An Old Meerschaum | Page 4

misery,' he added in a tone so hollow and sepulchral that you or I had laughed.
Miss Leland sat quite grave with downcast eyes.
'Are you displeased?'
'I have no right to be displeased,' she murmured.
Of course you and I can see quite clearly that he might have kissed her there and then, and settled the business, murmuring 'Mine own!' But he was in love, which we are not, and chose to interpret that pretty murmur wrongly. So there fell upon the pair an awkward silence. He was the first to break it.
'I will land at Corfu,' he said, with intense penitence.
'But not--not because of my displeasure,' she answered; a little too gaily for the gaiety to be quite real.
'Ah, then!' he said, catching at this ark of perfect safety, which looked like a straw to his love-blinded eyes, 'you are not displeased?'
'No,' she answered lightly, still playing with him, now she felt so sure of him, and inwardly melting and yearning over him; 'I am not displeased.'
'But are you pleased?' said he, growing bolder.' Are you pleased that I came because you came--because I------?'
There he paused, and she took a demure look at him. He burst out all at once in a whisper--
'Because I love you?'
She did not answer him; but when next she looked at him he saw that the tears had gathered thickly in her lovely eyes.
'You are not pained at that,' he said. 'I have loved you ever since that day you were at my place in Surrey, when you came down with Jimmy, and my poor old dad was there.'
'Yes,' she said, looking up again, and smiling through the dimness of her eyes, 'I know.'
And so it came about that, when Leland Senior awoke, Barndale held a conference with him, which terminated in a great shaking of hands. There was another conference between Lilian and her mother, which ended, as it began, in tears, and kisses, and smiles. Tears, and kisses, and smiles made a running accompaniment to that second conference, and tender embraces broke in upon it often. It was settled between them all--papa, and mamma, and the lovers--that they should finish the journey together, and that the marriage should be solemnised a year after their arrival at home. It goes without saying that Barndale looked on this delay with very little approval. But Leland Senior insisted on it stoutly, and carried his point. And even in spite of this the young people were tolerably happy. They were together a good deal, and, in the particular stage at which they had arrived, the mere fact of being together is a bliss and a wonder. Leigh Hunt--less read in these days than he deserves to be--sings truly--
Heaven's in any roof that covers On any one same night two lovers.
They went about in a state of Elysian beatitude, these young people. Love worked strange metamorphoses, as he does always. They found new joys in Tennyson, and rejoiced in the wonderful colours of the waves. I am not laughing at them for these things. I first read Tennyson when I was in love, and liked him, and understood him a great deal better than I have been able to do since I came out of Love's dear bondages. To be in love is a delicious and an altogether admirable thing. I would be in love again to-morrow if I could. You should be welcome to your foolish laugh at my raptures. Ah me! I shall never know those raptures any more; and the follies you will laugh at in me will be less noble, less tender, less innocently beautiful than those of young love. But to them, who were so sweet to each other, the moonlight was a revelation of marvellous sanctity, and the sea was holy by reason of their passionate hearts that hallowed it.
CHAPTER II.
Incidental mention has been made of the fact that Leland Junior engaged in a pronounced flirtation with a little Greek girl aboard the vessel wherein Barndale made love so stupidly and so successfully. It was out of this incident that the strange story which follows arose. It would not have been easy to tell that story without relating the episode just concluded; and when one has to be tragic it is well to soften the horrors by a little love-making, or some other such emollient. I regret to say that the little Greek girl--who was tyrannously pretty by the way--was as thorough-paced a little flirt as ever yet the psychic philosopher dissected. She had very large eyes, and very pretty lips, and a very saucy manner with a kind of inviting shyness in it. Jimmy Leland's time had not yet come, or I know no reason why he should not have succumbed to this charming young daughter of Hellas. As it was, he flirted