Pretty Madcap Dorothy Part 8

"Are you so very displeased?" he inquired, reproachfully, adding quietly: "If that is the case, I beg your pardon. I shall never so trespa.s.s again;" and he dropped her hand and turned away, walking moodily to the window.

"Gracious! I have done it now!" thought Dorothy, repenting on the instant; and, as he made no effort to turn around or speak to her again, she advanced slowly to where he stood idly drumming upon the window-sill.

"I wasn't so very angry," she began, hesitatingly, picking nervously at the blue ribbons which tied her long, curling hair. "I said I wasn't so very angry!" repeated Dorothy, nervously. He heard her, but never turned his head, and Dorothy was at a loss what to say next to mend matters.

"Would you like a rose?" she stammered.

"Thanks--no!" replied Kendal, shortly, still without turning his head.

Then, after a brief pause:

"Or would you like me to show you a new book of poems I just bought?"

"You needn't mind. Pray don't trouble yourself," he responded.

Dorothy looked at him an instant, quite as though she was ready to cry; then the best thing that could have happened, under the circ.u.mstances, came to her relief.

She grew angry.

"I wouldn't show you the book now, to save your life!" she cried, her breath coming and going in panting gasps, and her cheeks flaming as scarlet as the deep-red rose she had brought him as a peace-offering; "nor would I give you this flower. I'd tear it up and stamp it beneath my feet first--you are so mean!"

He turned with a very tantalizing smile, and looked at her out of the corners of his eyes.

She had hidden her face in her hands, but by the panting of her breast he saw that she was weeping, that a storm of sobs was shaking her childish frame.

He stooped and pa.s.sed his arm lightly around the slim waist, his hand holding hers.

Dorothy trembled.

"Won't you let me comfort you?" he asked, in that low, winning voice of his.

The thought flashed across Dorothy's brain that, if she pushed him from her, he would never again put his arms about her, and she meekly endured the caress for an instant; and not being repulsed, he grew bold enough to kiss the rosy cheek that peeped out from between the white fingers.

"I have something to say to you, Dorothy," he whispered. "It is this: I love you! Will you be my wife?"

Dorothy had always imagined just how a lover should propose, but she had never imagined anything so commonplace as this.

He stooped to caress her again, but she drew back.

"You frighten me!" she cried; and at these words he instantly released her.

"It is alarming--being kissed--and especially when you're not used to it. But that does not answer my question. Will you marry me, or will you not?"

"I don't know!" cried Dorothy, faintly. "You mustn't ask me; you must talk to Mrs. Kemp about it."

"I might talk to Mrs. Kemp about changing my room in the house, or ask her concerning anything belonging to the household, but I couldn't think of asking her to find me a wife and to seal the bargain for me. The 'Yes' or 'No' must be said by the girl herself, as she is the one who is to live with me and to make the best or the worst of the bargain through life. Now, Dorothy, I want a plain, straightforward answer.

Tell me, will you be my bride?"

She colored and smiled, and the sort of shy half fear which always a.s.sailed her at his approach came over her now more strongly than ever, and the quick blood came rus.h.i.+ng to her finger-ends.

"I--don't know what to say!" gasped Dorothy. "I couldn't marry anybody, I think."

His arms dropped from about her.

"Am I to understand, then," he asked, in a constrained voice, "that you refuse me?"

"Oh, I don't know!" cried Dorothy, melting into fresh, quick tears.

"I--I--should want to ask somebody about it first before I said 'Yes.'"

He had quite believed that she would accept him on the spot the moment he proposed, and her failure to do this made him almost catch his breath in astonishment.

This uncertainty in the matter gave more zest to his ardor.

"You dislike me?" he questioned, wondering if that could possibly be.

"Oh, no, no! I like you. Won't you believe me?"

He stepped back and looked at her with a sarcastic smile--looked at the little figure leaning against the fountain, with one hand resting on the rim of it, the other held out imploringly toward him.

"Believe you? Why do you insist upon making me uncivil?" he replied. "I do _not_ believe you! I dare say you fancy that you are telling the truth; but if another man were to come on the scene with a few thousands a year more, and a higher position in the social scale, you would have a very different answer for him at your tongue's end."

He looks at her--looks at the innocently wooing arms--at the tear-stained, dimpled, tremulous face, and, now that he thinks that he can not win her, all in an instant he falls madly in love with her.

"You must answer me, here and now!" he cried; but Dorothy turned from him, and, like a startled fawn, slipped through his outstretched hands, through the conservatory, and out of the corridor beyond, leaving him staring after her, his handsome face pale with emotion.

Dorothy never paused until she reached her own room.

She closed and locked the door with trembling hands and beating heart; then, after the fas.h.i.+on of young girls, she laughed and cried hysterically all in a breath, dancing around the room in a mad fas.h.i.+on, clapping her hands and sobbing out:

"Oh, at last--at last, my hero, my ideal has turned from a block of marble to human clay, and tells me that he loves me and wants me to be his wife--me--a silly little thing like me!" and she paused before the gla.s.s, wondering what he saw in the pink-and-white face reflected there to love forever and ever. She wished she knew.

CHAPTER VIII.

Dorothy's merriment was soon interrupted by a loud knock at the door, and when she opened it, panting with her exertion of dancing around the room, she found Mrs. Kemp standing there, with a white, frightened face.

"What in the world is the matter here, child?" she cried, in alarm. "I was afraid there were burglars, or Heaven knows what, up here in this room."

Dorothy burst into a peal of laughter that amazed the old lady and made the very walls echo with her bright young voice.

"Oh, something so funny has just happened!" she gasped. "You will be as much surprised as I was, Mrs. Kemp, when you hear it."

The housekeeper knew just what had happened, for, although unknown to Dorothy, she was in the conservatory when she had entered; but before she could make her presence known Kendal had appeared upon the scene, and the proposal of marriage had followed so quickly upon the heels of it that she felt she could not leave without embarra.s.sing both, so she waited there until they had quitted the conservatory.

As soon as she thought it practicable she followed Dorothy to her room to congratulate her, and the sight that met her view surprised her--the girl's face, instead of being flushed with tell-tale blushes and covered with confusion, as she had expected, was convulsed with laughter.

"Oh, do come in!" cried Dorothy, excitedly. "I have something that I want to tell you--I want you to decide for me what is best to do."