Airy Fairy Lilian Part 67

"What?" turning from the window to watch the lovely _mignonne_ face still bent in contemplation of the lilies.

"Nothing," mildly: "did I say anything?"

"Something about 'four,' I thought."

"Perhaps"--demurely--"I was thinking I had asked you four times to be good-natured, and you had not deigned to grant my request. When Lady Chetwoode speaks to you of Cyril and Cecilia, say you will be on their side. Do not vote against them. Promise."

He hesitates.

"Not when _I_ ask you?" murmurs she, in her softest tones, going a little nearer to him, and uplifting her luminous blue eyes to his.

Still he hesitates.

Miss Chesney takes one step more in his direction, which is necessarily the last, unless she wishes to walk through him. Her eyes, now full of wistful entreaty, and suspiciously bright, are still fixed reproachfully upon his. With a light persuasive gesture she lays five white, slender fingers upon his arm, and whispers, in plaintive tones:

"I feel sure I am going to cry."

"I promise," says Sir Guy, instantly, laughing in spite of himself, and letting his own hand close with unconscious force over hers for a moment. Whereupon Miss Chesney's lachrymose expression vanishes as if by magic, while a smile bright and triumphant illuminates her face in its stead.

"Thank you," she says, delightedly, and trips toward the door eager to impart her good news. Upon the threshold, however, she pauses, and glances back at him coquettishly, perhaps a trifle maliciously, from under her long heavily-fringed lids.

"I knew I should win the day," she says, teasingly, "although you don't believe in love. Nevertheless, I thank you again, and"--raising her head, and holding out one hand to him with a sweet _bizarre_ grace all her own--"I would have you know I don't think you half such a bad old guardy after all!"

Almost at this moment Cyril enters his mother's boudoir, where, to his astonishment, he finds her without companions.

"All alone, Madre?" he says, airily, putting on his gayest manner and his most fetching smile to hide the perturbation that in reality he is feeling. His heart is in his boots, but he wears a very gallant exterior.

"Yes," replies Lady Chetwoode, looking up from her work, "and very dull company I find myself. Have you come to enliven me a little? I hope so: I have been _gene_ to the last degree for quite an hour."

"Where is the inevitable Florence?"

"In the drawing-room, with Mr. Boer. I can't think what she sees in him, but she appears to value his society highly. To-day he has brought her some more church music to try over, and I really wish he wouldn't.

Anything more afflicting than chants tried over and over again upon the piano I can't conceive. They are very bad upon the organ, but on the piano! And sometimes he _will_ insist on singing them with her!"

Here two or three wailing notes from down-stairs are wafted, weeping into the room, setting the hearers' teeth on edge. To even an incorrect ear it might occur that Mr. Boer's stentorian notes are not always in tune!

"My dear, my dear," exclaims Lady Chetwoode, in a voice of agony, "shut the door close; _closer_, my dear Cyril, they are at it again!"

"It's a disease," says Cyril, solemnly. "A great many curates have it.

We should count ourselves lucky that laymen don't usually catch it."

"I really think it is. I can't bear that sort of young man myself," says Lady Chetwoode, regretfully, who feels some gentle grief that she cannot bring herself to admire Mr. Boer; "but I am sure we should all make allowances; none of us are perfect; and Mrs. Boileau a.s.sures me he is very earnest and extremely zealous. Still, I wish he could try to speak differently: I think his mother very much to blame for bringing him up with such a voice."

"She was much to blame for bringing him up at all. He should have been strangled at his birth!" Cyril says this slowly, moodily, with every appearance of really meaning what he says. He is, however, unaware of the blood-thirsty expression he has a.s.sumed, as though in support of his words, being in fact miles away in thought from Mr. Boer and his Gregorian music. He is secretly rehearsing a coming conversation with his mother, in which Cecilia's name is to be delicately introduced.

"That is going rather far, is it not?" Lady Chetwoode says, laughing.

"A man is not an automaton. He cannot always successfully stifle his feelings," says Cyril, still more moodily, _apropos_ of his own thoughts; which second most uncalled-for remark induces his mother to examine him closely.

"There is something on your mind," she says, gently. "You are not now thinking of either me or Mr. Boer. Sit down, dear boy, and tell me all about it."

"I will tell you standing," says Cyril, who feels it would be taking advantage of her ignorance to accept a chair until his disclosure is made. Then the private rehearsal becomes public, and presently Lady Chetwoode knows all about his "infatuation," as she terms it, for the widow, and is quite as much distressed about it as even he had expected.

"It is terrible!" she says, presently, when she has somewhat recovered from the first shock caused by his intelligence; "and only last spring you promised me to think seriously of Lady f.a.n.n.y Stapleton."

"My dear mother, who could think seriously of Lady f.a.n.n.y? Why, with her short nose, and her shorter neck, and her anything but sylph-like form, she has long ago degenerated into one vast joke."

"She has money," in a rather stifled tone.

"And would you have me sacrifice my whole life for mere money?"

reproachfully. "Would money console you afterward, when you saw me wretched?"

"But why should you be wretched?" Then, quickly, "Are you so very sure this Mrs. Arlington will make you happy?"

"Utterly positive!" in a radiant tone.

"And are you ready to sacrifice every comfort for mere beauty?" retorts she. "Ah, Cyril, beware: you do not understand yet what it is to be hampered for want of money. And there are other things: when one marries out of one's own sphere, one always repents it."

"One cannot marry higher than a lady," flus.h.i.+ng. "She is not a countess, or an honorable, or even Lady f.a.n.n.y; but she is of good family, and she is very sweet, and very gentle, and very womanly. I shall never again see any one so good in my eyes. I entreat you, dear mother, not to refuse your consent."

"I shall certainly say nothing until I see Guy," says Lady Chetwoode, tearfully, making a last faint stand.

"Then let us send for him, and get it over," Cyril says, with gentle impatience, who is very pale, but determined to finish the subject one way or the other, now and forever.

Almost as he says it, Guy enters; and Lady Chetwoode, rising, explains the situation to him in a few agitated words. True to his promise to Lilian, and more perhaps because a glance at his brother's quiet face tells him opposition will be vain, Guy says a few things in favor of the engagement. But though the words are kind, they are cold; and, having said them, he beats an instantaneous retreat, leaving Cyril, by his well-timed support, master of the field.

"Marry her, then, as you are all against me," says Lady Chetwoode, the tears running down her cheeks. It is very bitter to her to remember how Lady f.a.n.n.y's precious thousands have been literally flung away. All women, even the best and the sweetest, are mercenary where their sons are concerned.

"And you will call upon her?" says Cyril, after a few minutes spent in an effort to console her have gone by.

"Call!" repeats poor Lady Chetwoode, with some indignation, "upon that woman who absolutely declined to receive me when first she came! I have a little pride still remaining, Cyril, though indeed you have humbled a good deal of it to-day," with keen reproach.

"When first she came,"--apologetically,--"she was in great grief and distress of mind."

"Grief for her husband?" demands she; which is perhaps the bitterest thing Lady Chetwoode ever said in her life to either of her "boys."

"No," coldly; "I think I told you she had never any affection for him."

Then his voice changes, and going over to her he takes her hand entreatingly, and pa.s.ses one arm over her shoulder. "Can you not be kind to her for my sake?" he implores. "Dearest mother, I cannot bear to hear you speak of her as 'that woman,' when I love her so devotedly."

"I suppose when one is married one may without insult be called a woman," turning rather aside from his caress.

"But then she was so little married, and she looks quite a girl. You will go to see her, and judge for yourself?"

"I suppose there is nothing else left for me to do. I would not have all the county see how utterly you have disappointed me. I have been a good mother to you, Cyril,"--tremulously,--"and this is how you requite me."

"It cuts me to the heart to grieve you so much,"--tenderly,--"you, my own mother. But I--I have been a good son to you, too, have I not, dear Madre?"