Frivolous Cupid | Page 5

Harry.
In such affairs monosyllables are danger signals. A long protestation
might have meant nothing: in this short, sufficient negative Mrs.
Mortimer recognized the boy's sincerity. A little thrill of pride and
shame, and perhaps something else, ran through her. The night was hot
and she unfastened the clasp of her cloak, breathing a trifle quickly. To
relieve the silence, she said, with a laugh:
"You see we poor married women have to depend on charity. Our
husbands don't care to walk home with us. Your father was bent on
your coming."
Harry laughed a short laugh; the utter darkness of Mr. Sterling's
condition struck through his agitation down to his sense of humor. Mrs.
Mortimer smiled at him; she could not help it: the secret between them
was so pleasant to her, even while she hated herself for its existence.
They had reached the meadow now, halfway through their journey. A
little gate led into it and Harry stopped, leaning his arm on the top rail.
"Oh, no! we must go on," she murmured.
"They won't move for an hour yet," he answered, and then he suddenly
broke out:
"How--how funny it is! I hardly remembered you, you know."
"Oh, but I remembered you, a pretty little boy;" and she looked up at
his face, half a foot above her. Mere stature has much effect and the
little boy stage seemed very far away. And he knew that it did, for he
put out his hand to take hers. She drew back.
"No," she said.

Harry blushed. She took hold of the gate and he, yielding his place, let
her pass through. For a minute or two they walked on in silence.
"Oh, how silly you are!" she cried then, beginning with a laugh and
ending with a strange catch in her throat. "Why, you're only just out of
knickerbockers!"
"I don't care, I don't care, Hilda----"
"Hush, hush! Oh, indeed, you must be quiet! See, we are nearly home."
He seized her hand, not to be quelled this time, and, bending low over
it, kissed it. She did not draw it away, but watched him with a curious,
pained smile. He looked up in her face, his own glowing with
excitement. He righted himself to his full stature and, from that
stooping, kissed her on the lips.
"Oh, you silly boy!" she moaned, and found herself alone in the
meadow. He had gone swiftly back by the way they had come, and she
went on to her home.
"Well, the boy saw you home?" asked Mr. Mortimer when he arrived
half an hour later.
"Yes," she said, raising her head from the cushions of the sofa on which
he found her lying.
"I supposed so, but he didn't come into the smoking-room when he got
back. Went straight to bed, I expect. He's a nice-mannered young
fellow, isn't he?"
"Oh, very!" said Mrs. Mortimer.

II.
Mr. Mortimer had never been so looked after, cosseted, and comforted
for his early start as the next morning, nor the children found their
mother so patient and affectionate. She was in an abasement of shame
and disgust at herself, and quite unable to treat her transgression lightly.
That he was a boy and she-- not a girl--seemed to charge her with his as
well as her own sins, and, besides this moral aggravation, entailed a
lower anxiety as to his discretion and secrecy that drove her half mad
with worry. Suppose he should boast of it! Or, if he were not bad
enough for that, only suppose he should be carried away into
carelessness about it! He had nothing to fear worse than what he would
call "a wigging" and perhaps summary dismissal to a tutor's: she had
more at risk than she could bear to think of. Probably, by now, he

recognized his foolishness, and laughed at himself and her. This
thought made her no happier, for men may do all that--and yet, very
often, they do not stop.
She had to go to a party at the Vicarage in the afternoon. Harry would
be sure to be there, and, with a conflict of feeling finding expression in
her acts, she protected herself by taking all the children, while she
inconsistently dressed herself in her most youthful and coquettish
costume. She found herself almost grudging Johnnie his rapidly
increasing inches, even while she relied on him for an assertion of her
position as a matron. For the folly of last night was to be over and done
with, and her acquaintance with Harry Sterling to return to its only
possible sane basis; that she was resolved on, but she wanted Harry
honestly--even keenly--to regret her determination.
He was talking to Maudie Sinclair when she arrived; he took off his hat,
but did