Rossmoyne Part 41

"I quite forgot all about it, I did, indeed," exclaims he, penitently.

"Forgive me this time, and I'll promise never to do it again."

"And I'll promise you you shan't have the chance," says Kit, with fervor.

"_Why_ was I to be deceived?" says Monica. "I think I have been very basely treated. If you, Kit, desired a clandestine meeting with Mr.

Desmond, I don't see why _I_ was to be drawn into it. And it was a stupid arrangement, too: two is company, three trumpery. I know, if I had a lover, I should prefer----"

"Monica!" says Kit, indignantly; but Monica only laughs the more.

"It is _my_ turn now, you know," she says.

"Kit had nothing to do with it: it was all my fault," says Desmond, laughing too. "If you must pour out the vials of your wrath on some one, let it be on me."

"Yes, give him a good scolding, Monica," says Kit viciously, but with a lovely smile. "I am going to pick to some ferns for Aunt Pen; when I return I hope I shall find that recreant knight of yours--I mean _mine_--at the point of death!"

At this she flits away from them, like the good little thing she is, up a sloping bank, and so into the fields beyond, until Desmond and Monica are as much alone as if a whole sphere divided them from their kind.

Dear little Kit! When her own time comes may she be as kindly dealt with!

"You are angry with me still,--about last night," says Desmond, softly, "and, I own, with cause. But I was miserable when I called you a coquette, and misery makes a man unjust. I wrote to Kit this morning,--I was afraid to write to you,--and she was very good to me."

"How good?" plucking a leaf from a brier, as she goes slowly, _very_ slowly--down the road.

"She brought me _you_. Do you know, Monica, I have been as unhappy as a man can be since last I saw you,--a whole night and part of a day? Is it not punishment enough?"

"Too much for your crime," whispers she, softly, turning suddenly towards him and letting her great luminous eyes rest with forgiveness upon his. She smiles sweetly, but with some timidity, because of the ardor of the glance that answers hers. Taking her hand with an impulsive movement impossible to restrain, Desmond presses it rapturously to his lips. Drawing it away from him with shy haste, Monica walks on in silence.

"If I had written to you, and not to her, would you still have been here to-day?" asks he, presently.

"I think not."

"That is a cruel answer, is it not?"

"Would you have me belie my nature?" asks she, with quick agitation; "would you have me grow false, secret, deceitful? My aunts trust me: am I to prove myself unworthy of their confidence?"

"I am less to you, then, than your aunts' displeasure!"

"You are less to me than my conscience; and yet----"

With a violent effort, that betrays how far her thoughts have been travelling in company with his, she brings herself back to the present moment, and a recollection of the many reasons why she must not listen to his wooing. "Why should you believe yourself anything to me?" she asks, in a voice that quivers audibly.

"Ah, why, indeed?" returns he, bitterly. There is such pain in his voice and face that her soul yearns towards him, and she repents of her last words.

"I am wrong. You _are_ something to me," she says, in a tone so low that he can scarcely hear it. But lovers' ears are sharp.

"You _mean_ that, Monica?"

"Yes," still lower.

"Then why cannot I be _more_ to you? Why am I to be denied a chance of forwarding the cause in which all my hopes are centred? Monica, say you will meet me somewhere--_soon_."

"How can I?" she says, tremulously. Her voice is full of tears. She is altogether different from the coquettish, provoking child of last night.

"You forget all I have just now said."

"At least tell me," says he, sadly, "that if you could you would."

There is a pathetic ring in his tone, and tears rise to her eyes. Can anything be so hopeless as this love-affair of hers?

"Yes, I would," she says, almost desperately.

"Oh, darling--_darling_!" says the young man with pa.s.sion. He holds her hands closely, and looks into her troubled eyes, and wishes he might dare take her into his arms and, pressing her to his heart, ask her to repeat her words again. But there is something in the calm purity of her beautiful face that repels vehemence of any sort; and as yet--although the dawn is near--her love has not declared itself to her own soul in all its strength.

"I have at least one consolation," he says, at last, calling to mind the quietude that surrounds Moyne and its inhabitants, and the withdrawal from society that has obtained there for many years. "As you are not allowed to see me,--except on such rare occasions as the present when the Fates are kind,--you cannot at least see _any one else_,--often, that is."

"Meaning?----"

"Ryde."

She laughs a little, and then colors.

"Aunt Priscilla has asked him to come to Moyne next Friday," she says, looking at the ground: "she is giving an At Home on that day, for him and Captain Cobbett. She says she feels it is a duty to her queen to show some attention to her servants."

In her tone, as she says this, there is a spice of that mischief that is never very far from any pretty woman.

"He is to be invited to Moyne,--to spend an entire day with you!" says Desmond, thunderstruck by this last piece of news.

"Oh, no! only part of it," says Monica, meekly.

"It is just as bad. It is disgraceful! Your aunts are purposely encouraging _him_ to keep you away from me. Oh, _why_," wretchedly, "should this unlucky quarrel have arisen between our house and yours?"

"Well, that's your fault," says Monica.

"Mine?"

"Your uncle's, then. It is all the same," unjustly.

"I really can't see _that_," says Mr. Desmond, very righteously aggrieved; "that is visiting the sins of the uncles upon the nephews with a vengeance! Monica, at least promise me you won't be civil to him."

"To your uncle?"

"Nonsense! You know I mean Ryde."

"I can't be rude to him."

"You can. Why not? It will keep him from calling again."

No answer.

"Oh, I daresay you _want_ him to call again," says Desmond, angrily.