Rossmoyne Part 53

"Of course, if you say that, I must do it," he says.

"Don't do it on my account," with a wilful air.

"No, on my own, of course."

"Well, remember I don't ask you to do it," with the most disgraceful ingrat.i.tude. "Do as you wish about it."

"Your wishes are mine," he says, tenderly. "I have had no divided existence since that first day I saw you,--how long ago it seems now----"

"Very long. Only a few weeks in reality, but it seems to myself that I have known and--liked you all my life."

"Yet that day when I saw you on the hay-cart is hardly two months old,"

says Desmond, dreamily.

As a breath of half-forgotten perfume, or a long-lost chord fresh sounded, brings back the memories of a lifetime, so does this chance remark of his now recall to her a scene almost gone out of mind, yet still fraught with recollections terrible to her self-love.

"Two months,--only two?--oh, it must be more," she says, with a pang.

Surely time ought to lessen the feeling of shame that overpowers her whenever she thinks of that fatal day.

"So wearisome a time, my own?" asks he, reproachfully.

"No, it is not that. It is only----. Oh, Brian, that day you speak of, when I was on that horrid hay-cart, did you--I mean--did I--that is--did I look very ungraceful?"

The word she is dying to say is _dis_graceful, but she dares not.

"Ungraceful?"

"Yes. Terry says that when we were pa.s.sing you that day I was--was,"

with a desperate rush, "kicking up my heels?"

She is trembling with shame and confusion. Crimson has sprung to her cheeks, tears to her eyes.

"I don't believe a word of it," says Mr. Desmond, comprehending the situation at last. "But, even supposing you were,--and, after all, that is the sort of thing _every one_ does on a bundle of hay,"--as though it is quite the customary thing for people generally to go round the world seated on hay-carts,--"I didn't see you--that is, your heels, I mean; I saw only your face,--the prettiest face in the world. How could I look at anything else when I had once seen that?"

"Brian!" turning to him impetuously, and laying both her hands upon his shoulders, "I do think you are the dearest fellow on earth."

"Oh, Monica! am I the dearest to you?" He has twined his arms round her lissome figure, and is gazing anxiously into her eyes.

"Yes,--yes, _certainly_." And then, with a _naivete_ indescribable, and with the utmost composure, she says,--

"I think I should like to give you a kiss!"

Is the blue dome still over his head, or has the sky fallen? The thing he has been longing for, with an intensity not to be portrayed, ever since their first meeting, but has not dared to even _hint_ at, is now freely offered him, as though it were a thing of naught.

"Monica!" says her lover, the blood rus.h.i.+ng to his face, "do you _mean_ it?" He tightens his clasp round her, yet still refrains from touching the sweet lips so near his own. A feeling of honest manliness makes him hesitate about accepting this great happiness, lest, indeed, he may have misunderstood her. To him it is so great a boon she grants that he hardly dares believe in its reality.

"Of course I do," says Miss Beresford, distinctly offended. "I--at least, I _did_. I don't now. I always want to kiss people when I feel fond of them; but you don't, evidently, or else, perhaps, you aren't really fond of me at all, in spite of all you have said. Never mind.

Don't put yourself out. It was merely a pa.s.sing fancy on my part."

"Oh, don't let it pa.s.s," exclaims her lover, anxiously. "Darling _life_, don't you know I have been longing, _longing_ to kiss you for weeks past, yet dared not, because something in your eyes forbade me? And now, to have you of your own accord really willing to give my dear desire seems too much."

"Are you sure that it is that, or----"

"My angel, what a question!"

"Yet perhaps you think----Don't kiss me just to oblige me, you know. I don't care so much about it as all _that_, but----"

She finds it impossible to finish the sentence, because----

Dexterously, but gently, she draws herself away from him, and stands a little apart. Looking at her, he can see she is troubled. He has opened his lips to speak, but by a gesture she restrains him.

"I know it now," she says. This oracular speech is accompanied by a blush, vivid as it is angry, and there are large tears in her eyes. "I should not have asked _you_ to kiss _me_. That was your part, and you have taught me that I usurped it. Yet I thought only that I was fond of you, that you were my friend, or like Terry, or--" here the grievance gains sound, "you _should_ not have kissed me like that."

"You didn't suppose I was going to kiss you as Terry might?" asks he, with just indignation. "He is your brother; I am--not."

"I don't know anything about it, except this, that it will be a very long time before you have the chance of doing it again. I can't bear being _hugged_."

"I am very sorry," says Mr. Desmond, stiffly. "Let me a.s.sure you, however, that I shall never cause you such offence again until you wish it."

"Then say never at once," says Monica, with a pout.

"Very good," says Desmond. It may now be reasonably supposed that he has met all her requirements, and that she has no further complaints to bring forward; but such is not the case.

"I don't like you when you talk to me like that," she says, aggressively, and with a spoiled-child air, glancing at him from under her sweeping lashes.

"How am I to talk to you, then?" asks he, in despair.

"You know very well how to talk to Miss Fitzgerald," retorts she, provokingly, and with a bold attempt at a frown. Yet there is something about her naughty little face, a hidden, mocking, mischievous, yet withal friendly smile as it were, that disarms her speech of its sting and gives Brian renewed hope and courage.

He takes her hand deliberately and draws it unrepulsed through his arm.

"Let us go up this walk," he says, "and leave all angry words and thoughts behind us."

He makes a movement in the direction indicated, and finds that she moves with him. He finds, too, that her slender fingers have closed involuntarily upon his arm. Plainly, she is as glad to be at peace with him as he with her.

Coming to a turn in the path, shaded by two rugged old apple-trees now growing heavy with their green burden, Desmond stands still, and, putting his right hand in his pocket, draws out something from it. As he does this he colors slightly.

"You wear all your rings on your right hand," he says, with loving awkwardness, "and it seems to me the other poor little fingers always look neglected. I--I wish you would take this and make it a present to your left hand."

"_This_" is a thick gold band, set with three large diamonds of great brilliancy in gypsy fas.h.i.+on.

"Oh! not for me!" says Monica, recoiling, and clasping her hands behind her back, yet with her eyes firmly fastened upon the beautiful ring.

"Why not for you? Some day I shall give you all I possess; now I can give you only such things as this."

"Indeed I must not take it," says Monica; but even as she utters the half-hearted refusal she creeps unconsciously closer to him, and, laying her hand upon his wrist, looks with childish delight and longing at the glittering stones lying in his palm.