The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly Part 18

"No, Jack. Too honest-hearted--too unsuspecting, too generous, to put an ill construction where a better one would do as well."

"If you mean that there are others who agree with me, you're quite right."

"And who may they be?" asked she, with a quiet smile. "Come, I have a right to know."

"I don't see the right."

"Certainly I have. It would be very ungenerous and very unjust to let me continue to exercise all those pleasing devices you have just stigmatized for the delectation of people who condemn them."

"Oh, you could n't help that. You'd do it just to amuse yourself, as I 'm sure was the case yesterday, when you put forth all your captivations for that stupid old Viscount."

"Did I?"

"Did you? You have the face to ask it?"

"I have, Jack. I have courage for even more, for I will ask you, was it not Marion said this? Was it not Marion who was so severe on all my little gracefulnesses? Well, you need not answer if you don't like.

I 'll not press my question; but own, it is not fair for Marion, with every advantage, her beauty and her surroundings--"

"Her what?"

"Well, I would not use a French word; but I meant to say, those accessories which are represented by dress, and 'toilette'--not mean things in female estimation. With all these, why not have a little mercy for the poor curate's sister, reduced to enter the lists with very uncouth weapons?"

"You won't deny that Ellen loves you?" said he, suddenly.

"I 'd be sorry, very sorry, to doubt it; but she never said I was a coquette?"

"I 'm sure she knows you are," said he, doggedly.

"Oh, Jack, I hope this is not the way you try people on court-martial?"

"It's the fairest way ever a fellow was tried; and if one does n't feel him guilty he 'd never condemn him."

"I 'd rather people would feel less, and think a little more, if I was to be 'the accused,'" said she, half pettishly.

"You got that, Master Jack; that round shot was for _you_," said he, not without some irritation in his tone.

"Well," said she, good-humoredly, "I believe we are firing into each other this morning, and I declare I cannot see for what."

"I 'll tell you, Julia. You grew very cross with me, because I accused you of being a coquette, a charge you 'd have thought pretty lightly of if you had n't known it was deserved."

"Might there not have been another reason for the crossness, supposing it to have existed?" said she, quietly.

"I 'cannot imagine one; at least, I can't imagine what reason you point at."

"Simply this," said she, half carelessly, "that it could have been no part of your duty to have told me so."

"You mean that it was a great liberty on my part--an unwarrantable liberty?"

"Something like it."

"That the terms which existed between us"--and now he spoke with a tremulous voice, and a look of much agitation--"could not have warranted my daring to point out a fault, even in your manner; for I am sure, after all, your nature had nothing to do with it?"

She nodded, and was silent.

"That's pretty plain, anyhow," said he, moving towards the table, where he had placed his hat. "It's a sharp lesson to give a fellow though, all the more when he was unprepared for it."

"You forget that the first sharp lesson came from _you_."

"All true; there 's no denying it." He took up his hat as she spoke, and moved, half awkwardly, towards the window. "I had a message for you from the girls, if I could only remember it. Do you happen to guess what it was about?"

She shrugged her shoulders slightly as a negative, and was silent.

"I 'll be shot if I can think what it was," muttered he; "the chances are, however, it was to ask you to do something or other, and as, in your present temper, that would be hopeless, it matters little that I have forgotten it."

She made no answer to this speech, but quietly occupied herself arranging a braid of her hair that had just fallen down.

"Miss L'Estrange!" said he, in a haughty and somewhat bold tone.

"Mr. Bramleigh," replied she, turning and facing him with perfect gravity, though her tremulous lip and sparkling eye showed what the effort to seem serious cost her.

"If you will condescend to be real, to be natural, for about a minute and a half, it may save us, or at least one of us, a world of trouble and unhappiness."

"It 's not a very courteous supposition of yours that implies I am unreal or unnatural," said she, calmly; "but no matter, go on; say what you desire to say, and you shall find me pretty attentive."

"What I want to say is this, then," said he, approaching where she stood, and leaning one arm on the chimney close to where her own arm was resting; "I wanted to tell--no, I wanted to ask you if the old relations between us are to be considered as bygone,--if I am to go away from this to-day believing that all I have ever said to you, all that you heard--for you _did_ hear me, Julia--"

"Julia!" repeated she, in mock amazement. "What liberty is this, sir?"

and she almost laughed out as she spoke.

"I knew well how it would be," said he, angrily. "There is a heartless levity in your nature that nothing represses. I asked you to be serious for one brief instant."

"And you shall find that I can," said she, quickly. "If I have not been more so hitherto, it has been in mercy to yourself."

"In mercy to me? To me! What do you mean?"

"Simply this. You came here to give me a lesson this morning. But it was at your sister's suggestion. It was her criticism that prompted you to the task. I read it all. I saw how ill prepared you were. You have mistaken some things, forgotten others; and, in fact, you showed me that you were far more anxious I should exculpate myself than that you yourself should be the victor. It was for this reason that I was really annoyed,--seriously annoyed, at what you said to me; and I called in what you are so polite as to style my 'levity' to help me through my difficulty. Now, however, you have made me serious enough; and it is in this mood I say, Don't charge yourself another time with such a mission.

Reprove whatever you like, but let it come from yourself. Don't think light-heartedness--I 'll not say levity--bad in morals, because it may be bad in taste. There's a lesson for you, sir." And she held out her hand as if in reconciliation.

"But you have n't answered my question, Julia," said he, tremulously.

"And what was your question?"

"I asked you if the past--if all that had taken place between us--was to be now forgotten?"

"I declare here is George," said she, bounding towards the window and opening it. "What a splendid fish, George! Did you take it yourself?"

"Yes, and he cost me the top joint of my rod; and I'd have lost him after all if Lafferty had not waded out and landed him. I 'm between two minds, Julia, whether I 'll send him up to the Bramleighs."

She put her finger to her lip to impose caution, and said, "The admiral,"--the nickname by which Jack was known--"is here."