Part 14 (1/2)

”And yet----” She turned and began to pull a honeysuckle to pieces, pouting in the prettiest fas.h.i.+on conceivable.

The graceful curves of the lithe figure provoked me. There was a challenge in her manner, and my blood beat with a surge. I made a step or two toward her.

”And yet?” I repeated, over her shoulder.

One by one the petals floated away.

”There was a time----” She spoke so softly I had to bend over to hear.

I sighed. ”A thousand years ago, 'Toinette.”

”But love is eternal, and in eternity a thousand years are but as a day.”

The long curving lashes were lifted for a moment, and the dancing brown eyes flashed into mine. While mine held them they began to dim. On my soul the little witch contrived to let the dew of tears glisten there. Now a woman's tears are just the one thing Kenneth Montagu cannot resist. After all I am not the first man that has come to make war and stayed to make love.

”'Toinette! 'Toinette!” I chided, resolution melting fast.

”And y'are commanded to love your neighbours, Kenn.”

I vow she was the takingest madcap in all England, and not the worst heart neither. I am no Puritan, and youth has its day in which it will be served. My scruples took wing.

”Faith, one might travel far and not do better,” I told her. ”When the G.o.ds send their best to a man he were a sorry knave to complain.”

Yet I stood helpless, in longing desire and yet afraid to dare. No nicety of conscience held me now, rather apprehension. I had not lived my one and twenty years without learning that a young woman may be free of speech and yet discreet of action, that alluring eyes are oft mismated with prim maiden conscience. 'Tis in the blood of some of them to throw down the gauntlet to a man's courage and then to trample on him for daring to accept the challenge.

Her eyes derided me. A scoffing smile crept into that mocking face of hers. No longer I s.h.i.+lly-shallied. She had brought me to dance, and she must pay the piper.

”Modesty is a sweet virtue, but it doesn't b.u.t.ter any bread,” I cried gaily. ”Egad, I embrace my temptation.”

Which same I did, and the temptress too.

”Am I your temptation, Adam?” quoth the lady presently.

”I vow y'are the fairest enticement, Eve, that ever trod the earth since the days of the first Garden. For this heaven of your lips I'll pay any price in reason. A year in purgatory were cheap----”

I stopped, my florid eloquence nipped in bud, for the lady had suddenly begun to disengage herself. Her glance shot straight over my shoulder to the entrance of the summer-house. Divining the presence of an intruder, I turned.

Aileen was standing in the doorway looking at us with an acrid, scornful smile that went to my heart like a knife.

CHAPTER VII

MY LADY RAGES

I was shaken quite out of my exultation. I stood raging at myself in a defiant scorn, struck dumb at the folly that will let a man who loves one woman go sweethearting with another. Her eyes stabbed me, the while I stood there dogged yet grovelling, no word coming to my dry lips. What was there to be said? The tie that bound me to Aileen was indefinable, tenuous, not to be phrased; yet none the less it existed. I stood convicted, for I had tacitly given her to understand that no woman found place in my mind save her, and at the first chance she found another in my arms. Like a detected schoolboy in presence of the rod I awaited my sentence, my heart a trip-hammer, my face a picture of chagrin and dread.

For just a moment she held me in the balance with that dreadful smile on her face, my day of judgment come to earth, then turned and away without a word. I flung wildly after her, intent on explaining what could not be explained. In the night I lost her and went up and down through the shrubbery calling her to come forth, beating the currant and gooseberry bushes in search of her. A shadow flitted past me toward the house, and at the gate I intercepted the girl. Better I had let her alone. My heart misgave me at sight of her face; indeed the whole sweep of her lithesome reedy figure was pregnant with Highland scorn and pride.

”Oh, Aileen, in the arbour----” I was beginning, when she cut me short.