Guy and Pauline Part 23

"I don't deserve you," said Guy, standing still and looking down at her.

"I've done nothing but grumble all the afternoon, and you've been an angel. Ah, but it's only because I long to kiss you."

"I long to kiss you," she murmured.

"Do you? Do you?" he whispered. "Oh, with those ghouls in the churchyard I can't even take your hand."

They crossed the bridge from the orchard and came round to the front of the house into full sunlight, and thence out of the dazzle into Guy's hall that was filled with watery melodies and the green light of their own pastoral world. Close they kissed, close and closer in the coolness and stillness.

"Pauline! I shall go mad for love of you."

"I love you. I love you," she sighed, nestling to his arms' enclosure.

"Pauline!"

"Guy!"

Each called to the other as if over an abyss of years and time.

Then Pauline said she must go back, but Guy reminded her of a book she had promised to read, and begged her just to come with him to the library.

"I do want to talk to you once alone in my own room," he said. "The evenings won't seem so empty when I can think of you there."

She could not disappoint him, and they went upstairs and into his green room that smelt of tobacco-smoke and meadowsweet. They stood by the window looking out over their territory, and Guy told for the hundredth time how, as it were, straight from this window he had plunged to meet her that September night.

"Hullo," he exclaimed suddenly, reading on the pane that was scrabbled with mottoes cut by himself in idle moments with the glazier's pencil:

_The fresh green lap of fair King Richard's land.

Michael Fane. June 24._

"That's to-day! Then Michael must be here. What an extraordinary thing!"

Guy looked round the room for any sign of his friend; but there was nothing except the Shakesperean record of his presence. Pauline felt hurt that he should be so much interested in a friend, when but a moment ago he had brought her here as if her presence were the only thing that counted for his evening's pleasure.

"I must find out where he is," exclaimed Guy.

Now he wanted to be rid of her, thought Pauline, and for the first time, when he had kissed her, she kissed him coldly in response. More bitter still was the thought that he did not remonstrate: he had not noticed.

Pauline said she must hurry away, and Guy did not persuade her to stop.

Oh, how she hated this friend of his; she had no one in whom she would be even mildly interested when she was with Guy. He took her home in the canoe, speculating all the way about Michael Fane's whereabouts; and as Pauline went across the Rectory paddock there were tears of mortification in her eyes that sometimes burnt as hotly even as with jealousy's rage.

Her mother was on the lawn, when she got back, and Pauline blinked her eyes a good deal to throw the blame of tears upon the sun.

"Ah, you're back. Let's take a little walk round the garden," said Mrs.

Grey in the nervous manner that told of something on her mind.

They went into the larger wall-garden and walked along the wide herbaceous borders through a blaze of snapdragons that here all day had been swallowing the sunshine.

"Where did you go with Guy?" her mother asked.

"We went down the river, and they're cutting the gra.s.s in the big meadow and then afterwards...."

"Oh, Pauline, afterwards you went into Guy's house with him?"

Pauline nodded.

"I know. I was just going to tell you."

"Pauline, how could you do such a thing?"

"I only went to say good-night. I wasn't there five minutes."

Why should an action so simple be vexing her mother?

"Are you angry with me for going?"

"You must never do such a thing again," said Mrs. Grey more crossly than Pauline had ever heard her. "Monica saw you go in as she was walking down Shipcot hill, and she has just this moment come and told me."

"But why shouldn't I go in and say good-night?" Pauline asked. "There were people in the churchyard. I thought it was better to say good-night in the house."

Her mother was tremulously pink with vexation, and Pauline looked at her in surprize. It was really unaccountable that such a trifling incident as going into Guy's house could have made her as angry as this. She must have offended her in some other way.

"Mother, what have I done to annoy you?"

"I can't think what made you do anything so stupid as that. I can't think. I can't think. So many people may have seen you go in."

"Well, Mother darling, surely by this time," said Pauline, "everybody must know we are really engaged."

Her mother stood in an access of irritation.

"And don't you understand how that makes it all the worse? Please never do such an inconsiderate thing again. You can imagine how much it upset Monica, when she ran back to tell me."

"Why didn't she come in and fetch me?" asked Pauline. "That would have been much easier. I think she thoroughly enjoyed making a great fuss about nothing. Everybody has been criticizing me lately. I know you all disapprove of anybody's being in love."

"Pauline, when you are to blame, you shouldn't say such unkind things about Monica."

"I have to say what I think sometimes," Pauline replied rebelliously.

"And as for Guy," Mrs. Grey went on, "I am astonished at his thoughtlessness. I can't understand how he could dream of letting you come into his house. I can't understand it."

"Yes, but why shouldn't I go in?" Pauline persisted. "Darling Mother, you go on being angry with me, but you don't tell me why I shouldn't go in."

"Can't you understand what the Wychford people might think?"

Pauline shook her head.

"Well, I shan't say any more about it," Mrs. Grey decided. "But you must promise me never never to do such a foolish thing again."

"I'll promise you never to go to Guy's house," said Pauline. "But I can't promise never to do foolish things, when such perfectly ordinary things are called foolish."