Red Hair | Page 6

he answered, trying to be polite. "My aunt quarrelled with my father--she was the direct heiress of all this--and married her cousin, my father's younger brother--but you know the family history, of course----"
"Yes."
"They hated each other, she and my father."
"Mrs. Carruthers hated all her relations," I said, demurely.
"Myself among them?"
"Yes," I said, slowly, and bent forward so that the lamplight should fall upon my hair. "She said you were too much like herself in character for you ever to be friends."
"Is that a compliment?" he asked, and there was a twinkle in his eye.
"We must speak no ill of the dead," I said, evasively.
He looked slightly annoyed--as much as these diplomats ever let themselves look anything.
"You are right," he said. "Let her rest in peace."
There was silence for a moment.
"What are you going to do with your life now?" he asked, presently. It was a bald question.
"I shall become an adventuress," I answered, deliberately.
"A what?" he exclaimed, his black eyebrows contracting.
"An adventuress. Is not that what it is called? A person who sees life, and has to do the best she can for herself."
He laughed. "You strange little lady!" he said, his irritation with me melting. And when he laughs you can see how even his teeth are; but the two side ones are sharp and pointed, like a wolf's.
"Perhaps, after all, you had better have married me!"
"No, that would clip my wings," I said, frankly, looking at him straight in the face.
"Mr. Barton tells me you propose leaving here on Saturday. I beg you will not do so. Please consider it your home for so long as you wish--until you can make some arrangements for yourself. You look so very young to be going about the world alone!"
He bent down and gazed at me closer--there was an odd tone in his voice.
"I am twenty, and I have been often snubbed," I said, calmly. "That prepares one for a good deal. I shall enjoy doing what I please."
"And what are you going to please?"
"I shall go to Claridge's until I can look about me."
He moved uneasily.
"But have you no relations--no one who will take care of you?"
"I believe none. My mother was nobody particular, you know--a Miss Tonkins by name."
"But your father?" He sat down now on the sofa beside me; there was a puzzled, amused look in his face; perhaps I was amazing him.
"Papa? Oh, papa was the last of his family. They were decent people, but there are no more of them."
He pushed one of the cushions aside.
"It is an impossible position for a girl--completely alone. I cannot allow it. I feel responsible for you. After all, it would do very well if you married me. I am not particularly domestic by nature, and should be very little at home, so you could live here and have a certain position, and I would come back now and then and see you were getting on all right."
One could not say if he was mocking or no.
"It is too good of you," I said, without any irony. "But I like freedom, and when you were at home it might be such a bore----"
He leaned back and laughed merrily.
"You are candid, at any rate!" he said.
Mr. Barton came into the room at that moment, full of apologies at being late. Immediately after, with the usual ceremony, the butler entered and pompously announced, "Dinner is served, sir." How quickly they recognize the new master!
Mr. Carruthers gave me his arm, and we walked slowly down the picture-gallery to the banqueting-hall, and there sat down at the small, round table in the middle, that always looks like an island in a lake.
I talked nicely at dinner. I was dignified and grave, and quite frank. Mr. Carruthers was not bored. The chef had outdone himself, hoping to be kept on. I never felt so excited in my life.
I was apparently asleep under a big lamp, after dinner, in the library, a book of silly poetry in my lap, when the door opened and he--Mr. Carruthers--came in alone, and walked up the room. I did not open my eyes. He looked for just a minute--how accurate I am! Then he said, "You are very pretty when asleep!"
His voice was not caressing or complimentary--merely as if the fact had forced this utterance.
I allowed myself to wake without a start.
"Was the '47 port as good as you hoped?" I asked, sympathetically.
He sat down. I had arranged my chair so that there was none other in its immediate neighborhood. Thus he was some way off, and could realize my whole silhouette.
"The '47 port? Oh yes; but I am not going to talk of port. I want you to tell me a lot more about yourself, and your plans----"
"I have no plans--except to see the world."
He picked up a book