Rossmoyne Part 20

As she does so, a little gray object, hitherto unseen by her, springs from among some green stuffs, and, scudding across the field into the woods of Coole beyond, is in a moment lost to view.

"Oh, _bother_!" cries Terry, literally dancing with rage; "I wouldn't _doubt_ you to make that row just when I was going to fire. I wish to goodness you girls would stay at home, and not come interfering with a fellow's sport. You are always turning up at the wrong moment, and just when you're not wanted!--indeed you _ever are_!"

These elegant and complimentary remarks he hurls at their heads, as though with the wish to annihilate them. But they haven't the faintest effect: the Misses Beresford are too well accustomed to his eloquence to be dismayed by it. They treat it, indeed, as a matter of course, and so continue their inquiries uncrushed.

"Terry, where _did_ you get this gun?" asks Monica, as breathless with surprise as Kit. "Is it"--fearfully--"_loaded_? Oh! don't!--don't point it this way! It will surely go off and kill somebody."

Here she misses her footing and slips off the high bank, disappearing entirely from view, only to reappear again presently, flushed but uninjured.

"What a lovely gun!" says Kit, admiringly.

"Isn't it?" says Terence, forgetting his bad temper in his anxiety to exhibit his treasure. "It's a breech-loader, too; none of your old-fashioned things, mind you, but a reg'lar good one. I'll tell you who lent it to me, if you'll promise not to peach."

"We won't," says Kit, who is burning with curiosity.

"Guess, then."

"Bob Warren?" says Monica. Bob Warren is the rector's son, and is much at Moyne.

"Not likely! Pegs above _him_. Well, I'll tell you. It's that fellow that's spoons on you,"--with all a brother's perspicacity,--"the fellow who saw us on the hay-cart,"--Monica writhes inwardly,--"Desmond, you know!"

"The enemy's nephew?" asks Kit, in a thrilling tone, that bespeaks delight and a malicious expectation of breakers ahead.

"Yes. I was talking to him yesterday, early in the day, at Madam O'Connor's; and he asked me was I your brother, Monica, to which I pleaded guilty, though," with a grin, "I'd have got out of it if I could; and then he began to talk about shooting, and said I might knock over any rabbits I liked in Coole. I told him I had no gun, so he offered to lend me one. I thought it was awfully jolly of him, considering I was an utter stranger, and that; but he looks a real good sort. He sent over the gun this morning by a boy, and I have had it hidden in the stable until now. I thought I'd never get out of that beastly garden this evening."

"Oh, Terence, you shouldn't have taken the gun from him," says Monica, flushing. "Just think what Aunt Priscilla would say if she heard of it.

You know how determined she is that we shall have no intercourse with the Desmonds."

"Stuff and nonsense!" says Mr. Beresford. "I never heard such a row as they are forever making about simply _nothing_. Why, it's quite a common thing to jilt a girl, nowadays. I'd do it myself in a minute."

"You won't have time," says Kit, contemptuously. "She--whoever she may be--will be sure to jilt _you_ first."

"Look here," says Terence, eyeing his younger sister with much disfavor; "you're getting so precious sharp, you know, that I should think there'll be a conflagration on the Liffey before long; and I should think, too, that an outraged nation would be sure to fling the cause of it into the flames. So take care."

"Terence, you ought to send that gun back _at once_," says Monica.

"Perhaps I ought, but certainly I shan't," says Terence, genially. "And if I were you," politely, "I wouldn't make an a.s.s of myself. There is quite enough of that sort of thing going on up there," indicating, by a wave of his hand, the drawing-room at Moyne, where the Misses Blake are at present dozing.

"You shouldn't speak of them like that," says Monica; "it is very ungrateful of you, when you know how kind they are, and how fond of you."

"Well, I'm fond of them, too," says Terence, remorsefully but gloomily; "and I'd be even fonder if they would only leave me alone. But they keep such a look-out on a fellow that sometimes I feel like cutting the whole thing and making a clean bolt of it."

"If you ran away you would soon be wishing yourself back again," says Monica, scornfully. "You know you will have no money until you are twenty-one. People pretend to be discontented, at times, with their lives; but in the long run they generally acknowledge 'there is no place like home.'"

"No, thank goodness, there isn't," says Terence, with moody fervor.

"I'll acknowledge it at once, without the run. To have frequent repet.i.tions of it would be more than human nature could endure. I have known two homes already; I should think a third would be my death."

So saying, he shoulders the forbidden gun and marches off.

Monica and Kit, getting down from their elevated position, also pursue their path, which leads in a contrary direction.

"Monica," says Kit, presently, slipping her slender brown fingers through her sister's arm, "what did Terry mean just now, when he spoke about some one being 'spoons' on you? Does that mean being in love with you?"

No answer.

"Is Mr. Desmond, then, in love with you?"

No answer.

"_Is_ he?"

"Oh, Kit, how can I answer such a question as that?"

"In words, I suppose. _Is_ he in love with you?"

"I don't know," says Monica, in a troubled tone. "If I ever had a lover before, I should _know_; but----"

"That means he is," says the astute Kit. "And I'm sure," with a little loving squeeze of her arm, "I don't wonder at it."

"You must not say that," says Monica, earnestly. "Indeed, he said a few _things_ to me, but that is nothing; and----"

"You think he _likes_ you?"

"Yes," reluctantly.

"I believe he adores the very ground you walk on."

"Oh, no, indeed."

"If you say that, he _isn't_ a real lover. A real one, to my mind, ought to be ready and willing to kiss the impressions your heels may make in the earth."

"That would be the act of a fool; and Mr. Desmond is not a fool."

"Ergo, not a lover. And yet I think he is _yours_. Monica," coaxingly, "did he say any pretty things to you?"

"What should he say? I only met him twice."

"You are prevaricating," gazing at her severely. "Why don't you answer me honestly?"

"I don't know what _you_ call 'pretty things.'"

"Yes, you do. Did he tell you your eyes were _deep, deep_ wells of love, and that your face was full of soul?"

"No, he did not," says Monica, somewhat indignantly; "_certainly_ not.

The idea!"

"Well, that is what Percival said to the girl _he_ loved in the book I was reading yesterday," says Kit, rather cast down.

"Then I'm very glad Mr. Desmond isn't like Percival."