Page:Pierre.djvu/78

64 He could now make no plausible stay, and smothering the agitation in him, he bowed a general and hurried adieu to the company, and went forth with his mother.

They had gone some way homeward, in perfect silence, when his mother spoke.

'Well, Pierre, what can it possibly be?'

'My God, mother, did you see her, then?'

'My son!' cried Mrs. Glendinning, instantly stopping in terror, and withdrawing her arm from Pierre, 'what—what under heaven ails you? This is most strange! I but playfully asked, what you were so steadfastly thinking of; and here you answer me by the strangest question, in a voice that seems to come from under your great-grandfather's tomb! What, in heaven's name, does this mean, Pierre? Why were you so silent, and why now are you so ill-timed in speaking? Answer me;—explain all this;—she—she—what she should you be thinking of but Lucy Tartan?—Pierre, beware, beware! I had thought you firmer in your lady's faith, than such strange behaviour as this would seem to hint. Answer me, Pierre, what may this mean? Come, I hate a mystery; speak, my son.'

Fortunately, this prolonged verbalised wonder in his mother afforded Pierre time to rally from his double and aggravated astonishment, brought about by first suspecting that his mother also had been struck by the strange aspect of the face, and then, having that suspicion so violently beaten back upon him, by her apparently unaffected alarm at finding him in some region of thought wholly unshared by herself at the time.

'It is nothing—nothing, sister Mary; just nothing at all in the world. I believe I was dreaming—sleepwalking, or something of that sort. They were vastly pretty girls there this evening, sister Mary, were they not? Come, let us walk on—do, sister mine.'