Airy Fairy Lilian Part 9

"Oh! am I not? I could ride from morning till night."

"You are enthusiastic."

"Yes,"--with a saucy smile,--"that is one of my many virtues. I think one should be thoroughly in earnest about everything one undertakes. Do you like dancing?"

"Rather. It entirely depends upon whom one may be dancing with. There are some people"--with a short but steady glance at her--"that I feel positive I could dance with forever without knowing fatigue, or what is worse, _ennui_. There are others----" an expressive pause. "I have felt," says Sir Guy, with visible depression, "on certain occasions, as though I could commit an open a.s.sault on the band because it would insist on playing its waltz from start to finish, instead of stopping after the first two bars and thereby giving me a chance of escape."

"Poor 'others'! I see you can be unkind when you choose."

"But that is seldom, and only when driven to desperation. Are you fond of dancing? But of course you are: I need scarcely have asked. No doubt you could dance as well as ride from morning until night."

"You wrong me slightly. As a rule, I prefer dancing from night until morning. You skate?"

"Beautifully!" with ecstatic fervor; "I never saw any one who could skate as well."

"No? You shan't be long so. Prepare for a downfall to your pride. I can skate better than any one in the world."

Here they both laugh, and, turning, let their eyes meet. Instinctively they draw closer to each other, and a very kindly feeling springs into being.

"They maligned you," says Lilian, softly raising her lovely face, and gazing at him attentively, with a rather dangerous amount of ingenuousness. "I begin to fancy you are not so very terrific as they said. I dare say we shall be quite good friends after all."

"I wish I was as sure of most things as I am of my own feeling on that point," says Guy, with considerable warmth, holding out his hand.

She slips her cool, slim fingers into his, and smiles frankly. There they lie like little snow-flakes on his broad palm, and as he gazes on them a great and most natural desire to kiss them presents itself to his mind.

"I think we ought to ratify our vow of good-fellows.h.i.+p," says he, artfully, looking at her as though to gain permission for the theft, and seeing no rebuff in her friendly eyes, stoops and steals a little sweetness from the white hand he holds.

They are almost at the house by this time, and presently, gaining the drawing-room, find Lady Chetwoode sitting there awaiting them.

"Ah, Guy, you have returned," cries she, well pleased.

"Yes, I found my guardian straying aimlessly in a great big wood, so I brought him home in triumph," says Lilian's gay voice, who is in high good humor. "Is luncheon ready? Dear Lady Chetwoode, do not say I am late for the second time to-day."

"Not more than five minutes, and you know we do not profess to live by rule. Run away, and take off your hat, child, and come back to me again."

So Lilian does as she is desired, and runs away up the broad stairs in haste, to reduce her rebellious locks to order; yet so pleased is she with her _rencontre_ with her guardian, and the want of ferocity he has displayed, and the general desirableness of his face and figure, that she cannot refrain from pausing midway in her career to apostrophize a dark-browed warrior who glowers down upon her from one of the walls.

"By my halidame, and by my troth, and by all the wonderful oaths of your period, Sir Knight," says she, smiling saucily, and dropping him a wicked curtsey, "you have good reason to be proud of your kinsman. For, by Cupid, he is a monstrous handsome man, and vastly agreeable!"

After this astounding sally she continues her flight, and presently finds herself in her bedroom and almost in nurse's arms.

"Lawks-amussy!" says that good old lady, with a gasp, putting her hand to her side, "what a turn you did give me! Will the child never learn to walk?"

"I have seen him!" says Lilian, without preamble, only pausing to give nurse a naughty little poke in the other side with a view to restoring her lost equilibrium.

"Sir Guy?" anxiously.

"Even so. The veritable and awful Sir Guy! And he isn't a bit awful, in spite of all we heard; isn't that good news? and he is very handsome, and quite nice, and apparently can enjoy the world as well as another, and can do a naughty thing at a pinch; and I know he likes me by the expression of his eyes, and he actually unbended so far as to stoop to kiss my hand! There!" All this without stop or comma.

"Kissed your hand, my lamb! So soon! he did not lose much time. How the world does wag nowadays!" says nurse, holding aloft her hands in pious protest. "Only to know you an hour or so, and to have the face to kiss your hand! Eh, but it's dreadful, it's brazen! I do hope this Sir Guy is not a wolf in sheep's clothing."

"It was very good clothing, anyhow. There is consolation in that. I could never like a man whose coat was badly cut. And his hands,--I particularly noticed them,--they are long, and well shaped, and quite brown."

"You seem mightily pleased with him on so short an acquaintance," says nurse, shrewdly. "Brown hand, forsooth,--and a shapely coat! Eh, child, but there's more wanting than that. Maybe it's thinking of being my Lady Guy you'll be, one of these days?"

"Nurse, I never met so brilliant a goose as you! And would you throw away your lovely nursling upon a paltry baronet? Oh! shame! And yet"--teasingly--"one might do worse."

"I'll tell you that, when I see him," says cautious nurse, and having given one last finis.h.i.+ng touch to her darling's golden head, dismisses her to her luncheon and the pernicious attentions of the daring wolf.

CHAPTER VI.

"CLAUD: 'In mine eye, she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on.'"--_Much Ado About Nothing_.

It is that most satisfactory hour of all the twenty-four,--dinner-hour.

Even yet the busy garish day has not quite vanished, but peeps in upon them curiously through the open windows,--upon Lady Chetwoode mild and gracious, upon the two young men, upon airy Lilian looking her bravest and bonniest in some transparent gown of sombre black, through which her fair young neck and arms gleam delicately.

Her only ornaments are roses,--rich, soft white roses, gathered from the gardens outside: one, sweeter and happier than its fellows, slumbers cozily in her golden hair.

Cyril and she, sitting opposite to each other, smile and jest and converse across the huge bowl of scented flowers that stands in the centre of the table, while Guy, who is a little silent, keeps wondering secretly whether any other woman has skin so dazzlingly fair, or eyes so blue, or hair so richly gilded.

"I have seen the widow," he says at length, rousing himself to a sense of his own taciturnity. "On my way home this morning, before I met you,"--turning to Lilian,--"I thought it my duty to look her up, and say I hoped she was comfortable, and all that."

"And you saw her?" asks Cyril, regarding Guy attentively.

"Yes; she is extremely pretty, and extremely coy,--cold I ought to say, as there didn't seem to be even the smallest spice of coquetry about her."

"That's the safest beginning of all," says Cyril confidentially to his mother, "and no doubt the latest. I dare say she looked as though she thought he would never leave."

"She did," says Guy, laughing, "and, what is more unflattering, I am sure she meant it."

"Clever woman!"

"However, if she intended what you think, she rather defeated her object; as I shan't trouble her again in a hurry. Can't bear feeling myself in the way."

"Is she really pretty?" Cyril asks, curiously, though idly.

"Really; almost lovely."

"Evidently a handsome family," thinks Cyril. "I wonder if he saw my friend the sister, or step-sister, or companion."

"She looks sad, too," goes on Guy, "and as though she had a melancholy story attached to her."

"I do hope not, my dear," interrupts his mother, uneasily. "There is nothing so objectionable as a woman with a story. Later on one is sure to hear something wrong about her."

"I agree with you," Cyril says, promptly. "I can't bear mysterious people. When in their society, I invariably find myself putting a check on my conversation, and blus.h.i.+ng whenever I get on the topic of forgeries, burglaries, murders, elopements, and so forth. I never can keep myself from studying their faces when such subjects are mentioned, to see which it was had ruffled the peace of their existence. It is absurd, I know, but I can't help it, and it makes me uncomfortable."