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

swallow round the corner, she flies down the long, dark gallery. Once only she turns. _"Now_ am I caught?" cries she, laughing defiance at Gower.

"Call _that_ fair, if you like!" says he, in high disgust.

But she is gone.


* * * * *


The house is quiet again. Gower and Marryatt are still lingering in the smoking-room, but for the rest, they have bidden each other "Good-night" and gone to their rooms.

Tita is sitting before her glass having her hair brushed, when a somewhat loud knock comes to her door. The maid opens it, and Sir Maurice walks in.

"You can go," says he to Sarah, who courtesies and withdraws.

"Oh! it is you," says Tita, springing up.

Her hair has just been brushed for the night, and round her forehead some cloudy ringlets are lying. She had thrown on her dressing-gown--a charming creation of white cashmere, almost covered with lace--without a thought of fastening it, and her young and lovely neck shows through the opening of the laces whiter than its surroundings. Her petticoat--all white lace, too, and caught here and there with tiny knots of pale pink ribbons--is naturally shorter than her gown would be, and shows the dainty little feet beneath them.


"When youth and beauty meet together,
There's worke for breath."


And surely here are youth and beauty met together! Rylton, seeing the sweet combination, draws a long breath.

She advances towards him in the friendliest way, as if delighted.

"I haven't had a word with you," says she. "Hardly one. You just told me your mother had not come, and"--she stops, and breaks into a gay little laugh--"you must forgive me, but what I said to myself was, _'Thank goodness!' "_ She covers her eyes with widened fingers, and peeps at him through them. "What I said to you out loud was, 'Oh, I _am_ sorry!' Do you remember? Now, am I not a hypocrite?"

At this she takes down her hands from her eyes, and holds them out to him in the prettiest way.

He pushes them savagely from him.

"You are!" says he hoarsely; "and one of the very worst of your kind!"


CHAPTER VIII.

HOW TITA, HAVING BEEN REPULSED, GROWS ANGRY; AND HOW A VERY PRETTY BATTLE IS FOUGHT OUT; AND HOW TITA GAINS A PRESENT; AND HOW SIR MAURICE LOSES HIS TEMPER.


Her hands drop to her sides. She grows suddenly a little pale. Her eyes widen.

"What is it? What have I done _now?"_ asks she.

The "now" has something pathetic in it.

"Done! done!" He is trying to keep down the fury that is possessing him. He had come to speak to her with a fixed determination in his heart not to lose his temper, not to let her have that advantage over him. He would be calm, judicial, but now---- What is the matter with him now? Seeing her there, so lovely and so sweet, so full of all graciousness--a very flower of beauty--a little thing--


"Light as the foam that flecks the seas,
Fitful as summer's sunset breeze"--


somehow a very _rage_ of anger conquers him, and he feels as if he would like to take her and _compel_ her to his will. "You have done one thing, at all events," says he. "You have forfeited my trust in you for ever."

"_I_ have?"

"Yes, you! When I left home this morning, what was the last word I said to you? I must have been a fool indeed when I said it. I told you I left our house and our guests in your charge."

"Well?"

"Well?" He checks himself forcibly. Even now, when passion is gathering, he holds himself back. "When I came back what did I see?"

"Our house--_not_ in flames, I hope; and our guests--enjoying themselves!" Tita has lifted her head. She allows herself a little smile. Then she turns upon him. "Ah, I told you!" says she. "You want always to find fault with me."

"I want nothing but that my wife should show _some_ sort of dignity."

"I see! You should have asked Mrs. Bethune to see after your house--your guests!" says Tita.

She says it very lightly. Her small face has a faint smile upon it. She moves to a large lounging chair, and flings herself into it with charming _abandon_, crosses her lovely naked arms behind her head, and looks up at him with naughty defiance.

"Perhaps you hardly know, Tita, what you are saying," says Rylton slowly.

"Yes, I do. I do indeed. What I do _not_ know is, what fault you have to find with me."

"Then learn it at once." His tone is stern. "I object to your playing hide-and-seek with your cousin."

"With my cousin! One would think," says Tita, getting up from her chair and staring at him as if astonished, "that Tom and I had been playing it by _ourselves!"_

"It seemed to me very much like that," says Rylton, his eyes white and cold.

"I know what you mean," says Tita. "And," with open contempt, "I'm sorry for you--you think Tom is in love with me! And you therefore refuse to let me have a single word with him at any time. And why? What does it matter to you, when _you_ don't care? When _you_ are not in love with me!" Rylton makes a slight movement. "It's a regular dog in the manger business; _you_ don't like me, and therefore nobody else must like me. That's what it comes to! And," with a little blaze of wrath, "it is all so absurd, too! If I can't speak to my own cousin, I can't speak to anyone."

"I don't object to your speaking to your cousin," says Rylton; "you can speak to him as much as ever you like. What I object to is your making yourself particular with him--your spending whole _hours_ with him."

"Hours! We weren't five seconds behind that screen."

"I am not thinking of the screen now; I am thinking of yesterday morning, when you went out riding with him."

"What! you have not forgotten that yet?" exclaims she, with high scorn. "Why, I thought you had forgiven, and put all that behind you."

"I have not forgotten it. I might have considered it wiser to say nothing more about it, had not your conduct of this evening----"

"Nonsense!" She interrupts him with a saucy little shrug of her shoulders. "And as for _hours_--it wasn't hours, any way."

"You went out with him at eight o'clock----"

"Who told you that?"

"Your maid."

"You asked Sarah?"

"Certainly I did. I had to do something before I asked my guests to sit down to breakfast without their hostess!"

"Well, I don't care who you asked," says Tita mutinously.

"You went out at eight, and you came home late for breakfast at half-past ten."

"I explained all that to you," says Tita, flinging out her hands. "Tom and I went for a race, and of course I didn't think it would take so long, and----"

"I don't suppose," coldly, "you thought at all."

"Certainly I never thought I was going to get a scolding on my return!"

"A scolding! I shouldn't dream of scolding so advanced a person as you," says Rylton--who is scolding with all his might.

"I wonder what you think you are doing now?" says Tita. She pauses and looks at him critically. He returns her gaze. His cold eyes so full of condemnation, his compressed lips that speak of anger hardly kept back, all make a picture that impresses itself upon her mind. Not, alas! in any salutary way. "Well," says she at last, with much deliberation and open, childish vindictiveness, "if you only knew how _ugly_ you are when you look like that, you would never do it again!" She nods her head. _"There!"_ says she.

It is so unexpected, so utterly undignified, that it takes all the dignity out of Rylton on the spot. It suddenly occurs to him that it is no good to be angry with her. What is she? A mere naughty child--or----

"You do not know who you are like!" continues she.

Rylton shakes his head; he is afraid to speak--a sudden wild desire to laugh is oppressing him.

"You are the image of Uncle George," says she, with such wicked spite that a smile parts his lips.

"Oh! you can laugh if you like," says she, "but you _are,_ for all that. You're _worse_ than him," her anger growing because of that smile. "I never----"

"Never what?"

"I never met such a _cross cat_ in my life!" says Lady Rylton, turning her back on him.

"It's well to be unique in one's own line," says he grimly.

A short laugh breaks from him. How absurd she is! A regular little spitfire; yet what a pretty one. His heart is full of sadness, yet he cannot keep back that laugh. He hardly knows how he has so much mirth left in him, but the laugh sounds through the room and drives Tita to frenzy.

"Oh, you can laugh!" cries she, turning upon him. "You can laugh when--when----" She makes a frantic little gesture that flings open the loose gown she wears, and shows once again her charming neck; words seem to fail her. "Oh! I should like to _shake_ you," says she at last.

"Would you?" said Rylton. His laughter has come to an end. "And you. What do you think I should like to do with you?"

He looks at her.

"Oh! I know. It is not difficult to answer," with a contemptuous glance from under the long, soft lashes, beneath which his glance sinks into insignificance. "You would like to _give me away!"_

There is a pause.

It is on Rylton's tongue to say she has given _herself_ away very considerably of late, but he abstains from saying so--with difficulty, however!

"No, I should not," says Rylton gravely.

_"No?_ Is that the truth?" She bites her lips. "After all," with angry tearfulness, "I dare say it is. I believe you would rather keep me here for ever--just to be able to worry the life out of me day by day."

"You have a high opinion of me!"

Rylton is white now with rage.

"You are wrong there; I have the worst opinion of you; I think you a tyrant--a perfect _Nero!"_

Suddenly she lifts her pretty hands and covers her face with them. She bursts into tears.

"And you _promised_ you would never be unkind to me!" sobs she.

"Unkind! Good heavens!" says Rylton, distractedly. _Who_ is unkind? Is it he or she? Who is in fault?

"At all events you pretended to be fond of me."

"I never pretend anything," says Rylton, whose soul seems torn in twain.

"You did," cries Tita wildly. "You _did."_ She brushes her tears aside, and looks up at him--her small, delicate face flushed--her eyes on fire! "You promised you would be kind to me."

"I promised nothing," in a dull sort of way. He feels crushed, unable to move. "It was you who arranged everything; I was to go my way, and you yours."

"It was liberal, at all events."

"And useless!" There is a prophetic note in his voice. "As you would have gone your way, whether or no."

"And