The Hoyden Part 63

"Well?" He checks himself forcibly. Even now, when pa.s.sion 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!" t.i.ta 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 t.i.ta.

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, t.i.ta, 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 t.i.ta, 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 t.i.ta. "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 n.o.body 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 t.i.ta mutinously.

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

"I explained all that to you," says t.i.ta, 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 t.i.ta. 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 t.i.ta 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!"