Only a Girl's Love, Charles Garvice [a book to read .txt] 📗

rose and give it to him with her own hand; if she had so understood it she would have dropped the knife as if it had been an adder.

In simple truth she was not thinking of him—scarcely saw him; she was thinking of that lover, the god of her heart, and seeing him as he swam through the river foam. For she was scarcely conscious of Jasper Adelstone's presence, and in the acuteness of his passion he almost suspected it.

"White or red?" she said, knife in hand.

He glanced at her.

"Red," he said, and his lips felt hot and dry.

Stella cut a red rose—a dark red rose, and with a little womanly gesture put it to her face; it was a little girlish trick, all unthinking, unconsciously done, but it sent the blood to the heart of the man watching her in a sudden, passionate rush.

"There," she said; "it is a beauty. They speak of the roses of Florence, but give me an English rose, Florentine roses are fuller than these, but not so beautiful—oh, not so beautiful! There," and she held it out to him, without looking at him. If she had done so, she would have surely read something in the white constrained face, and small, glittering eyes that would have warned her.

He took it without a word. In simple truth he was trying to restrain himself. He felt that the time was not ripe for action—that a word of the devouring passion which consumed him would be dangerous, and he whispered to himself, "Not yet! not yet!" But her loveliness, that touch of the rose to his face, overmastered his cool, calculating spirit.

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"Thank you," he said at last; "thank you very much. I shall value it dearly. I shall put it on my desk in my dark, grim room, and think of you."

Then Stella looked up and started slightly.

"Oh!" she said, hurriedly. "You would like some more perhaps? Pray take what you would like," and she held out the knife, and looked upon him with a sudden coldness in the eyes that should have warned him.

"No, I want no more," he said. "All the roses that ever bloomed would not add to my pleasure. It is this rose from your hand that I value."

Stella made a slight movement toward the window, but he put out his hand.

"Stay one moment—only a moment," he said, and in his eagerness he put out his hand and touched her arm, the arm sacred to Leycester.

Stella shrank back, and a little shudder swept through her.

"What—what is it!" she asked, in a low voice that she tried to make calm and cold and repressive.

He stood, shutting and opening the knife with a nervous restlessness, as unlike his calm impassability as the streaming torrent that forces its way through the mountain gorge is like the lake at their feet; his eyes fixed on her face with anxious eagerness.

"I want to speak to you," he said. "Only a few words—a very few words. Will you listen to me? I hope you will listen to me."

Stella stood, her face turned away from him, her heart beating, but coldly and with fear and repugnance, not as it had beat when Leycester's low tones first fell upon her ear.

He moistened his lips again, and his hand closed over the shut knife with a tight clasp, as if he were striving to regain self-command.

"I know it is unwise. I feel that—that you would rather not listen to me, and that I shall do very little good by speaking, but I cannot. There are times, Stella——"

Stella moved slightly at the familiar name.

"There are times when a man loses self-control, when he flings prudence to the winds, or rather, lets it slip from him. This is one of those moments, Stella—Miss Etheridge; I feel that I must speak, let it cost me what it may."

Still silent, she stood as if turned to stone. He put his hand to his brow—his white, thin hand, with its carefully trimmed nails—and wiped away the perspiration that stood in big beads.

"Miss Etheridge, I think you can guess what it is I want to say, and I hope that you will not think any the less of me because of my inability to say it as it should be said, as I would have it said. Stella, if you look back, if you will recall the times since first we met, you cannot fail to know my meaning."

She turned her face toward him for a moment, and shook her head.

"You mean that I have no right to think so. Do you think[159] that you, a woman, have not seen what every woman sees so quickly when it is the case—that I have learned to love you!"

The word was out at last, and as it left him he trembled.

Stella did not start, but her face went paler than before, and she shrank slightly.

"Yes," he went on, "I have learned to love you. I think I loved you the first evening we met; I was not sure then, and—I will tell you the whole truth, I have sworn to myself that I would do it—I tried to fight against it. I am not a man easily given to love; no, I am a man of the world—one who has to make his way in the world, one who has an ambition; and I tried to put you from my thoughts—I tried hard, but I failed."

He paused, and eyed her watchfully. Her face was like a mask of stone.

"I grew to love you more day by day—I was not happy away from you. I carried your image up with me to London—it came between me and my work; but I was patient—I told myself that I should gain nothing by being too rash—that I must give you time to know me, and to—to love me."

He paused and moistened his lips, and looked at her. Why did she not speak—of what was she thinking?

At that moment, if he could but have known it, she was thinking of her true lover—of the young lord who had not waited and calculated, but who had poured the torrent of his passionate love at her feet—had taken her in his arms and made her love him. And as she thought, how small, how mean this other man seemed to her!

"I gave you mine—I meant to give you more," he continued; "I want to do something worthy of your love. I am—I am not a rich man, Stella—I have no title—as yet——"

Stella's eyes flashed for a moment, and her lips closed. It was an unlucky speech for him.

"No, not yet; but I shall have riches and title—I have set my mind on them, and there is nothing that I have set my mind on that I have not got, or will not get—nothing!" he repeated, with almost fierce intensity.

Still she did not speak. Like a bird charmed, fascinated by a snake, she stood, listening though every word was torture to her.

"I have set my mind on winning your love, Stella. I love you as few men love, with all my heart and soul. There is nothing I would not do to win you, there is nothing I would—pause at."

A faint shudder stole through her; and he saw it, and added, quickly:

"I would do anything to make you happy—move heaven and earth to see you always smiling as you smiled this morning. Stella, I love you! What have you to say to me?"

He stopped, white and seemingly exhausted, his thin lips tightly compressed, his whole frame quivering.

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CHAPTER XXII.

Stella, turned her eyes upon him, and something like pity took possession of her for a moment. It was a womanly feeling, and it softened her reply.

"I—am very sorry," she said, in a low voice.

"Sorry!" he repeated, hoarsely, quickly. "Do not say that!"

"Yes—I am very sorry," she repeated. "I—I—did not know——"

"Did not know that I loved you!" he retorted, almost sharply. "Were you blind? Every word, every look of mine would have told you, if you had cared to know——"

Her face flushed, and she raised her eyes to his with a flash of indignation.

"I did not know!" she breathed.

"Forgive me!" he pleaded hoarsely. "I—I am very unfortunate. I offend and anger you! I told you that I should not be able to say what I had to say with credit to myself. Pray forgive me. I meant that though I tried to hide my love, it must have betrayed itself. How could it be otherwise? Stella, have you no other word for me?"

"None," she said, looking away. "I am very sorry. I did not know. But it could not have been. Never."

He stood regarding her, his breath coming in long gasps.

"You mean you never can love me?" he asked.

Stella raised her eyes.

"Yes," she said.

His hand closed over the knife until the back of the blade pressed deeply into the quivering palm.

"Never is—is a long day," he said, hoarsely. "Do not say 'never.' I will be patient; see, I am patient, I am calm now, and will not offend you again! I will be patient and wait; I will wait for years, if you will but give me hope—if you will but try to love me a little!"

Stella's face paled, and her lips quivered.

"I cannot," she said, in a low voice. "You—you do not understand. One cannot teach oneself to love—cannot try. It is impossible. Besides—you do not know what you ask. You do not understand!"

"Do I not?" he said, and a bitter sneer curled the thin lips. "I do understand. I know—I have a suspicion of the reason why you answer me like this."

Stella's face burnt for a moment, then went pale, but her eyes met his steadily.

"There is something behind your refusal; no girl would speak as you do unless there was something behind. There is someone else. Am I not right?"

"You have no right to ask me!" said Stella, firmly.

"My love gives me the right to ask. But I need not put the question, and there is no necessity for you to answer. If you have been blind, I have not. I have seen and noted, and I tell you, I tell you plainly, that what you hope for cannot be. I say cannot—shall not be!" he added, between his closed teeth.

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Stella's eyes flashed as she stood before him glorious in her loveliness.

"Have you finished?" she asked.

He was silent, regarding her watchfully.

"If you have finished, Mr. Adelstone, I will leave you."

"Stay," he said, and he stood in the path so that she could not pass him, "Stay one moment. I will not ask you to reconsider your reply. I will only ask you to forgive me." His voice grew hoarse, and his eyes drooped. "Yes, I will beg you to forgive me. Think of what I am suffering, and you will not refuse me that. Forgive me, Stella—Miss Etheridge! I have been wrong, mad, and brutal; but it has sprung from the depth of my love; I am not altogether to blame. Will you say that you will forgive me, and that—that we remain friends?"

Stella paused.

He watched her eagerly.

"If—if," he said quickly, before she could speak—"if you will let this pass as if it had not been—if you will forget all I have said—I will promise not to offend again. Do not let us part—do not send me away never to see you again. I am an old friend of your uncle's; I should not like to lose his friendship; I think I may say that he would miss mine. Let us be friends, Miss Etheridge."

Stella inclined her head.

"Thank you, thank you," he said, meekly, tremulously; "I shall be very grateful for your friendship, Miss Stella. I will keep the rose to remind me of your forbearance," and he was patting the rose in his coat, when Stella with a start stretched out her hand.

"No! give it me back, please," she said.

He stood eying her.

"Let me keep it," he said; "it is a little thing."

"No!" she said, firmly, and her face burnt. "You must not keep it. I—I did not think when I gave it to you! Give it me back, please," and she held out her hand.

He still hesitated, and Stella, overstrained, made a step toward him.

"Give it me," she said. "I must—I will have it!"

An angry flush came on his face, and he held the rose from her.

"It is mine," he said. "You gave it to me; I cannot give it back."

The words had scarcely left his lips, when the rose was dashed from his hand, and Frank stood white and panting between them.

"How dare you!" he gasped, passionately, his hands clinched, his eyes gleaming fiercely upon the white face. "How dare you!" and with a savage