Red Hair | Page 9

am going to marry you and keep you here always."
I sat down on the floor and began to laugh.
"You think so, do you?"
"Yes."
"You can't force me to marry you, you know--can you? I want to see the world. I don't want any tiresome man bothering after me. If I ever do marry, it will be because--oh, because--" and I stopped and began fiddling with the cover of a book.
"What?"
"Mrs. Carruthers said it was so foolish--but I believe I should prefer to marry some one I liked. Oh, I know you think that silly--" and I stopped him as he was about to speak--"but of course, as it does not last, anyway, it might be good for a little to begin like that--don't you think so?"
He looked round the room, and on through the wide-open double doors into my dainty bedroom, where V��ronique was still packing.
"You are very cosey here; it is absurd of you to leave it," he said.
I got up off the floor and went to the window and back. I don't know why I felt moved--a sudden sense of the cosiness came over me. The world looked wet and bleak outside.
"Why do you say you want me to marry you, Mr. Carruthers?" I said. "You are joking, of course."
"I am not joking. I am perfectly serious. I am ready to carry out my aunt's wishes. It can be no new idea to you, and you must have worldly sense enough to realize it would be the best possible solution of your future. I can show you the world, you know."
He appeared to be extraordinarily good-looking as he stood there, his face to the dying light. Supposing I took him at his word, after all!
"But what has suddenly changed your ideas since yesterday? You told me you had come down to make it clear to me that you could not possibly obey her orders."
"That was yesterday," he said. "I had not really seen you--to-day I think differently."
"It is just because you are sorry for me; I suppose I seem so lonely," I whispered, demurely.
"It is perfectly impossible, what you propose to do--to go and live by yourself at a London hotel--the idea drives me mad."
"It will be delightful--no one to order me about from day to night!"
"Listen," he said, and he flung himself into an arm-chair. "You can marry me, and I will take you to Paris, or where you want, and I won't order you about--only I shall keep the other beasts of men from looking at you."
But I told him at once that I thought that would be very dull. "I have never had the chance of any one looking at me," I said, "and I want to feel what it is like. Mrs. Carruthers always assured me I was very pretty, you know, only she said that I was certain to come to a bad end, because of my type, unless I got married at once, and then if my head was screwed on it would not matter; but I don't agree with her."
He walked up and down the room impatiently.
"That is just it," he said. "I would rather be the first--I would rather you began by me. I am strong enough to ward off the rest."
"What does 'beginning by you' mean?" I asked, with great candor. "Old Lord Bentworth said I should begin with him, when he was here to shoot pheasants last autumn; he said it could not matter, he was so old; but I didn't----"
Mr. Carruthers bounded up from his chair.
"You didn't what! Good Lord! what did he want you to do?" he asked, aghast.
"Well," I said, and I looked down for a moment; I felt stupidly shy. "He wanted me to kiss him."
Mr. Carruthers looked almost relieved. It was strange.
"The old wretch! Nice company my aunt seems to have kept!" he exclaimed. "Could she not take better care of you than that--to let you be insulted by her guests?"
"I don't think Lord Bentworth meant to insult me. He only said he had never seen such a red, curly mouth as mine; and as I was bound to go to the devil some day with that, and such hair, I might begin by kissing him--he explained it all."
"And were you not very angry?" his voice wrathful.
"No, not very; I could not be, I was shaking so with laughter. If you could have seen the silly old thing, like a wizened monkey, with dyed hair and an eye-glass--it was too comic! I only told you because you said the sentence 'begin with you,' and I wanted to know if it was the same thing----"
Mr. Carruthers's eyes had such a strange expression--puzzle and amusement, and something else. He came over close to me.
"Because," I went on, "if so--I believe if that is always the beginning,