Molly Bawn Part 70

"N--o," confesses her ladys.h.i.+p, smiling; "not yet."

"Ah! then don't blame me. I could have killed myself when I cried,"

says Molly, referring again to the past, with a little angry s.h.i.+ver; "but I felt so sorry for my poor, pretty, innocent ring. And he looked so handsome, so determined, when he flung it in the fire, with his eyes quite dark and his figure drawn up; and--and--I could not help wondering," says Molly, with a little tremble in her tone, "who next would love him--and who--he--would love."

"I never thought you were so fond of him, dearest," says Cecil, laying her hand softly on her friend's.

"Nor I,--until I lost him," murmurs poor Molly, with a vain attempt at composure. Two tears fall heavily into her lap; a sob escapes her.

"Now you are going to cry again," interposes Cecil, with hasty but kindly warning. "Don't. He is not going to fall in love with any one so long as you are single, take my word for it. Nonsense, my dear! cheer yourself with the certainty that he is at this very moment eating his heart out, because he knows better than I do that, though there may be many women, there is only one Molly Bawn in the world."

This reflection, although consolatory, has not the desired effect.

Instead of drying her eyes and declaring herself glad that Luttrell is unhappy, Molly grows more and more afflicted every moment.

"My dear girl," exclaims Lady Stafford, as a last resource, "do pray think of your complexion. I have finished crying; I shall give way to crying no more, because I wish to look my best to-morrow, to let him see what a charming person he has chosen to quarrel with. And my tears are not so destructive as yours, because mine arise from vexation, yours from feeling."

"I hardly know," says Molly, with an attempt at _nonchalance_ she is far from feeling, "I really think I cried more for my diamond than for--my lover. However, I shall take your advice; I shall think no more about it. To-morrow"--rising and running to the gla.s.s, and pus.h.i.+ng back her disordered hair from her face, that is lovely in spite of marring tears--"to-morrow I shall be gayer, brighter than he has ever yet seen me. What! shall I let him think I fret because of him! He saw me once in tears; he shall not see me so again."

"What a pity it is that grief should be so unbecoming!" says Cecil, laughing. "I always think what a guy Niobe must have been if she was indeed all tears."

"The worst thing about crying, I think," says Molly, "is the fatal desire one feels to blow one's nose: that is the horrid part of it. I knew I was looking odious all the time I was weeping over my ring, and that added to my discomfort. By the bye, Cecil, what were you doing at the table with a pencil just before we broke up to-night? Sir Penthony was staring at you fixedly all through,--wondering, I am sure, at your occupation, as, to tell the truth, was I."

"Nothing very remarkable. I was inditing a 'sonnet to your eyebrow,' or rather to your lids, they were so delicately tinted, and so much in unison with the extreme dejection of your entire bearing. I confess, unkind as it may sound, they moved me to laughter. Ah! that reminds me," says Cecil, her expression changing to one of comical terror, as she starts to her feet, "Plantagenet came up at the moment, and lest he should see my composition I hid it within the leaves of the blotting-book. There it is still, no doubt. What shall I do if any one finds it in the morning? I shall be read out of meeting, as I have an indistinct idea that, with a view to making you laugh, I rather caricatured every one in the room, more or less."

"Shall I run down for it?" says Molly. "I won't be a moment, and you are quite undressed. In the blotting-book, you said? I shan't be any time."

"Unless the ghosts detain you."

"Or, what would be much worse, any of our friends."

CHAPTER XXVI.

"A single stream of all her soft brown hair Poured on one side.

Half light, half shade, She stood, a sight to make an old man young."

--_Gardener's Daughter._

Thrusting her little bare feet into her slippers, she takes up a candle and walks softly down the stairs, past the smoking and billiard-rooms, into the drawing-room, where the paper has been left.

All the lamps have been extinguished, leaving the apartment, which is immense, steeped in darkness. Coming into it from the brilliantly-lighted hall outside, with only a candle in her hand, the gloom seems even greater, and overcomes her sight to such a degree that she has traversed at least one-half its length before she discovers she is not its only occupant.

Seated before a writing-table, with his hand, indeed, upon the very blotting-book she seeks, and with only another candle similar to hers to lend him light, sits Luttrell.

As her eyes meet his she starts, colors violently, and is for the moment utterly abashed.

Involuntarily she glances down at the soft blue dressing-gown she wears, over which her hair--brushed and arranged for the night--falls in soft, rippling, gold-brown ma.s.ses, and from thence to the little naked feet that peep out shamelessly from their blue slippers.

The crimson blood rises to her face. Covered with a painful though pretty confusion, she stands quite still, and lets her tell-tale eyes seek the ground.

Luttrell has risen, and, without any particular design, has advanced toward her. Perhaps the force of habit compels him to do so; perhaps intense and not altogether welcome surprise. For the future to see her is but to add one more pang to his intolerable regret.

"I was writing to you," he says, indicating with a slight movement of the hand the chair on which he has been sitting, and thus breaking the awful silence which threatens to last until next day, so mute has Molly grown. With a delicate sense of chivalry he endeavors to appear oblivious of her rather scanty and disconcerting--however becoming--costume. "But as it is, perhaps I may as well say to you what is on my mind,--if you will permit me."

"I cannot forbid your speech." Coldly.

"I will not keep you long. But"--with a slight, almost imperceptible, glance at her dressing-gown--"perhaps you are in a hurry?"

"I am--rather." At this juncture, had they been friends, Molly would undoubtedly have laughed. As it is, she is profoundly serious. "Still, if it is anything important, I will hear you."

"Can I do anything for you?" asks he, hesitating, evidently fearing to approach the desired subject.

"Nothing, thank you. I came only for a paper,--left in the blotting-book. If you wish to speak, do so quickly, as I must go."

Then, as he still hesitates, "Why do you pause?"

"Because I fear incurring your displeasure once again; and surely the pa.s.sages between us have been bad enough already."

"Do not fear." Coldly. "It is no longer in your power to wound me."

"True. I should not have allowed that fact to escape me. Yet hear me.

It is my love urges me on."

"Your--love!" With slow and scornful disbelief.

"Yes,--mine. In spite of all that has come and gone, you know me well enough to understand how dear you still are to me. No, you need not say a word. I can see by your face that you will never pardon. There is no greater curse than to love a woman who gives one but bare tolerance in return."

"Why did you not think of all this while there was yet time?"

"One drifts--until it is too late to seek for remedies. My heaviest misfortune lies in the fact that I cannot root you from my heart."

"A terrible misfortune, no doubt,"--with a little angry flash from her azure eyes,--"but one that time will cure."

"Will it?" Wistfully. "Shall I indeed learn to forget you, Molly,--to look back upon my brief but happy past as an idle dream? I hardly hope so much."

"And would you waste all your best days," asks she, in tones that tremble ever so little, "in thinking of me? Remember all you said,--all you meant,--how 'thankful you were to find me out in time.'"

"And will you condemn forever because of a few words spoken in a moment of despair and terrible disappointment?" pleads he. "I acknowledge my fault. I was wrong; I was too hasty. I behaved like a brute, if you will; but then I believed I had grounds for fear. When once I saw your face, heard your voice, looked into your eyes, I knew how false my accusations were; but it was then too late."

"Too late, indeed."

"How calmly you can say it!" with exquisite reproach. "Have five minutes blotted out five months? Did you know all the anguish I endured on seeing you with--Shadwell--I think you might forgive."

"I might. But I could not forget. Would I again consent to be at the mercy of one who without a question p.r.o.nounced me guilty? A thousand times no!"