Molly Bawn Part 43

"Yesterday morning!" says Miss Ma.s.sereene, running all her ten little white fingers through her rebellious locks, and glancing up at him despairingly. "Do you really expect me to remember all I may have said yesterday morning? Think how long ago it is."

"Shall I refresh your memory? You gave me to understand that if our engagement came to an end you would be rather relieved than otherwise."

"Did I? How very odd! Yes, by the bye, I do recollect something of the kind. And you led up to it, did you not?--almost asked me to say it, I think, by your unkind remarks."

"Let us keep to the truth," says Luttrell, sternly. "You know such an idea would never cross my mind. While you--I hardly know what to think.

All last night you devoted yourself to Shadwell."

"That is wrong; he devoted himself to me. Besides, I spoke a little to Mr. Potts."

"Yes, I suppose you could not be satisfied to let even an idiot like Potts go free."

"Idiot! Good gracious! are you talking of your friend Mr. Potts? Why, I was tired to death of hearing his praises sung in my ears morning, noon, and night at Brooklyn; and now, because I am barely civil to him, he must be called an idiot! That is rather severe on him, is it not?"

"Never mind Potts. I am thinking princ.i.p.ally of Shadwell. Of course, you are quite at liberty to spend your time with whom you choose, but at all events I have the right to know what you mean seriously to do.

You have to decide between Shadwell and me."

"I shall certainly not be rude to Philip," Molly says, decisively, leaning against the trunk of a flowering tree, and raising defiant, beautiful violet eyes to his. "You seem to pa.s.s your time very agreeably with Marcia. I do not complain, mind, but I like fairness in all things."

"I thought little country girls like you were all sweetness, and freshness, and simplicity," says Luttrell, with sudden vehemence. "What lies one hears in one's lifetime! Why, you might give lessons in coquetry and cruelty to many a town-bred woman."

"Might I? I am glad you appraise me so highly. I am glad I have escaped all the 'sweetness, and freshness,' and general imbecility the orthodox village maiden is supposed to possess. Though why a girl must necessarily be devoid of wit simply because she has spent her time in good, healthy air, is a thing that puzzles me. Have you delayed me only to say this?"

"No, Molly," cries Luttrell, desperately, while Molly, with cool fingers and a calm face, plucks a flower to pieces, "it is impossible you can have so soon forgotten. Think of all the happy days at Brooklyn, all the vows we interchanged. Is there inconstancy in the very air at Herst?"

His words are full of entreaty, his manner is not. There is an acidity about the latter that irritates Molly.

"All Irish people are fickle," she says recklessly, "and I am essentially Irish."

"All Irish people are kind-hearted, and you are not so," retorts he.

"Every hour yields me an additional pang. For the last two days you have avoided me,--you do not care to speak to me,--you----"

"How can I, when you spend your entire time upbraiding me and accusing me of things of which I am innocent?"

"I neither accuse nor upbraid; I only say that----"

"Well, I don't think you can say much more,"--maliciously,--"because--I see Philip coming."

He has taken her hand, but now, stung by her words and her evident delight at Shadwell's proximity, flings it furiously from him.

"If so, it is time I went," he says, and turning abruptly from her, walks toward the corner that must conceal him from view.

A pa.s.sing madness seizes Molly. Fully conscious that Luttrell is still within hearing, fatally conscious that it is within her power to wound him and gain a swift revenge for all the hard words she chooses to believe he has showered down on her, she sings,--slightly altering the ideas of the poet to suit her own taste,--she sings, as though to the approaching Philip:

"He is coming, my love, my sweet!

Was it ever so airy a tread, My heart would know it and beat, Had it lain for a century dead."

She smiles coquettishly, and glances at Shadwell from under her long dark lashes. He is near enough to hear and understand; so is Luttrell.

With a suppressed curse the latter grinds his heel into the innocent gravel and departs.

CHAPTER XVI.

"Love is hurt with jar and fret, Love is made a vague regret, Eyes with idle tears are wet."

--_The Miller's Daughter._

It is evening; the shadows are swiftly gathering. Already the dusk--sure herald of night--is here. Above in the trees the birds are crooning their last faint songs and ruffling their feathers on their night-perches.

How short the days have grown! Even into the very morning of sweet September there has fallen a breath of winter,--a chill, cold breath that tells us summer lies behind.

Luttrell, with downcast eyes and embittered heart, tramples through the same green wood (now, alas, fuller of fallen leaves) where first, at Herst, he and Molly re-met.

With a temperament as warm but less hopeful than hers, he sees the imaginary end that lies before him and his beloved. She has forsaken him, she is the bride of another,--that other is Shadwell. She is happy with him. This last thought, strange to say, is the unkindest cut of all.

He has within his hand a stout stick he took from a tree as he walked along; at this point of the proceeding he breaks it in two and flings it to one side. Happy! away from him, with perhaps only a jesting recollection of all the sweet words, the tender thoughts he has bestowed upon her! The thought is agony; and, if so, what will the reality be?

At all events he need not witness it. He will throw up his commission, and go abroad,--that universal refuge for broken hearts; though why we must intrude our griefs and low spirits and general unpleasantnesses upon our foreign neighbors is a subject not yet sufficiently canva.s.sed.

It seems so unkind toward our foreign neighbors.

A rather shaky but consequently picturesque bridge stretches across a little stream that slowly, lovingly babbles through this part of the wood. Leaning upon its parapet, Luttrell gives himself up a prey to gloomiest forebodings, and with the utmost industry calls up before him all the most miserable possibilities. He has reached the verge of suicide,--in a moment more (in his "mind's eye") he will be over, when a delicious voice behind him says, demurely:

"May I pa.s.s, please?"

It is Molly: such a lovely Molly!--such a naughty unrepentant, winsome Molly, with the daintiest and widest of straw hats, twined with wild flowers, thrown somewhat recklessly toward the back of her head.

"I am sorry to disturb you," says this apparition, gazing at him unflinchingly with big, innocent eyes, "but I do not think there is room on this bridge for two to pa.s.s."

Luttrell instantly draws his tall, slight, handsome figure to its fullest height, and, without looking at her, literally crushes himself against the frail railing behind him, lest by any means he should touch her as she pa.s.ses. But she seems in no hurry to pa.s.s.

"It is my opinion," she says, in a matter-of-fact tone of warning, "that those wooden railings have seen their best days; and if you try them much harder you will find, if not a watery grave, at all events an exceedingly moist coat."

There is so much truth in this remark that Luttrell sees the wisdom of abstaining from further trial of their strength, and, falling into an easier position, makes as though he too would leave the bridge by the side from which she came on it. This brings them nearly face to face.

Now, dear reader, were you ever in the middle of a crossing, eager to reach the other side of the street? And did you ever meet anybody coming toward you on that crossing, also anxious to reach his other side of the street? And did you ever find yourself and that person politely dancing before each other for a minute or so, debarring each other's progress, because, unhappily, both your thoughts led you in the same direction? And did you ever feel an irresistible desire to stop short and laugh aloud in that person's face? Because now all this happens to Molly and Luttrell.

Each appears full of a dignified haste to quit the other's society.

Molly steps to the right, so does Luttrell to the left, at the very same instant; Luttrell, with angry correction of his first movement, steps again to his first position, and so, without pausing, does Molly.

Each essay only leaves them as they began, looking fair into each other's eyes. When this has happened three times, Molly stops short and bursts into a hearty laugh.

"Do try to stay still for one second," she says, with a smile, "and then perhaps we shall manage it. Thank you."

Then, being angry with herself, for her mistaken merriment, like a true woman she vents her displeasure upon him.

"I suppose you knew I was coming here this evening," she exclaims, with ridiculous injustice, "and followed to spoil any little peace I might have?"