Molly Bawn Part 63

"I shall go--when you go. May I call on you there?"

"Indeed you may. I like you quite well enough," says her ladyship, with unsentimental and therefore most objectionable frankness, "to wish you for my friend."

"Why should we not be more than friends, Cecil?" says Stafford, going up to her and taking both her hands in a warm, affectionate clasp.

"Just consider how we two are situated: you are bound to me forever, until death shall kindly step in to relieve you of me, and I am bound to you as closely. Why, then, should we not accept our position, and make our lives one?"

"You should have thought of all this before."

"How could I? Think what a deception you practiced on me when sending that miserable picture. I confess I abhor ugliness. And then, your own conditions,--what could I do but abide by them?"

"There are certain times when a woman does not altogether care about being taken so completely at her word."

"But that was not one of them." Hastily. "I do not believe you would have wished to live with a man you neither knew nor cared for."

"Perhaps not." Laughing. "Sometimes I hardly know myself what it is I do want. But are we not very well as we are? I dare say, had we been living together for the past three years, we should now dislike each other as cordially as--as do Maud Darley and her husband."

"Impossible! Maud Darley is one person, you are quite another; while I--well"--with a smile--"I honestly confess I fancy myself rather more than poor Henry Darley."

"He certainly _is_ plain," says Cecil, pensively, "and--he snores,--two great points against him, Yes, on consideration, you are an improvement on Henry Darley." Then, with a sudden change of tone, she says, "Does all this mean that you love me?"

"Yes I confess it, Cecil," answers he, gravely, earnestly. "I love you as I never believed it possible I should love a woman. I am twenty-nine, and--think me cold if you will--but up to this I never yet saw the woman I wanted for my wife except you."

"Then you ought to consider yourself the happiest man alive, because you have the thing you crave. As you reminded me just now, I am yours until death us do part."

"Not all I crave, not the best part of you, your heart," replies he, tenderly. "No man loving as I do, could be contented with a part."

"Oh, it is too absurd," says Cecil, with a little aggravating shake of the head. "In love with your own wife in this prosaic nineteenth century! It savors of the ridiculous. Such mistaken feeling has been tabooed long ago. Conquer it; conquer it."

"Too late. Besides, I have no desire to conquer it. On the contrary, I encourage it, in hope of some return. No, do not dishearten me. I know what you are going to say; but at least you like me, Cecil?"

"Well, yes; but what of that? I like so many people."

"Then go a little further, and say you--love me."

"That would be going a _great_ deal further, because I love so few."

"Never mind. Say 'Penthony, I love you.'"

He has placed his hands upon her shoulders, and is regarding her with anxious fondness.

"Would you have me tell you an untruth?"

"I would have you say you love me."

"But supposing I cannot in honesty?"

"Try."

"Of course I can try. Words without meaning are easy things to say. But then--a lie; that is a serious matter.

"It may cease to be a lie, once uttered."

"Well,--just to please you, then, and as an experiment--and---- You are _sure_ you will not despise me for saying it?"

"No."

"Nor accuse me afterward of deceit?"

"Of course not."

"Nor think me weak-minded?"

"No, no. How could I?"

"Well, then--Penthony--I--_don't love you the least bit in the world_!" declares Cecil, with a provoking, irresistible laugh, stepping backward out of his reach.

Sir Penthony does not speak for a moment or two; then "'Sweet is revenge, especially to women,'" he says, quietly, although at heart he is bitterly chagrined. To be unloved is one thing--to be laughed at is another. "After all, you are right. There is nothing in this world so rare or so admirable as honesty. I am glad you told me no untruth, even in jest."

Just at this instant the door opens, and Molly enters. She looks surprised at such an unexpected spectacle as Cecil's husband sitting in his wife's boudoir, _tete-a-tete_ with her.

"Don't be shy, dear," says Cecil, mischievously, with a little wicked laugh; "you may come in; it is only my husband."

The easy nonchalance of this speech, the only half-suppressed amus.e.m.e.nt in her tone, angers Sir Penthony more than all that has gone before.

With a hasty word or two to Molly, he suddenly remembers a pressing engagement, and, with a slight bow to his wife, takes his departure.

CHAPTER XXIV.

"Take, oh! take those lips away, That so sweetly were foresworn; And those eyes, the break of day, Lights that do mislead the morn: But my kisses bring again, Seals of love, but seal'd in vain."

--Shakespeare.

The longed-for night has arrived at last; so has Molly's dress, a very marvel of art, fresh and pure as newly-fallen snow. It is white silk with tulle, on which white water-lilies lie here and there, as though carelessly thrown, all their broad and trailing leaves gleaming from among the shining folds.

Miss Ma.s.sereene is in her own room, dressing, her faithful Sarah on her knees beside her. She has almost finished her toilet, and is looking more than usually lovely in her London ball-dress.

"Our visit is nearly at an end, Sarah; how have you enjoyed it?" she asks, in an interval, during which Sarah is at her feet, sewing on more securely one of her white lilies.

"Very much, indeed, miss. They've all been excessive polite, though they do ask a lot of questions. Only this evening they wanted to know if we was estated, and I said, 'Yes,' Miss Molly, because after all, you know, miss, it _is_ a property, however small; and I wasn't going to let myself down. And then that young man of Captain Shadwell's ast me if we was 'county people,' which I thought uncommon imperent.

Not but what he's a nice young man, miss, and very affable."

"Still constant, Sarah?" says Molly, who is deep in the waves of doubt, not being able to decide some important final point about her dress.

"Oh, law! yes, miss, he is indeed. It was last night he was saying as my accent was very sweet. Now there isn't one of them country b.u.mpkins, miss, as would know whether you had an accent or not. It's odd how traveling do improve the mind."

"Sarah, you should pay no attention to those London young men,--(pin it more to this side),--because they never mean anything."