Poor Billy stared at her; and his heart gave a great
bound and then appeared to stop for an indefinite
time.
“Good Lord!” said Mr. Woods, in his soul.
“And I thought I was an ass last night!
Why, last night, in comparison, I displayed intelligence
that was almost human! Oh, Peggy, Peggy! if I
only dared tell you what I think of you, I believe
I would gladly die afterward—yes, I’m
sure I would. You really haven’t any right
to be so beautiful!—it isn’t fair
to us, Peggy!”
But the vision was peeping over the bannisters at
him, and the vision’s eyes were sparkling with
a lucent mischief and a wonderful, half-hushed contralto
was demanding of him:
“Oh, where have you been, Billy
boy, Billy boy?
Oh, where have you been, charming
Billy?”
And Billy’s baritone answered her:
“I’ve been to seek a wife—”
and broke off in a groan.
“Good Lord!” said Mr. Woods.
It was a ludicrous business, if you will. Indeed,
it was vastly humorous—was it not?—this
woman’s thinking a man’s love might by
any chance endure through six whole years. But
their love endures, you see; and the silly creatures
have a superstition among them that love is a sacred
thing, stronger than time, victorious over death itself.
Let us laugh, then, at Kathleen Saumarez—those
of us who have learned that love is only a tinkling
cymbal and faith a sounding brass and fidelity an
obsolete affectation: but for my part, I honour
and think better of the woman who through all her
struggles with the world—through all those
sordid, grim, merciless, secret battles where the
vanquished may not even cry for succour—I
honour her, I say, for that she had yet cherished
the memory of that first love which is the best and
purest and most unselfish and most excellent thing
in life.
Breakfast Margaret enjoyed hugely. I regret to
confess that the fact that every one of her guests
was more or less miserable moved this hard-hearted
young woman to untimely and excessive mirth. Only
Mrs. Saumarez puzzled her, for she could think of
no reason for that lady’s manifest agitation
when Kathleen eventually joined the others.
But for the rest, the hopeless glances that Hugh Van
Orden cast toward her caused Adele to flush, and Mrs.
Haggage to become despondent and speechless and astonishingly
rigid; and Petheridge Jukesbury’s vaguely apologetic
attitude toward the world struck Miss Hugonin as infinitely
diverting. Kennaston she pitied a little; but
his bearing toward her ranged ludicrously from that
of proprietorship to that of supplication, and, moreover,
she was furious with him for having hinted at various
times that Billy was a fortune-hunter.
Margaret was quite confident by this that she had
never believed him—“not really, you
know”—having argued the point out
at some length the night before, and reaching her
conclusion by a course of reasoning peculiar to herself.
