The Time of Roses Part 35

Florence could not refuse; but she heartily wished Trevor anywhere else in the world.

"You will be sure not to mention that you saw me here," she said.

"I may speak of it, I suppose, to Miss Keys?"

"I wish you would not."

"I won't promise, Miss Aylmer. I am very uncomfortable regarding the position you are in. It is hateful to me to feel that you should come here like a thief in the night, and stay for hours at the railway station. What mystery is there between you and Miss Keys?"

Florence was silent.

"You admit that there is a mystery?"

"I admit that there is a secret between us, which I am not going to tell you."

He reddened slightly; then he looked at her. She was holding her head well back; her figure was very upright; there was a proud indignation about her. His heart ached as he watched her.

"I think of you often," he said; "your strange and inexplicable story is a great weight and trouble on my mind."

"I wish you would not think of me: I wish you would forget me."

Florence looked full at him; her angry dark eyes were full of misery.

"Suppose that is impossible?" he said, dropping his voice, and there was something in his tone which made her heart give a sudden bound of absolute gladness. But what right had she to be glad? She hated herself for the sensation.

Trevor came closer to her side.

"I have very nearly made up my mind," he said; "when it is quite made up I shall come to see you in town. This is your train." He opened the door of a first-cla.s.s carriage.

"I am going third," said Florence.

Without comment he walked down a few steps of the platform with her. An empty third-cla.s.s carriage was found; she seated herself in it.

"Good-bye," he said. He took off his hat and watched the train out of the station; then he returned slowly--very slowly--to Aylmer's Court. He could not quite account for his own sensations. He had meant to go to meet Kitty and her father, who were both going to walk back by the river, but he did not care to see either of them just now.

He was puzzled and very angry with Bertha Keys, more than angry with Mrs. Aylmer, and he had a sore sense of unrest and misery with regard to Florence.

"What can she want with Miss Keys? What can be the secret between them?"

he said to himself over and over again. He was far from suspecting the truth.

Bertha returned from her drive in apparently excellent spirits. She entered the hall, to find Trevor standing there alone.

"Why are you back so early?" she said.

He did not speak at all for a moment; then he came closer to her. Before he could utter a word she sprang to a centre table, and took up a copy of the _Argonaut_.

"You are interested in Miss Aylmer. Have you read her story--the first story she has ever published?" she asked.

"No," he replied; "is it there?"

"It is. The reviews are praising it. She will do very well as a writer."

Kitty Sharston and her father appeared at that moment.

"Look, Miss Sharston," exclaimed Trevor; "you know Miss Aylmer. This is her story: have you read it?"

"I have not," said Kitty; "how interesting! I did not know that the number of the _Argonaut_ had come. Florence told me she was writing in it." She took up the number and turned the pages.

"Oh!" she exclaimed once or twice.

Trevor stood near.

Bertha went and warmed herself by the fire.

"Oh!" said Kitty, "this is good." Then she began to laugh. "Only I wish she were not quite so bitter," she exclaimed, a moment later. "It is wonderfully clever. Read it; do read it, Mr. Trevor."

Trevor was all-impatient to do so. He took the magazine when Kitty handed it to him, and began to read rapidly. Soon he was absorbed in the tale. As he proceeded with it an angry flush deepened on his cheeks.

"What is the matter?" said Bertha, who, for reasons of her own, was watching this little scene with interest.

"I don't like the tone of this," he said. "Of course it is clever."

"It is very clever; and what does the tone matter?" said Bertha. "You are one of those painfully priggish people, Mr. Trevor, who will never get on in the world. Have you not yet discovered that being extra good does not pay?"

"I am not extra good; but being good pays in the long run," he answered.

He darted an indignant glance at Bertha Keys and left the hall. Scarcely knowing why he did so, he strode into Mrs. Aylmer's boudoir. Bertha's desk, covered with papers, attracted his attention. There was a book lying near which she was reading. He picked it up, and was just turning away when a sc.r.a.p of thin paper scribbled over in Bertha's well-known hand arrested his eye. Before he meant to do so he found that he had read a sentence on this paper. There was a sharpness and subtlety in the wording of the sentence which puzzled him for a moment, until he was suddenly startled by the resemblance to the style of the story in the _Argonaut_ which he had just read. He scarcely connected the two yet, but his heart sank lower in his breast. He thought for a moment; then, opening his pocket-book, he placed the torn sc.r.a.p of paper in it and went away to his room. It was nearly time to dress for dinner.

Mrs. Aylmer always expected her adopted son to help her to receive her guests, but Trevor made no attempt to get into his evening suit. His valet knocked at the door, but he dismissed him.

"I don't want your services to-night, Johnson," said the young man.

Johnson withdrew.

"It is all horrible," thought Trevor; "all this wealth and luxury for me and all the roughness for her, poor girl! But why should I think so much about her as I do? Why do I hate that story, clever as it is? The story is not like her. It hurts me to think that she could have written it. It is possible that I"--he started: his heart beat more quickly than was its wont--"is it possible," he repeated softly, under his breath, "that I am beginning to like her too much? Surely not too much! Suppose that is the way out of the difficulty?" He laughed aloud, and there was relief in the sound.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.

A TETE-A-TETE.

Kitty Sharston, in the softest of white dresses, was playing Trevor's accompaniments at the grand piano. He had a beautiful voice--a very rich tenor. Kitty herself had a sweet and high soprano. The two now sang together. The music proceeded, broken now and then by s.n.a.t.c.hes of conversation. No one was specially listening to the young pair, although some eyes were watching them.

In a distant part of the room Sir John Wallis and Mrs. Aylmer were having a tete-a-tete.

"I like him," said Sir John. "You are lucky in having secured so worthy an heir for your property."