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

to me," says she. "Come and sit by the fire, and tell me all about it."

"It is nothing, really," says Rylton, resisting her pretty efforts to push him into a luxurious lounging chair. "It is only a question about your cousin."

He leans his elbow on the chimney-piece, and looks down at her--a dainty fairy lying now in the bosom of some soft pink cushions, with her legs crossed and her toes towards the fire. She has clasped her arms behind her head.

"About Minnie?"

"No."

His heart hardens again. Is this duplicity on her part? How small, how innocent, how girlish, how--reluctantly this--beautiful she looks! and yet----

"About Tom, then?"

"About Mr. Hescott"--coldly--"yes."

"What! you don't like him?" questions Tita, abandoning her lounging attitude, and leaning towards him.

"So far as he is concerned," with increasing coldness, "I am quite indifferent to him; it is of you I think."

"Of me! And why of me? Why should you think of me?"

"I hardly know," somewhat bitterly; "except that it is perhaps better that _I_ should criticise your conduct than--other people."

"I don't know what you mean!" says Tita slowly.

Her charming face loses suddenly all its vivacity; she looks a little sad, a little forlorn.

"There is very little to know," says Rylton hurriedly, touched by her expression.

"But you said--you spoke of my _conduct!"_

"Well, and is there nothing to be said of that? This cousin----" He stops, and then goes on abruptly: "Why does he call you Titania?"

"Oh, it is an old name for me!" She looks at him, and, leaning back again in her chair, bursts out laughing. She has flung her arms over her head again, and now looks at him from under one of them with a mischievous smile. "Is _that_ the whole?" says she. "He used to call me that years ago. He used to say I was like a fairy queen."

"Used he?"

Rylton's face is untranslatable.

"Yes. I was the smallest child alive, I do believe." She springs to her feet, and goes up to Rylton in a swaying, graceful little fashion. "I'm not so very big even _now_, am I?" says she.

Rylton turns his eyes from hers with open determination; he steels his heart against her.

"About this cousin," he says icily. "He is the one who used to say you had hands like iron, and a heart like velvet?"

"Yes. _Fancy_ you remembering that!" says Tita, a sudden, quick gleam of pleasure dyeing her pretty cheeks quite red.

"I always remember," returns Rylton distantly.

His tone is a repulse. The lovely colour fades from her face.

"I'm tired," says she suddenly, petulantly. She moves to the other end of the room, and, opening a wardrobe, pretends to make some rearrangements with its contents. "If you have nothing more to say"--with perhaps more honesty than politeness--"I wish you would go away."

"I _have_ something more to say." The very nervousness he is feeling makes his tone unnecessarily harsh. "I object to your extreme intimacy with your cousin."

Tita drops the dress she has just taken from the wardrobe, and comes back once more into the full light of the lamp. Her barer and slender arms are now hanging straight before her, her fingers interlaced; she looks up at him.

"With _Tom?"_

"With Mr. Hescott."

"I have known Tom all my life," defiantly.

"I don't care about that. One may know people all one's life, and yet have very unpleasant things said about one."

_ "Can_ one----" She stops suddenly, facing him, her eyes fixed on his; her lips part, her slight little frame quivers as if with eagerness. It grows quite plain that there is something she desires passionately to say to him--something terrible-- but all at once she controls herself; she makes a little gesture with her right hand, as if throwing something from her, and goes on quickly, excitedly: "What do you mean? Who has been talking about me?"

"I didn't say anyone had been talking about you."

"Yes, you did! You hinted it, at all events. Go on. Tell me who it was."

"Even if I knew I should not tell you," says Rylton, who is now white with anger.

He had understood her hesitation of a moment since. He had known exactly what she wanted to say to him, and unfortunately the pricking of is conscience had only served to add fuel to the fire of his discontent towards her.

"Well, _I'll_ tell _you,"_ says Tita, coming a step closer to him, her eyes blazing. "It was Mrs. Bethune. I know that she is no friend of mine. And I may as well say at once that I detest her. _You_ may like her, but I don't, and I never shall. She's a _beast!"_

"Tita!"

Her husband stares at her aghast. The small form seems transfigured. Has she grown?

"Yes--a _beast!_ I don't care what you think. I'm not afraid of you--remember that! I was not even afraid of Uncle George. I shall never be afraid of anyone in all this wide, wide world!"

Suddenly her passion breaks down. Her arms fall to her sides, and she leans back against the end of her bed like a broken lily.

"Tita--if you would let me explain," says Rylton, who is overcome by her forlorn attitude, "I----"

"No." He would have laid his hands gently upon her pretty bare shoulders, but she repulses him. "I want no explanation; there _isn't_ one."

Then, to his surprise and misery, she covers her face with both her hands and bursts into tears.

"You are unkind," sobs she wildly. "And you are not _true_. You don't tell the truth. You said--you _said,"_ passionately, "that you would be good to me. That you would let me do as I liked--that I should be happy! That was why I married you! That I might be happy! And now--now----"

"But to do as you liked! Tita, be reasonable."

"Oh, _reasonable!_ Uncle George used to talk to me like that. _He_ was a reasonable person, I suppose; and so are you. And he--hated me!" She grows silent as one might when some dreadful thought assails one. "Perhaps," says the poor child, in a quick, frightened sort of way, "you hate me too. Perhaps everyone hates me. There are people whom everyone hates, aren't there?"

"Are there?" asks Rylton drearily.

At this moment, at all events, he feels himself to be hateful. What a pitiful little face he is looking at!

"Yes, my uncle detested me," says Tita slowly, as if remembering things. "He said I ought not to have had all that money. That if I had not been born, he would have had it. But one can't help being born. One isn't asked about it! If"--she pauses, and the tears well up into her eyes again--"if _I_ had been asked, I should have said no, _no_, NO!"

"Don't talk like that," says Rylton.

There is a sensation of chokiness about his throat. How young she is--how small--and to be _already_ sorry that ever she was born! What a slender little hand! Just now it is lying crushed against her breast. And those clear eyes. Oh, if only he could have felt differently towards her--if he could have loved her! All this passes through his mind in an instant. He is even thinking of making her some kindly speech that shall heal the present breach between them, when she makes a sudden answer to his last remark.

"If you weren't here, I shouldn't have to talk at all," says she.

"True," he returns, feeling a little discomfited. "Well, good-night, Tita."

"Good-night."

She refuses to see his proffered hand.

"Of course," says Rylton, who now feels _he_ is in the wrong, "I am very sorry that I--that I----"

"Yes, so am I," with a saucy little tilting of her chin.

"Sorry," continues Rylton, with dignity, "that I felt it my duty to--to----"

"Make a fool of yourself? _So am I!"_ says Lady Rylton.

After this astounding speech there is silence for a moment or two. Then Rylton, in spite of himself, laughs. And after a faint struggle with _her_self, Tita joins in his mirth. Emboldened by this departure, and really anxious to make it up with her, Rylton bids her good-night again, and this time would have added a kiss to his adieu. But Tita pushed him away.

"Kiss you? Not likely!" says she scornfully; "I shall never want to kiss you again in all my life!"


CHAPTER XIX.

HOW RYLTON'S HEART CONDEMNS HIM. AND HOW, AS HE WALKS, A SERPENT STINGS HIM. AND HOW HE IS RECOVERED OF HIS WOUND. AND HOW THE LITTLE RIFT IS MENDED--BUT WITH TOO FINE THREAD.


Rylton had gone to his own room in a strange frame of mind. He called it aggrieved, but, _au fond_, there were some grains of remorse at the bottom of it. He had married her, and in spite of all things was bound to protect her. That sad little touch of hers, "Perhaps everyone hates me," had gone to his heart.

There were other things that had gone home too. Little things, but bitter to the senses of one highly cultured; and of course the Ryltons had been accustomed to the best of things always. Tita's phrases grated a good deal. That "make a fool of yourself" had sunk deep, and there were so many other extraordinary expressions. The women of his own world very often used them in fun, but Tita used them in earnest: that made all the difference.

And yet--he was sorry that he had vexed her. It kept him sleepless an hour almost, dwelling upon this, and even in the morning, when he awoke, it was the first thought that assailed him.


* * * * *


It is in truth a lovely morning. Sweet as June, and fresh as "Fresh May."

Rylton, whilst dressing, tells himself he wishes to goodness he had been clever enough to make it up with his wife before going to bed last night. Nothing so horrid as little coldnesses, little bickerings before one's guests--and Tita is so untutored that probably she will make it rather unbearable for him during breakfast.

He has underrated Tita, however. She is almost the first down, and gets through the morning salutations to her guests in the gayest style, and takes possession of the teapot and the huge old urn quite calmly. She has delivered up the coffee to Margaret, to whom she always look as a sure ally. So calm, so pretty in her demeanour, that Rylton, taking heart of grace, throws to her a word or two--to his utter chagrin!

Not that the words are not responded to; not one of them, indeed, but is answered, yet Tita's eyes had not gone with her words. They had been downcast; busied, presumably, with the tea-cup now, or a smile to her neighbour on her left, or a chiding to the fox-terrier at her knee. She gives Rylton the impression, at all events, that she will be civil to him in the future, but that she regrets the fact that she has to be.

When the hateful meal is over he rises, telling himself that he must make it up with her, and as soon as possible. That child! to have a living feud with _her_. It is out of the question! And, besides, before one's guests! How bad it will look. A