The Rocks of Valpre by Ethel May Dell (best short books to read txt) 📖

twenty-one." A sudden dimple appeared in the cheek nearest to him. "Fancy me getting married!" said Chris, with a chuckle. "I can't imagine it, can you?"
"You will soon get used to the idea," he said. "Anyhow, there is nothing in it to frighten you--that is, if you marry the right man."
She nodded thoughtfully, her brief mirth gone. "But, Mr. Mordaunt, how is one to know?"
He leaned towards her. "I believe I can teach you," he said, "if you will let me try."
She slipped a shy hand into his. "But you won't ask me to marry you for a long while yet, will you?" she said pleadingly.
"Not until you have quite made up your mind to be engaged to me," said Mordaunt.
She looked at him quickly. "No, not then either. Not--not till I say you may."
He laughed a little; but there was something very protecting, infinitely reassuring, in his grasp. "And if I accept that condition," he said--"it's a very despotic one, by the way--but if I accept it, may I consider that you are engaged to me?"
Chris hesitated.
"Not if I tell you that I love you," he said, "that I want you more than anything else in life, that I would give the soul out of my body to make you happy?"
His voice was sunk very low. There was more of restraint than emotion in his utterance. He spoke as a man who knows himself to be upon holy ground.
And Chris was awed. The very quietness of the man made her tremble. She knew instinctively that here was something colossal, something that dominated her, albeit half against her will.
She closed her fingers very tightly upon his hand, but she said nothing.
He sat silent for several seconds, closely watching her, seeking to read her downcast eyes. But she would not raise them. Her heart was beating very quickly, and her breath came and went like the breath of a frightened bird.
At last very gently he moved, drew her to him, put his arm about her. "Are you afraid of me, Chris?"
She nestled to him with a little gesture that was curiously pathetic. With her face securely hidden against him, she whispered, "Yes."
"My darling, why?" he said very tenderly.
"I don't know why," murmured Chris.
"Surely not because I love you?" he said.
She nodded against his shoulder. "You ought not to love me like that. It's too much. I'm not good enough."
"My little girl," he said, "I am not worthy to hold your hand in mine."
His hand was on her hair, stroking, fondling, caressing. She nestled closer, without lifting her face.
"You don't know me in the least. I'm not a bit nice really. I get up to all sorts of pranks. I'm wild and flighty. Ask Aunt Philippa if you want to know."
"I know you better than Aunt Philippa, dear," he said.
"Oh no, you don't. You've only seen my good side. I'm always on my best behaviour with you."
"Another excellent reason for marrying me," said Mordaunt.
"Oh, but I shan't be always. That's just it. You--you will be quite shocked some day."
"I will take the risk," he said.
"I don't think you ought to," murmured Chris. "It doesn't seem quite fair."
His hand pressed her head very gently. "Meaning that you don't love me?" he said.
She made a vehement gesture of denial. "Of course not. I--I'd be a little beast if I didn't, specially after the way you helped me with Cinders long ago. I never forgot that--never! Only I do think--before you marry me--you ought to know how horrid I can be. It--it's buying a pig in a poke if you don't."
He laughed again at that in a fashion that emboldened Chris to raise her head.
"I am quite in earnest," she told him, in a tone that tried to be indignant. "You'll find me out presently. And when you do--"
She stopped with a gasp. His arms were about her, holding her as she sat. He looked straight down into the shining blue eyes. "When I do, Chris--" he said.
She met his look quite bravely. She was even smiling rather tremulously herself. "You will get a stick and beat me," she said. "I know. People who have eyes like steel never make allowances for those who haven't!"
She got no further, for quite suddenly Trevor Mordaunt dropped his self-restraint like an impeding cloak and caught her to his heart. For the fraction of a second her fear came back, she almost made as if she would resist him; and then in a moment it was gone, lost in a wonder that left no room for anything else. For he kissed her, once and once only, so passionately, so burningly, so possessively, that it seemed to Chris as if, without her own volition, even half against her will, she thereby became his own. He had dominated her, he had won her, almost before she had had time to realize that there was a stranger within her gates.


CHAPTER III
THE WARNING

"Well, all I have to say is, 'Bravo, young un!'" Rupert Wyndham stretched out a careless arm and encircled his sister's waist therewith. She was perched on the arm of his chair, and she tweaked his ear airily in response to this encouragement.
"Oh, you're pleased, are you?" she said. "That's very nice of you."
"Pleased is a term that does not express my feelings in the least," he declared. "I am transported with delight. You are the last person I should have expected to retrieve the family fortunes, but you have done it right nobly. I'm told the fellow is as rich as Croesus. It's to be hoped that he is quite resigned to the fact that he is going to have plenty of relations when he marries. By the way, hasn't he any of his own?"
"None that count--only cousins and things. Such a mercy!" said Chris. "And oh, Rupert, isn't it a blessing now that we never managed to sell Old Park, or even to let it? We shall be able to live there ourselves and turn it into a perfect paradise."
"He wants to buy it, eh?" Rupert glanced up keenly.
Chris nodded. "It's only in the clouds at present. He said something about giving it to me when we marry. But of course," rather hastily, "we're not going to be married for ever so long. It would have to belong to him till then. He is going to talk to you about it presently. You wouldn't object, would you? You are entitled to your share now, he says, and Max will come into his directly. But Noel's will have to go into trust till he is of age."
"An excellent idea!" declared Rupert. "I'm damnably hard up, as your worthy _fiance_ has probably divined. But why this notion of not getting married for ever so long? I don't quite follow the drift of that."
"Oh, don't be silly!" said Chris, colouring very deeply. "How could we possibly? Everyone would say I was marrying him for his money?"
"And that is not so?" questioned Rupert.
"Of course it isn't!" She spoke with a vehemence almost fiery. "I--I'm not such a pig as that!"
"No?" He leaned his head back upon the cushion and gazed up at her flushed face. "What are you marrying him for?" he asked.
Chris looked back at him with a hint of defiance in her blue eyes. "What do most people marry for?" she demanded.
He laughed carelessly. "Heaven knows! Generally because they're stupid asses. The men want housekeepers and the women want houses, and neither want to pay for such luxuries. Those are the two principal reasons, if you ask me."
Chris jumped off the arm of his chair with an abruptness that seemed to indicate some perturbation of spirit. She went to one of the long windows that looked across the quiet square.
"Those are not our reasons, anyhow," she said, after a moment, with her back to the cynic in the chair.
He turned his head at her words and smiled, a mischievous boyish smile that proclaimed their relationship on the instant.
"Ye gods!" he ejaculated. "Is it possible that you're in love with him?"
Chris was silent. She seemed to be watching something in the road below her with absorbing interest.
"You needn't trouble to keep your back turned," gibed the brotherly voice behind her. "I can see you are the colour of beetroot even at this distance. Curious, very! But I'm glad you are so becomingly modest. It's the first indication of the virtue that I have ever detected in you."
"You beast!" said Chris.
She whirled suddenly round, half-laughing, half-resentful, seized a book from a table near, and hurled it with accurate aim at her brother's head.
He flung up a dexterous hand and caught it just as the door opened to admit Mordaunt, who had been asked to dine to meet his future brother-in-law.
Rupert was on his feet in a moment. With the book pressed against his heart, he swept a low bow to the advancing stranger.
"You come in the nick of time," he observed, "to preserve me from my sister's fratricidal intentions. Perhaps you would like to arbitrate. The offence was that I accused her of being in love--with you, of course. She seems to think the assertion unwarrantable."
"Oh, Trevor, don't listen!" besought Chris. "He only goes on like that because he thinks it's clever. Do snub him as he deserves!"
"Pray do!" said Rupert. "Begin by asking him how old he is, and whether he knows his nine-times backwards yet. Also--"
"Also," broke in Mordaunt, with a smile, "if he can't find something more profitable to do than to tease his small sister." He extended a quiet hand. "I have been wanting to make your acquaintance for some time. In fact, I was contemplating running down to Sandacre for the purpose."
"Very good of you," said Rupert. He dropped his chaffing air and grasped the proffered hand with abrupt friendliness. There was something about this man that caught his fancy. "You would be very welcome at any time. It isn't much of a show down there, but if you don't mind that--"
"I shouldn't come for the sake of the show," said Mordaunt. "I'd sooner see a battalion at work than at play."
"Ah! Wouldn't I, too!" said Rupert, with sudden fire. "We hope to be ordered to India next year. That wouldn't be absolute stagnation, anyhow. I loathe home work."
Mordaunt looked at the straight young figure brimming with activity, and decided that the more work this boy had to do the better it would be for him morally and physically.
"Keeps you in training," he suggested.
"Oh, I don't know. One is apt to get unconscionably slack. It's a fool of a world. The work is all wrongly distributed; some fellows have to work like niggers and others that want to work never get a look in." Rupert broke off to laugh. "I'm a discontented beggar, I tell you frankly," he said. "But I don't expect any sympathy from you, because, being what you are, you wouldn't reasonably be expected to understand."
"My good fellow, I haven't always been prosperous," Mordaunt assured him. "I've had luck, I admit. It comes to most of us in some form if we are only sharp enough to recognize it. Perhaps it hasn't come your way yet."
"I'll be shot if it has!" said Rupert.
"But it will," Mordaunt maintained, "sooner or later."
"Oh, do you believe in luck?" broke in Chris eagerly. "Because there's the new moon coming up over the trees, and I've just seen it through glass. Don't look, Trevor, for goodness' sake! No, no, you shan't! Shut your eyes while I open the window. You shall see it