Part 81 (1/2)
”I have never yet felt afraid of any one,” returns Lilian, absently.
”How I do admire your courage,--your pluck, if I may so call it,” says Florence, hesitating properly over the unlady-like word. ”Now, _I_ am so different. I am painfully nervous with some people. Guy, for instance, quite tyrannizes over me,” with the little conscious laugh that makes the old disgust rise warmly in Lilian's breast. ”I should be so afraid to contradict Guy.”
”And why?”
”I don't know. He looks so--so---- I really can hardly explain; but some sympathetic understanding between us makes me know he would not like it.
He has a great desire for his own way.”
”Most people have,”--dryly. ”I never feel those sympathetic sensations you speak of myself, but I could guess so much.”
”Another reason why I should refrain from thwarting his wishes is this,”
says Florence, sorting her colors carefully, ”I fancy, indeed I _know_, he could actually dislike any one who systematically contradicted him.”
”Do you think so? I contradict him when I choose.”
”Yes,” blandly: ”that exactly ill.u.s.trates my idea.”
”You think, then, he dislikes me?” says Lilian, raising herself the better to examine her companion's features, while a sense of thorough amus.e.m.e.nt makes itself felt within her.
”Dislike”--apologetically--”is a hard word. And yet at times I think so.
Surely you must have noticed how he avoids you, how he declines to carry out any argument commenced by you.”
”I blush for my want of sensibility,” says Lilian, meekly. ”No, I have not noticed it.”
”Have you not?” with exaggerated surprise. ”I have.”
At this most inopportune moment Guy enters the room.
”Ah, Guy,” says Lilian, quietly, ”come here. I want to tell you something.”
He comes over obediently, gladly, and stands by her chair. It is a low one, and he leans his arm upon the back of it.
”Florence has just said you hate being contradicted,” she murmurs, in her softest tones.
”If she did, there was a great deal of truth in the remark,” he answers, with an amused laugh, while Florence glances up triumphantly. ”Most fellows do, eh?”
”And that I am the one that generally contradicts you.”
”That is only half a truth. If she had said who _always_ contradicts me, it would have been a whole one.”
Lilian rises. She places her hand lightly on his arm.
”She also said that for that reason you dislike me.” The words are uttered quietly, but somehow tears have gathered in the violet eyes.
”Dislike!” exclaims her lover, the very faint symptoms of distress upon his darling's face causing him instant pain. ”Lilian! how absurd you are! How could such a word come to be used between us? Surely Florence must know--has not my mother told you?” he asks, turning to Miss Beauchamp a look full of surprise.
”I know nothing,” replies she, growing a shade paler. At this moment she does know, and determines finally to accept, when next offered, the devotion Mr. Boer has been showering upon her for the past two months.
Yes, she will take him for better, for worse, voice, low-church tendencies, and all. The latter may be altered, the former silenced. ”I know nothing,” she says; ”what is it?”
”Merely this, that Lilian and I are going to be married this summer.