A Little Rebel, Margaret Wolfe Hungerford [best novels to read for beginners txt] 📗

no!

The professor had seen the glad rush of the girl towards him, and a terrible pang of delight had run through all his veins--to be followed by a reaction. She had come to him because she _wanted_ him, because he might be of use to her, not because-- What had Hastings been saying to her? His wrathful eyes are on his brother rather than on her when he says:

"You are tired?"

"Yes," says Perpetua.

"Shall I take you to Gwendoline?"

"Yes," says Perpetua again.

"Miss Wynter is in my care at present," says Sir Hastings, coming indolently forward. "Shall I take you to Lady Baring?" asks he, addressing Perpetua with a suave smile.

"She will come with me," says the professor, with cold decision.

"A command!" says Sir Hastings, laughing lightly. "See what it is, Miss Wynter, to have a hard-hearted guardian." He shrugs his shoulders. Perpetua makes him a little bow, and follows the professor out of the conservatory.

"If you are tired," says the professor, somewhat curtly, and without looking at her, "I should think the best thing you could do would be to go to bed!"

This astounding advice receives but little favor at Miss Wynter's hands.

"I am tired of your brother," says she promptly. "He is as tiresome a creation as I know--but not of your sister's party; and--I'm too old to be sent to bed, even by a _Guardian!!"_ She puts a very big capital to the last word.

"I don't want to send you to bed," says the professor simply. "Though I think little girls like you----"

"I am not a little girl," indignantly.

"Certainly you are not a big one," says he. It is an untimely remark. Miss Wynter's hitherto ill-subdued anger now bursts into flame.

"I can't help it if I'm not big," cries she. "It isn't my fault. I can't help it either that papa sent me to you. _I_ didn't want to go to you. It wasn't my fault that I was thrown upon your hands. And--and"--her voice begins to tremble--"it isn't my fault either that you _hate_ me."

"That I--hate you!" The professor's voice is cold and shocked.

"Yes. It is true. You need not deny it. You _know_ you hate me." They are now in an angle of the hall where few people come and go, and are, for the moment, virtually alone.

"Who told you that I hated you?" asks the professor in a peremptory sort of way.

"No," says she, shaking her head, "I shall not tell you that, but I have heard it all the same."

"One hears a great many things if one is foolish enough to listen." Curzon's face is a little pale now. "And--I can guess who has been talking to you."

"Why should I not listen? It is true, is it not?"

She looks up at him. She seems tremulously anxious for the answer.

"You want me to deny it then?"

"Oh no, _no!"_ she throws out one hand with a little gesture of mingled anger and regret. "Do you think I want you to _lie_ to me? There I am wrong. After all," with a half smile, sadder than most sad smiles because of the youth and sweetness of it, "I do not blame you. I _am_ a trouble, I suppose, and all troubles are hateful. I"--holding out her hand--"shall take your advice, I think, and go to bed."

"It was bad advice," says Curzon, taking the hand and holding it. "Stay up, enjoy yourself, dance----"

"Oh! I am not dancing," says she as if offended.

"Why not?" eagerly. "Better dance than sleep at your age. You--you mistook me. Why go so soon?"

She looks at him with a little whimsical expression.

"I shall not know you _at all_, presently," says she. "Your very appearance to-night is strange to me, and now your sentiments! No, I shall not be swayed by you. Good-night, good-bye!" She smiles at him in the same sorrowful little way, and takes a step or two forward.

"Perpetua," says the professor sternly, "before you go, you must listen to me. You said just now you would not hear me lie to you--you shall hear only the truth. Whoever told you that I hated you is the most unmitigated liar on record!"

Perpetua rubs her fan up and down against her cheek for a little bit.

"Well--I'm glad you don't hate me," says she, "but still I'm a worry. Never mind,"--sighing--"I daresay I shan't be so for long."

"You mean?" asks the professor anxiously.

"Nothing--nothing at all. Good-night. Good-night _indeed."_

"Must you go? Is enjoyment nothing to you?"

"Ah! you have killed all that for me," says she. This parting shaft she hurls at him--_malice prepense_. It is effectual. By it she murders sleep as thoroughly as ever did Macbeth. The professor spends the remainder of the night pacing up and down his rooms.


CHAPTER XIII.



"Through thick and thin, both over bank and bush,
In hopes her to attain by hook or crook."



"You will begin to think me a fixture," says Hardinge, with a somewhat embarrassed laugh, flinging himself into an armchair.

"You know you are always welcome," says the professor gently, if somewhat absently.

It is next morning, and he looks decidedly the worse for his sleeplessness. His face seems really old, his eyes are sunk in his head. The breakfast lying untouched upon the table tells its own tale.

"Dissipation doesn't agree with you," says Hardinge with a faint smile.

"No. I shall give it up," returns Curzon, his laugh a trifle grim.

"I was never more surprised in my life than when I saw you at your sister's last evening. I was relieved, too--sometimes it is necessary for a man to go out, and--and see how things are going on with his own eyes."

"I wonder when that would be?" asks the professor indifferently.

"When a man is a guardian," replies Hardinge promptly, and with evident meaning.

The professor glances quickly at him.

"You mean----?" says he.

"Oh! yes, of course I mean something," says Hardinge impatiently. "But I don't suppose you want me to explain myself. You were there last night--you must have seen for yourself."

"Seen what?"

"Pshaw!" says Hardinge, throwing up his head, and flinging his cigarette into the empty fireplace. "I saw you go into the conservatory. You found her there, and--_him._ It is beginning to be the chief topic of conversation amongst his friends just now. The betting is already pretty free."

"Go on," says the professor.

"I needn't go on. You know it now, if you didn't before."

"It is you who know it--not I. _Say it!"_ says the professor, almost fiercely. "It is about her?"

"Your ward? Yes. Your brother it seems has made up his mind to bestow upon her his hand, his few remaining acres, and," with a sneer, "his spotless reputation."

_"Hardinge!"_ cries the professor, springing to his feet as if shot. He is evidently violently agitated. His companion mistakes the nature of his excitement.

"Forgive me!" says he quickly. "Of course _nothing_ can excuse my speaking of him like that--to you. But I feel you ought to be told. Miss Wynter is in your care, you are in a measure responsible for her future happiness--the happiness of her whole _life,_ Curzon--and if anything goes wrong with her----"

The professor puts up his hand as if to check him. He has grown ashen-grey, and the other hand resting on the back of the chair is visibly trembling.

"Nothing shall go wrong with her," says he, in a curious tone.

Hardinge regards him keenly. Is this pallor, this unmistakable trepidation, caused only by his dislike to hear his brother's real character exposed?

"Well, I have told you," says he coldly.

"It is a mistake," says the professor. "He would not dare to approach a young, innocent girl. The most honorable proposal such a man as he could make to her would be basely dishonorable."

"Ah! you see it in that light too," says Hardinge, with a touch of relief. "My dear fellow, it is hard for me to discuss him with you, but yet I fear it must be done. Did you notice nothing in his manner last night?"

Yes, the professor _had_ noticed something. Now there comes back to him that tall figure stooping over Perpetua, the handsome, leering face bent low--the girl's instinctive withdrawal.

"Something must be done," says he.

"Yes. And quickly. Young girls are sometimes dazzled by men of his sort. And Per--Miss Wynter-- Look here, Curzon," breaking off hurriedly. "This is _your_ affair, you know. You are her guardian. You should see to it."

"I could speak to her."

"That would be fatal. She is just the sort of girl to say 'Yes' to him because she was told to say 'No.'"

"You seem to have studied her," says the professor quietly.

"Well, I confess I have seen a good deal of her of late."

"And to some purpose. Your knowledge of her should lead you to making a way out of this difficulty."

"I have thought of one," says Hardinge boldly, yet with a quick flush. "You are her guardian. Why not arrange another marriage for her, before this affair with Sir Hastings goes too far?"

"There are two parties to a marriage," says the professor, his tone always very low. "Who is it to whom you propose to marry Miss Wynter?"

Hardinge, getting up, moves abruptly to the window and back again.

"You have known me a long time, Curzon," says he at last. "You--you have been my friend. I have family--position--money--I----"

"I am to understand then, that _you_ are a candidate for the hand of my ward," says the professor, slowly, so slowly that it might suggest itself to a disinterested listener that he has great difficulty in speaking at all.

"Yes," says Hardinge, very diffidently. He looks appealingly at the professor. "I know perfectly well she might do a great deal better," says he, with a modesty that sits very charmingly upon him. "But if it comes to a choice between me and your brother, I--I think I am the better man. By Jove, Curzon," growing hot, "it's awfully rude of me, I know, but it is so hard to remember that he _is_ your brother."

But the professor does not seem offended. He seems, indeed, so entirely unimpressed by Hardinge's last remark, that it may reasonably be supposed he hasn't heard a word of it.

"And she?" says he. "Perpetua. Does she----" He hesitates, as if finding it impossible to go on.

"Oh! I don't know," says the younger man, with a rather rueful smile. "Sometimes I think she doesn't care for me more than she does for the veriest stranger amongst her acquaintances, and sometimes----" expressive pause.

"Yes? Sometimes?"

"She has seemed kind."

"Kind? How kind?"

"Well--friendly. More friendly than she is to others. Last night she let me sit out three waltzes with her, and she only sat out one with your brother."

"Is it?" asks the professor, in a dull, monotonous sort of way. "Is it--I am not much in your or her world, you know--is it a very marked thing for a girl to sit out three waltzes with one man?"

"Oh, no. Nothing very special. I have known girls do it often, but she is not like other girls,