Only a Girl's Love. Garvice Charles

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СКАЧАТЬ intent look which she had learned that she could not meet.

      "And you?" he said.

      "I?" said Stella, though she knew what he meant.

      He nodded.

      "How do you like the change?—this still, quiet life in the Thames valley. Are you tired of it already? Will you pine for all the gayeties you have left?"

      Stella looked up at him—his eyes were still fixed on hers.

      "I have left no gayeties," she said. "I left a bare and horrid school that was as unlike home as the desert of Sahara is like this lovely meadow. How do I feel? As if I had been translated to Paradise—as if I, who was beginning to think that I was alone in the world I had no business to be in, had found some one friend to love——"

      She paused, and he, glancing at the black waistband to her white dress, said, with the tenderest, most humble voice:

      "I beg your pardon. Will you forgive me?—I did not know——"

      And his voice broke.

      Stella looked up at him with a smile shining through the unshed tears.

      "How—why should you know? Yes, I was quite alone in the world. My father died a year ago."

      "Forgive me," he murmured; and he laid his hand with a feather's weight on her arm. "I implore you to forgive me. It was cruel and thoughtless."

      "No," said Stella. "How should you know?"

      "If I had been anything better than an unthinking brute, I might have guessed."

      There was a moment's pause, then Stella spoke.

      "Yes, it is Paradise. I had no idea England was like this, they called it the land of fogs."

      "You have not seen London on a November evening," he said, with a laugh. "Most foreigners come over to England and put up at some hotel at the west-end, and judge the whole land by the London sample—very few come even so far as this. You have not been to London?"

      "I passed through it," said Stella, "that is all. But I heard a great deal about it last night," she added, with a smile.

      "Yes!" he said, with great interest—"last night?"

      "Yes, at Mrs. Hamilton's. She was kind enough to ask me to an evening party, and one of the guests took great pains to impress me with the importance and magnificence of London."

      He looked at her.

      "May I ask who she was?" he said.

      "It was not a she, but a gentleman. It was Mr. Adelstone."

      Lord Leycester thought a moment.

      "Adelstone. Adelstone. I don't know him."

      Before she was quite aware of it the retort slipped from her lips.

      "He knows you."

      He looked at her with a thoughtful smile.

      "Does he? I don't remember him. Stay, yes, isn't he a relation of Mr. Fielding's?"

      "His nephew," said Stella, and feeling the dark, penetrating eyes on her she blushed faintly. It annoyed her, and she struggled to suppress it, but the blush came and he saw it.

      "I remember him now," he said; "a tall, thin dark man. A lawyer, I believe. Yes, I remember him. And he told you about London?"

      "Yes," said Stella, and as she remembered the conversation of a few hours ago, her color deepened. "He is very amusing and well-informed, and he took pity on my ignorance in the kindest way. I was very grateful."

      There was something in her tone that made him look at her questioningly.

      "I think," he said, "your gratitude is easily earned."

      "Oh, no," she retorted; "I am the most ungrateful of beings. Isn't that uncle sitting there?" she added, quickly, to change the subject.

      He looked up.

      "Yes, he is hard at work. I did not think I should have won him. It was my sister's name that worked the magic charm."

      "He is fond of your sister," said Stella, thoughtfully.

      His eyes were on her in an instant.

      "He has spoken of her?" he said.

      Stella could have bitten her tongue out for the slip.

      "Yes," she said. "He—he told me about her—I asked him whose house it was upon the hills."

      "Meaning the Hall?" he said, pointing with his whip.

      "Yes, and he told me. I knew by the way he spoke of your sister that he was fond of her. Her name is Lilian, is it not?"

      "Yes," he said, "Lilian," and the name left his lips with soft tenderness. "I think every one who knows her loves her. This picture is for her."

      Stella glanced up at his face; anything less imperious at that moment it would be impossible to imagine.

      "Lady Lilian is fond of pictures?" she said.

      "Yes," he said; "she is devoted to art in all its forms. Yes, that little sketch will give her more pleasure than—than—I scarcely know what to say. What are women most fond of?"

      Stella laughed.

      "Diamonds, are they not?"

      "Are you fond of them?" he said. "I think not."

      "Why not?" she retorted. "Why should I not have the attributes of my sex? Yes, I am fond of diamonds. I am fond of everything that is beautiful and costly and rare. I remember once going to a ball at Florence."

      He looked at her.

      "Only to see it!" she exclaimed. "I was too young to be seen, and they took me in a gallery overlooking the great salon; and I watched the great ladies in their beautiful dresses and shining gems, and I thought that I would give all the world to be like one of them; and the thought spoiled my enjoyment. I remember coming away crying; you see it was so dark and solitary in the great gallery, and I felt so mean and insignificant." And she laughed.

      He was listening with earnest interest. Every word she said had a charm for him; he had never met any girl—any woman—like her, so frank and open-minded. Listening to her was like looking into a crystal lake, in which everything is revealed and all is bright and pure.

      "And are you wiser now?" he asked.

      "Not one whit!" she replied. "I should like now, less than then, to be shut up in a dark gallery and look on at others enjoying themselves. Isn't that a confession of an envious and altogether wicked disposition?"

      "Yes," he assented, with a strange smile barely escaping from under his tawny mustache. "I should be right СКАЧАТЬ