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

moment's awful silence, and then Tita sweeps straight up to Rylton, who is gazing at her as if he never saw her before. As for Margaret, she feels as if she is going to faint.

"I--_I!_" says Tita; "to accuse me of marrying you for your title! I never thought about your title. I don't care a fig for your title. My greatest grief now is that people call me Lady Rylton."

"I beg of you, Tita----" begins Margaret, trembling; she lays her hand on the girl's arm, but Tita shakes her off.

"Don't speak to me. Don't touch me. You are as bad as he is. You took his part all through. You said you _felt_ for him! When he was saying all sorts of dreadful things about me. You said, 'Yes, yes, of course.' I heard you; I was listening. I heard every word."

"May I ask," says Rylton, "if you did not marry me for my title, what _did_ you marry me for? Not," with a sneer, "for love, certainly."

"I should think not," with a sneer on her part that sinks his into insignificance. "I married you to escape from my uncle, who was making me wretched! But not"--with an ireful glance at him--_"half_ as wretched as _you_ have made me!"

Rylton shrugs his shoulders. You should never shrug your shoulders when a woman is angry.

"Yes, wretched--wretched!" says Tita, angry tears flooding her eyes. "There was never _any_ one so miserable as I have been since I married you."

"That makes it all the more unfortunate that you are married to me still," says Rylton icily.

"I may be married to you--I shan't live with you," says Tita.

"We shall see to that," says Rylton, who has lost his head a little.

"Yes, _I_ shall," returns she, with open defiance.

Meantime Margaret, who had been crushed by that first onslaught on her, has recovered herself a little. To appeal to Tita again is useless; but to Maurice--she _must_ say a word of entreaty to Maurice. Tita has been most unjust, but men are of nobler make. Maurice will understand.

"I think," says she very gently, catching his eye, "that it would be better for you to--to discuss all this--with Tita--alone. I shall go, but I beg of you, Maurice, to----"

"Pray don't beg anything of me," says Maurice, turning upon her with an expression that bodes no good to anyone. "I should think you ought to be the last person in the world to ask a favour of me."

"Good gracious! what have I done now?" exclaims Margaret shrinking back, and cut to the heart by this fresh affront.

"You knew she was there, behind that screen, and you never gave me even a hint about it. A hint would have been sufficient, but----"

"I did!" says Margaret, driven to bay. "I told you I had a headache, and that you were to go away--but you wouldn't!"

"You told me you had twenty diseases, but even that wouldn't exonerate you from letting her hear what was not meant for her ears."

"Ah! I'm glad you acknowledge even _so_ much," breaks in Tita vindictively.

"Even though they weren't meant for your ears I'm glad you heard them," says Rylton, turning to her with all the air of one who isn't going to give in at _any_ price. "But as for you, Margaret, I did not expect this from you. I believed you stanch, at all events, and honest; yet you deliberately let me say what was in my mind, _knowing_ there was an unseen listener who would be sure to make the worst of all she heard."

"Tita, _you_ shall explain this!" says Margaret, turning with a tragic gesture towards her. "Speak. Tell him."

"What is the good of telling him anything?" says Tita, regarding her coldly. "Yet though you have forsaken me, Margaret, I will do as you wish." She turns to Rylton. "It was against Margaret's wish that I hid behind that screen. I heard you coming, and there was no way out of the room except by the door through which you would enter, and rather than meet you I felt"--with a sudden flash of her large eyes at him--"I would willingly die. So I got behind that screen, and--and" She pauses. "Well, that's all," says she.

"You see it was not my fault," says Margaret.

She lets a passing glance fall on Rylton, and with an increase of dignity in her air leaves the room. The two left behind look strangely at each other.

"So you were listening?" says Rylton. "Listening all that time?"

"You wrong me as usual. I was _not_ listening all the time. I didn't want to listen at all. Do you think I ever wanted to hear your voice again?"

"I didn't flatter myself so far, as to this,"--bitterly--"and yet----"

"I only wanted to get away from you, and I wasn't listening, really. I kept my fingers _tight_ in my ears until you had been there for _hours;_ then my arms felt as if they were dead, and I--well, I dropped them then."

"Hours! I like that! Why, I haven't been here for half an hour yet."

"Oh, _you_ could say anything!" says Tita contemptuously.

She walks away from him, and flings herself into a lounging chair. She is dressed in a very pale pink gown, with knots of black velvet here and there. And as she has seated herself a tiny, exquisitely shaped foot, clad in a pale pink stocking and black shoe, betrays itself to the admiring air.

Rylton, who is too angry to see anything, and has only a half-conscious knowledge that she is looking more beautiful than ever, goes up to the lounging chair in which she is reclining, and looking down upon her, says sternly, and with a distinctly dramatic air:

"At last we meet."

"At last," returns she, regarding with fixed interest the tip of her shoe as she sways it with an air of steady indifference to and fro. "Against my will!"

"I know that. I have had plenty of time to know that."

"Then why do you come?"

"To see you," says he plainly.

"Knowing that I didn't wish to see _you?"_

"Yes. Because I wish to see you."

"What a man's reason!" says she, with a scoffing smile. "I wonder you aren't ashamed of yourself."

"Well, I _am_ sometimes," says Rylton, making an effort to suppress the anger that is rising within him. "I sometimes tell myself, for example, that I must be the meanest hound alive. I know you avoid me--hate me--and yet I come."

"But why--why?" impatiently.

"Because," slowly, "I--do not hate _you."_

"Don't be a hypocrite," says Tita sharply. She gets up suddenly, pushing back her chair behind her. _"Why_ do you pretend?" says she. "What is to be gained by it? I know we are bound to each other in a sense--bound----" She breaks off. "Ah, that horrid word!" cries she. "Why can we not get rid of it? Why can't we separate? How ridiculous the laws are! You would be as glad to say good-bye to me for ever as I should be to say it to you, and yet----"

"I beg your pardon," says Rylton, interrupting her quickly. "Speak for yourself only. For my part, I have no desire to be separated from you now, or," steadily, "at any other time."

Tita lifts her eyes and looks at him. Their glances meet, and there is something in his that brings the blood to her face.

"I cannot understand you," cries she, with some agitation. "You don't want my money _now;_ you have plenty of your own, and," throwing up her head with a disdainful little gesture, "certainly you don't want _me."_

"You seem wonderfully certain on many points," says Rylton, "but is your judgment always infallible?"

"In this case, yes."

"Ah! you have decided," says he. His gaze wanders from her face and falls upon her hands. On the right hand is a beautiful pearl ring. He regards it without thought for a second or two, and then he wakens to the fact that he had never seen it there before. "Who gave you that ring?" demands he suddenly, with something of the old masterful air. It is so like the old air that Tita for a little while is silent, then she wakes. No! It is all over now--that ownership. She has emancipated herself; she is free. There is something strange and terrible, however, to her in the knowledge that this thought gives her no joy. She stands pale, actually frightened, for there _is_ fear in the knowledge--that she had felt a sharp throb of delight when that commanding tone had fallen on her ears.

She recovers almost instantly.

"You think it was Tom, perhaps," says she, speaking with a little difficulty, but smiling contemptuously. "Well, it was not. It was only Margaret, after all. This is a last insult, I suppose. Was it to deliver it that you came here to-day?"

"No," he is beginning, "but----"

_ "You_ ask me questions," continues she, brushing his words aside with a wave of her small hand. "And I--I--have _I_ no questions to ask?" She stops, as if suffocating.

"You have, God knows," says he. "And"--he hesitates--"I don't expect you to believe me, but--that old folly--it is dead."

"Dead?" She shakes her head. "What killed it?"

_"You!"_ says Rylton.

One burning glance she casts at him.

"Do not let us waste time," says she. "Tell me plainly why you came here, why you want to see me."

"You give me little encouragement to speak"--bitterly. "But it is this: I want you to come back to me, to be mistress of my house again. I"--he pauses as if seeking words--"I have bought a new house; I want you to come and be the head of it."

Tita has been listening to him with wide eyes. She had grown pale as death itself during his speech, and now she recoils from him. She makes a little movement as though to repel him for ever, and then, suddenly she covers her eyes with her hands, and bursts into violent weeping.

"Oh no! No!" gasps she. "Never! Never again! How _could_ you ask me!"

He takes a step towards her, and lays his hand upon her arm.

"No, don't touch me. Don't speak to me," cries she. "I have _had_ to see you to-day, and it has been terrible to me--so terrible that I hope I shall _never_ see you again. I could not bear it. Go--go away!"

"Do not send me from you like this," entreats Rylton, in a voice that trembles. Her tears cut him to the heart. He is so close to her that he has only to put out his hand to catch her--to take her to him, and yet----"Think, Tita! We have got to live out our lives, whether we like it or not. _Can_ we not live them out together?"

"We cannot," says Tita, in a low but distinct voice. She turns to him proudly. "Have you forgotten?" says she. Her poor little face is stained with tears, but he sees no disfigurement in it; he has but one desire, and that is to take her into his arms and kiss those tears away from it for ever.

"Forget! Do you think I shall ever forget? It is my curse that I shall always remember. But that is at an end, Tita. I _swear_ it! I hope I shall never see her again. If you