Faith And Unfaith Part 49

"Nevertheless, I shall not allow you to call my true sentiments flattery," says Scrope: "I really meant what I said, whether you choose to believe me or not. Yours is a

'Beauty truly blent, whose red and white Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on.'"

"What a courtier you become!" she says, laughing honestly for almost the first time to-day. It is so strange to hear James Scrope say anything high-flown or sentimental. She is a little bit afraid that he knows why she is sorry, yet, after all, she hardly frets over the fact of his knowing. Dear Jim! he is always kind, and sweet, and thoughtful! Even if he does understand, he is quite safe to look as if he didn't. And that is always such a comfort!

And Sir James, watching her, and marking the grief upon her face, feels a tightening at his heart, and a longing to succor her, and to go forth--if need be--and fight for her as did the knights of old for those they loved, until "just and mightie death, whom none can advise," enfolded him in his arms.

For long time he has loved her,--has lived with only her image in his heart. Yet what has his devotion gained him? Her liking, her regard, no doubt, but nothing that can satisfy the longing that leaves desolate his faithful heart. Regard, however deep, is but small comfort to him whose every thought, waking and sleeping, belongs alone to her.

"Full little knowest thou, that hast not tride, What h.e.l.l it is, in swing long to bide; To loose good dayes that might be better spent, To wast long nights in pensive discontent; To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow; To feed on hope, to pine with feare and sorrow; To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares; To eate thy heart through comfortlesse dispaires."

He is quite a.s.sured she lives in utter ignorance of his love. No word has escaped him, no smallest hint, that might declare to her the pa.s.sion that daily, hourly, grows stronger, and of which she is the sole object. "The n.o.blest mind the best contentment has," and he contents himself as best he may on a smile here, a gentle word there, a kindly pressure of the hand to-day, a look of welcome to-morrow.

These are liberally given, but nothing more. Ever since her engagement to Horace Brans...o...b.. he has, of course, relinquished hope; but the surrender of all expectation has not killed his love. He is silent because he must be so, but his heart wakes, and

"Silence in love bewrays more woe Than words, though ne'er so witty."

"See, there they are again," he says now, alluding to Georgie and her ducal companion, as they emerge from behind some thick shrubs. Another man is with them, too,--a tall, gaunt young man, with long hair, and a cadaverous face, who is staring at Georgie as though he would willingly devour her--but only in the interest of art. He is lecturing on the "Consummate Daffodil," and is comparing it unfavorably with the "Unutterable Tulip," and is plainly boring the two, with whom he is walking, to extinction. He is Sir John Lincoln, that old-new friend of Georgie's, and will not be shaken off.

"Long ago," says Georgie, tearfully, to herself, "he was not an aesthete. Oh, how I _wish_ he would go back to his pristine freshness!"

But he won't: he maunders on unceasingly about impossible flowers, that are all very well in their way, but whose exaltedness lives only in his own imagination, until the duke, growing weary (as well he might, poor soul), turns aside, and greets with unexpected cordiality a group upon his right, that, under any other less oppressive circ.u.mstances, would be abhorrent to him. But to spend a long hour talking about one lily is not to be borne.

Georgie follows his example, and tries to escape Lincoln and the tulips by diving among the aforesaid group. She is very successful,--groups do not suit aesthetics,--and soon the gaunt young man takes himself, and his long hair, to some remote region.

"How d'ye do, Mrs. Brans...o...b..?" says a voice at her elbow, a moment later, and, turning, she finds herself face to face with Mr. Kennedy.

"Ah! you?" she says, with very flattering haste, being unmistakably pleased to see him. "I had no idea you were staying in the country."

"I am staying with the Luttrells'. Molly asked me down last month."

"She is a great friend of yours, I know," says Mrs. Brans...o...b..; "yet I hadn't the faintest notion I should meet you here to-day."

"And you didn't care either, I dare say," says Mr. Kennedy, in a tone that is positively sepulchral, and, considering _all_ things, very well done indeed.

"I should have cared, if I had even once thought about it," says Mrs.

Brans...o...b.., cheerfully.

Whereupon he says,--

"_Thank_ you!" in a voice that is _all_ reproach.

Georgie colors. "I didn't mean what _you_ think," she says, anxiously.

"I didn't _indeed_."

"Well, it sounded exactly like it," says Mr. Kennedy, with careful gloom. "Of course it is not to be expected that you ever _would_ think of me, but----I haven't seen you since that last night at Gowran, have I?"

"No."

"I think you might have told me then you were going to be married."

"I wasn't going to be married then," says Georgie, indignantly: "I hadn't a single idea of it. Never thought of it, until the next day."

"I quite thought you were going to marry me," says Mr. Kennedy, sadly; "I had quite made up my mind to it. I never"--forlornly--"imagined you as belonging to any other fellow. It isn't pleasant to find that one's pet doll is stuffed with sawdust, and yet--"

"I can't think what you are talking about," says Mrs. Brans...o...b.., coldly, and with some fine disgust; she cannot help thinking that she must be the doll in question, and to be filled with sawdust sounds anything but dignified.

Kennedy, reading her like a book, n.o.bly suppresses a wild desire for laughter, and goes on in a tone, if possible, more depressed than the former one.

"My insane hope was the doll," he says: "it proved only dust. I haven't got over the shock yet that I felt on hearing of your marriage. I don't suppose I ever shall now."

"Nonsense!" says Georgie, contemptuously. "I never saw you look so well in all my life. You are positively fat."

"That's how it always shows with me," says Kennedy, unblushingly.

"Whenever green and yellow melancholy marks me for its own, I sit on a monument (they always keep one for me at home) and smile incessantly at grief, and get as fat as possible. It is a refinement of cruelty, you know, as superfluous flesh is not a thing to be hankered after."

"How you must have fretted," says Mrs. Brans...o...b.., demurely, glancing from under her long lashes at his figure, which has certainly gained both in size and in weight since their last meeting.

At this they both laugh.

"Is your husband here to-day?" asks he, presently.

"Yes."

"Why isn't he with you?"

"He has found somebody more to his fancy, perhaps."

As she says this she glances round, as though for the first time alive to the fact that indeed he is not beside her.

"Impossible!" says Kennedy. "Give any other reason but that, and I may believe you. I am quite sure he is missing you terribly, and is vainly searching every nook and corner by this time for your dead body. No doubt he fears the worst. If you were my----I mean if ever I were to marry (which of course is quite out of the question now), I shouldn't let my wife out of my sight."

"Poor woman! what a time she is going to put in!" says Mrs.

Brans...o...b.., pityingly. "Don't go about telling people all that, or you will never get a wife. By this time Dorian and I have made the discovery that we can do excellently well without each other sometimes."

Dorian coming up behind her just as she says this, hears her, and changes color.

"How d'ye do!" he says to Kennedy, civilly, if not cordially, that young man receiving his greeting with the utmost bonhommie and an unchanging front.

For a second, Brans...o...b.. refuses to meet his wife's eyes, then, conquering the momentary feeling of pained disappointment, he turns to her, and says, gently,--

"Do you care to stay much longer? Clarissa has gone, and Scrope, and the Carringtons."

"I don't care to stay another minute: I should like to go home now,"

says Georgie, slipping her hand through his arm, as though glad to have something to lean on; and, as she speaks, she lifts her face and bestows upon him a small smile. It is a very dear little smile, and has the effect of restoring him to perfect happiness again.

Seeing which, Kennedy raises his brows, and then his hat, and, bowing, turns aside, and is soon lost amidst the crowd.

"You are sure you want to come home?" says Dorian, anxiously. "I am not in a hurry, you know."