She shrugs her shoulder—her charming shoulder.
"And if," I hotly continue, "if a gentleman—if a man of mature age certainly, but who has a kind heart and four hundred a-year of his own—were to say to you, "Elizabeth! will you bid the flowers of a blighted life to bloom again?—Elizabeth! will you soothe a wounded heart?'"
"Oh, Mr. Batchelor!" she sighed, and then added quickly, "Please, don't take my hand. Here's Pop."
And that dear child (bless him!) came up at the moment, saying, "Oh, Miss Prior! look here! I've got such a jolly big toadstool!" And next came Cissy, with a confounded butterfly. O Richard the Third! Haven't you been maligned because you smothered two little nuisances in a Tower? What is to prove to me that you did not serve the little brutes right, and that you weren't a most humane man? Darling Cissy coming up, then, in her dear, charming way, says, "You shan't take Mr. Batchelor's hand, you shall take my hand!" And she tosses up her little head, and walks with the instructress of her youth.
"Ces enfans ne comprennent guère le Français," says Miss Prior, speaking very rapidly.
"Après lonche?" I whisper. The fact is, I was so agitated, I hardly knew what the French for lunch was. And then our conversation dropped: and the beating of my own heart was all the sound I heard.
Lunch came. I couldn't eat a bit: I should have choked. Bessy ate plenty, and drank a glass of beer. It was her dinner, to be sure. Young Blacksheep did not appear. We did not miss him. When Lady Baker began to tell her story of George IV. at Slane Castle, I went into my own room. I took a book. Books? Paha! I went into the garden. I took out a cigar. But no, I would not smoke it. Perhaps shemany people don't like smoking.
I went into the garden. "Come into the garden, Maud." I sate by a large lilac bush. I waited. Perhaps, she would come. The morning-room windows were wide open on to the lawn. Will she never come? Ah! what is that tall form advancing? gliding—gliding into the chamber like a beauteous ghost? Who most does like an angel show, you may be sure 'tis she. She comes up to the glass. She lays her spectacles down on the mantel-piece. She puts a slim white hand over her auburn hair and looks into the mirror. Elizabeth, Elizabeth! I come!
As I came up, I saw a horrid little grinning, debauched face surge over the back of a great arm-chair and look towards Elizabeth. It was Captain Blacksheep, of course. He laid his elbows over the chair. He looked keenly and with a diabolical smile at the unconscious girl; and just as I reached the window, he cried out, "Betsy Bellenden, by Jove!"
Elizabeth turned round, gave a little cry, andbut what happened I shall tell in the ensuing chapter.
