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

you, yours!"

"I don't know about that. But your way--where does that lead? Now, look here, Tita,"--he takes a step towards her--"you are bent on following that way. But mark my words, bad will come of it."

"Nothing bad will come of _my_ way!" says Tita distinctly.

Her eyes are fixed on his. For a full minute they regard each other silently. How much does she know? Rylton's very soul seems harassed with this question. That old story! A shock runs through him as he says those last words to himself. _Is_ it old? That story? _Marian!_ What is she to him now?

"As for Tom," says Tita suddenly, "I tell you distinctly I shall not give him up."

"Give him up!" The phrase grates upon his ear. "What do you mean?" demands he, his anger all aflame again.

"That I shall not insult him, or be cold to him, to please you or anybody."

"Is that your decision? Then I think it will be wise of your cousin to shorten his visit."

"Do you mean by that that you are going to be uncivil to him?"

"Yes!" shortly, and with decision.

"You will be cold to him? To Tom? To my own cousin? Maurice, Maurice! Think what you are doing!"

She has come close up to him. Her charming face is uplifted to his.

"Think what _you_ are doing," returns he hoarsely. He catches her hands. "If you will swear to me that he is nothing to you--nothing----"

"He is my cousin," says Tita, who hardly understands.

"Oh!" He almost flings her from him. "There--let it be as you will," says he bitterly. "It is you cousin--your house."

Tita grows very pale.

"That is ungenerous," says she.

"I have all the faults, naturally." He goes towards the door, and then suddenly comes back and flings something upon the table before her. "You once told me you were fond of rings," says he.

The case has flown open, because of his passionate throwing of it, and an exquisite diamond and pearl ring lies displayed. Tita springs to her feet.

"Oh, wait! _Don't_ go! Oh, _do_ stop!" cries she, in great distress. _"Fancy_ your thinking of me when you were in town! And what a lovely, _lovely_ ring! Oh! Maurice--I'm sorry. I am indeed!"

She holds out her hands to him. Rylton, still standing on the threshold of the door, looks back at her.

Is it an apology? An admission that she has been wrong in her dealings with her cousin? An open declaration that this night's undignified proceedings are really being repented of?

He comes slowly back to her.

"If you are sorry----" begins he.

"Oh, I am indeed. And you must let me kiss you for this darling ring. I know you _hate_ me to kiss you--but," she flings her arms round him, "I really _must_ do it now."

Instinctively his arms close round her. With a thoroughly astonished air, however, she wriggles herself free, and draws back from him.

"You have done your part beautifully," says she, with a little soft grimace. "You bore up wonderfully. I'll let you off next time as a consideration."

"I don't want to be let off," says Rylton.

"There, that will do," lifting her hand. "And I _am_ sorry--remember that."

"If you are," says he, "you will promise me--not to----"

He has grown quite serious again. He hardly knows how to put it into words, and therefore hesitates; but if only she will cease from her encouragement of her cousin----

"Oh no--never. I shall never do it again," says she earnestly. "It was so--so--dreadful of me----"

"If you see it now, I wonder you didn't see it then," says Rylton, a little stiffly; this sudden conversion brings all the past back to him.

"Well, but I didn't see it then--I always talk too fast."

She hangs her pretty head.

"I don't remember what you _said,"_ says Rylton, a little at fault. "But--if you are honestly determined, Tita, to be--er--a little more circumspect in that direction in future----"

"I am--I am indeed!" cries Tita. "I'm sure I can't think how I ever said it to you! It was so rude--so horrid----"

"Said? _What?"_ demands Rylton, with quick suspicion.

"Well, you know I did call you a _cross cat!"_ says his wife, with a little slide glance at him, and a tremulous smile, and withal such lovely penitence, that if he had not been led astray by another thought, he would have granted her absolution for all her sins, here and hereafter, on the spot.

As it is, his wrath grows once more hot within him; so she is _not _sorry after all.

"Pshaw!" says he.

"Oh, and I called you ugly, too!" cries Tita. "Oh, how _could_ I? But you will forgive me, won't you?" She runs after him, and lays her hand upon his arm. "You do forgive me, don't you?"

_ "No!"_ says he violently.

He almost flings her from him.

"Hypocrite!" he says to himself, as he fastens the door of his own room.

A baby's face, and the heart of a liar! She had played with him; she had fooled him; she had, at all events, refused to say she regretted her conduct with her cousin.

He goes down to the garden, feeling it impossible to sleep just now, and, coming back two hours later, finds the ring he had given her lying on his dressing-table. There is no note with it--not even a single line.


CHAPTER IX.

HOW MRS. BETHUNE IS BROUGHT BEFORE THE BAR; AND HOW SHE GIVES HER EVIDENCE AGAINST TITA; AND HOW MAURICE'S MOTHER DESIRES AN INTERVIEW WITH MAURICE'S WIFE.


"And now for the news," says the elder Lady Rylton, next morning, leaning back in her chair; she objects to the word "Dowager."

Contrary to all expectations, she had arrived to-day at half-past eight, and is now, at one o'clock, sitting in her room with Mrs. Bethune before her. She had seen Tita, of course; but only for a moment or so, as she had been in a hurry to get to her bedroom and her maid, and have the ravages that travel had laid upon her old-young face obliterated. She had, indeed, been furious (secretly) with Tita for having come out of her room to bid her welcome--such bad taste, obtruding one's self upon a person in the early hours of the morning, when one has only just left a train. But what _can_ one expect from a plebeian!

"News?" says Marian, lifting her brows.

"Well," testily, "I suppose there is some! How is the _ménage_ going on? How is it being managed, eh? You have a tongue, my dear--speak! I suppose you can tell me something!"

"Something! Yes."

"What does that mean?"

"A great deal," says Mrs. Bethune.

"Then you can tell me a great deal. Begin--begin!" says Lady Rylton, waving her hand in her airiest style. "I guessed as much! I always hated that girl! Well--and so---- _Do_ go on!"

"I hardly know what you expect me to say," says Mrs. Bethune coldly, and with a hatred very badly suppressed.

"You know perfectly well," says her aunt. "I wish to know how Maurice and his wife are getting on."

"How can I answer that?" says Marian, turning upon her like one brought to bay.

It is _too_ bitter to her, this cross-examination; it savours of a servitude that she must either endure or--starve!

"It is quite simple," says Lady Rylton. She looks at Marian with a certain delight in her eyes--the delight that tyrants know. She has this creature at her heels, and she will drag her to her death. "I am waiting," says she. "My good girl, why _don't_ you answer? What of Maurice and his wife?"

"They are not on good terms, I think," says Mrs. Bethune sullenly.

"No? And whose fault is that?" Lady Rylton catches the tip of Marian's gown, and draws her to her. When she has made her turn, so that she can study and gloat over the rapid changes of her face, she says, "Yours?" in a light, questioning way.

She smiles as she asks her question--a hateful smile. There is something in it almost devilish--a compelling of the woman before her to remember days that _should_ be dead, and a secret that should have been hers alone.

"Not mine, certainly," says Marian, clearing her throat as though it is a little dry, but otherwise defying the scrutiny of the other.

"And yet you say they are not on good terms!" Lady Rylton pauses as if thinking, and then goes on. "No wonder, too," says she, with a shrug. "Two people with two such tempers!"

"Has Tita a temper?" asks Marian indifferently.

Lady Rylton regards her curiously.

"Have you not found that out yet?" asks she.

"No," coldly.

"It argues badly for you," says her aunt, with a small, malicious smile. "She has shown you none of it, then?"

"None," distinctly.

"My dear Marian, I am afraid Maurice is proving false," says Lady Rylton, leaning back in her chair, and giving way to soft, delicate mirth--the mirth that suits her Dresden china sort of beauty. "Evidently our dear Tita is not _afraid_ of you."

"You take a wrong reading of it, perhaps," says Mrs. Bethune, who is now, in spite of all her efforts to be emotionless, a little pale. "She is simply so indifferent to Maurice, that she does not care whom he likes or dislikes--with whom he spends--or wastes his time. Or with whom he----"

"Flirts?" puts in Lady Rylton, lifting her brows; there is most insolent meaning in her tone.

For the first time Mrs. Bethune loses herself; she turns upon her aunt, her eyes flashing.

"Maurice does not flirt with me," says she.

It seems horrible--_horrible,_ that thought. Maurice--his love--it surely is hers! And to talk of it as a mere flirtation! Oh _no!_ Her very soul seems to sink within her.

"My good child, who was speaking of you?" says Lady Rylton, with a burst of amusement. "You should control yourself, my dear Marian. To give yourself away like that is to suffer defeat at any moment. One would think you were a girl in your first season, instead of being a mature married woman. Well, and if not with you, with whom does Maurice flirt?"

"With no one." Marian has so far commanded herself as to be able now to speak collectedly. "If you will keep to the word 'flirtation,' you must think of Tita, though perhaps 'flirtation' is too mild a word to----"

"Tita!"

Tita's mother-in-law grows immediately interested.

"Yes, Tita. What I was going to say when you interrupted me was, that she refuses to take _me_ into consideration--or anyone else for the matter of that--because----"

She stops--she feels choking; she honestly believes that Tita likes Tom Hescott far more than she likes her husband. But that the girl is guilty, even in _thought_ guilty, she does _not_ believe; and now she speaks--and to this woman of all others---- And yet if she _does_ speak, ruin will probably come out of it--to Tita. She hesitates; she is lost!

"Oh, go on!" says Lady Rylton, who can be a little vulgar at times--where the soul is coarse, the manner will be coarse too.

"There is a cousin!" says Marian slowly.

"A cousin? You grow interesting!" says Lady Rylton. There is a silence for a moment, and then: "Do you