Gallantry | Page 9

Lord Rokesle regarded Lady Allonby, the while that she
displayed conspicuous interest in the play of the flames. But by and by,
"O vulgarity!" said Lady Allonby. "Pray endeavor to look a little more
cheerful. Positively, you are glaring at me like one of those
disagreeable beggars one so often sees staring at bakery windows."
He smiled. "Do you remember what the Frenchman wrote--et pain ne
voyent qu'aux fenêtres? There is not an enormous difference between
me and the tattered rascal of Chepe, for we both stare longingly at what
we most desire. And were I minded to hunt the simile to the foot of the
letter, I would liken your coquetry to the intervening
window-pane,--not easily broken through, but very, very transparent,
Anastasia."
"You are not overwhelmingly polite," she said, reflectively; "but, then,
I suppose, living in the country is sure to damage a man's manners. Still,
my dear Orson, you smack too much of the forest."
"Anastasia," said Lord Rokesle, bending toward her, "will you always
be thus cruel? Do you not understand that in this world you are the only
thing I care for? You think me a boor; perhaps I am,--and yet it rests
with you, my Lady, to make me what you will. For I love you,
Anastasia--"
"Why, how delightful of you!" said she, languidly.
"It is not a matter for jesting. I tell you that I love you." My Lord's
color was rising.
But Lady Allonby yawned. "Your honor's most devoted," she declared
herself; "still, you need not boast of your affection as if falling in love
with me were an uncommonly difficult achievement. That, too, is
scarcely polite."

"For the tenth time I ask you will you marry me?" said Lord Rokesle.
"Is't only the tenth time? Dear me, it seems like the thousandth. Of
course, I couldn't think of it. Heavens, my Lord, how can you expect
me to marry a man who glares at me like that? Positively you look as
ferocious as the blackamoor in the tragedy,--the fellow who smothered
his wife because she misplaced a handkerchief, you remember."
Lord Rokesle had risen, and he paced the hall, as if fighting down
resentment. "I am no Othello," he said at last; "though, indeed, I think
that the love I bear you is of a sort which rarely stirs our English blood.
'Tis not for nothing I am half-Spaniard, I warn you, Anastasia, my love
is a consuming blaze that will not pause for considerations of policy
nor even of honor. And you madden me, Anastasia! To-day you hear
my protestations with sighs and glances and faint denials; to-morrow
you have only taunts for me. Sometimes, I think, 'tis hatred rather than
love I bear you. Sometimes--" He clutched at his breast with a wild
gesture. "I burn!" he said. "Woman, give me back a human heart in
place of this flame you have kindled here, or I shall go mad! Last night
I dreamed of hell, and of souls toasted on burning forks and fed with
sops of bale-fire,--and you were there, Anastasia, where the flames
leaped and curled like red-blazoned snakes about the poor damned.
And I, too, was there. And through eternity I heard you cry to God in
vain, O dear, wonderful, golden-haired woman! and we could see Him,
somehow,--see Him, a great way off, with straight, white brows that
frowned upon you pitilessly. And I was glad. For I knew then that I
hated you. And even now, when I think I must go mad for love of you,
I yet hate you with a fervor that shakes and thrills in every fibre of me.
Oh, I burn, I burn!" he cried, with the same frantic clutching at his
breast.
Lady Allonby had risen.
"Positively, I must ask you to open a window if you intend to continue
in this strain. D'ye mean to suffocate me, my Lord, with your flames
and your blazes and your brimstone and so on? You breathe
conflagrations, like a devil in a pantomime. I had as soon converse with
a piece of fireworks. So, if you'll pardon me, I will go to my brother."

At the sound of her high, crisp speech his frenzy fell from him like a
mantle. "And you let me kiss you yesterday! Oh, I know you struggled,
but you did not struggle very hard, did you, Anastasia?"
"Why, what a notion!" cried Lady Allonby; "as if a person should
bother seriously one way or the other about the antics of an amorous
clodhopper! Meanwhile, I repeat, my Lord, I wish to go to my brother."
"Egad!" Lord Rokesle retorted, "that reminds me I have been notably
remiss. I bear you a message from Harry. He had to-night a letter from
Job Nangle, who, it seems, has