The Hoyden, Margaret Wolfe Hungerford [best ereader manga txt] 📗

path. His eyes feel strained, hurt; they are staring--staring always towards the end of this path, where a seat is, so hedged round with creepers that one can scarcely see it. Will she be there? He turns abruptly to his companion.

"I am sick of this," says he; "I shall go no farther."

"But your bet?"

"It is a damnable bet!" exclaims he fiercely. "I ought to be ashamed of myself for having made it. You win it, of course, in a sense, as I decline to go on with it; but, still, I believe that _I_ win it in fact."

"You are afraid," says she, with a daring that astonishes even herself.

"I am afraid of forgetting that once I was a gentleman," says he curtly.

"You are afraid of what is in that arbour," returns she mercilessly.

Rylton hesitates. To draw back is to betray disbelief in his wife; to go on is to join in a conspiracy against her. He had started on that conspiracy in a moment of intense passion, but now his very soul revolts from it. And yet if he draws back it will show. . . . It will give this woman beside him the victory over the woman he has married. And then a sudden thought comes to him. Why not go on? Why not put it to be proof? Why not win his wager? Tita is thoughtless; but it would be madness in anyone to think her vile. It was madness in _him_ a moment since to dream of her being alone in that small, isolated arbour with Hescott. Much as he may revolt--as he does revolt--from this abominable wager he has entered into, surely it is better to go on with it and bring it to a satisfactory end for Tita than to "cry off," and subject her to scoffs and jeers from her adversary.

"Let us go on," says he quietly. "I shall win my bet. But that is nothing! What really matters is, that I should have entered into such a wager with you or anyone. That is a debt I shall never be able to repay--Lady Rylton."

His tone is bitterly self-condemnatory, but Marian has scarcely caught that. The "Lady Rylton" has struck upon her ears, and hurt her to her heart's core! Oh, that she could destroy--blot out that small usurper!

"You have regained your courage? Come, then," says she, in a low tone that is full of a strange mirth.

He follows her along the grassy path--a path noiseless--until presently, having skirted a few low bushes, he finds himself, with Marian beside him, at the southern side of the arbour.

Marian, laying her hand silently upon his arm, points through the evergreens that veil the seat within; a mocking, triumphant smile is on her lips.

There is no need for any indication on her part, however--Rylton can see for himself. On the low, rustic seat within the arbour is Tita--with Hescott beside her. The two young heads are close together. Tita is whispering to Hescott--something very secret, undoubtedly. Her small face is upturned to his, and very earnest. _His_ face.

Rylton never forgets his face!

Tita is speaking--she is smiling--she leans toward her companion; her voice is full of a delicious confidence.

"Well, remember it is a secret--a secret between us."

Rylton draws back as if stabbed. He would have given his soul to hear the end of this terrible beginning--this beginning that, at all events, sounds so terrible to _him;_ but the fact that he _is_ longing to hear, that he has been listening, makes him cold from head to heel.

He moves away silently. Mrs. Bethune, catching his arm, says quickly:

"You heard--a secret--a secret between those two--_you heard!"_

There is something delirious in her tone--something that speaks of revenge perfected, that through all his agitation is understood by him. He flings her hand aside, and goes swiftly onwards alone into the dense darkness of the trees beyond, damning himself as he goes. A very rage of hatred, of horror of his own conduct, is the first misery that assails him, and after that----

After that he sees only Tita sitting there with Hescott beside her--he whispering to her, and she to him.

He stops in his rapid walk, and pulls himself together: he must have time--time to think, to control himself, to work it all out.

Things seem to come back to him with a strange clearness. He remembers how Tita had once said to him that she never cared to kiss anyone except--Margaret. Her hesitation returns to him now; was Margaret the name she would have said had not fear, mixed with prudence, prompted her words? He remembers, too, that she had once refused to let _him_ kiss her lips--him, her husband! Why? He trembles with rage as he asks himself this question. Was it to keep them sacred for someone else--for that "old lover" of hers, for example?

Who had called him that? Marian, was it not? Old lover!

He had laughed at the name then. That child to have a lover! Why, he had believed she did not know the meaning of the word "love." What a baby she had always seemed to him--a careless, troublesome baby. And now!

Great heavens! Who is to be trusted? Is anyone to be trusted? He had put his faith in Tita; he had thought her wild, perhaps a little unmanageable, but--yes, he had thought her lovable; there had been moments when----

And now it had all come to this, that she had deceived him--is wilfully deceiving him.

He does not even in this, his angry hour, accuse her of more than a well-developed flirtation with her cousin; but that is the beginning of an end that he will put a stop to at once, and for ever. He will show her who is her master. If she cannot respect herself, he will, at all events, take care that she respects his name; she shall not disgrace _that_.

He has hardly known where his feet have taken him, but now he finds himself on a lighted path, with two or three couples coming towards him; evidently they have just left the dancing-room. He has therefore described a circle, and come back to the place from which he started. One of the men passing him looks into his face.

That quick, curious glance brings Rylton to himself. He cannot stay here any longer. He must go back into the house. It will be madness to absent himself. And, after all, is not the whole thing madness? What is this girl to him? A mere name; nothing more.

He mounts the steps leading to the conservatory, and, meeting Minnie Hescott, asks her to dance.

"This is only a supper dance," says she. "I'm engaged for all the rest. But, if you like, I'll take one turn with you. After that you must get me something to eat; I never felt so hungry in all my life."


CHAPTER XXV.

HOW TITA TOLD A SECRET TO TOM HESCOTT IN THE MOONLIGHT; AND HOW HE SOUGHT TO DISCOVER MANY THINGS, AND HOW HE WAS MOST INNOCENTLY BAFFLED.


"Of course, I shall understand that it is a secret," says Tom Hescott.

Both he and Tita are quite unaware of the fact that Rylton and Mrs. Bethune had just been standing behind them. Tita, who had been dancing with Hescott, had led the way to this spot when they came out into the garden.

"Still," says Tita, hesitating, "perhaps I ought not to speak. A secret _is_ a secret, you know."

"Yes; everyone knows that," says Hescott.

"Knows what?" sharply.

"About a secret."

"If you're going to be nasty, you shan't know it at all," says Tita. "I understand you very well. You think no woman can keep a secret."

"Ah! but a man can. Tell me yours."

"Nonsense! A woman is _twice_ as good at keeping a secret as a man is. And I can tell you this"--with a little emphatic shake of her charming head--"that I should not tell _you_ anything of this secret, only that you are always calling her names."

"Her? Who?"

"Oh, you know very well."

"Who do I know very well? Not a soul here except you; and, after all, I don't think I know _you_ very well."

"Well, if you don't you ought."

"Ought what? Know the mysterious 'her' or you?"

_"Me!"_

Hescott looks at her keenly in the dim light. _Is_ she a born coquette, or is she only a sweet child--the sweetest child that earth ever gave forth? Somehow it would have hurt him to find her a coquette.

"Ah! I _don't_ know you."

"Tom!" There is a little reproach in her tone. Suddenly she puts out her little slim hand and slips it into his. "As if we weren't brought up together," says she, "just like a brother and sister. You remember the old days, don't you, Tom? when we used to go fishing together, and the cricket----"

"Is it wise to remember?" says Hescott in a low tone.

His heart is beating; his fingers now close on hers.

"I don't know--yes. Yes, I think I like to," says Tita. "Darling pappy! Sometimes it all comes back to me. How happy I was then!"

"And now, Tita, _now!_--are you happy now?" asks he.

His tone is almost violent. The pressure of his hand on hers grows hurtful. Involuntarily she gives a little cry.

"Nonsense! Of course I am happy!" says she petulantly, pulling her hand out of his. "How rough you are, Tom!"

"Did I hurt you?" exclaims he passionately. "Tita, forgive me. To hurt you----"

"There, don't be a fool!" says Tita, laughing. "My fingers are not broken, if that's what you mean. But you certainly _are _rough: and, after all"--mischievously--"I don't think I shall tell you that secret now."

"You must. I shan't sleep if I don't know it. You said I knew the heroine of it."

"Yes, you do indeed," laughing.

"And that I was always calling her names?"

"True; and I can't bear that, because"--gently--"I love her." She pauses, and goes on again very earnestly: "I love her with all my heart."

"I envy her," says Hescott. "I'm glad this mysterious stranger is a she."

"Why?"

"Oh, no matter; go on. Tell me more. What evil names have I called her?"

"The worst of all. You have called her an old maid--there!"

"Good heavens! what an atrocity! Surely--surely you malign me."

"No, I don't; I heard you. And it was to me, too, you said it."

"What! I called you an old maid!"

"Pouf! No!" laughing gaily. "That's out of your power."

"It is indeed," says Hescott slowly.

He is looking at her, the little, pretty, sweet, lovely thing! If she were a maid to-day, some chance--some small chance--might have been his.

"Well, I'll tell you about it," says she. She looks round her cautiously, in the funniest little way, as if expecting enemies in the bushes near her. Then she hesitates. "After all, I won't," says she, with the most delightful inconsistency. "It wouldn't be a secret if I did."

"Oh, go on," says Hescott, seeing she is dying to speak. "A secret told to me is as lost as though you had dropped it down a well."

"You must remember first, then, that I should never have told you, only that you seemed to think she _couldn't_ get married. It"--hesitating--"it's about Margaret!"

"Miss Knollys!"