incense than to soothe.
”I have not,” retorts Lilian, pa.s.sionately. ”But that you goaded me I should never have given way to anger. It is you who have the wicked temper. I dislike you! I hate you! I wish I had never entered your house! And”--superbly, drawing herself up to her full height, which does not take her far--”I shall now leave it! And I shall never come back to it again!”
This fearful threat she hurls at his head with much unction. Not that she means it, but it is as well to be forcible on such occasions. The less you mean a thing, the more eloquent and vehement you should grow; the more you mean it, the less vehemence the better, because then it is energy thrown away: the fact accomplished later on will be crus.h.i.+ng enough in itself. This is a rule that should be strictly observed.
Guy, whose head is held considerably higher than its wont, looks calmly out of the window, and disdains to take notice of this outburst.
His silence irritates Miss Chesney, who has still sufficient rage concealed within her to carry her victoriously through two quarrels. She is therefore about to let the vials of her wrath once more loose upon her unhappy guardian, when the door opens, and Florence, calm and stately, sweeps slowly in.
”Aunt Anne not here?” she says; and then she glances at Guy, who is still holding in his hands some of the fragments of the broken cup, and who is looking distinctly guilty, and then suspiciously at Lilian, whose soft face is crimson, and whose blue eyes are very much darker than usual.
There is a second's pause, and then Lilian, walking across the room, goes out, and bangs the door, with much unnecessary violence, behind her.
”Dear me!” exclaims Florence, affectedly, when she has recovered from the shock her delicate nerves have sustained through the abrupt closing of the door. ”How vehement dear Lilian is! There is nothing so ruinous to one's manners as being brought up without the companions.h.i.+p of well-bred women. The loss of it makes a girl so--so--hoydenish, and----”
”I don't think Lilian hoydenish,” interrupts Guy, who is in the humor to quarrel with his shadow,--especially, strange as it seems, with any one who may chance to speak ill of the small shrew who has just flown like a whirlwind from the room.
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