Portia Part 47

"Why didn't you answer me?" asks Mr. Gower, feeling himself justified in throwing some indignation into this speech.

"Were you calling me?" she asks, with the utmost innocence, letting her large eyes rest calmly upon his, and bravely suppressing the smile that is dying to betray her; "really? How was it I didn't hear you? I was sitting here all the time. These evergreens _must_ be thick! Do you know I am horribly afraid I shall grow deaf in my old age, because there are moments even now--such, for example, as the present--when I cannot bring myself to hear _anything_."

This last remark contains more in it than appears to Mr. Gower.

"Yet, only last night," he says resentfully, "you told me it would be dangerous to whisper secrets near you to another, as you had the best ears in the world."

"Did I say all that? Well, perhaps. I am troublesome in that way sometimes," says Miss Blount, s.h.i.+fting her tactics without a quiver.

"Just now," glancing at a volume that lies upon her lap, "I daresay it was the book that engrossed my attention; I quite lose myself in a subject when it is as interesting as this one is," with another glance at the dark bound volume on her knee.

Gower stoops and reads the t.i.tle of the book that had come between him and the thoughts of his beloved. He reads it aloud, slowly and with grim meaning--"_Notes on Tasmanian Cattle!_ It sounds enthralling," he says, with bitter irony.

"Yes, doesn't it," says Miss Blount, with such unbounded audacity, and with such a charming laugh as instantly scatters all clouds. "You must know I adore cattle, especially Tasmanian cattle." As a mere matter of fact she had brought out this book by mistake, thinking it was one of George Eliot's, because of its cover, and had not opened it until now.

"Come and sit here beside me," she says, sweetly, bent on making up for her former ungraciousness, "I have been so dull all the morning, and you wouldn't come and talk to me. So unfeeling of you."

"Much you care whether I come to talk to you or not," says Mr. Gower, with a last foolish attempt at temper. This foolish attempt makes Miss Blount at once aware that the day is her own.

"You may sit on the edge of my gown," she says, generously--she herself is sitting on a garden-chair made for one that carefully preserves her from all damp arising from the damp, wintry gra.s.s; "on the _very_ edge, please. Yes, just there," shaking out her skirts; "I can't bear people close to me, it gives me a creepy-creepy feel. Do you know it?"

Mr. Gower shakes his head emphatically. No, he does not know the creepy-creepy feel.

"Besides," goes on Dulce, confidentially, "one can see the person one is conversing with so much better at a little distance. Don't you agree with me?"

"Don't I always agree with you?" says Mr. Gower, gloomily.

"Well, then, don't look so discontented, it makes me think you are only answering me as you think I want to be answered, and no woman could stand that."

Silence. The short day is already coming to a close. A bitter wind has sprung from the East and is now flitting with icy ardor over the gra.s.s and streamlet; through the bare branches of the trees, too, it flies, creating music of a mournful kind as it rushes onward.

"Last night I dreamt of you," says Stephen, at last.

"And what of me?" asks she, bending slightly down over him, as he lies at her feet in his favorite position.

"This one great thing: I dreamt that you loved me. I flattered myself in my dreams, did I not?" says Gower, with an affectation of unconcern that does not disguise the fear that is consuming him lest some day he shall prove his dream untrue.

"Now what is love, I will thee tell, It is the fountain and the well Where pleasure and repentance dwell,"

quotes she, gaily, with a quick, trembling blush.

"I expect some fellows do all the repentance," says Stephen, moodily.

Then, with a sudden accession of animation born of despair, he says, "Dulce, once for all, tell me if you can care for me even a little." He has taken her hand--of course her right hand on which a ring is--and is clasping it in the most energetic manner. The ring has a sharp diamond in it, and consequently the pressure creates pain. She bears it, however, like a Cranmer.

"I don't think even my angelic temper would stand a cross-examination on such a day as this," she says, with a slight frown; it might be slighter but for the diamond. "Besides, I have made answer to that question a thousand times. Did I not, indeed, answer it in the most satisfactory manner of all when I promised to marry you?"

"Yes, you promised to marry me, I know that, but when?" asks he, quickly. "Up to this you have always declined to name any particular date."

"Naturally," says Miss Blount, calmly. "I'm not even dreaming of being married yet, why should I? I should hate it."

"Oh! if you would hate it," says Stephen, stiffly.

"Yes, hate it," repeats she, undauntedly. "Why, indeed, should we be married for years? I am quite happy, aren't you?"

No answer. Then, very severely, "Aren't _you_?"

"Yes, of course," says Mr. Gower, but in a tone that belies his words.

"Just so," says Dulce, "then let us continue happy. I am sure all these past months I have been utterly content."

"You mean ever since Roger's departure?" asks he, eagerly.

"Yes; princ.i.p.ally, I suppose _because_ of his departure." There is a good deal of unnecessary warmth in this speech. Yet the flush has faded from her cheeks now, and she is looking down toward the sea with a little set expression round her usually mobile lips.

"We are happy now, but why should we not be even happier if we were married?" asks Stephen, presently, trying to read her averted face.

"Why? Who can answer that?" exclaims she, turning her face inland again, with a little saucy smile. Her thoughts of a moment since are determinately put out of sight, resolutely banished. "You surely don't believe at this time of day that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush? That is old-world rubbis.h.!.+ Take my word for it, that _two_ birds in the hand do not come up to even one sweet, provoking, unattainable bird in the bus.h.!.+"

She has risen, and is now standing before him, as she says this, with her hands clasping each other behind her head, and her body well thrown back. Perhaps she does not know how charming her figure appears in this position. Perhaps she does. She is smiling down at Gower in a half defiant, wholly tantalizing fas.h.i.+on, and is as like the "sweet, provoking, unattainable bird" as ever she can be.

Rising slowly to his feet, Gower goes up to her, and, as is his lawful right, encircles her bonnie round waist with his arm.

"I don't know about the bird," he says, "but this I _do_ know, that in my eyes you are worth two of anything in all this wide world."

His tone is so full of feeling, so replete with real, unaffected earnestness and affection that she is honestly touched. She even suffers his arm to embrace her (for the time being), and turns her eyes upon him kindly enough.

"How fond you are of me," she says, regretfully. "Too fond. I am not worth it." Then, in a curious tone, "How strange it is that you should love me so dearly when Roger actually _disliked_ me!"

"You are always thinking of your cousin," exclaims he, with a quick frown. "He seems never very far from your thoughts."

"How can I help that," says Dulce, with an attempt at lightness; "it is so difficult to rid the mind of a distasteful subject."

"And," eagerly--"it is a distasteful subject? You are really glad your engagement with him is at an end?"

"Of course I am glad," says Miss Blount, impatiently; "why should I be otherwise? How often have you told me yourself that he and I were unsuited to each other--and how many times have you reminded me of his unbearable temper! I hope," with pa.s.sionate energy, "I shall never see him again!"

"Let us forget him," says Gower, gently; "there are plenty of other things to discuss besides him. For one thing, let me tell you this--that though we have been engaged for a long time now, you have never once kissed me."

"Yes--and don't you know why?" asks Miss Blount, sweetly, and with all the air of one who is about to impart the most agreeable intelligence--"Can't you guess? It is because I think kissing a _mistake_. Not only a mistake, but a positive _betise_. It commonizes everything, and--and--is really death to sentiment in my opinion."

"Death to it?--an aid to it, I should say," says Mr. Gower, bluntly.

"Should you? I am sure experience will prove you wrong," says Dulce, suavely, "and, at all events, I hate being kissed."

"Do you? Yet twice I saw you let your cousin kiss you," says Stephen, gloomily.

"And see what came of it," retorts she, quickly. "He got--that is--we _both_ got tired of each other. And then we quarrelled--we were always quarrelling, it seems to me now--and then he--that is, we _both_ grew to hate each other, and that of course ended everything. I really think,"

says Miss Blount, with suppressed pa.s.sion, "I am the one girl in the world he cordially dislikes and despises. He almost told me so before--before we parted."

"Just like him, unmannerly beast!" says Mr. Gower, with deep disgust.