Barrington Volume Ii Part 21

"Oh, that is too bad!" cried Polly, interrupting. "This would mean an impertinence to Miss Barrington."

"How pleasant we must have been! Almost five o'clock, and I scarcely thought it could be three!" said he, with an affected languor.

"'Time's foot is not heard when he treads upon flowers,'" said she, smiling.

"Where shall I find your father, Miss Dill? I want to tell him what a charming creature his daughter is, and how wretched I feel at not being able to win her favor."

"Pray don't; or he might fall into my own mistake, and imagine that you wanted a lease of it for life."

"Still cruel, still inexorable!" said he, with a mockery of affliction in his tone. "Will you say all the proper things--the regrets, and such like--I feel at not meeting him again; and if he has asked me to dinner--which I really forget--will you make the fitting apology?"

"And what is it, in the present case?"

"I 'm not exactly sure whether I am engaged to dine elsewhere, or too ill to dine at all."

"Why not say it is the despair at being rejected renders you unequal to the effort? I mean, of course, by myself, Major Stapylton."

"I have no objection; say so, if you like," said he, with an insulting indifference. "Good-day, Miss Dill. This is the way to the road, I believe;" and, with a low bow, very deferential but very distant, he turned away to leave the garden. He had not, however, gone many paces, when he stopped and seemed to ponder. He looked up at the sky, singularly clear and cloudless as it was, without a breath of wind in the air; he gazed around him on every side, as if in search of an object he wanted; and then, taking out his purse, he drew forth a shilling and examined it. "Yes," muttered he, "Chance has been my only counsellor for many a year, and the only one that never takes a bribe! And yet, is it not taking to the raft before the ship has foundered? True; but shall I be sure of the raft if I wait for the shipwreck? She is intensely crafty. She has that sort of head that loves a hard knot to unravel!

Here goes! Let Destiny take all the consequences!" and as he flung up the piece of money in the air, he cried, "Head!" It was some minutes ere he could discover where it had fallen, amongst the close leaves of a border of strawberries. He bent down to look, and exclaimed, "Head! she has won!" Just as he arose from his stooping att.i.tude he perceived that Polly was engaged in the adjoining walk, making a bouquet of roses. He sprang across the s.p.a.ce, and stood beside her.

"I thought you had been a mile off by this time, at least," said she, calmly.

"So I meant, and so I intended; but just as I parted from you, a thought struck me--one of those thoughts which come from no process of reasoning or reflection, but seem impelled by a force out of our own natures--that I would come back and tell you something that was pa.s.sing in my mind.

Can you guess it?"

"No; except it be that you are sorry for having trifled so unfeelingly with my hopes, and have come back to make the best reparation in your power, asking me to forgive and accept you."

"You have guessed aright; it was for that I returned."

"What a clever guess I made! Confess I am very ready-witted!"

"You are; and it is to engage those ready wits in my behalf that I am now before you."

"'At my feet,' sir, is the appropriate expression. I wonder how a gentleman so suited to be the hero of a story could forget the language of the novel."

"I want you to be serious," said he, almost sternly.

"And why should that provoke seriousness from _me_ which only costs _you_ levity?"

"Levity!--where is the levity?"

"Is it not this instant that you flung a shilling in the air, and cried out, as you looked on it, 'She has won'? Is it not that you asked Chance to decide for you what most men are led to by their affections, or at least their interests; and if so, is levity not the name for this?"

"True in part, but not in whole; for I felt it was _I_ who had won when 'head' came uppermost."

"And yet you have lost."

"How so! You refuse me?"

"I forgive your astonishment. It is really strange, but I do refuse you."

"But why? Are you piqued with me for anything that occurred this morning? Have I offended you by anything that dropped from me in that conversation? Tell me frankly, that I may, if in my power, rectify it."

"No; I rather felt flattered at the notion of being consulted. I thought it a great tribute to my clear-headedness and my tact."

"Then tell me what it was."

"You really wish it?"

"I do."

"Insist upon it?"

"I insist upon it."

"Well, it was this. Seeing that you were intrusting your future fortune to chance, I thought that I would do the same, and so I tossed up whether, opportunity serving, I should accept you or a certain other, and the other won!"

"May I ask for the name of my fortunate rival?"

"I don't think it is very fair, perhaps not altogether delicate of you; and the more since he has not proposed, nor possibly ever may. But no matter, you shall hear his name. It was Major McCormick."

"McCormick! You mean this for an insult to me, Miss Dill?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: 472]

"Well, it certainly is open to that objection," said she, with a very slight closure of her eyes, and a look of steady, resolute defiance.

"And in this way," continued he, "to throw ridicule over the offer I have made you?"

"Scarcely that; the proposition was in itself too ridiculous to require any such aid from me."

For a moment Stapylton lost his self-possession, and he turned on her with a look of savage malignity.

"An insult, and an intentional insult!" said he; "a bold thing to avow."

"I don't think so, Major Stapylton. We have been playing a very rough game with each other, and it is not very wonderful if each of us should have to complain of hard treatment."

"Could not so very clever a person as Miss Dill perceive that I was only jesting?" said he, with a cutting insolence in his tone.

"I a.s.sure you that I did not," said she, calmly; "had I known or even suspected it was a jest, I never should have been angry. That the distinguished Major Stapylton should mock and quiz--or whatever be the name for it--the doctor's daughter, however questionable the good taste, was, after all, only a pa.s.sing slight. The thought of asking her to marry him was different,--that was an outrage!"

"You shall pay for this one day, perhaps," said he, biting his lip.

"No, Major Stapylton," said she, laughing; "this is not a debt of honor; you can afford to ignore it."

"I tell you again, you shall pay for it."

"Till then, sir!" said she, with a courtesy; and without giving him time for another word, she turned and re-entered the house.