Wild Margaret. Garvice Charles

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СКАЧАТЬ it's usual to address us by our surname; I wish you would call me Leyton."

      Margaret was silent a moment, while he scanned her face with suppressed eagerness.

      "If it is quite usual," she said in her blissful ignorance. "It sounds rather abrupt."

      "Why, of course!" he said. "Abrupt, not a bit. And you live in London! Now, shall I guess what part? Let me see. You are an artist. Yes. Well, Chelsea – "

      "Wrong; but Kensington is not so far away," she said, with a smile.

      "Kensington," he said. "The Art School, of course. How jolly! I've got rooms not very far from there. Perhaps we shall – " he hesitated and watched her rather fearfully – "we might meet, you know."

      "I should say that there was nothing more improbable, my – Lord Leyton. We don't know the same people, and never shall, and – " she stopped, her own words had recalled Mrs. Hale's warning. "I must go now," she said, rising suddenly.

      "Oh, it's not ten," he pleaded. "You feel chilly? Let me put your shawl on. It has slipped down. Why, what a funny shawl it is!"

      "It's an antimacassar," she said laughing.

      "So it is!" he said. "And look here, it has got entangled in my watch-chain; but they are built to get entangled in things, aren't they?" he added, fumbling with all a man's awkwardness at the tangled threads.

      "Oh, you'll never get it off like that," said Margaret impatiently, and innocently enough her small supple fingers flew at it.

      His own hand and hers touched, and with a feeling of surprise he felt the blood tingling at her touch. He looked at the lovely face so close to his own, so gravely, unconsciously beautiful, and a wild desire to lift the hand to his lips seized him, but with a mighty effort he forced it down.

      "There it is!" he said. "And now to reward me for – not getting it undone, will you let me give you this flower?" and he stooped and picked a red rose.

      Margaret started slightly and looked at him; but the handsome face wore its frankest, "goodest" look, and with a laugh she held out her hand. He drew it back with an answering laugh.

      "Before I give it to you, will you tell me one thing, Miss Hale?"

      "That depends," she said, "upon what the thing is."

      "It's not much," he said. "Only this: will you tell me that you don't think I am quite the savage you accused me of being yesterday?"

      She looked up at him with a faint color in her face.

      "Yes, I will do that," she said. "But I think you should keep the rose, Lord Leyton."

      "No," he said, laughingly, but with an intent look in his eyes, fixed upon her. "No, I've got a fancy for leaving something behind me that you may remember me by. I'm going to-morrow, you know."

      "I did not know," said Margaret.

      "Yes," with a sigh. "My welcome to the Court is soon outworn, and I'm back to London and the old road," with a laugh.

      Margaret stood with averted face.

      "Is – is it so inevitable, that same road? Is there no other, my lord?" she said.

      "No, I'm afraid not, my lady," he said, smiling, but rather gravely.

      "I think there must be, that there might be if you cared to take it," she said, gravely.

      "If you cared that I should take it – I mean" – he broke off quickly, for she had looked alarmed at his words and their tone – "I mean that it's very good of you to care what becomes of a useless fellow like me, and – "

      "Margaret!" called Mrs. Hale's voice from the open window.

      Margaret started.

      "Good-night, my lord," she said, hurriedly, and yet with simple dignity.

      "Stop," he said, in a low voice; "you have forgotten your rose," and, following her a step or two, he touched her arm. "It is not a very grand one; there was a bowl of beauties in my room: some good soul had pick – " he stopped, for the color rose to Margaret's face. "You put them there!" he exclaimed, his eyes lighting up. "You!"

      "I – I did not know – " she said, faltering, and trying to speak proudly.

      "Oh, don't destroy my pleasure by explaining that you did not mean them for me!" he pleaded. "You put them there at any rate. Will you let me, in return, fix this rose in your shawl? We shall be more than quits then on my side!"

      Oh, Margaret, put back the proffered flower! Red stands in the language of magic for all that is evil, for a passion that will burn into ashes of pain; put back the hand that offers it to you!

      But he was too quick. Gently, reverently he fixed the rose in the meshes of the antimacassar, and, as he put it straight with a caressing touch, he murmured:

      "Good-night! Try and remember me, Miss – Margaret, at any rate as long as the rose lives!"

      Red as the flower itself, trembling with a feeling that was painfully like the stab of conscience, Margaret glanced up at him, and without a word, sped from his side.

      Lord Leyton stood looking after her, as strange an expression in his face as her own had worn.

      Then with a long sigh he went back to the seat and threw himself down into it, in the place where she had sat.

      Half an hour passed; the nightingale for which Margaret had been waiting came out and sang for him; but the song gave him no delight, for in his whirling brain its notes seemed to take the shape of words: words of such sad, strange import! "Spare her! – spare her!" the bird seemed to sing; and as if he could not endure the appeal any longer, he rose impatiently and walked toward the terrace.

      As he did so, a tall, skulking figure moved snake-like after him.

      Lord Blair stopped at the bottom of the steps, and the shadow pursuing him stopped also, and raised a heavy stick.

      For a moment it hovered evilly over Lord Blair's head, then, as if smitten by a sudden remorse or a desire for a still deeper revenge, Pyke let the stick fall, and, slinking back, disappeared amongst the shrubs.

      CHAPTER VI

      Margaret ran into the house, her heart beating fast, the color coming and going in her cheeks. To her amazement and annoyance, she felt that she was actually trembling! Well, if not trembling, quivering, as a leaf quivers when the summer wind passes over its bosom.

      What was this that she had done? Notwithstanding her grandmother's warning and her own good resolutions, she had spent – how long! – nearly an hour talking alone with Lord Blair Leyton. And he had given her a rose! Not only given it to her, but fastened it in the antimacassar.

      She could feel his fingers touching her still, as it seemed to her! She looked down at the rose, gleaming like a spot of blood on the white cotton of the antimacassar, then, with a sudden gesture, she went to pull it out and fling it through the window; but she averted her hand even as it touched the velvet leaves. Yes, she had done wrong; she ought not to have spoken to him, ought not to have remained with him, and most certainly ought not to have taken the rose from him.

      She СКАЧАТЬ