Bye-Ways Part 34

"You know best," he answered; and for a moment she was puzzled by not catching the affirmative for which she had angled.

"Do you want me very, very much?" she asked.

"So much that, as I told you yesterday, I could not ask for you twice.

Don't you understand?"

"Yes. I could not marry a man who had bothered me to be his wife. One might as well be scolded into virtue. You want me, then, Hugh, and I want you. But--"

Again she stopped, with sentences fluttering, as it seemed, on the very edges of her lips. Her heart was at such fearful odds with her conscience, that she felt as if he must hear the clas.h.i.+ng of the swords.

And he did hear it. He would fain have cheered on both the combatants.

Which did he wish should be the conqueror? He hardly knew.

"Yes?" he said.

"It is always so difficult to finish a sentence that begins with 'but,'"

she began; and for the first time her voice sounded tremulous. "When two people want each other very much, there is always something that ought to keep them apart--at least, I think so. G.o.d must love solitude; it is His gift to so many." There were tears in her eyes.

"Why should we keep apart, Eve?"

"Because we should be too happy together, I suppose."

He leaned suddenly forward and took both her hands in his. "How cold you are!" he said, startled.

The words seemed to brace her like a sea-breeze.

"Hugh," she said, "I wish to tell you something. There is a 'but' in the sentence of my life."

He drew her closer to him, with a strange impulse to be nearer the soul that was about to prove itself as n.o.ble as he desired. But that very act prevented the fulfilment of his wish. The touch of his hands, the eagerness of his eyes, gave the victory to her heart. She shut the lips that were speaking, and he kissed them. Kisses act as an opiate on a woman's conscience. Only when Eve felt his lips on hers did she know her own weakness. Sir Hugh having kissed her, waited for the telling of the secret. At that moment he might as well have sat down and waited for the millennium.

"What is it?" he said at last.

"Nothing," she answered, "nothing." She spoke the word with a hard intonation.

Hugh held her close in his arms, with a sort of strange idea that to do so would crush his disappointment. She was proving her love by her silence. Why, then, did he wish that she should speak? At last she said, in a low voice:--

"There is one thing you ought to know. If I marry you, I marry you a beggar. I shall lose my fortune. I am not obliged to lose it, but I mean to give it up. Don't ask me why."

He had no need to. He waited, but she was silent. So that was all. He kissed her again, loosened his arms from about her and stood up.

"I have enough for both," he said.

He did not look at her, and she could not look at him.

"Are you going?" she said.

"Yes; but I will call this evening."

He was at the door, and had half-opened it when he turned back, moved by a pa.s.sionate impulse.

"Eve!" he cried, and his eyes seemed asking her for something.

"Yes?" she said, looking away.

There was a silence. Then he said "Good-bye!" The door closed upon him.

Mrs Glinn stood for a moment where he had left her. In her mind she was counting the seconds that must elapse before he could reach the street.

If she could be untrue to herself till then, she could be untrue to herself for ever. Would he walk down the stairs slowly or fast? She wanted to be a false woman so much, so very much, that she clenched her hands together. The action seemed as if it might help her to keep on doing wrong. But suddenly she unclasped her hands, darted across the room to the door, and opened it. She listened, and heard Hugh's footsteps in the hall. He picked up his umbrella, and unfolded it to be ready for the rain. The _frou-frou_ of the silk seemed to stir her to action.

"Hugh!" she cried in a broken voice.

He turned in the hall, and looked up.

"Come back," she said.

He came up the stairs three steps at a time.

"Hugh," she said, leaning heavily on the bal.u.s.trade, and looking away, "I have a secret to tell you. I have tried to be wicked to-day, but somehow I can't. Listen to the truth."

"I need not," he answered. "I know it already."

Then she looked at him, and drew in her breath: "You know it?"

"Yes."

"How you must love me!"

There was a ring at the hall door. The footman opened it, held a short parley with some one who was invisible, shut the door, and came upstairs with a card.

Mrs Glinn took it, and read, "Lord Herbert Manning."

He had decided to be unconventional too late.

A SILENT GUARDIAN

I

The door of the long, dreary room, with its mahogany chairs, its littered table, its motley crew of pale, silent people, opened noiselessly. A dreary, lean footman appeared in the aperture, bowing towards a corner where, in a recess near a forlorn, lofty window, sat a tall, athletic-looking man of about forty-five years of age, with a strong yet refined face, clean shaven, and short, crisp, dark hair. The tall man rose immediately, laying down an old number of _Punch_, and made his way out, watched rather wolfishly by the other occupants of the room. The door closed upon him, and there was a slight rustle and a hiss of whispering.

Two well-dressed women leaned to one another, the feathers in their hats almost mingling as they murmured: "Not much the matter with him, I should fancy."

"He looks as strong as a horse; but modern men are always imagining themselves ill. He has lived too much, probably."

They laughed in a suppressed ripple.