Molly Bawn Part 44

"I did not know you were coming here. Had I known it----"

A pause.

"Well,"--imperiously,--"why do you hesitate? Say the unkind thing. I hate innuendoes. Had you known it----"

"I should certainly have gone the other way." Coldly: "Meanly as you may think of me, I have not fallen so low that I should seek to annoy you by my presence."

"Then without doubt you have come to this quiet place searching for solitude, in which to think out all your hard thoughts of me."

"I never think hardly of you, Molly."

"You certainly were not thinking kindly."

Now, he might easily have abashed her at this point by asking "where was the necessity to think of her at all?" but there is an innate courtesy, a natural gentleness about Luttrell that utterly forbids him.

"And," goes on his tormentor, the more angry that she cannot induce him to revile her, "I do not wish you to call me 'Molly' any more. Only those who--who love me call me by that name. Marcia and my grandfather (two people I detest) call me Eleanor. You can follow their example for the future."

"There will not be any future. I have been making up my mind, and--I shall sell out and go abroad immediately."

"Indeed!" There was a slight, a very slight, tremble in her saucy tones. "What a sudden determination! Well, I hope you will enjoy yourself. It is charming weather for a pleasure-trip."

"It is."

"You shouldn't lose much more time, however. Winter will soon be here; and it must be dismal in the extreme traveling in frost and snow."

"I a.s.sure you"--bitterly--"there is no occasion to hurry me. I am as anxious to go as ever you could desire."

"May I ask when you are going, and where?"

"No, you may not," cries he, at length fiercely goaded past endurance; "only, be a.s.sured of this: I am going as far from you as steam can take me; I am going where your fatal beauty and heartlessness cannot touch me; where I shall not be maddened day by day by your coquetry, and where perhaps--in time--I may learn to forget you."

His indignation has made him appear at least two inches taller than his ordinary six feet. His face is white as death, his lips are compressed beneath his blonde moustache, his dark blue eyes--not unlike Molly's own--are flashing fire.

"Thank you," says his companion, with exaggerated emphasis and a graceful curtsey; "thank you very much, Mr. Luttrell. I had no idea, when I lingered here for one little moment, I was going to hear so many home truths. I certainly do not want to hear any more."

"Then why don't you go?" puts in Luttrell, savagely.

"I would--only--perhaps you may not be aware of it, but you have your foot exactly on the very end of my gown."

Luttrell raises his foot and replaces it upon the shaking planks with something that strongly resembles a stamp,--so strongly as to make the treacherous bridge quake and tremble; while Molly moves slowly away from him until she reaches the very edge of their uncertain resting-place.

Here she pauses, glances backward, and takes another step, only to pause again,--this time with decision.

"Teddy," she says, softly.

No answer.

"Dear Teddy," more softly still.

No answer.

"_Dearest_ Teddy."

Still no answer.

"Teddy--_darling_!" murmurs Molly, in the faintest, fondest tone, using toward him for the first time this tenderest of all tender love words.

In another moment his arms are around her, her head is on his breast.

He is vanquished,--routed with slaughter.

In the heart of this weak-minded, infatuated young man there lingers not the slightest thought of bitterness toward this girl who has caused him so many hours of torment, and whose cool, soft cheek now rests contentedly against his.

"My love,--my own,--you do care for me a little?" he asks, in tones that tremble with gladness and sorrow, and disbelief.

"Of course, foolish boy." With a bright smile that revives him. "That is, at times, when you do not speak to me as though I were the fell destroyer of your peace or the veriest shrew that ever walked the earth. Sometimes, you know,"--with a sigh,--"you are a very uncomfortable Teddy."

She slips a fond warm arm around his shoulder and caresses the back of his neck with her soft fingers. Coquette she may be, flirt she is to her finger-tips, but nothing can take away from her lovableness. To Luttrell she is at this moment the most charming thing on which the sun ever shone.

"How can you be so unkind to me," he says, "so cold? Don't you know it breaks my heart?"

"_I_ cold!" With reproachful wonder. "_I_ unkind! Oh, Teddy!

and what are you? Think of all you said to me yesterday and this morning; and now, now you called me a coquette! What could be worse than that? To say it of me, of all people! Ted,"--with much solemnity,--"stare at me,--stare _hard_,--and see do I look the _very least bit_ in the world like a coquette?"

He does stare hard, and doing so forgets the question in hand, remembering only that her eyes, her lips, her hair are all the most perfect of their kind.

"My beloved," he whispers, caressingly.

"It is all your own fault," goes on Circe, strong in argument. "When I provoke you I care nothing for Philip Shadwell, or your Mr. Potts, or any of them: but when you are uncivil to me, what am I to do? I am driven into speaking to some one, although I don't in the least care for general admiration, as you well know."

He does not know; common sense forbids him to know; but she is telling her fibs with so much grace of feature and voice that he refuses to see her sin. He tries, therefore, to look as if he agreed with her, and succeeds very fairly.

"Then you did not mean anything you said?" he asks, eagerly.

"Not a syllable," says Molly. "Though even if I did you will forgive me, won't you? You always do forgive me, don't you?"

It would be impossible to describe the amount of pleading, sauciness, coaxing she throws into the "won't you?" and "don't you?" holding up her face, too, and looking at him out of half-shut, laughing, violet eyes.

"I suppose so," he says, smiling. "So abject a subject have I become that I can no longer conceal even from myself the fact that you can wind me round your little finger."

He tightens his arm about her, and considering, I dare say, she owes him some return for so humble a speech--stoops as though to put his lips to hers.

"Not yet," she says, pressing her fingers against his mouth. "I have many things to say to you yet before---- For one, I am not a coquette?"

"No."

"And you are not going abroad to--forget me? Oh, Teddy!"

"If I went to the world's end I could not compa.s.s that. No, I shall not go abroad now."