Paddy The Next Best Thing Part 50

Great tears gathered in her eyes, and fell on her clasped hands. Why, or why, did he unman her! He was playing with the twig again, and pretending not to notice. "Isn't that so?" he asked.

She caught her breath and steadied her voice with an effort.

"I have been very fortunate," she said. "I might have had to go right away from everybody as a nursery governess, instead of having so many friends, and such a nice post, and plenty of liberty."

"But it is still London, isn't it? And after all, even friends are hardly to you what the mountains, and the loch, and the country life were. Be honest, Paddy," suddenly looking into her face. "Don't you just hate to have to go away and leave it all again?--don't you just hate it like the devil?"

She threw back her head with a sudden jerk, as if from some unendurable thought.

"Oh, yes--yes," she breathed, "like the devil, there is no other word.

But what of it? I am going--I must go--I am not the only one who has had to give up a country home. Why do you make it harder for me? Why do you remind me of it at all?"

He leaned toward her, and she felt his eyes looking through into her soul. "I remind you, because I don't want you to go. Do you think it doesn't hurt me too--_now_? I, with all that I have--you with nothing-- not even your own special chum since the General died."

She drew her hand across her eyes hurriedly.

"And it isn't as if you were obliged to go." He was leaning nearer-- nearer. "Paddy, dear little woman, don't go. Give it all up and stay here with me."

"No, no. It is impossible. Please leave off. Why won't you understand?" and she wrung her hands together.

"It is _not_ impossible," resolutely, "and it must be. It has got to be, Paddy. It is you who won't understand." Then he ran on whimsically, giving her time to collect herself: "Good Lord! it seems only the other day I was carrying you round on my shoulder, when I came home from Eton for the holidays. I remember I thought, you were the ugliest little creature I had ever set eyes on. You were so ugly, you fascinated; I couldn't take my eyes off you. But even then you had a way with you. Every one always did exactly as you wanted. If they didn't, you got into no end of a fury, and hit out right and left. It was awful sport making you wild, Paddy. Sometimes, when I've got hold of you, you've kicked at me as hard as you could with your fat little legs, but I always enjoyed the fun of it. I didn't think I'd ever want to marry you, though," with a whimsical smile; "it would have seemed too much like inviting a hurricane to one's fireside. It's quite the very last thing that would ever have entered my head, until--until--" he paused. "I don't know when it began, Paddy, but now I want nothing else in heaven or earth."

"Please don't go on," she managed to say; "please don't."

"Ah, but I want to; and after all it needn't hurt you. It's so good to have you all alone like this and tell you about it. Ever since the night on the mountain, I've been talking and smiling in my usual inane fas.h.i.+on, and all the time there was a seething volcano underneath. It hasn't been a pleasant two days; I wouldn't care about having them over again. Hour after hour I have longed to start off to the Parsonage; sometimes I have got as far as the lodge. But I felt I ought to give you time to recover thoroughly, and so I forced myself to turn back.

When I awoke this morning I knew I should come to day. I had reached the utmost limit of my patience. Did you expect me? Did you, perhaps, hope I should come to-day!" She had put her hands up to her face, and now he tried to draw one of them away. "Why won't you look at me, Paddy! Why won't you let me see your face! Come, be your own bright self again. Chuck all this cursed nonsense about being impossible.

Don't you know that my arms are aching for you? Do you hear, Paddy!--_aching_ for you--and you sit there so silent and distant. Are you thinking of London and that beastly dispensary! Why, it's all done with, little woman; your home is going to be here in the future. Mourne Lodge is yours, and the horses are yours, and the boats, and the shooting, and everything. Ah! I'll make you so happy--"

She got up swiftly, suddenly, and thrust her hands out before her, as if warding off something. Her face was deathly white, and she looked only at the loch.

"Oh, stop! stop! Don't you realise it is _impossible_?" He changed colour visibly.

"Perhaps I have been too sudden after all," he said. "Perhaps by and by--"

"No, _newer_," and she mustered all her powers for the final word.

He gave a queer little laugh.

"'Never' is a long time," with a touch of the old cynical manner.

"I mean it," resolutely.

"You mean you prefer London--and the dispensary--and the loneliness to Mourne Lodge, and the loch, and the mountains?"

She was silent.

"Is that what you mean, Paddy!"

She tried to evade the question, but he would not let her. He stood up close to her, his face a little stern, his lips rigid. "Look at me, Paddy," in a tone of command.

She hesitated a second, then once again summoned all her courage, and looked steadily into his eyes.

"Now, why won't you stay here and be happy, instead of going back?"

"Because I hate you," and though her voice was low it contained no shadow of faltering.

Lawrence turned away sharply, and stood looking at the loch. His face grew, if anything, a little sterner, but showed no symptoms of defeat.

Paddy could only wait, feeling vaguely wretched.

When he spoke his voice had changed somewhat. "You are candid as ever, but I am not convinced. It is because I believe I can turn your hate into love, I will not give in. Tell me one thing--is it the old bone of contention that stands between us!"

Paddy was silent.

"Tell me," he reiterated.

She answered hesitatingly. "I--I--don't want to be unkind after--"

"Spare me that," with a slight sneer. "Try and pretend the mountain incident is a myth."

She looked wretched.

"Well, what were you going to say? You needn't mind about being unkind.

You forget I am used to it."

"I was going to say--" She hesitated again, searching about for words.

"Oh, don't you realise that I don't trust you? Why do you put me in the difficult position of having to say this, just now of all times! Can't we leave it at that? Won't you believe I am grateful for the other night, and leave it there?"

"No. By G.o.d! I won't," and there was something almost fierce about him. The very fact that she shrank from him, only seemed to madden him, and it was as though he tried to soothe his own goaded feelings by goading hers. "The other night has only made it more impossible to leave it there. Why, when I found you, I took you in my arms--you know I did." The colour flashed in her cheeks, and he ran on: "Just as if-- feeling as I do--having once had you in my arms, I'm going to tamely let you go again. Why, I never took my eyes off you the whole time. When I couldn't see your face, I watched your hair. It was freezingly cold, and I never knew it. It might just as well have been overpoweringly hot. I had got you--there--all alone--in my care--dependent on me-- icebergs and volcanoes themselves couldn't have crushed me." He stopped as if he could hardly trust himself to say any more, and with a desperate attempt to bring him back to a commonplace level she said, "Please don't go on. You've managed to be cold enough the last three weeks. Let us go back to that again."

"You silly little goose!"--and he laughed harshly--"cold--to you! ah, ah! I was no more cold then than I am now, of course I wasn't. When we have been together you haven't said a word that I have not heard, nor moved an inch without my knowing. It was a subterfuge to see if you noticed; and you did. Ah, ah, Paddy, that's one to me. You know you wanted me to quarrel, and I wouldn't. Now own up."

He tried to take her hand, but she drew away, and stood with them both clasped behind her. She began to feel that the whole situation was getting beyond her.

Then suddenly, with his customary variableness, Lawrence grew quiet again.

"You say you don't trust me. Well, I will show you I can be trusted. I have never cared enough before. Is that altogether my fault? I care enough now, and I will show you. Is it that alone that stands between us? If you could trust me, you would let yourself go? Paddy!"--he moved suddenly nearer, and looked squarely into her eyes--"just as if I didn't know that under ordinary circ.u.mstances I should win you easily enough. I'm not bragging. Heaven knows I've faults enough, but bragging is not among them. It's because, somehow, I know that under ordinary circ.u.mstances it would be natural for your love to surrender to mine, before anyone else you know, that I snap my fingers when you protest that you hate me, and refuse to be daunted. If I could slay the spectre between us, and show you that I was to be trusted, would you marry me?"

Paddy looked hard at the loch, and said, "No."

"Why not?"

"When I have said a thing, I have said it. I will not marry you, because I hate you."

"Now you are merely absurd. Why do you hate me?"

"Because I cannot forget the past."

He gave an impatient gesture. "Heroics! Heroics!--_you_ were never hurt. I tell you it is a spectre, and you ought to have the sense to slay it. Instead, you enlarge on it--positively drape it in visionary attributes, and offer yourself as a sort of burnt offering to it. You ought to have lived a few hundred years ago. By Gad! Paddy, you'd have made a fine Joan of Arc!" and he laughed with a touch of bitterness.