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

rushes to him and places his arm round him. With his foot he drags a chair nearer, into which Sir Hastings falls with a heavy groan. It is only a momentary attack, however; in a little while the leaden hue clears away, and, though still ghastly, his face looks more natural.

"Brandy," gasps he faintly. The professor holds it to his lips, and after a minute or two he revives sufficiently to be able to sit up and look round him.

"Thought you had got rid of me for good and all," says he, with a malicious grin, terrible to see on his white, drawn face. "But I'll beat you yet! There!--Call my fellow--he's below. Can't get about without a damned attendant in the morning, now. But I'll cure all that. I'll see you dead before I go to my own grave. I----"

"Take your master to his carriage," says the professor to the man, who is now on the threshold. The maunderings of Sir Hastings--still hardly recovered from his late fit--strike horribly upon his ear, rendering him almost faint.


CHAPTER XV.



"My love is like the sky,
As distant and as high;
Perchance she's fair and kind and bright,
Perchance she's stormy--tearful quite--
Alas! I scarce know why."



It is late in the day when the professor enters Lady Baring's house. He had determined not to wait till the morrow to see Perpetua. It seemed to him that it would be impossible to go through another sleepless night, with this raging doubt, this cruel uncertainty in his heart.

He finds her in the library, the soft light of the dying evening falling on her little slender figure. She is sitting in a big armchair, all in black--as he best knows her--with a book upon her knee. She looks charming, and fresh as a new-born flower. Evidently neither lest night's party nor to-day's afternoon have had power to dim her beauty. Sleep had visited _her_ last night, at all events.

She springs out of her chair, and throws her book on the table near her.

"Why, you are the very last person I expected," says she.

"No doubt," says the professor. Who was the _first_ person she had expected? And will Hardinge be here presently to plead his cause in person? "But it was imperative I should come. There is something I have to tell you--to lay before you."

"Not a mummy, I trust," says she, a little flippantly.

"A proposal," says the professor, coldly. "Much as I know you dislike the idea, still, it was your poor father's wish that I should, in a measure, regulate your life until your coming of age. I am here to-day to let you know--that--Mr. Hardinge has requested me to tell you that he----"

The professor pauses, feeling that he is failing miserably. He, the fluent speaker at lectures, and on public platforms, is now bereft of the power to explain one small situation.

"What's the matter with Mr. Hardinge," asks Perpetua, "that he can't come here himself? Nothing serious, I hope?"

"I am your guardian," says the professor--unfortunately, with all the air of one profoundly sorry for the fact declared, "and he wishes _me_ to tell you that he--is desirous of marrying you."

Perpetua stares at him. Whatever bitter thoughts are in her mind, she conceals them.

"He is a most thoughtful young man," says she, blandly. "And--and you're another."

"I hope I am thoughtful, if I am not young," says the professor, with dignity. Her manner puzzles him. "With regard to Hardinge, I wish you to know that--that I--have known him for years, and that he is in my opinion a strictly honorable, kind-hearted man. He is of good family. He has money. He will probably succeed to a baronetcy--though this is not _certain,_ as his uncle is, comparatively speaking, young still. But even without the title, Hardinge is a man worthy of any woman's esteem, and confidence, and----"

He is interrupted by Miss Wynter's giving way to a sudden burst of mirth. It is mirth of the very angriest, but it checks him the more effectually because of that.

"You must place great confidence in princes!" says she. "Even _'without _the title, he is worthy of esteem.'" She copies him audaciously. "What has a title got to do with esteem?--and what has esteem got to do with love?"

"I should hope----" begins the professor.

"You needn't. It has nothing to do with it, nothing _at all._ Go back and tell Mr. Hardinge so; and tell him, too, that when next he goes a-wooing, he had better do it in person."

"I am afraid I have damaged my mission," says the professor, who has never once looked at her since his first swift glance.

_"Your_ mission?"

"Yes. It was mere nervousness that prevented him coming to you first himself. He said he had little to go on, and he said something about a flower that you gave him----"

Perpetua makes a rapid movement toward a side table, takes a flower from a bouquet there, and throws it at the professor. There is no excuse to be made for her beyond the fact that her heart feels breaking, and people with broken hearts do strange things every day.

"I would give a flower to _anyone!"_ says she in a quick scornful fashion. The professor catches the ungraciously given gift, toys with it, and--keeps it. Is that small action of his unseen?

"I hope," he says in a dull way, "that you are not angry with him because he came first to me. It was a sense of duty--I know, I _feel_--compelled him to do it, together with his honest diffidence about your affection for him. Do not let pride stand in the way of----"

"Nonsense!" says Perpetua, with a rapid movement of her hand. "Pride has no part in it. I do not care for Mr. Hardinge--I shall not marry him."

A little mist seems to gather before the professor's eyes. His glasses seem in the way, he drops them, and now stands gazing at her, as if disbelieving his senses. In fact he does disbelieve in them.

"Are you sure?" persists he. "Afterwards you may regret----"

"Oh, no!" says she, shaking her head. _"Mr. Hardinge_ will not be the one to cause me regret."

"Still, think----"

"Think! Do you imagine I have not been thinking?" cries she, with sudden passion. "Do you imagine I do not know why you plead his cause so eloquently? You want to get _rid_ of me. You are _tired_ of me. You always thought me heartless, about my poor father even, and unloving, and--hateful, and----"

"Not heartless; what have I done, Perpetua, that you should say that?"

"Nothing. That is what I _detest_ about you. If you said outright what you were thinking of me, I could bear it better."

"But my thoughts of you. They are----" He pauses. What _are_ they? What are his thoughts of her at all hours, all seasons? "They are always kind," says he, lamely, in a low tone, looking at the carpet. That downward glance condemns him in her eyes--to her it is but a token of his guilt towards her.

"They are _not!"_ says she, with a little stamp of her foot that makes the professor jump. "You think of me as a cruel, wicked, worldly girl, who would marry _anyone_ to gain position."

Here her fury dies away. It is overcome by something stronger. She trembles, pales, and finally bursts into a passion of tears that have no anger in them, only intense grief.

"I do not," says the professor, who is trembling too, but whose utterance is firm. "Whatever my thoughts are, _your_ reading of them is entirely wrong."

"Well, at all events you can't deny one thing," says she checking her sobs, and gazing at him again with undying enmity. "You want to get rid of me, you are determined to marry me to some one, so as to get me out of your way. But I shan't marry to please _you._ I needn't either. There is somebody else who wants to marry me besides your--_your_ candidate!" with an indignant glance. "I have had a letter from Sir Hastings this afternoon. And," rebelliously, "I haven't answered it yet."

"Then you shall answer it now," says the professor. "And you shall say 'no' to him."

"Why? Because you order me?"

"Partly because of that. Partly because I trust to your own instincts to see the wisdom of so doing."

"Ah! you beg the question," says he, "but I'm not so sure I shall obey you for all that."

"Perpetua! Do not speak to me like that, I implore you," says the professor, very pale. "Do you think I am not saying all this for your good? Sir Hastings--he is my brother--it is hard for me to explain myself, but he will not make you happy."

"Happy! _You_ think of my happiness?"

"Of what else?" A strange yearning look comes into his eyes. "God knows it is _all_ I think of," says he.

"And so you would marry me to Mr. Hardinge?"

"Hardinge is a good man, and--he loves you."

"If so, he is the only one on earth who does," cries the girl bitterly. She turns abruptly away, and struggles with herself for a moment, then looks back at him. "Well, I shall not marry him," says she.

"That is in your own hands," says the professor. "But I shall have something to say about the other proposal you speak of."

"Do you think I want to marry your brother?" says she. "I tell you no, no, _no!_ A thousand times no! The very fact that he _is_ your brother would prevent me. To be you ward is bad enough, to be your sister-in-law would be insufferable. For all the world I would not be more to you than I am now."

"It is a wise decision," says the professor icily. He feels smitten to his very heart's core. Had he ever dreamed of a nearer, dearer tie between them?--if so the dream is broken now.

"Decision?" stammers she.

"Not to marry my brother."

"Not to be more to you, you mean!"

"You don't know what you are saying," says the professor, driven beyond his self-control. "You are a mere child, a baby, you speak at random."

"What!" cries she, flashing round at him, "will you deny that I have been a trouble to you, that you would have been thankful had you never heard my name?"

"You are right," gravely. "I deny nothing. I wish with all my soul I had never heard your name. I confess you have troubled me. I go beyond even _that,_ I declare that you have been my undoing! And now, let us make an end of it. I am a poor man and a busy one, this task your father laid upon my shoulders is too heavy for me. I shall resign my guardianship; Gwendoline--Lady Baring--will accept the position. She likes you, and--you will find it hard to break _her_ heart."

"Do you mean," says the girl, "that I have broken yours? _Yours?_ Have I been so bad as that? Yours? I have been wilful, I know, and troublesome, but troublesome people do not break one's heart. What have I done then that yours should be broken?" She has moved closer to him. Her eyes are gazing with passionate question into his.

"Do not think of that," says the