The Limit Part 24

Mrs. Wyburn liked to excite Millie's interest, and yet somehow loathed her sympathy.

"Yes; do you know, I really _should_ have the ceiling painted, if I were you," she said, as if it were a new idea. "Otherwise your house is looking so nice--quite charming. I think it such an excellent plan not to have flowers in the windows, only ever-greens."

"So glad you think so. It _is_ rather a good arrangement, because, you see, they always look exactly the same all the year round."

"That they certainly do--and nevergreens would be a better name for them," spitefully said Mrs. Wyburn to herself as she drove off.

"What a tiresome mood Isabella was in to-day," said Miss Westbury to herself. "I must go and see Jane Totness and tell her what she said....

Ceiling, indeed! She _was_ nasty!"

CHAPTER XX

A PROPOSAL

Miss Lus...o...b.. was looking out of the window, looking up to the street, waiting. At last she saw from her bas.e.m.e.nt (the "tank," as her friends called it) a glimpse on the pavement of a pair of feet that she knew.

They were the feet of Mr. John Ryland Rathbone. She hastened to prepare herself for his visit.

It is obvious that people who live in a bas.e.m.e.nt must look at life from a different point of view from all others. The proudest of women in that position must necessarily see it _de bas en haut_. The woman looking out of the drawing-room or higher for the person she is expecting to see gets more or less of a bird's-eye view. She sees the top of a hat first, and the person necessarily foreshortened. From the dining-room or ground-floor window she sees the approaching visitor through gla.s.s, but practically on a level, almost face to face, and therefore is incapable of judging him on the whole or of taking a very large view, since any object placed close to the eye deprives one of a sense of proportion--shuts out everything else. But from a bas.e.m.e.nt window things are very different. It is wonderful how much character one learns to see in feet, and it is still more curious how, to the accustomed eye, their expression can vary from time to time. Flora saw at a glance by the obstinate stamp, the bad-tempered look of his boots, by the nervous impatience of his stride, that Mr. Rathbone was coming to see her in a state of agitation. One would hardly have believed that, without having seen his face at all, she would be so prepared for his behaviour when he arrived as to greet him anxiously from the door, even before he came in, with "Good heavens, what _is_ the matter?"

"How do you know anything is the matter?"

"I guessed. I saw your steps."

"Everything is going wrong about the play. The expenses get larger every day. To sell even _one_ ticket for a charity, they tell me, is simply out of the question! I must invite everybody, and even then most of them won't come. Just think, my dear Miss Lus...o...b.., all this trouble, worry, and expense for amateurs to play _Romeo and Juliet_ at an invitation performance to an absolutely empty house!"

"Why do you think it will be empty?... Your friends?"

"My friends? You're my only friend! Every chap at the Club I have spoken to about it said they would be out of town that day. One or two said they would come on afterwards and join me at supper. Supper! I said it was a _matinee_; so then they suggested I should give a dinner afterwards. And even women, they're quite as bad. I mentioned it to Lady Walmer. She is always so keen on going everywhere, and makes a hobby of odd charities and things. She said she was going yachting that day, and also that she was going to a wedding."

"What does it matter just about Lady Walmer?"

"Nothing, but it's an indication. Do we want to have no one in a theatre but the dressmakers who made the costumes? Miss Lus...o...b..--Flora! I am beginning to think we'd better chuck it."

"Oh, Mr. Rathbone! The waste and the disappointment!"

"It would be a greater waste to make an utter fool of oneself in an empty house than to postpone it. I'm nervous. I'm really frightened. I'm beginning to see that I've been a fool. As to disappointment, _that_, Flora, you could console me for if you chose."

"Oh, Mr. Rathbone!"

"You really have been so sweet, so patient, it's my opinion that you are an angel!"

"Oh, indeed I'm not!"

"Well, you have the patience of one. You never think about yourself.

You're all kindness and sweetness and thought for other people. To speak perfectly frankly, you have only one tiny fault, Flora. And that is, that you seem a _little_ artificial. But it's my opinion that such affectations as you have are natural to you and you can't help them, and you would be an ideal wife."

Flora was actually silent with gratification. She did not even laugh.

"Look here, Flora, we'd better chuck the performance altogether. Let's give it up, and have a show instead at St. George's, Hanover Square."

"Are you making fun of me?" she asked, in a trembling voice, "because that would not be right. It wouldn't be nice of you--in fact, it would be rather cruel."

"You don't mean to say you care for me the least little bit?" He took both her hands and stared hard at her face. "Is there something real about you then?" he continued.

Tears came to her eyes. She turned her head away.

"This seems too good to be true," she murmured.

"Let's be married," he cried, "on the day we were going to have the show. Let's go to Oberammergau for our honeymoon, and don't let us ever go near the theatre again. Will you, dear? Or am I dreaming?"

"Of course. I always have," she answered ingenuously; "but I hadn't a sc.r.a.p of hope, and I didn't know how much I cared for you."

"Dear Flora, I shall give up the stage and devote all my time to you."

"So will I," she said. "I shall never want to act again."

"Nor I, never--never!"

"I shall rush home and countermand everything," he cried.

"Oh, go not yet; it is not yet near day," she quoted in the tender voice she used for recitation.

He burst into peals of laughter, and put his arms round her and kissed her impetuously.

"Oh, Flora, what a fool I have been all this time! And you knew it--you knew it perfectly well. I thought when we were rehearsing that once you said the words, 'O Romeo, wherefore art _thou_ Romeo?' with rather marked emphasis on the 'thou'...."

"Do you know that I never cared for any one but you in my life, Flora?"

"Oh, oh! Why is 'C. L.' tattooed on your wrist?"

"I'll have it taken out. I'll have Flora put on instead. I'll have anything you like tattooed in your honour--a hunting scene, a snap-shot of the Coronation--anything you like."

"No, please not. I don't like it; I can't bear it. It's the only thing I ever haven't liked about you. But we'll forget it now, won't we?" she said.

"And I'll forget the stage. Oh, Flora, how I have worried you! Forgive me. We won't think of anything but each other now."

They repeated this sentiment again and again in these and other words for about an hour and a half, and forgot to turn up lights and ring the bell.

The first real love scene Flora had ever acted in was a triumphant success.