The Mighty Atom | Page 4

There now, don't look so downcast!--come along to Miss Payne's cottage, where we can get the best cream in all Devonshire, and we'll have a jolly spread and a talk out, shall we?"
But Lionel stood mute,--the colour left his cheeks, and his little mouth once more became set and stern.
"I know!" he said at last slowly, "I know exactly what you have to tell me, Mr. Montrose! My father is sending you away. I am not surprised; oh no! I thought it would happen soon. You see you have been too kind,--too easy with me,--that's what it is. No,--I'm not going to cry"--here he choked back a little rising sob bravely,--"you mustn't think that,--I am glad you are going away for your own sake, but I'm sorry for myself,--very sorry! I'm always feeling sorry for myself,--isn't it cowardly? Marcus Aurelius says the worst form of cowardice is self-pity."
"Oh, hang Marcus Aurelius!" burst out Montrose.
Lionel smiled,--a dreary little cynical smile.
"Shall we go and have our tea?" he suggested quietly--"I'm ready."
And they walked slowly up from the shore together,--the young man with a light yet leisurely tread, the child with wearily dragging feet that seemed scarcely able to support his body. Painful thoughts and forebodings kept them silent, and they exchanged not a word even when a sudden red and golden after-glow flashed across the sea as the very last salutation of the vanished sun,--indeed they scarcely saw the fiery splendour that would, at a happier moment, have been a perfect feast of beauty to their eyes. Turning away from the principal street of the village they bent their steps towards a small thatched cottage, overgrown from porch to roof with climbing roses, fuchsias and jessamine, where an unobtrusive signboard might be just discerned framed in a wreath of brilliant nasturtiums, and bearing the following device,
CLARINDA CLEVERLY PAYNE.
NEW LAID EGGS. DEVONSHIRE CREAM. JUNKETS.
TEAS PROVIDED.
Within this rustic habitation, tutor and pupil disappeared, and the pebbly shore of Combmartin was left in the possession of two ancient mariners, who, seated side by side on the overhanging wall, smoked their pipes together in solemn silence, and watched the gradual smoothing of the sea as it spread itself out in wider, longer, and more placid undulations, as though submissively preparing for the coming of its magnetic mistress, the moon.
CHAPTER II.
THAT same evening, John Valliscourt, Esquire, of Valliscourt, sat late over his after-dinner wine, conversing with a languid, handsome-featured person known as Sir Charles Lascelles, Baronet. Sir Charles was a notable figure in 'swagger' society, and he had been acquainted with the Valliscourts for some time; in fact he was almost an 'old friend' of theirs, as social 'old friends' go, that phrase nowadays merely meaning about a year's mutual visiting, without any unpleasant strain on the feelings or the pockets of either party. Whenever the Valliscourts were in town for the season at their handsome residence in Grosvenor Place, Sir Charles was always 'dropping in,' and dropping out again, a constant and welcome guest, a purveyor of fashionable scandals, and a thoroughly reliable informant concerning the ins and outs of the newest approaching divorce. But his appearance at Combmartin was quite unlooked-for, he having been supposed to have gone to his 'little place' (an estate of several thousand acres) in Inverness-shire. And it was concerning his present change of plan and humour that Mr. Valliscourt was just now rallying him in ponderously playful fashion.
"Ya-as!" drawled Sir Charles in answer,--"I have doosid habits of caprice. Never know what I'm going to do from one day to another! Fact, I assure you! You see a chum of mine has got Watermouth Castle for a few weeks, and he asked me to join his house-party. That's how it is I happen to be here."
Mrs. Valliscourt, who had left the dinner-table and was seated in a lounge chair near the open window, looked round and smiled. Her smile was a very beautiful one,--her large flashing eyes and brilliantly white teeth gave it a sun-like dazzle that amazed and half bewitched any man who was not quite prepared to meet it.
"I suppose you are all very select at Watermouth,"--observed Mr. Valliscourt, cracking a walnut and beginning to peel the kernel with a deliberate and fastidious nicety which showed off his long, white, well-kept fingers to admirable advantage,--"Nothing lower than a baronet, eh?"
And he laughed softly.
Sir Charles gave him a quick glance from under his lazily drooping eyelids that might have startled him had he perceived it. Malice, derision, and intense hatred were expressed in it, and for a second it illumined the face on which it gleamed with a wicked flash as of hell-fire. It vanished almost as quickly as it had shone, and a reply was given in such quiet, listless tones as betrayed nothing of the speaker's feelings.
"Well, I