Part 31 (2/2)
She glanced at him.
”Poor Robin! It was too bad, keeping you in town.”
”I haven't minded it at all, I a.s.sure you, Nell. Indeed, I couldn't have gone happily while you were in suspense.”
”Robin,” she said suddenly, ”what are you waiting for?”
He started. ”Waiting for?” he repeated. ”What do you mean, Nell?”
”You're not going to let Mary go without speaking to her?” Under her light shawl her hand felt for and held the locket which contained the blood-stained blue ribbon. ”Haven't you waited long enough? I believe she would wait an eternity for you, but don't try her. Speak now.”
”My dear Nell,” he stammered, ”it is only a fortnight or so from the day that should have been our wedding day.”
”I was thinking as much. What have you had in your mind? Some foolish Quixotic notion. What were you waiting for?”
”To tell the truth, Nell, till you should be happy.”
”Don't take the chances of letting her go away without telling her. Do you think I haven't known that you were in love with her all the time?
Why, that first day I saw her I said to myself in amazement, 'Where were his eyes that he could have chosen you before her?'”
”Nelly, how do I know that she will look at me?”
”She will never look at anyone else. Speak now, if only in fairness to the men who might be in love with her, who are in love with her and may have false hopes.”
”She won't look at me, Nell.”
”She has sent Mr. Ilbert about his business, but he will not let her be.
He says that so long as she is not anybody else's she may yet be his. I didn't want to betray him, but I must make you understand.”
Poor Ilbert! For a moment Drummond's mind was filled with a lordly compa.s.sion towards him. Ilbert rejected! And for him! To be sure, he knew Mary cared for him. She was not the girl to have admitted him to the intimacy of last winter unless she cared. She had borne with him exquisitely. She had even taken her successful rival to her breast. He had made her suffer, the magnanimous woman.
Suddenly he took fire. He had been a slow, dull fellow, he said to himself, and quaked at the thought that Ilbert might have robbed him of his jewel. Now, he felt as though he must follow her, and make her his without even the possible mischances of a few hours of absence.
”She comes back to dinner?” he asked.
”She comes back to tea,” his cousin answered, ”and you have made me tired, Robin. I am going to rest till tea-time.”
They went back to the house and Nelly left him in the drawing-room while she went away to her own room. He knew that she was giving him his opportunity and was grateful for it. How could he have been so mad as to think of letting Mary go away with nothing settled between them?
He walked up and down restlessly, while the dogs watched him in amazement from their cus.h.i.+ons. It was a topsy-turvy world in which the dogs found themselves of late. They had almost reached the point of being surprised at nothing. It was lucky the carpet was so faded and shabby, for of late the General had worn a path in it with his restless movements; and now here was his nephew behaving as though he were an untamed creature in a cage and not a sober, serious legislator.
At last he heard her knock, and her light foot ascending the stairs. She looked surprised to find him alone and asked rather anxiously for Nelly.
”You didn't let her get over-tired?” she asked, apprehensively.
”No; we walked very little. She said she would rest till tea-time. Well, have you packed?”
”I have put my things together. I am going to ask to be allowed off to-morrow. I shall sleep at the flat to-morrow night, if they can spare me, and be off the next morning.”
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