Wild Margaret. Garvice Charles

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      As for him, his astonishment equalled and surpassed hers. He had seen her back as he was passing the door of the gallery, and being unable to resist the temptation to ascertain what the face belonging to so graceful a figure was like, he had entered and softly approached her.

      Margaret was a beautiful girl, but she was never lovelier than when under the spell which falls upon an artist absorbed in her work.

      The clear, oval face grew dreamy, the large eyes softer and mystical, the red lips sweeter with a suggestful tenderness.

      It was the loveliness of the face as well as the recognition of it which struck him – Blair Leyton, of all men – dumb and motionless.

      They looked into each other's eyes while one could count fifty, then, with an embarrassment quite novel, he spoke.

      "I've disturbed you?"

      "No," said Margaret, and the word sounded blunt and cold in his ears. Who could he be, and how did he come here? Yesterday, fighting on the village green, this evening at Leyton Court. Then it flashed upon her: it was Lord Leyton! "No, I didn't hear you," she added.

      "I came in quietly so as not to disturb you," he said, regaining some of his usual composure, but not all of it, for her loveliness dazzled, and her identity with the girl who had so sternly rebuked him yesterday, bewildered him.

      "You – you are an artist?" he said.

      "I have that honor," she said.

      He looked at the copy.

      "And a very good one! Your picture is better than the old one."

      "You are not an artist, evidently," she said with a smile.

      "No," he admitted; then a light shone in his eyes. "Oh, no, I am a savage!"

      A burning blush covered her face, and she took up her brush.

      Mr. Stibbings appeared between the velvet curtains.

      "Dinner served, my lord."

      Lord Blair Leyton nodded impatiently without turning.

      "Are you staying here?" he said.

      "Yes," said Margaret, going on with her painting.

      He stood looking at her, at the beautiful, intelligent "artist" face, at the dove-colored dress, at the pink-white hand with its supple, capable fingers.

      "Are you not going to dinner, my lord?" she said, unable to bear his silent presence any longer.

      "I beg your pardon!" he said with a little start. "I was waiting for you."

      "For me?" she said, turning her face to him with wide-eyed surprise.

      "Yes," he said; "we will go together. You are coming, are you not?"

      "I?" she said, then she laughed; "I am Mrs. Hale's – the housekeeper's granddaughter, Lord Leyton."

      He reddened and bit his mustache.

      "And you are not coming?" he said. "I am very sorry. I – "

      "Dinner is served, my lord," said a footman in a low voice from the doorway.

      Lord Blair uttered an impatient exclamation, which, as it was something remarkably like an oath, was fortunately unintelligible.

      "Have you forgiven me yet?" he said, humbly.

      "Forgiven?" said Margaret, as if she were trying to discover to what he referred. "Forgiven?"

      "Yes! That affair of yesterday – the set-to, you know," he explained.

      "Oh!" – the monosyllable dropped like a stone from her lips – "I had forgotten."

      "That's right," he said, quickly; "if you've forgotten you have forgiven. I assure you – "

      "Dinner is served, my lord," said a solemn voice.

      He turned sharply.

      "Confound it all – "

      "Whether I have forgiven you is not of the least consequence, my lord," said Margaret, "but the earl will certainly not forgive you if you keep dinner waiting any longer," and she bent over her canvas with an air of absorption which shut him out of her cognizance completely.

      He stood for a minute, then with an audible "Confound the dinner!" strode off.

      CHAPTER V

      Margaret did not raise her head from her work as Lord Blair Leyton moved reluctantly and impatiently down the gallery, but when the echo of his footsteps had died away she looked up with a slightly startled and altogether strange expression.

      To her astonishment and disgust, the hand which held her brush was trembling. It was impossible to work any longer. Guido's head danced before her sight, and the other head – the handsome one of Blair Leyton – came between her and the painted one.

      How very far from guessing she had been that this, the young man she had called a savage, was the earl's nephew, Lord Blair Leyton!

      What must he think of her? And yet he had taken her for a guest of the house, had asked her if she were not going in to dinner with him!

      She sat, paint brush in hand, and stared musingly at the curtained doorway through which he had gone, and thought of him.

      It is a dangerous thing for a young, impressionable girl to think of a young man. But how could she help it? Her grandmother's words were ringing in her ears; according to Mrs. Hale, nothing was too bad to be said of poor Blair Leyton. He was the wickedest of the wicked, bad beyond all description. And yet – and yet! How bravely he had fought a stronger and bigger man than himself on behalf of a helpless dog!

      She pondered over this question for half an hour, looking dreamily in the direction he had gone, then, without having arrived at any answer to it, she jumped up and, putting her painting materials together, left the gallery.

      "Grandma," she said, as she entered the room in which the old lady was seated, placidly knitting, for the dinner was in full swing, and Mrs. Hale's anxiety was over, "grandma, I have seen Lord Leyton."

      The old lady almost jumped.

      "Seen Lord Leyton, Madge?"

      Margaret nodded.

      "Yes; he came into the gallery – "

      The old lady broke in with a groan.

      "Margaret, no good will come of your going to the picture gallery! Mark my words! It isn't – isn't proper and right like! And you've seen him. Did he speak to you?"

      "Very much," said Margaret, smiling, but pensively. "He asked me if I weren't going in to dinner with him!"

      "You don't say so!" exclaimed Mrs. Hale, lifting her hands. "Took you for a lady! Dear, now!"

      "Yes; isn't it strange?" said Margaret, with great irony.

      "Well – I don't know that," said the old lady, eying the graceful СКАЧАТЬ