Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 133.djvu/51

Rh he, with obvious surprise, "that I haven't the remotest notion in the world as to what all this means?"

"It is nothing, then?" said she, warmly, and she was going to proceed with her charge when her pride rebelled. She would not speak. She would not claim that which was not freely given. Unfortunately, however, when she would fain have got away, he had a tight grip of her hand; and it was clear from the expression on this man's face that he meant to have an explanation, there and then.

So he held her until she told him the whole story—the red blood tingling in her cheek the while, and her bosom heaving with that struggle between love and wounded pride. He waited until she had spoken the very last word; and then he let her hands fall, and stood silent before her for a second or two.

"Sylvia," said he, slowly, "this is not merely a lover's quarrel. This is more serious. I could not have imagined that you knew so little about me. You fancy, then, that I am a fresh and ingenuous youth, ready to have my head turned if a schoolgirl looks at me from, under long eyelashes; or worse still, a philanderer—a professor of the fine art of flirtation. Well, that was not my reading of myself. I fancied I had come to man's estate. I fancied I had some serious work to do. I fancied I knew a little about men and women—at least I never imagined that any one would suspect me of being imposed on by a girl in her first season. Amused?—certainly I was amused—I was even delighted by such a show of pretty and artless innocence. Could anything be prettier than a girl in her first season assuming the airs of a woman of the world: could anything be more interesting than that innocent chatter of hers, though I could not make out whether she had caught the trick of it from her brother or whether she had imparted to that precocious lad some of her universal information. But now it appears I was playing the part of a guileless youth. I was dazzled by the fascination of the schoolgirl eyes. Gracious goodness, why wasn't my hair yellow and curly, that I might have been painted as Cupid? And what would the inhabitants of Ballinascroon say if they were told that was my character?"

He spoke with bitter emphasis. But this man Balfour went on the principle that serious ills needed prompt and serious remedies.

"Presented to the town-hall of Ballinascroon," he continued, with a scornful laugh, "a portrait of H. Balfour, M.P., in the character of a philanderer! The author of this flattering and original likeness—Lady Sylvia Blythe!"

The girl could stand this no longer. She burst into a wild fit of crying and sobbing, in the midst of which he put his arms round her, and hushed her head against his breast, and bade her be quiet.

"Come, Sylvia," said he, "let us have done with this nonsense at once and forever. If you wait until I give you real cause for jealousy—if you have no other unhappiness than that—your life will be a long and fairly comfortable one. Not speaking to you all through dinner? Did you expect me to bawl across the table, when you know very well your first desire was to conceal from those people the fact of our being engaged? Listening to no one but her? I hadn't a chance! She chattered from one end of the dinner to the other. But really, Sylvia, if I were you, I would fix upon some more formidable rival"

"Please don't scold me any more," said she, with a fresh fit of crying.

"I am not scolding you," he said. "I am only talking common sense to you. Now dry your eyes, and promise not to be foolish any more, and come out into the garden."

After the rain the sunshine. They went out arm-in-arm, and she was clinging very closely to him, and there was a glad, bright, blushing happiness on her face.

Now this was the end of their first trouble, and it seemed a very small and trivial affair when it was over. The way was now clear before them. There were to be no more misunderstandings. But Mr. Hugh Balfour was a practical person, not easily led away by beautiful anticipations, and the more he pondered over the matter in those moments of quiet reflection that followed his evenings at the House, the more he became convinced that the best guarantee against the recurrence of misunderstandings and consequent trouble was marriage. He convinced himself that an immediate marriage, or a marriage as early as social forms would allow, was not only desirable, but necessary; and so clear was his line of argument, that he never doubted for a moment but that it would at once convince Lady Sylvia.

But his arguments did not at all convince Lady Sylvia. On the contrary, this proposal, which was to put an end to the very possibility of trouble, only landed them in a further trouble. For he, being greatly