The Hoyden by Margaret Wolfe Hungerford (best value ebook reader TXT) 📖

and has insisted on making him a handsome present of them. She seems to him the very incarnation of exquisite idleness, the idleness that knows no thought.

"Very good," says he at last. "If you refuse to make up a list of _your_ friends, help me to make up a list of mine. You know you said you would like to fill the house."

"Ye--es," says she, as if meditating.

"Of course, if you don't want any people here----"

"But I do. I do really. I _hate_ being alone!" cries she, springing into sudden life and leaning forward with her hands clasped on her knees.

"How few rings you have!" says he suddenly.


CHAPTER XV.

HOW TITA TELLS OF TWO STRANGE DREAMS, AND OF HOW THEY MOVED HER. AND HOW MAURICE SETS HIS SOUL ON ASKING A GUEST TO OAKDEAN; AND HOW HE GAINS HIS DESIRE.


"Not one, except this," touching her engagement ring. "That you have given me."

"You don't care for them, then?"

"Yes I do. I love them, but there was nobody to give them to me. I was very young, you see, when poor daddy died."

She stops; her mouth takes a mournful curve; the large gray eyes look with a sort of intensity through the windows to something--_something_ beyond--but something that Rylton cannot see. After all, _is_ she so trivial? She cares, at all events, for the memory of that dead father. Rylton regards her with interest.

_ "He_ would have given me rings," she says.

It is so childish, so absurd, that Rylton wonders why he doesn't want to laugh. But the little sad face, with the gray eyes filled with tears, checks any mirth he might have felt. A sudden longing to give her another ring, when next he goes to town, fills his heart.

"Well! what about our guests?"

Her tone startles him. He looks up. All the tears, the grief are gone; she is the gay, laughing Tita that he _thinks_ he knows.

"Well, what?" His tone is a little cold. She _is_ superficial, certainly. "If you decline to ask your friends----"

"I don't decline. It is only that I _have_ no friends," declares she.

There is something too deliberate in her manner to be quite natural, and Rylton looks at her. She returns his glance with something of mockery in hers.

"It isn't nice to be married to a mere nobody, is it?" says she, showing her pretty teeth in a rather malicious little laugh.

"I suppose not," says Rylton steadily. "I haven't tried it."

A gleam--a tiny gleam of pleasure comes into her eyes, bus she wilfully repulses it.

"Oh, you--if anybody. However, you knew _before_ you married me, that is one comfort."

"Why do you speak to me like that, Tita?" A frown has settled on Rylton's forehead. It is all such abominably bad form. "You know how--how----"

"Ill-bred it is," supplies she quietly, gaily.

"It is intolerable," vehemently, turning away and walking towards the door.

"Ah, come back! Don't go--don't go!" cries she eagerly. She jumps out of her big chair and runs after him. She slips her hand through his arm, and swinging her little _svelte_ body round, smiles up into his face mischievously. "What's the matter with you?" asks she.

"It is in such bad taste," says Rylton, mollified, however, in a measure in spite of himself. "You should consider how it hurts me. You should remember you are my wife."

"I do. That is why I think I can say to you what I can't say to anybody else," says Tita quietly. "However, never mind; sit down again and let us settle the question about our guests. Here's a sheet of paper," pushing it into his hands. "And here's a pencil--an awfully bad one, any way, but if you keep sticking it into your mouth it'll write. _I'm _tired of licking that pencil."

She is evidently hopeless! Rylton, after that first crushing thought, gives way, and, leaning back in his chair, roars with laughter.

"And am I to lick it now!" asks he.

"No, certainly not,". She is now evidently in high dudgeon. She puts the pencil back in her pocket, and stands staring at him with her angry little head somewhat lowered. "After all, you are right; I'm horrid!" says she.

_"I'm_ right! By what authority do you say that! Come now, Tita!"

"By my own."

"The very worst in the world, then. Give me back that pencil."

"Not likely," says Tita, tilting her chin. "Here's one belonging to yourself," taking one off the writing-table near. "This can't offend you, I hope. After all, I'm a poor sort," says Tita, with a disconsolate sigh that is struggling hard with a smile to gain the mastery. "It's awfully hard to offend me. I've no dignity--that's what your mother says. And after all, too," brightening up, and smiling now with delightful gaiety, "I don't want to have any. One hates to be hated!"

"What an involved speech! Well, if you won't give me your pencil, let us get on with this. Now, to begin, surely you _have_ someone you would like to ask here, in spite of all you have said."

"Well--perhaps." She pauses. "I want to see Margaret," says she, hurriedly, tremulously, as if tears might be in her eyes.

He cannot be sure of that, however, as her lids are lowered. But her tone--is there a note of unhappiness in it? The very thought gives him a shock; and of late has she not been a little uncertain in her moods?

_"I_ was going to name her," says Rylton.

"Then you see we have one thought in common," says Tita.

She has knelt down beside him to look at his list, and suddenly he lays his palm under her chin, and so lifts her face that he can see it.

"What is it, Tita?" says he. "Is anything troubling you? Last night you were so silent; to-day you talk. It is bad to be unequal."

His tone is grave.

"The night before last I had a bad dream," says Tita solemnly, turning her head a little to one side, and giving him a slight glance that lasts for the tiniest fraction of a second.

It occurs to Rylton that there is a little touch of wickedness in it. At all events, he grows interested.

"A bad dream?"

"Yes, the worst!" She nods her small head reproachfully at him. "I dreamt you were married to a princess!"

"Well, so I am," says Rylton, smiling.

His smile is a failure, however; something in her air has disconcerted him.

"Oh no! No, she was not like me; she was a tall princess, and she was beautiful, and her hair was like a glory round her head. She was a very dream in herself; whereas I---- Naturally , that puts me out of sorts!" She shrugs her shoulders pathetically. "But last night"--she stops, clasps her hands, and sits back on her heels. "Oh no! I shan't tell you what I dreamt last night," says she. She shakes her head at him. "No, no! indeed, not if you asked me _for ever!"_

"Oh, but you must!" says he, laughing.

He catches her hands and draws her up gently into a kneeling position once more--a position that brings her slender body resting against his knees.

"Must I?" She pauses as if in amused thought, and then, leaning confidentially across his knees, says, "Well, then, I dreamt that you were madly in love with _me!_ And, oh, the joy of it!"

She breaks off, and gives way to irrepressible laughter. Covering her face with her hands, she peeps at him through her fingers as a child might who is bent on mischief.

"Is all that true?" asks Maurice, colouring.

"What, the first dream or the second?"

"I presume one is as true as the other," somewhat stiffly.

"You are a prophet," says Tita, with a little grimace. "Well now, go on, do. We have arranged for Margaret." She pauses, and then says very softly, _"Darling_ Margaret! Do you know, I believe she is the only friend I have in the world?"

Her words cut him to the heart.

"And I, Tita, do I not count?" asks he.

"You! No!" She gives him a little shake, taking his arms, as she kneels beside him. "You represent Society, don't you? And Society forbids all that. No man's wife is his friend nowadays."

"True," says Rylton bitterly. "Most men's wives are their enemies nowadays."

"Oh, I shan't be yours!" says Tita. "And you mustn't be mine either, remember! Well, go on--we have put down Margaret," peeping at the paper in his hand, "and no one else. Now, someone to meet her. Colonel Neilson?"

"Yes, of course; and Captain Marryatt?"

"And Mrs. Chichester to meet _him!"_

"My dear Tita, Mrs. Chichester has a husband somewhere!"

"So she told me," says Tita. "But, then, he is so _very_ far off, and in your Society distance counts."

Rylton regards her with some surprise. Is she satirical?--this silly _child!_

"You will have to correct your ideas about Society," says he coldly. "By all means ask Mrs. Chichester here, too; I, for one, prefer not to believe in scandals."

"One must believe in something," says Tita. "I suppose," pencil poised in hand, "you would like to ask Mr. Gower?"

"Certainly."

"And his aunt?"

"Certainly _not."_

"Oh, but _I_ should," says Tita; "she amuses me. Do let us ask old Miss Gower!"

"I begin to think you are a wicked child," says Rylton, laughing, whereon Miss Gower's name is scrawled down on the list. "There are the men from the barracks in Merriton; they can always be asked over," goes on Maurice. "And now, who else?"

"The Marchmonts!"

"Of course." He pauses. "And then--there is Mrs. Bethune!"

"Your cousin! Yes!"

"Shall we ask her?"

"Why should we _not_ ask her?" She lifts one small, delicate, brown hand, and, laying it on his cheek, turns his face to hers. "Don't look out of the window; look at _me_. Why should we not ask her?"

"My dear girl, there is no answer to such a question as that."

"No!" She scribbles Mrs. Bethune's name on her list, and then, "You particularly _wish_ her to be asked?"

"Not particularly. Certainly not at all if you object to it."

"Object! Why should I object? She is amusing--she will keep us all alive; she will help you to entertain your people."

"I should hope you, Tita, would help me to do that."

"Oh, I have not the air--the manner! I shall feel like a guest myself," says Tita. She has sprung to her feet, and is now blowing a little feather she had found upon her frock up into the air. It eludes her, however; she follows it round the small table, but all in vain--it sinks to the ground. "What a _beast_ of a feather!" says she.

"I don't like you to say that," says Rylton. "A _guest _in your own house!"

"You don't like me to say anything," says Tita petulantly. "I _told_ you I was horrid. Well, I'll be mistress in my own house, if that will please you. But," prophetically, "it won't. Do you know, Maurice," looking straight at him with a defiant little mien, "I'm more glad that I can tell you that I don't care a ha'penny about you, because if I did you would break my heart."