Prince Charlie Part 45

He really meant it; her distress distressed him. The more she saw that the more tears she shed. Artful little crocodile!

"You w-won't f-f-forgive me!"

She knew all the time that he would.

"Pray, Mrs.--you--I--I--have nothing to forgive. But if you think I have, I forgive you freely, fully."

The road was getting smooth, she thought, but it was not safe to drop the handkerchief yet; plainly that was a strong weapon.

"You m-m-must think me such an awful b-b-brute!"

Wretched little prevaricator! She knew quite well that he thought nothing of the kind.

"Believe me, I can never think of you in any way but the kindliest."

True; every word of it. His heart was like a photographic plate, capable only of bearing one clear picture.

"I d-daresay you wish me dead, or at the bottom of the s-sea--and I d-deserve it."

Really she did. It was most unfair--this present performance of hers. It distressed him beyond measure; he said:

"I wish you nothing but the greatest happiness it is possible for you to enjoy; wish it from my heart."

"And I--I--have behaved so--s-s-so ungratefully to you."

She uttered truth; perhaps for a change. But he denied what she said; answered:

"Not at all! You behaved rightly; as your heart dictated."

She had to flare up at that; could not help it. As a matter of fact all her actions had been in direct opposition to her heart's promptings.

"I did nothing of the sort! My behaviour was quite wrong!"

The handkerchief s.h.i.+fted a little to enable her to look up at him out of the corner of her eye, as she continued:

"Just the reverse of the way my h-h-heart dictated."

His own heart beat a little quicker at that, in expectation, as he asked eagerly:

"When was that?"

"At that wr-r-retched dinner."

He sat down; somehow they both sat--apparently it was a simultaneous act. He was, however, to windward of her; she engineered that. The faint perfume of the hair of her bent head came to him. It has been already mentioned that Mrs. Seton-Carr devoted attention to details. No wonder the elder Weller warned his son against widows!

"You have said either not enough or too much." He spoke hoa.r.s.ely, in tense tones. "Tell me--more."

"You want to make it h-h-hard for me; to humble me m-m-more."

She sobbed out the words, the while her disengaged hand, curiously, fell on his. Naturally, his hand closed on hers, and--quite easily--he frustrated her efforts to take it away. He moved closer to her.

She turned the back of her head to him. Was not unaware of the fact that her hair grew very prettily there; fell in soft little golden curls at the nape of her neck. Of course the movement was quite an unconscious one! Perhaps, too, it was pure accident that the moon just then had popped from behind a cloud, so lighting up things; she went on:

"I t-think you are very h-hard to me."

He moved closer still; every fibre in his being thrilled by contact with the woman he loved. Had he bent down, his lips would have touched her head. The blood was racing through his veins as he wondered--should he dare? Then he thought of the dinner party--remembered Chantrelle. The thought acted as the descent of iced water might have done: she was another man's property! He took his hand away.

That alarmed her--dreadfully! She had thought all was going along so nicely; was actually getting ready for the union of lips; the final drying of her eyes. What could possibly have frozen him up like that?

"I am sorry," he said, "you should think unpleasant things of me. But is there need?"

The coldness of his tone struck a horrible chill to her heart. But it was not a moment for despair, rather for a marshalling of all her forces. She redoubled her efforts; fell on her knees by his side, and cried:

"You are cruel! I am kneeling to you, asking you to forgive me, and you won't! I knelt to you once before--here on this spot--and you were cruel to me then----"

"Ah, yes!"

He interrupted her; the memory of his brutality then--he called it so--returned to him; his words came hurriedly:

"For that I need your forgiveness; I ought to abjectly apologise. What I did, said, then was wholly under a misapprehension----"

She seized on that: it gave her a chance. Moreover, it was now or never--so she thought. Metaphorically she set her teeth and said--Now.

Actually she whispered:

"Isn't it possible perhaps, that you may be under a misapprehension now?"

She boldly raised her head and looked him straight in the face as she spoke. Tears had not in the least, strange to say, disfigured hers; her grief had not been that kind! She continued:

"Don't do as you did then; don't push me away from you!"

That was a rubbing of it in with a vengeance. Had the effect of making him speak with a strange quiver in his voice.

"Please--please get up! I don't like--I can't bear--to see you----"

Her disobedience was of the studied kind. She got so close to him that he felt the warmth of her body, the up-creep of her hands on his breast, the sweet warm breath from her lips. So holding him--holding in every sense of the word--she said with a spice of defiance in her voice:

"I won't get up till you tell me you forgive me everything!"

She had him at such a disadvantage! It was really grossly unfair. The poor wretch did not know whether he was on his head or his heels. Then, almost before he knew what he was doing, his arms were about her; he could not help it. He gripped her to him so closely that she could have cried out--but it was too sweet a pain to ask relief from.

"Tell me." His voice was raucous in its hoa.r.s.eness. "You do not--do not belong to Chantrelle?"

A laugh came to her lips. A tinge of jealousy in the man she loves pleases a woman, spices things as it were. Besides, looked at from the right view-point, it is the subtlest of flattery.

Hence her laughter.