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

face of this abominable Jack!

Presently, on the first moment, indeed, when he can do so with any decency, he leaves Miss Knollys' house a sadder, and most decidedly a wiser, man!

"Am I to sympathize with you?" asks Gower, in a low, expressive voice, as Mrs. Chichester sweeps towards him.

She laughs.

"Pouf!" says she, making light of his little impertinence. "You're out of it altogether. Why, I'm _glad_ he's coming home. You've mistaken me."

"I knew it. I felt it all along," cries Gower enthusiastically. "It is _you_ who have mistaken me. When I mentioned the word 'sympathy'--ah!" rapturously, "that was sympathy with your joy!"

"Was it? You ought to do it again," says Mrs. Chichester; "and before the glass next time. _Practise_ it. However, I'm too happy to give you the lesson you deserve. I can tell you Jack isn't half bad. I like him better, any way, than any man I ever met in my life, and that's saying a lot. Of course," candidly, "I doubt if I could ever like any man as well as myself; but I confess I run it very close with Jack."

"Naturally. 'We all love Jack,'" quotes Mr. Gower in a sort of ecstasy.

"But for all that, I must have my little fling sometimes," says Jack's wife, with a delightful smile, that makes her look thinner than ever.

"Quite so," says Gower.

They both laugh--a good healthy laugh; and, indeed, the vulgar expression coming from her does not sound so bad as it might. There are some people who, when they say a queer thing, set one's teeth on edge; and there are others who, when they use the same words, raise only a smile. As yet, there is much injustice in the world.

Margaret is standing in a distant window, talking in an undertone to Colonel Neilson, and Gower is now teasing Minnie Hescott, when once again the door is thrown open and Sir Maurice comes in.

"Another surprise packet!" says Gower faintly. "Miss Hescott, you know everything. _Are _there more to come? I'm not strong; my heart is in a bad state. Pray, _pray_ give me a gentle word of warning if----"

"Isn't he looking well!" says Minnie excitedly.

Sir Maurice is indeed looking very handsome as he comes up the room. It brings a mutual smile to Margaret and Colonel Neilson's lips as they note the extreme care with which he has got himself up for the visit to--_his wife!_

He is holding his head very high, and the flower in his button-hole has evidently been chosen with great care. He shakes hands with Margaret first, of course, and with Tita last. She is sitting near Mrs. Chichester, and she gives him her hand without looking at him. She has grown a little white.

And then presently they all fade away: Captain Marryatt first, as has been said, and Mrs. Chichester last, still saying absurd things about the return of her "Jack"--absurd, but undoubtedly sincere. "That's what made them so funny," said Gower afterwards. And now Margaret makes a little excuse and goes too, but not before she has asked Maurice to stay to dinner.

"Oh, thank you!" says Rylton, and then hesitates; but after a glance at Tita's face, most reluctantly, and a little hopelessly, as it seems to Margaret, declares he has a previous engagement.

"Another night, then," says Margaret kindly, and closes the door behind her.


CHAPTER XXVII.

HOW MAURICE GAINS ANOTHER POINT; AND HOW TITA CONSENTS TO THINK ABOUT IT; AND HOW MARGARET TELLS A LIE.


For a little while no word is spoken. It seems as if no words are theirs to speak. Rylton, standing on the hearthrug, has nothing to look at save her back, that is so determinedly turned towards him. She is leaning over the plants in one of the windows, pretending to busy herself with their leaves.

"Won't you speak to me?" says Rylton at last.

He goes to her, and so stands that she is forced to let him see her face--a face beautiful, but pale and unkind, and with the eyes so steadfastly lowered. And yet he


"Knows they must be there,
Sweet eyes behind those lashes fair,
That will not raise their rim."


"I _have_ spoken," says Tita.

"When?"

"I said, 'How d'ye do' to you."

"Nonsense" says he; and then, "I don't believe you said even so much. You gave me your hand, that was all; and that you gave reluctantly."

"Well, I can't help it," slowly. "Remember what I told you that last day."

"I don't want to remember anything," says he earnestly. "I want to start afresh--from this hour. And yet--there _is_ one thing I must recall. You said--that last day--there was no love between us--that," slowly, "was not true. There is love on one side, at all events. Tita"--taking a step towards her--"I----"

She makes a sudden, wild gesture, throwing out her hands as if to ward off something.

_"Don't!"_ cries she in a stifled voice. "Don't say it!"

"I must! I _will!"_ says Rylton passionately. "I love you!" There is a dead silence, and in it he says again, "I love you!"

For a moment Tita looks as if she were going to faint; then the light returns to her eyes, the colour to her face.

"First her, then me," says she.

"Will you never forgive that?" asks he. "And it was _before_ I saw you. When I did see you--Tita, do try to believe this much, at all events, that after our marriage I was true to you. I think now, that from the first moment I saw you I loved you. But I did not know it, and----"

"That is not all," says Tita in a low tone.

"I know--about Hescott. I beg your pardon about that. I was mad, I think; but the madness arose out of jealousy. I could not bear to think you were happy with him, _un_happy with me. If I had loved another, would I have cared with _whom_ you were happy?"

"I don't know," says Tita.

There is something so forlorn in the sad little answer--something so forlorn in her whole attitude, indeed--the droop of her head, the sorrowful clasping of her small hands before her--that Rylton's heart burns within him.

"Be just--be just to me," cries he; "give me a chance. I confess I married you for your money. But now that accursed money is all gone (for which I thank heaven), and our positions are reversed. The money now is mine, and I come to you, and fling it at your feet, and implore you from my very soul to forgive me, and take me back."

She still remains silent, and her silence cuts him to the heart.

"What can I say? What can I do to move you?" exclaims he, in a low tone, but one that trembles. "Is your heart dead to me? Have I killed any hope that might have been mine? Is it too late in the day to call myself your lover?"

At this she lifts her hands and covers her face. All at once he knows that she is crying. He goes to her quickly, and lays his arm round her shoulder.

"Let me begin again," says he. "Trust me once more. I know well, Tita, that you do not love me yet, but perhaps in time you will forgive me, and take me to your heart. I am sorry, darling, for every angry word I have ever said to you, but in every one of those angry words there was love for you, and you alone. I thought only of you, only I did not know it. Tita, say you will begin life again with me."

"I--I _couldn't_ go to The Place," says Tita. A shudder shakes her frame. "It was there I first heard---- It was there your mother told me of----"

"I know--I know; and I don't ask you to go there. I think I told you I had bought a new place. Come there with me."

"Why do you want me to go with you," asks she, lifting her mournful eyes to his, "when you know I do not love you?"

"Yes; I know that." He pauses. "I ask you for many reasons, and not all selfish ones. I ask you for your own sake more than all. The world is cruel, Tita, to a woman who deliberately lives away from her husband; and, besides----"

"I don't care about the world."

"We all care about the world sooner or later, and, besides, you who have been accustomed to money all your life cannot find your present income sufficient for you, and Margaret may marry."

"Oh yes! Yes; I think so." For the first time she shows some animation. "I _hope_ so. You saw them talking together to-day?"

"I did." There is a slight pause, and then: "You are glad for Margaret. You wish everyone"--reproachfully--"to be happy except me."

She shakes her head.

"Give me a kind word before I go," says Rylton earnestly.

"What can I say?"

"Say that you will think of what I have been urging."

"One _must_ think," says she, in a rather refractory tone.

"You promise, then?"

"Yes; I shall think."

"Until to-morrow, then," says he, holding out his hand.

"To-morrow?"

She looks troubled.

"Yes; to-morrow. Don't forbid me to come to-morrow."

He presses her hand.

The troubled look still rests upon her face as she turns away from him, having bidden him good-bye. The last memory of her he takes away with him is of a little slender figure standing at the window, with her hands clasped behind her back. She does not look back at him.


* * * * *


"Well?" says Margaret, coming into the room half an hour later. "Why, what a little snowflake you are! Come up to the fire and warm those white cheeks. Was it Maurice made you look like that? I shall scold him. What did he say to you?"

"He wants me to go back to him."

"Yes?" anxiously.

"Well---- That's all."

"But you, dearest?"

"Oh, I can't _bear_ to think of it!" cries Tita, in a miserable tone.

At this Margaret feels hope dying within her. Beyond question she has again refused to be reconciled to him. Margaret is so fond of the girl that it goes to her very heart to see her thus wilfully (as she believes) throwing away her best chance of happiness in this world.

"Tita, have you well considered what you are doing? A woman separated from her husband, no matter how free from blame she may be, is always regarded with coldness by----"

"Oh, yes! I know," impatiently. _"He_ has been saying all that."

"And, after all, what has Maurice done that you should be so hard with him? Many a man has loved another woman before his marriage. That old story----"

"It isn't that," says Tita suddenly. "It is"--she lays her hands on Margaret's shoulders, and regards her earnestly and with agitation--"it is that I fear _myself."_

"You fear"--uncertainly--"that you don't love him?"

"Pshaw!" says Tita, letting her go, and rising to her feet, as though to sit still is impossible to her. "What a speech from you to me--you, who know all! _Love_ him! I am sure about that, at all events. I know I don't."