A Girl of the Commune Part 30

"I thought perhaps you might have done so, and might possibly be inclined towards the vocation you so scornfully repudiated when I suggested it before. I intended to ask you yesterday, but it would not have been fair when you were so weak and shaken."

The girl had glanced at him and had then flushed hotly.

"I don't know--I am not sure--what you mean."

"And I am sure that you know very well, Mary, that I mean the vocation of taking care of me, which you repudiated with scorn--in fact refused to entertain it seriously at all. Of course there may have been other grounds, but the one you laid stress on was that I was lazy and purposeless, and that if you ever did take up such a vocation it would be to take care of some one you could respect. I don't say for an instant that I approach to that alt.i.tude, but at least I may say I am no longer an idler, that I have worked hard, and that I have every hope of success. You see, too, that I want you more than I did then. I am a poor artist and not the heir to a good estate. But as you are fond of sacrificing yourself, that may not be altogether an objection. At any rate, dear, I think I shall be able to keep you comfortably. I am not sure I should ever have mustered up courage enough to have spoken on this subject again, had it not been for yesterday. But that gave me a little hope that you really had come to care about me a little, and that possibly you might be willing to change your plans again in my favor."

"I did not think you really loved me then," she said. "I thought it was just a pa.s.sing fancy."

"You see it was not, dear. All these months that I have worked hard, it was partly from the love of art and with the hope that I might be a really great artist, but at the bottom of it all along has been the thought of you and the determination that in one respect I would become worthy of you."

"Don't talk like that, Cuthbert. I know now that I was a headstrong, conceited girl, thinking I was strong when I was as weak as water. You were right when you said I was not yet a woman, for I had never found that I had a heart. It is I who am unworthy."

"Well, it is no question of worthiness now. The question is do you love me as I love you."

"Are you sure you do, Cuthbert? I have thought all these months that you had taken me at my word, and that it was but as a friend you regarded me. Are you sure it is not grat.i.tude for what little I did for you in the hospital! Still more that it is not because I showed my feelings so plainly the day before yesterday, and that it is from pity as well as grat.i.tude that you speak now."

"Then you were really a little jealous, Mary?"

"You know I was. It was shameful of me to show it, so shameful that I have hated myself since. I know that after doing so, I ought to say no--no a thousand times. I love you, Cuthbert, I love you; but I would rather never marry you than feel it was out of pity that you took me.

That would be too hard to bear."

They were both standing now.

"You are talking nonsense, child," he said, tenderly, as he took her hand. "You know I love you truly. Surely my pictures must have told you that. Honestly now, did you not feel that it was so?"

"I did not know you loved me then, Cuthbert. There were other things, you know, that made me feel it could not be so, but then that for the first time I really knew----" and she stopped.

"That you loved me, darling?" and he drew her closer to him. "Now, you gave me a straightforward answer before--I insist on as straightforward a one now."

And this time the answer was not, No.

"Mind," he said a few minutes afterwards, "your vocation is definitely fixed at last, Mary, and there must be no more changing."

"As if you did not know there won't be," she said, saucily. And then suddenly altering her tone she went on, "Now, Cuthbert, you will surely tell me what you would not before. What did you find out? It is something about my father, I am sure."

"Let me think before I answer you," he said, and then sat silent for two or three minutes. "Well," he said, at last, "I think you have a right to know. You may be sure that in any case I should before, for your sake, have done everything in my power towards arranging things amicably with him. Now, of course, that feeling is vastly stronger, and for my own sake as well as yours I should abstain from any action against him.

Mind, at present I have only vague suspicions, but if those suspicions turn out true, it will be evident that your father has been pursuing a very tortuous policy, to put it no stronger, in order to gain possession of Fairclose. I cannot say definitely as yet what I shall do, but at present I incline to the opinion that I shall drop the matter altogether."

"Not for my sake, Cuthbert," she said, firmly. "I have always felt uneasy about it. I can scarcely say why, but I am afraid it is so. Of course I know my father better than people in general do. I have known that he was not what he seemed to be. It has always been my sorest trouble, that we have never got on well together. He has never liked me, and I have not been able to respect him. I know that if he has done anything absolutely wrong--it seems terrible that I should even think such a thing possible--but if it has been so--I know you will not expose him."

"We will not talk any more about it, dear," Cuthbert interrupted; "it is all the vaguest suspicion, so let us put it aside altogether now. Just at present I am a great deal too happy to give as much as a thought to unpleasant matters. We have to attend to the business of the hour, and you have the two years of love of which I have been deprived to make up for."

"I am very, very glad, Cuthbert, that I was not in love with you then."

"Why?"

"Because we should have started all wrong. I don't think I should ever have come to look up to you and honor you as I do now. I should never have been cured of my silly ideas, and might even have thought that I had made some sort of sacrifice in giving up my plans. Besides, then you were what people call a good match, and now no one can think that it is not for love only."

"Well, at any rate, Mary, we shall have between us enough to keep us out of the workhouse even if I turn out an absolute failure."

"You know you won't do that."

"I hope not, but at any rate one is liable to illness, to loss of sight, and all sorts of other things, and as we have between us four hundred a year we can manage very comfortably, even if I come to an end of my ardor for work and take to idleness again."

"I am not afraid of that," she smiled, "after painting those two pictures, you could not stop painting. I don't think when anyone can do good work of any sort, he can get tired of it, especially when the work is art. My only fear is that I shan't get my fair share of your time."

"Well, if I see you getting jealous, Mary, I have the means of reducing you to silence by a word."

"Have you, indeed? Will you please tell me what word is that?"

"I shall just say, Minette!"

Mary's color flamed up instantly.

"If you do, sir; if you do----" and then stopped.

"Something terrible will come of it, eh. Well, it was not fair."

"It was quite fair, Cuthbert. It will always be a painful recollection to me, and I hope a lesson too."

"It will not be a painful recollection to me," he laughed. "I think I owe Minette a debt of grat.i.tude. Now, what do you say to taking a drive, Mary? Horse-flesh has gone down five hundred per cent. in the market in the last three days, and I was able to get a fiacre on quite reasonable terms."

"Is it waiting here still? How extravagant, Cuthbert, it must have been here nearly an hour."

"I should say I have been here over two hours and a quarter according to that clock."

"Dear me, what will Madame Michaud think? Shall I tell her, Cuthbert?"

"I don't care a snap what she thinks. You can do just as you like about telling her. Perhaps it will be as well, as I intend to see a good deal of you in the next few days. But if you write home don't say anything about it. There are reasons which we can talk over another time, why it will be best to keep it to ourselves for a time."

Mary nodded. That he wished a thing was quite sufficient for her at the present moment.

"Do you want me to go out with you?" she asked.

"Just as you like. I believe that as a rule a ring has to be purchased at the conclusion of an arrangement such as we have just entered into, and I thought you might just as well chose one yourself."

"Oh, I would much rather not," she exclaimed, "and besides, I think for to-day I would rather sit quiet and think it all over and realize how happy I am."

"Well, for to-day you shall have your own way, Mary, but you have been doing a good deal more thinking than is good for you, and after to-day we must go out for a good walk regularly. You see we have both to get up our strength. I had quite forgotten I had anything the matter with me, and you only wanted rousing, dear. The doctor said as much to me, and you know, after all, happiness is the best tonic."

"Then I must be perfectly cured already, Cuthbert, but remember you must take care of yourself. The best of tonics won't set any one up at once who has had a real illness as you have had. You want something more substantial. Good strong soups and roast beef are the essentials in your case. Remember, sir, I have been your nurse and mean to continue so till your cure is complete. You will come again to-morrow, Cuthbert?"

"Of course, dear. Now about that ring. I have observed you never wear one. Have you one you can lend me, or must I measure with a piece of thread?"

"I will get you one, Cuthbert. I am not without such a possession although I have never worn one. I looked upon it as a female vanity,"

she added, with a laugh, "in the days when I thought myself above such things. What a little fool you must have thought me, Cuthbert?"