‘It might be amusing,’ she admitted. ‘But it would become tiresome in time. Things do, you know.’ She began to play with her riding whip, twisting the lash round her fingers. Watching her, he saw that her eyes had grown dark again, and that she had gripped her lips together in a mulish fashion. He was content to look at her, and presently she glanced up, and said brusquely: ‘To be plain with you, Charles, you are a fool! Am I your first love?’
‘My dear! No!’
‘The more shame to you. Don’t you know—? Good God, can you not see that we should never deal together? We are not suited!’
‘No, we are not suited, but I think we might deal together,’ he answered.
‘I have been spoilt from my cradle!’ she flung at him. ‘You know nothing of me! You have fallen in love with my face. In fact, you are ridiculous!’
He said rather ruefully: ‘Do you think I don’t know it? I can discover no reason why you should look with anything but amusement upon my suit. I am a younger son, with no prospects beyond the Army—’
‘Gussie said that,’ she interrupted, her lip lifting a little.
‘She was right.’
She put her whip down; something glowed in her eyes. ‘Have you nothing to recommend you to me, then?’
‘Nothing at all,’ he replied, with a faint smile.
She leaned towards him; sudden tears sparkled on her lashes; her hands went out to him impulsively. ‘Nothing at all! Charles, dear fool! Oh, the devil! I’m crying!’
She was in his arms, and raised her face for his kiss. Her hands gripped his shoulders; her mouth was eager, and clung to his for a moment. Then she put her head back, and felt him kiss her wet eyelids.
‘Oh, rash,’ she murmured. ‘I darken ’em Charles—my eyelashes! Does it come off?’
He said a little unsteadily: ‘I don’t think so. What odds?’
She disengaged herself. ‘My dear, you are certainly mad! Confound it, I never cry! How dared you look at me just so? Charles, if I have black streaks on my face, I swear I’ll never forgive you!’
‘But you have not, on my honour!’ he assured her. He found his handkerchief, and put his hand under her chin. ‘Keep still: I will engage to dry them without the least damage being done.’ He performed this office for her, and held her chin for an instant longer, looking down into her face.
She let him kiss her again, but when he raised his head, flung off his arms, and sprang up. ‘Of all the absurd situations I ever was in! To be made love to before breakfast! Abominable!’
He too rose, and caught and grasped her hands, holding them in a grip that made her grimace. ‘Will you marry me?’
‘I don’t know, I don’t know! Go to Ghent: I won’t be swept off my feet!’ She gave a gurgle of laughter, and burlesqued herself: ‘You must give me time to consider, Colonel Audley! Lord, did you ever hear anything so Bath-missish? Let me go: you don’t possess me, you know.’
‘Give me an answer!’ he said.
‘No, and no! Do you think I must marry where I kiss? They don’t mean anything, my kisses.’
His grip tightened on her hands. ‘Be quiet! You shall not talk so!’
Her mouth mocked him bitterly. ‘You’ve drawn such a pretty picture of me for yourself, and the truth is I’m a rake.’
He turned from her in silence to lead up her horse. With the knowledge that she had hurt him an unaccustomed pain seized her. ‘Now you see how odious I can be!’ she said in a shaking voice.
He glanced over his shoulder, and said gently: ‘My poor dear!’
She gave a twisted smile, but said nothing until he had brought her horse to her. He put her into the saddle, and she bent towards him, and touched his cheek with her gloved hand. ‘Go to Ghent. Dear Charles!’
For a moment her eyes were soft with tenderness. He caught her hand and kis
sed it. ‘I must go, of course. I shall be back in a day or two and I shall want my answer.’
She gathered up the bridle. ‘I shall give it you—perhaps!’ she said, and rode off, leaving him still standing under the elm trees.
He made no attempt to overtake her, but rode back to the town at a sober pace, arriving at his brother’s house rather late for breakfast. His sister-in-law, regarding him with a little curiosity, asked him where he had been, and upon his answering briefly, in the Allée Verte, rallied him on such a display on matutinal energy.