Queechy Volume Ii Part 58

"Yes ? for mine," he said, with a meaning deliberateness.

Fleda was silent, with a face of white determination.

"It will be beyond _eluding_, as beyond recal, the second time.

I may seem selfish ? I am selfish ? but, dear Miss Ringgan, you do not see all ? you, who make me so, can make me anything else with a touch of your hand ? it is selfishness that would be bound to your happiness, if you did but entrust it to me."

Fleda neither spoke nor looked at him, and rose up from her chair.

"Is this _your_ generosity?" he said, pointedly, though gently.

"That is not the question now, Sir," said Fleda, who was trembling painfully. "I cannot do evil that good may come."

"But _evil?_" said he, detaining her ? "what evil do I ask of you? to _remove_ evil, I do."

Fleda clasped her hands, but answered calmly ?

"I cannot make any pretences, Sir; I cannot promise to give what is not in my power."

"In whose power, then?" said he, quickly.

A feeling of indignation came to Fleda's aid, and she turned away. But he stopped her still.

"Do you think I do not understand?" he said, with a covert sneer, that had the keenness, and hardness, and the brightness of steel.

"_I_ do not, Sir," said Fleda.

"Do you think I do not know whom you came here to meet?"

Fleda's glance of reproach was a most innocent one, but it did not check him.

"Has that fellow renewed his old admiration of you?" he went on, in the same tone.

"Do not make me desire his old protection," said Fleda, her gentle face roused to a flush of displeasure.

"Protection!" said Charlton, coming in, "who wants protection?

here it is ? protection from what? my old friend Lewis? what the deuce does this lady want of protection, Mr. Thorn?"

It was plain enough that Fleda wanted it, from the way she was drooping upon his arm.

"You may ask the lady herself," said Thorn, in the same tone he had before used; ? "I have not the honour to be her spokesman."

"She don't need one," said Charlton; "I addressed myself to you ? speak for yourself, man."

"I am not sure that it would be her pleasure I should," said Thorn. "Shall I tell this gentleman, Miss Ringgan, who needs protection, and from what?"

Fleda raised her head, and, putting her hand on his arm, looked a concentration of entreaty ? lips were sealed.

"Will you give me," said he, gently taking the hand in his own, "your sign-manual for Captain Rossitur's security? It is not too late. Ask it of her, Sir."

"What does this mean?" said Charlton, looking from his cousin to his friend.

"You shall have the pleasure of knowing, Sir, just so soon as I find it convenient."

"I will have a few words with you on this subject, my fine fellow," said Captain Rossitur, as the other was preparing to leave the room.

"You had better speak to somebody else," said Thorn. "But I am ready."

Charlton muttered an imprecation upon his absurdity, and turned his attention to Fleda, who needed it, and yet desired anything else. For a moment she had an excuse for not answering his questions in her inability; and then, opportunely, Mrs. Decatur came in to look after her; and she was followed by her daughter. Fleda roused all her powers to conceal and command her feelings; rallied herself; said she had been a little weak and faint; drank water, and declared herself able to go back into the drawing-room. To go home would have been her utmost desire, but at the instant her energies were all bent to the one point of putting back thought, and keeping off suspicion. And in the first hurry and bewilderment of distress, the dread of finding herself alone with Charlton, till she had had time to collect her thoughts, would of itself have been enough to prevent her accepting the proposal.

She entered the drawing-room again on Mrs. Decatur's arm, and had stood a few minutes talking or listening, with that same concentration of all her faculties upon the effort to bear up outwardly, when Charlton came up to ask if he should leave her. Fleda made no objection, and he was out of her sight, far enough to be beyond reach or recal, when it suddenly struck her that she ought not to have let him go without speaking to him ? without entreating him to see her in the morning before he saw Thorn. The sickness of this new apprehension was too much for poor Fleda's power of keeping up. She quietly drew her arm from Mrs. Decatur's, saying that she would sit down; and sought out a place for herself, apart from the rest, by an engraving-stand, where for a little while, not to seem unoccupied, she turned over print after print, that she did not see. Even that effort failed at last; and she sat gazing at one of Sir Thomas Lawrence's bright-faced children, and feeling as if in herself the tides of life were setting back upon their fountain preparatory to being still for ever. She became sensible that some one was standing beside the engravings, and looked up at Mr. Carleton.

"Are. you ill?" he said, very gently and tenderly.

The answer was a quick motion of Fleda's hand to her head, speaking sudden pain, and perhaps sudden difficulty of self- command. She did not speak.

"Will you have anything?"

A whispered "No."

"Would you like to return to Mrs. Evelyn's? ? I have a carriage here."

With a look of relief that seemed to welcome him as her good angel, Fleda instantly rose up, and took the arm he offered her. She would have hastened from the room then, but he gently checked her pace; and Fleda was immediately grateful for the quiet and perfect s.h.i.+elding from observation that his manner secured her. He went with her up the stairs, and to the very door of the dressing-room. There Fleda hurried on her shoes and m.u.f.flers in trembling fear that some one might come and find her, gained Mr. Carleton's arm again, and was placed in the carriage.

The drive was in perfect silence, and Fleda's agony deepened and strengthened with every minute. She had freedom to think, and thought did but carry a torch into chamber after chamber of misery. There seemed nothing to be done. She could not get hold of Charlton; and if she could? ? Nothing could be less amenable than his pa.s.sions to her gentle restraints. Mr. Thorn was still less approachable or manageable, except in one way ?

that she did not even think of. His insinuations about Mr.

Carleton did not leave even a tinge of embarra.s.sment upon her mind; they were cast from her as insulting absurdities, which she could not think of a second time without shame.

The carriage rolled on with them a long time without a word being said. Mr. Carleton knew that she was not weeping nor faint. But as the light of the lamps was now and then cast within the carriage, he saw that her face looked ghastly; and he saw too, that its expression was not of a quiet sinking under sorrow, nor of an endeavour to bear up against it, but a wild searching gaze into the darkness of _possibilities_. They had near reached Mrs. Evelyn's.

"I cannot see you so," he said, gently touching the hand which lay listlessly beside him. "You are ill!"

Again the same motion of the other hand to her face, the quick token of great pain suddenly stirred.

"For the sake of old times, let me ask," said he ? "can nothing be done?"

Those very gentle and delicate tones of sympathy and kindness were too much to bear. The hand was s.n.a.t.c.hed away to be pressed to her face. O that those old times were back again, and she a child that could ask his protection! ? no one to give it now.

He was silent a moment. Fleda's head bowed beneath the mental pressure.

"Has Dr. Gregory returned?"

The negative answer was followed by a half-uttered exclamation of longing ? checked midway, but sufficiently expressive of her want.

"Do you trust me?" he said, after another second of pausing.

"Perfectly!" said Fleda, amidst her tears, too much excited to know what she was saying, and in her simplicity half forgetting that she was not a child still; ? "more than any one in the world!"

The few words he had spoken, and the manner of them, had curiously borne her back years in a minute; she seemed to be under his care more than for the drive home. He did not speak again for a minute; when he did, his tone was very quiet, and lower than before.