Part 18 (2/2)
”Cynthia!” he exclaimed
”Oh, lackaday! Am I to wed a doll?” she demanded ”Is he--is he a man a maid may love, Sir Crispin?”
”Indeed, had you but seen the half of life that I have seen,” said he unthinkingly, ”it ht amaze you what manner of man a maid may love--or at least may marry Come, Cynthia, what fault do you find with hihed in unbelief
”And whom are we to blaainst him?”
”Whom?”
”Yourself, Cynthia You use hiant, you are to blame You are severe with hiuise that shall render him commendable in your eyes, has overstepped discretion”
”Has my father bidden you to tell me this?”
”Since when have I enjoyed your father's confidence to that degree? No, no, Cynthia I plead the boy's cause to you because--I know not because of what”
”It is ill to plead without knohy Let us forget the valiant Kenneth They tell lorious eyes upon hi her--”that in the Royal arht”
”They tell you truly What of that?”
”Well, what of it? Do you blush at the very thought?”
”I blush?” He blinked, and his eyes were full of hulance Then a full-hearted peal of laughter broke frohaasped ”Picture to yourself this Crispin Galliard blushi+ng and giggling like a schoolgirl beset by her first lover Picture it, I say! As well and as easilya litany for the edification of a Nonconformist parson”
Her eyes were severe in their reproach
”It is always so with you You laugh and jest andSuch I doubt not has been your way from the commencement, and 'tis thus that you are cohed, but this time it was in bitterness
”Nay, sweet ; it was not always thus Time was--” He paused ”Bah! 'Tis the coward cries ”time was”! Leave me the past, Cynthia It is dead, and of the dead we should speak no ill,” he jested
”What is there in your past?” she insisted, despite his words ”What is there in it so to have warped a character that I am assured was once--is, indeed, still--of lofty and noble purpose? What is it has brought you to the level you occupy--you ere born to lead; you who--”
”Have done, child Have done,” he begged
”Nay, tellhold of his sleeve, she sat herself upon a rass
With a half-laugh and a sigh he obeyed her, and there, on the cliff, in the glow of the September sun, he took his seat at her side
A silence prevailed about the chant of a fisher his nets on the beach below, the interle, and the screaulls that circled overhead Before the eyes of his flesh was stretched a wide desert of sky and water, and before the eyes of his ht years
He was almost tempted to speak The note of sympathy in her voice allured him, and sympathy was to him as drink to one who perishes of thirst A passionate, indefinable longing impelled him to pour out the story that in Worcester he had related unto Kenneth, and thus to set himself better in her eyes; to have her realize indeed that if he was come so loas more the fault of others than his own The te pace, to be checked at last by the ht him to so sorry a condition were her own people The huhed softly, and shook his head