Frivolous Cupid | Page 7

I couldn't help it. I was dying to see you again." She spread out her hands as though to push him away. She was like a frightened girl.
"Oh, you're mad!" she whispered. "You must go. Suppose anyone should come. Suppose my husband----"
"I can't help it. I won't stay long."
"Harry, Harry, don't be cruel! You'll ruin me, Harry. If you love me, go--if you love me."
Even now he hardly fathomed her distress, but she had made him understand that this spot and this time were too dangerous.
"Tell me where I can see you safely," he asked, almost demanded.
"You can see me safely--nowhere."
"Nowhere? You mean that you won't----"
"Harry, come here a minute--there--no closer. I just want to be able to touch your hair. Go away, dear--yes, I said `dear.' Do please go away. You--you won't be any happier afterward for having--if--if you don't go away."
He stood irresolutely still. Her fingers lightly touched his hair, and then her arm dropped at her side. He saw a tear run down her cheek. Suddenly his own face turned crimson.
"I'm--I'm very sorry," he muttered. "I didn't mean----"
"Good-night. I'm going in."
She held out her hand. Again he bent and kissed it, and, as he did so, he felt the light touch of her lips among his hair.
"I'm such a foolish, foolish woman," she whispered, "but you're a gentleman, Harry," and she drew her hand away and left him.
Two days later she took her children off to the seaside. And the Mortimers never came back to Natterley. She wrote and told Mrs. Sterling that George wanted to be nearer his work in town, and that they had gone to live at Wimbledon.
"How we shall miss her!" exclaimed good Mrs. Sterling. "Poor Harry! what'll he say?"

III.
One day, at Brighton, some six years later, a lady in widow's weeds, accompanied by a long, loose-limbed boy of fourteen, was taking the air by the sea. The place was full of people, and the scene gay.
Mrs. Mortimer sat down on a seat and Johnnie stood idly by her. Presently a young man and a girl came along. While they were still a long way off, Mrs. Mortimer, who was looking in that direction, suddenly leaned forward, started a little, and looked hard at them. Johnnie, noticing nothing, whistled unconcernedly.
The couple drew near. Mrs. Mortimer sat with a faint smile on her face. The girl was chatting merrily to the young man, and he listened to her and laughed every now and then, but his bright eyes were not fixed on her, but were here, there, and everywhere, where metal attractive to such eyes might be found. The discursive mood of the eyes somehow pleased Mrs. Mortimer. Just as the young man came opposite her, he glanced in her direction.
Mrs. Mortimer wore the curious, half-indifferent, half-expectant air of one ready for recognition, but not claiming it as a right.
At the first glance, a puzzled look came into the young man's eyes. He looked again: then there was a blank in his eyes. Mrs. Mortimer made no sign, but sat still, half-expectant. He was past her now, but he flung a last glance over his shoulder. He was evidently very doubtful whether the lady on the seat, in the heavy mourning robes, were someone he knew or not. First he thought she was, and then he thought she wasn't. The face certainly reminded him of--now who the deuce was it? Harry knit his brows and exclaimed:
"I half believe that's somebody I know!"
And he puzzled over it, for nearly five minutes, all in vain. Meanwhile Mrs. Mortimer looked at the sea, till Johnnie told her that it was dinner-time.

II.
WHY MEN DON'T MARRY.
We were sitting around the fire at Colonel Holborow's. Dinner was over--had, in fact, been over for some time--the hour of smoke, whisky, and confidence had arrived, and we had been telling one another the various reasons which accounted for our being unmarried, for we were all bachelors except the colonel, and he had, as a variety, told the reasons why he wished he was unmarried (his wife was away). Jack Dexter, however, had not spoken, and it was only in response to a direct appeal that he related the following story. The story may be true or untrue, but I must remark that Jack always had rather a weakness for representing himself on terms of condescending intimacy with the nobility and even greater folk.
Jack sighed deeply. There was a sympathetic silence. Then he began:
"For some reason best known to herself," said Jack, with a patient shrug of his shoulders, "the Duchess of Medmenham (I don't know whether any of you fellows know her) chose to object to me as a suitor for the hand of her daughter, Mary Fitzmoine. The woman was so ignorant that she may really have thought that my birth