Molly Bawn Part 12

"Don't go on," interrupts he, hastily. "You are going to say something unkind, and I won't listen to it. I know it by your eyes. Darling, why are you so cruel to me? Surely you must care for me, be it ever such a little. To think otherwise would---- But I will _not_ think it.

Molly,"--with increasing fervor,--"say you will marry me."

"But indeed I can't," exclaims Miss Ma.s.sereene, retreating a step or two, and glancing at him furtively from under her long lashes. "At least"--relenting a little, as she sees his face change and whiten at her words--"not _yet_. It is all so sudden, so unexpected; and you forget I am not accustomed to this sort of thing. Now, the curates"--with an irrepressible smile--"never went on like this: they always behaved modestly and with such propriety."

"'The curates!' What do they know about it?" returns this young man, most unjustly. "Do you suppose I love you like a curate?"

"And yet, when all is told, I suppose a curate is a man," says Molly, uncertainly, as one doubtful of the truth of her a.s.sertion, "and a well-behaved one, too. Now, you are quite different; and you have known me such a little time."

"What has time to do with it? The beginning and the ending of the whole matter is this: I love you!"

He is holding her hands and gazing down into her face with all his heart in his eyes, waiting for her next words,--may they not decide his fate?--while she is feeling nothing in the world but a mad desire to break into laughter,--a desire that arises half from nervousness, half from an irrepressible longing to destroy the solemnity of the scene.

"A pinch for stale news," says she, at last, with a frivolity most unworthy of the occasion, but in the softest, merriest whisper.

They are both young. The laugh is contagious. After a moment's struggle with his dignity, he echoes it.

"You can jest," says he: "surely that is a good sign. If you were going to refuse me you would not laugh. Beloved,"--taking her into his fond arms again,--"say one little word to make me happy."

"Will any little word do? Long ago, in the dark ages when I was a child, I remember being asked a riddle _a propos_ of short words.

I will ask it to you now. What three letters contain everything in the world? Guess."

"No need to guess: I know. YES would contain everything in the world for me."

"You are wrong, then. It is ALL,--all. Absurd, isn't it? I must have been very young when I thought that clever. But to return: would _that_ little word do you?"

"Say 'Yes,' Molly."

"And if I say 'No,' what then? Will you throw yourself into this small river? Or perhaps hang yourself to the nearest tree? Or, worse still, refuse to speak to me ever again? Or 'go to skin and bone,' as my old nurse used to say I would when I refused a fifth meal in the day? Tell me which?"

"A greater evil than all those would befall me: I should live with no nearer companion than a perpetual regret. But"--with a shudder--"I will not believe myself so doomed. Molly, say what I ask you."

"Well, 'Yes,' then, since you will have it so. Though why you are so bent on your own destruction puzzles me. Do you know you never spoke to me all this evening? I don't believe you love me as well as you say."

"Don't I?" wistfully. Then, with sudden excitement, "I wish with all my heart I did not," he says, "or at least with only half the strength I do. If I could regulate my affections so, I might have some small chance of happiness; but as it is I doubt--I fear. Molly, do you care for me?"

"At times,"--mischievously--"I do--a _little_."

"And you know I love you?"

"Yes,--it may be,--when it suits you."

"And you,"--tightening his arms round her,--"some time you will love me, my sweet?"

"Yes,--perhaps so,--when it suits me."

"Molly," says Luttrell after a pause, "won't you kiss me?"

As he speaks he stoops, bringing his cheek very close to hers.

"'Kiss you'?" says Molly, shrinking away from him, while flushing and reddening honestly now. "No, I think not. I never in all my life kissed any man but John, and--I don't believe I should like it. No, no; if I cannot be engaged to you without kissing you, I will not be engaged to you at all."

"It shall be as you wish," says Luttrell, very patiently, considering all things.

"You mean it?" Still keeping well away from him, and hesitating about giving the hand he is holding out his to receive.

"Certainly I do."

"And"--anxiously--"you don't _mind_?"

"Mind?" says he, with wrathful reproach. "Of course I mind. Am I a stick or a stone, do you think? You might as well tell me in so many words of your utter indifference to me as refuse to kiss me."

"Do all women kiss the men they promise to marry?"

"All women kiss the men they love."

"What, whether they ask them or not?"

"Of course I mean when they are asked."

"Even if at the time they happen to be married to somebody else?"

"I don't know anything about that," says Luttrell, growing ashamed of himself and his argument beneath the large, horror-stricken eyes of his companion. "I was merely supposing a case where marriage and love went hand in hand."

"Don't suppose," says Miss Ma.s.sereene; "there is nothing so tiresome.

It is like 'fourthly' and 'fifthly' in a sermon: you never know where it may lead you. Am I to understand that all women want to kiss the man they love?"

"Certainly they do," stoutly.

"How very odd!" says Molly.

After which there is a most decided pause.

Presently, as though she had been pondering all things, she says:

"Well, there is one thing: I don't mind your having your arms round me a bit, not in the _least_. That must be something. I would quite as soon they were there as not."

"I suppose that is a step in the right direction," says Luttrell, trying not to see the meaning in her words, because too depressed to accept the comic side of it.

"You are unhappy," says Molly, remorsefully, heaving a quickly suppressed sigh. "Why? Because I won't be good to you? Well,"--coloring crimson and leaning her head back against his shoulder with the air of a martyr, so that her face is upturned,--"you may kiss me once, if you wish,--but only once, mind,--because I can't bear to see you miserable."

"No," returns Luttrell, valiantly, refusing by a supreme effort to allow himself to be tempted by a look at her beauty, "I will not kiss you so. Why should you be made unhappy, and by me? Keep such gifts, Molly, until you can bestow them of your own free will."

But Molly is determined to be generous.

"See, I will give you this one freely," she says, with unwonted sweetness, knowing that she is gaining more than she is giving; and thus persuaded, he presses his lips to the warm tender ones so near his own, while for one mad moment he is absurdly happy.

"You really do love me?" asks Molly, presently, as though just awakening to the fact.