Molly Bawn Part 17

"But I do mind very much indeed. I mind dreadfully."

"Well, then, I apologize, and I am very sorry, and I won't do it again: is that enough?"

"No, the fact still remains," gazing at her hand with a little pout, as though the offending kiss were distinctly visible; "and I don't want it."

"But what can be done?"

"I think--you had better--take it back again," says she, the pretended pout dissolving into an irresistible smile, as she slips her fingers with a sudden unexpected movement into his; after which she breaks into a merry laugh."

"And now tell me," he persists, holding them close prisoners, and bestowing a loving caress upon each separately.

"Whether I love you? How can I, when I don't know myself? Perhaps at the end I may be sure. When I lie a-dying you must come to me, and bend over me, and say, 'Molly Bawn, do you love me?' And I shall whisper back with my last breath, 'yes' or 'no,' as the case may be."

"Don't talk of dying," he says, with a shudder, tightening his clasp.

"Why not? as we must die."

"But not now, not while we are young and happy. Afterward, when old age creeps on us and we look on love as weariness, it will not matter."

"To me, that is the horror of it," with a quick distasteful s.h.i.+ver, leaning forward in her earnestness, "to feel that sooner or later there will be no hope; that we _must_ go, whether with or without our own will,--and it is never with it, is it?"

"Never, I suppose."

"It does not frighten me so much to think that in a month, or perhaps next year, or at any moment, I may die,--there is a blessed uncertainty about that,--but to know that, no matter how long I linger, the time will surely come when no prayers, no entreaties, will avail. They say of one who has cheated death for seventy years, that he has had a good long life: taking that, then, as an average, I have just fifty-one years to live, only half that to enjoy. Next year it will be fifty, then forty-nine, and so on until it comes down to one. What shall I do then?"

"My own darling, how fanciful you are! your hands have grown cold as ice. Probably when you are seventy you will consider yourself a still fascinating person of middle age, and look upon these thoughts of to-day as the sickly fancies of an infant. Do not let us talk about it any more. Your face is white."

"Yes," says Molly, recovering herself with a sigh, "it is the one thing that horrifies me. John is religious, so is Letty, while I--oh, that I could find pleasure in it! You see," speaking after a slight pause, with a smile, "I am at heart a rebel, and hate to obey. Mind you never give me an order! How good it would be to be young, and gay, and full of easy laughter, always,--to have lovers at command, to have some one at my feet forever!"

"'Some one,'" sadly. "Would any one do? Oh, Molly, can you not be satisfied with me?"

"How can I be sure? At present--yes," running her fingers lightly down the earnest, handsome face upraised to hers, apparently quite forgetful of her late emotion.

"Well, at all events," says the young man, with the air of one who is determined to make the best of a bad bargain, "there is no man you like better than me."

"At present,--no," says the incorrigible Molly.

"You are the greatest flirt I ever met in my life," exclaims he, with sudden anger.

"Who? I?"

"Yes,--you," vehemently.

A pause. They are much farther apart by this time, and are looking anywhere but at each other. Molly has her lap full of daisies, and is stringing them into a chain in rather an absent fas.h.i.+on; while Luttrell, who is too angry to pretend indifference, is sitting with gloom on his brow and a straw in his mouth, which latter he is biting vindictively.

"I don't believe I quite understand you," says Molly at length.

"Do you not? I cannot remember saying anything very difficult of comprehension."

"I must be growing stupid, then. You have accused me of flirting; and how am I to understand that, I who never flirted? How should I? I would not know how."

"You must allow me to differ with you; or, at all events, let me say your imitation of it is highly successful."

"But," with anxious hesitation, "what is flirting?"

"Pshaw!" wrathfully, "have you been waiting for me to tell you? It is trying to make a fool of a fellow, neither more nor less. You are pretending to love me, when you know in your heart you don't care _that_ for me." The "that" is both forcible and expressive, and has reference to an indignant sound made by his thumb and his second finger.

"I was not aware that I ever 'pretended to love' you," replies Molly, in a tone that makes him wince.

"Well, let us say no more about it," cries he, springing to his feet, as though unable longer to endure his enforced quietude. "If you don't care for me, you don't, you know, and that is all about it. I dare say I shall get over it; and if not, why, I shall not be the only man in the world made miserable for a woman's amus.e.m.e.nt."

Molly has also risen, and, with her long daisy chain hanging from both her hands, is looking a perfect picture of injured innocence; although in truth she is honestly sorry for her cruel speech.

"I don't believe you know how unkind you are," she says, with a suspicion of tears in her voice, whether feigned or real he hardly dares conjecture. Feeling herself in the wrong, she seeks meanly to free herself from the false position by placing him there in her stead.

"Do not let us speak about unkindness, or anything else," says the young man, impatiently. "Of what use is it? It is the same thing always: I am obnoxious to you; we cannot put together two sentences without coming to open war."

"But whose fault was it this time? Think of what you accuse me! I did not believe you could be so rude to me!" with reproachful emphasis.

Here she directs a slow lingering glance at him from her violet eyes.

There are visible signs of relenting about her companion. He colors, and persistently refuses, after the first involuntary glance, to allow his gaze to meet hers again; which is, of all others, the surest symptom of a coming rout. There are some eyes that can do almost anything with a man. Molly's eyes are of this order. They are her strongest point; and were they her sole charm, were she deaf and dumb, I believe it would be possible to her, by the power of their expressive beauty alone, to draw most hearts into her keeping.

"Did you mean what you said just now, that you had no love for me?" he asks, with a last vain effort to be stern and unforgiving. "Am I to believe that I am no more to you than any other man?"

"Believe nothing," murmurs she, coming nearer to lay a timid hand upon his arm, and raising her face to his, "except this, that I am your own Molly."

"Are you?" cries he, in a subdued tone, straining her to his heart, and speaking with an emotional indrawing of the breath that betrays more than his words how deeply he is feeling, "my very own? Nay, more than that, Molly, you are my all, my world, my life: if ever you forget me, or give me up for another, you will kill me: remember that."

"I will remember it. I will never do it," replies she, soothingly, the touch of motherhood that is in all good women coming to the front as she sees his agitation. "Why should I, when you are such a dear old boy? Now come and sit down again, and be reasonable. See, I will tie you up with my flowery chain as punishment for your behavior, and"--with a demure smile--"the kiss you stole in the _melee_ without my permission."

"This is the chain by which I hold you," he says, rather sadly, surveying his wrists, round which the daisies cling. "The links that bind _me_ to _you_ are made of sterner stuff. Sweetheart,"

turning his handsome, singularly youthful face to hers, and speaking with an entreaty that savors strongly of despair, "do not let your beauty be my curse!"

"Why, who is fanciful now?" says Molly, making a little grimace at him.

"And truly, to hear you speak, one must believe love is blind. Is it Venus," saucily, "or Helen of Troy, I most closely resemble? or am I 'something more exquisite still'? It puzzles me why you should think so very highly of my personal charms. Ted," leaning forward to look into her lover's eyes, "tell me this. Have you been much away? Abroad, I mean, on the Continent and that?"

"Well, yes, pretty much so."

"Have you been to Paris?"

"Oh, yes, several times."

"Brussels?"

"Yes."

"Vienna?"

"No. I wait to go there with you."