CHAPTER X

REJECTED

It was after our second waltz I did it. In the usual quiet corner.-which, that time, was in the shadow of a palm in the hall. Before I had got into my stride she checked me,-touching my sleeve with her fan, turning towards me with startled eyes.

'Stop, please!'

But I was not to be stopped. Cliff Challoner pa.s.sed, with Gerty Cazell. I fancy that, as he pa.s.sed, he nodded. I did not care. I was wound up to go, and I went it. No man knows how he can talk till he does talk,-to the girl he wants to marry. It is my impression that I gave her recollections of the Restoration poets. She seemed surprised,-not having previously detected in me the poetic strain, and insisted on cutting in.

'Mr Atherton, I am so sorry.'

Then I did let fly.

'Sorry that I love you!-why? Why should you be sorry that you have become the one thing needful in any man's eyes,-even in mine? The one thing precious,-the one thing to be altogether esteemed! Is it so common for a woman to come across a man who would be willing to lay down his life for her that she should be sorry when she finds him?'

'I did not know that you felt like this, though I confess that I have had my-my doubts.'

'Doubts!-I thank you.'

'You are quite aware, Mr Atherton, that I like you very much.'

'Like me!-Bah!'

'I cannot help liking you,-though it may be "bah."'

'I don't want you to like me,-I want you to love me.'

'Precisely,-that is your mistake.'

'My mistake!-in wanting you to love me!-when I love you-'

'Then you shouldn't,-though I can't help thinking that you are mistaken even there.'

'Mistaken!-in supposing that I love you!-when I a.s.sert and rea.s.sert it with the whole force of my being! What do you want me to do to prove I love you,-take you in my arms and crush you to my bosom, and make a spectacle of you before every creature in the place?'

'I'd rather you wouldn't, and perhaps you wouldn't mind not talking quite so loud. Mr Challoner seems to be wondering what you're shouting about.'

'You shouldn't torture me.'

She opened and shut her fan,-as she looked down at it I am disposed to suspect that she smiled.

'I am glad we have had this little explanation, because, of course, you are my friend.'

'I am not your friend.'

'Pardon me, you are.'

'I say I'm not,-if I can't be something else, I'll be no friend.'

She went on,-calmly ignoring me,-playing with her fan.

'As it happens, I am, just now, in rather a delicate position, in which a friend is welcome.'

'What's the matter? Who's been worrying you,-your father?'

'Well,-he has not,-as yet; but he may be soon.'

'What's in the wind?'

'Mr Lessingham.'

She dropped her voice,-and her eyes. For the moment I did not catch her meaning.

'What?'

'Your friend, Mr Lessingham.'

'Excuse me, Miss Lindon, but I am by no means sure that anyone is ent.i.tled to call Mr Lessingham a friend of mine.'

'What!-Not when I am going to be his wife?'

That took me aback. I had had my suspicions that Paul Lessingham was more with Marjorie than he had any right to be, but I had never supposed that she could see anything desirable in a stick of a man like that. Not to speak of a hundred and one other considerations,-Lessingham on one side of the House, and her father on the other; and old Lindon girding at him anywhere and everywhere-with his high-dried Tory notions of his family importance,-to say nothing of his fortune.

I don't know if I looked what I felt,-if I did, I looked uncommonly blank.

'You have chosen an appropriate moment, Miss Lindon, to make to me such a communication.'

She chose to disregard my irony.

'I am glad you think so, because now you will understand what a difficult position I am in.'

'I offer you my hearty congratulations.'

'And I thank you for them, Mr Atherton, in the spirit in which they are offered, because from you I know they mean so much.'

I bit my lip,-for the life of me I could not tell how she wished me to read her words.

'Do I understand that this announcement has been made to me as one of the public?'

'You do not. It is made to you, in confidence, as my friend,-as my greatest friend; because a husband is something more than friend.' My pulses tingled. 'You will be on my side?'

She had paused,-and I stayed silent.

'On your side,-or Mr Lessingham's?'