Airy Fairy Lilian Part 51

"A telegram from Mr. Chesney: he cannot be home to dinner. My hair will do very well. Hardy: go and tell Sir Guy he need not expect him."

Hardy, going, meets Sir Guy in the hall below, and imparts her information.

Naturally enough, he too thinks first of Lilian. Much as it displeases his pride, he knows he must in common courtesy again offer her his rejected services. There is bitterness in the thought, and perhaps a little happiness also, as he draws his breath rather quickly, and angrily suppresses a half smile as it curls about his lips. To ask her again, to be again perhaps refused! He gazes irresolutely at the staircase, and then, with a secret protest against his own weakness, mounts it.

The second dinner-bell has already sounded: there is no time for further deliberation. Going reluctantly up-stairs, he seeks with slow and lingering footsteps his mother's boudoir.

The room is unlit, save by the glorious fire, half wood, half coal, that crackles and laughs and leaps in the joy of its own fast living. Upon a couch close to it, bathed in its warm flames, lies the little slender black-robed figure so inexpressibly dear to him. She is so motionless that but for her wide eyes, gazing so earnestly into the fire, one might imagine her wrapt in slumber. Her left arm is thrown upward so that her head rests upon it, the other hangs listlessly downward, almost touching the carpet beneath her.

She looks pale, but lovely. Her golden hair s.h.i.+nes richly against the crimson satin of the cus.h.i.+on on which she leans. As Guy approaches her she never raises her eyes, although without doubt she sees him. Even when he stands beside her and gazes down upon her, wrathful at her insolent disregard, she never pretends to be aware of his near presence.

"Dinner will be ready in three minutes," he says, coldly: "do you intend coming down to-night?"

"Certainly. I am waiting for my cousin," she answers, with her eyes still fixed upon the fire.

"I am sorry to be the conveyer of news that must necessarily cause you disappointment. My mother has had a telegram from Chesney saying he cannot be home until to-morrow. Business detains him."

"He promised me he would return in time for dinner," she says, turning toward him at last, and speaking doubtfully.

"No doubt he is more upset than you can be at his unintended defection.

But it is the case for all that. He will not be home to-night."

"Well, I suppose he could not help it."

"I am positive he couldn't!" coldly.

"You have great faith in him," with an unpleasant little smile. "Thank you, Sir Guy: it was very kind of you to bring me such disagreeable news." As she ceases speaking she turns back again to the contemplation of the fire, as though desirous of giving him his _conge_.

"I can hardly say I came to inform you of your cousin's movements,"

replies he, haughtily; "rather to ask you if you will accept my aid to get down-stairs?"

"Yours!"

"Even mine."

"No, thank you," with slow surprise, as though she yet doubts the fact of his having again dared to offer his services: "I would not trouble you for worlds!"

"The trouble is slight," he answers, with an expressive glance at the fragile figure below him.

"But yet a trouble! Do not distress yourself, Sir Guy: Parkins will help me, if you will be so kind as to desire him."

"Your nurse"--hastily--"would be able, I dare say."

"Oh, no. I can't bear trusting myself to women. I am an arrant coward. I always think they are going to trip, or let me drop, at every corner."

"Then why refuse my aid?" he says, even at the price of his self-respect.

"No; I prefer Parkins!"

"Oh, if you prefer the a.s.sistance of a _footman_, there is nothing more to be said," he exclaims, angrily, going toward the door much offended, and with just a touch of disgust in his tone.

Now, Miss Chesney does not prefer the a.s.sistance of a footman; in fact, she would prefer solitude and a lonely dinner rather than trust herself to such a one; so she pockets her pride, and, seeing Sir Guy almost outside the door, raises herself on her elbow and says, pettishly, and with the most flagrant injustice:

"Of course I can stay here all by myself in the dark, if there is no one to take me down."

"I wish I understood you," says Guy, irritably, coming back into the room. "Do you mean you wish me to carry you down? I am quite willing to do so, though I wish with all my heart your cousin were here to take my place. It would evidently be much pleasanter for all parties.

Nevertheless, if you deign to accept my aid," proudly, "I shall neither trip nor drop you, I promise."

There is a superciliousness in his manner that vexes Lilian; but, having an innate horror of solitude, go down she will: so she says, cuttingly:

"You are graciousness itself! you give me plainly to understand how irksome is this duty to you. I too wish Archie were here, for many reasons, but as it is----" she pauses abruptly; and Guy, stooping, raises her quietly, tenderly, in his arms, and, with the angry scowl upon his face and the hauteur still within his usually kind blue eyes, begins his march down-stairs.

It is rather a long march to commence, with a young woman, however slender, in one's arms. First comes the corridor, which is of a goodly length, and after it the endless picture-gallery. Almost as they enter the latter, a little nail half hidden in the doorway catches in Lilian's gown, and, dragging it roughly, somehow hurts her foot. The pain she suffers causes her to give way to a sharp cry, whereupon Guy stops short, full of anxiety.

"You are in pain?" he says, gazing eagerly into the face so close to his own.

"My foot," she answers, her eyes wet with tears; "something dragged it: oh, how it hurts! And you promised me to be so careful, and now----but I dare say you are _glad_ I am punished," she winds up, vehemently, and then bursts out crying, partly through pain, partly through nervousness and a good deal of self-torturing thought long suppressed, and hides her face childishly against his sleeve because she has nowhere else to hide it. "Lay me down," she says, faintly.

There is a lounging-chair close to the fire that always burns brightly in the long gallery: placing her in it, he stands a little aloof, cursing his own ill-luck, and wondering what he has done to make her hate him so bitterly. Her tears madden him. Every fresh sob tears his heart. At last, unable to bear the mental agony any longer, he kneels down beside her, and, with an aspect of the deepest respect, takes one of her hands in his.

"I am very unfortunate," he says, humbly. "Is it hurting you very much?"

"It is better now," she whispers; but for all that she sobs on very successfully behind her handkerchief.

"You are not the only one in pain,"--speaking gently but earnestly: "every sob of yours causes me absolute torture."

This speech has no effect except to make her cry again harder than ever.

It is so sweet to a woman to know a man is suffering tortures for her sake.

A little soft lock of her hair has shaken itself loose, and has wandered across her forehead. Almost unconsciously but very lovingly, he moves it back into its proper place.

"What have I done, Lilian, that you should so soon have learned to hate me?" he whispers: "we used to be good friends."

"So long ago"--in stifled tones from behind the handkerchief--"that I have almost forgotten it."

"Not so very long. A few weeks at the utmost,--before your cousin came."

"Yes,"--with a sigh,--"before my cousin came."

"That is only idle recrimination. I know I once erred deeply, but surely I have repented, and---- Tell me why you hate me."

"I cannot."

"Why?"

"Because I don't know myself."

"What! you confess you hate me without cause?"