Parlous Times Part 40

"Yes."

"But it's impossible--if you can believe----!" he cried hotly.

"What Bob said, about you and his wife?" she interjected. "I don't, but it made me very angry just the same. You see, up to last night, you had been an ideal to me. Then suddenly you proposed to change all our relations; and just at that moment Bob came in and made those charges, which, though untrue, showed me how very human you would have to be to me if I accepted you, and I was bitter and lost my head."

"But if you didn't believe them, why did you refuse to give me a definite answer?"

"Because you'd brought me face to face with new conditions. I wanted to readjust myself to them."

"But if you love me---- Do you love me?" he said earnestly.

"Yes, Jim," she replied, with a quiet seriousness that carried conviction to him, "I do love you."

"Really, love me?"

"Really, more than I have loved any man--ever."

"But then, how can you doubt?" and he turned impulsively towards her.

"You'd better keep both hands on the reins--the pony is only just broken. As I was saying--I love you--in my way--but that's not all, it's merely the beginning. If I only had to meet you for the rest of our lives at afternoon tea and dinner, and we had on our best clothes and our company manners, there would be no question--but you see there are breakfasts and luncheons to be considered. Suppose after our honeymoon was over I was to discover that you wanted to live at West Hempstead, or dined habitually at the National Liberal Club, or wore ready-made suits--it might wreck my life's happiness."

Her sincerity had disappeared, and her change in manner grated on him.

He was certain she did not mean what she was saying, but he forced a laugh in replying:--

"Diplomats are not allowed to belong to political clubs, in the first place," he said, "and I've been told that well-cut clothes may be met with even at the N. L. C. Besides, if you loved me, it wouldn't really matter."

"Ah! But it might, and that's just the point. Either I love _you_, the real, imperfect, human _you_--and nothing else counts--or else I love the Secretary of the ---- Legation, in a frock coat or a dress suit, and everything does count. I've got to determine which. My feminine intuition will tell me that in an instant some day, and then I can answer you."

"Let us hope that your feminine intuition will make up its mind to act quickly then, for I must be getting back to London in a few days."

"Why?" she cried. "What have you to do?"

What indeed, when the canny old messenger the night before had told him that this beautiful girl was the main spring of the conspiracy he was here to crush? He did not believe that, but the whole conversation had revolted him--it was not decent somehow to discuss the most serious things of life flippantly. His face showed his feelings.

She was quick to take the cue.

"I doubt if you really know yourself," she continued. "Suppose Madame Darcy were unmarried-- I have sometimes thought----"

"Suppose the impossible," he interrupted. "Suppose you should decide to drop her husband----"

"I wonder," she said, ignoring his petulant outburst, "if you would mind my asking you a very frank question?"

"About the Colonel?"

"Yes. You see I've been thinking a good deal of what you said the other night, but of course one can't throw over old friends without good cause--merely for marital infelicity--there are always two sides to those stories, you know. I was wondering if there was anything else--anything about him which you knew and I wouldn't be likely to-- I've sometimes thought--that perhaps----" she paused and looked inquiringly at him.

The Secretary longed to tell her the truth; but remembering his Chief's instructions, and chastened by his late reverse, hardened his heart.

"As for that," he replied guardedly, "he doesn't bear an altogether savoury reputation, I've understood, but as my personal knowledge of his affairs dated with his wife's visit to me two or three days ago--my information is comparatively recent."

She smiled contentedly, and changed the subject, by suggesting that they should get out and walk. A long hill was before them, and since from the construction of governess carts the tendency of an up-grade is to put all the weight at the rear, it seemed advisable to descend.

"To give the pony a fighting chance," as the Secretary suggested.

Miss Fitzgerald complained that it was hot, and, barring the fact of cruelty to animals, a nuisance to have to climb the hill; saying which, she took off her hat, giving an un.o.bstructed view of her hair.

If there is any excuse for the fact that the Secretary forgot his good resolutions, it must lie in the heart of the reader, who perhaps has been young some time himself, and had the exquisite pleasure of driving during a long, perfect English afternoon, through glorious wooded lanes, and all the picturesque antiquity which England alone knows, with a winsome Irish girl, with a peaches-and-cream complexion, a ravis.h.i.+ng laugh, bewitching blue eyes, and golden hair loose upon her shoulders, which a madcap wind whipped in his face.

"I think it's glorious," said Stanley, reverting to the landscape, a little later, when the conversation had turned to less serious topics, "There's no country like England--but it's comparable to the little girl of the nursery rhyme--

"When it is good, it is very very good, And when it is bad, it is horrid."

"I'm glad to see you appreciate it at its true worth. Isn't this scene perfect--but think of it in a November fog," she said.

"Think of those people wasting their afternoon on the lawn at the Hall, drinking bitter tea and eating heavy cake."

"I dare say some of them are above those things," replied Belle.

"Lady Isabelle and the Lieutenant?" queried the Secretary.

"Lady Isabelle and the Lieutenant," she acquiesced. "I wonder if there is really anything serious in that affair?"

She said this to probe Stanley, and, as a result, she put him on his guard.

"What do you think?" he asked cautiously. "I imagine the Dowager could never be induced to approve of it."

"The Marchioness!" cried Belle scornfully, as, having reached the summit of the hill with a long, downward slope before them, they remounted into the cart. "She doesn't count."

"Oh, doesn't she?" said the Secretary. "She counts a great deal, as"--he added half to himself--"I ought to know."

They had already turned homewards and were rattling down the hill, and at that moment they swung at top speed round a corner, to come upon a wrecked luggage cart, which blocked the whole road. Without hesitation, Stanley pulled the pony up on its haunches, bringing them to a stop with a tremendous jerk, within three feet of the obstacle; nearly throwing them out, and driving, for the time being, all thoughts of their interrupted conversation from the Secretary's head.

"Why, Tim!" he said, recognising the driver as one of Mrs. Roberts'

servants. "You've had a spill!"

"Axle broke, sir. That's what it is, and if it hadn't been as the carrier"--indicating a second cart on the further side--"had happened to come up just now, I don't know as Mister Kingsland would have got his luggage."

"Lieutenant--Kingsland--is he going away?"

"Why, didn't you know that, sir? Called sudden on the death of his uncle--Miss Fitzgerald there--she----"

"Don't spend all the afternoon gossiping, Tim," broke in that young lady, sharply--"but attend to your work. Drive round somehow, can't you?"--she continued, addressing the Secretary--"or we shall be late for dinner?"

"Don't you see it's impossible? Besides I want to help Tim."

"Nonsense, turn round and we'll drive back--some other way. Tim and the carrier can help themselves," she cried petulantly.

"I'm not so sure of that," drawled the driver. "Them chests are powful heavy--for all the Lieutenant said they contained gla.s.s picture slides--it's more like lead."