Part 60 (1/2)
”I don't imagine it. How could I? One can scarcely feel sorrow or pity for a person whom one openly professes to 'hate' and 'despise,'”
markedly, while searching her face anxiously with his eyes.
Miss Chesney pauses. A short but sharp battle takes place within her breast. Then she raises her face and meets his eyes, while a faint sweet smile grows within her own: impelled half by a feeling of coquetry, half by a desire to atone, she lets the fingers he has still imprisoned close with the daintiest pressure upon his.
”Perhaps,” she whispers, leaning a little toward him, and raising her lips very close to his cheek as though afraid of being heard by the intrusive wind, ”perhaps I did not quite mean that either.”
Then, seeing how his whole expression changes and brightens, she half regrets her tender speech, and says instantly, in her most unsentimental fas.h.i.+on:
”Pray, Sir Guy, are you going to make your horse walk all the way home?
Can you not pity the sorrows of a poor little ward? I am absolutely frozen: do stir him up, lazy fellow, or I shall get out and run. Surely it is too late in the year for nocturnal rambles.”
”If my life depended upon it, I don't believe I could make him go a bit faster,” returns he, telling his lie unblus.h.i.+ngly.
”I forgot you were disabled,” says Miss Chesney, demurely, letting her long lashes droop until they partially (but only partially) conceal her eyes from her guardian. ”How remiss I am! When one has only got the use of one hand, one can do so little; perhaps”--preparing to withdraw her fingers slowly, lingeringly from his--”if I were to restore you both yours, you might be able to persuade that horse to take us home before morning.”
”I beg you will give yourself no trouble on my account,” says Guy, hastily: ”I don't want anything restored. And if you are really anxious to get 'home'”--with a pleased and grateful smile, ”I feel sure I shall be able to manage this slow brute single-handed.”
So saying, he touches up the good animal in question rather smartly, which so astonishes the willing creature that he takes to his heels, and never draws breath until he pulls up before the hall door at Chetwoode.
”Parkins, get us some supper in the library,” says Sir Guy, addressing the ancient butler as he enters: ”the drive has given Miss Chesney and me an appet.i.te.”
”Yes, Sir Guy, directly,” says Parkins, and, going down-stairs to the other servants, gives it as his opinion that ”Sir Guy and Miss Chesney are going to make a match of it. For when two couples,” says Mr.
Parkins, who is at all times rather dim about the exact meaning of his sentences, ”when two couples takes to eating _teet-a-teet_, it is all up with 'em.”
Whereupon cook says, ”Lor!” which is her usual expletive, and means anything and everything; and Jane, the upper housemaid, who has a weakness for old Parkins's sayings, tells him with a flattering smile that he is ”dreadful knowin'.”
Meantime, Sir Guy having ascertained that Miss Beauchamp has gone to her room, and that his mother is better, and asleep, he and Lilian repair to the library, where a cozy supper is awaiting them, and a cheerful fire burning.
Now that they are again in-doors, out of the friendly darkness, with the full light of several lamps upon them, a second edition of their early restraint--milder, perhaps, but still oppressive--most unaccountably falls between them.
Silently, and very gently, but somewhat distantly, he unfolds the plaid from round her slight figure, and, drawing a chair for her to the table, seats himself at a decided distance. Then he asks her with exemplary politeness what she will have, and she answers him; then he helps her, and then he helps himself; and then they both wonder secretly what the other is going to say next.
But Lilian, who is fighting with a wild desire for laughter, and who is in her airiest mood, through having been compelled, by pride, to suppress all day her usual good spirits, decides on making a final effort at breaking down the barrier between them.
Raising the gla.s.s of wine beside her, she touches it lightly with her lips, and says, gayly:
”Come, fill, and pledge me, Sir Guy. But stay; first let me give you a little quotation that I hope will fall as a drop of nectar into your cup and chase that nasty little frown from your brow. Have I your leave to speak?” with a suspicion of coquetry in her manner.
Chetwoode's handsome lips part in a pleased smile: he turns his face gladly, willingly, to hers.
”Why do you ask permission of your slave, O Queen of Hearts?” he answers, softly, catching the infection of her gayety. He gazes at her with unchecked and growing admiration, his whole heart in his eyes; telling himself, as he has told himself a thousand times before, that to-night she is looking her fairest.
Her cheeks are flushed from her late drive; one or two glittering golden lovelocks have been driven by the rough wind from their natural resting-place, and now lie in gracious disorder on her white forehead; her l.u.s.trous sapphire eyes are gleaming upon him, full of unsubdued laughter; her lips are parted, showing all the small even teeth within.
She stoops toward him, and clinking her gla.s.s against his with the prettiest show of _bonne camaraderie_, whispers, softly: