Part 73

‘I’ll find out how it got into the paper.’

‘Not now--any future time will do. I have something else to tell you.’

‘I hope the news is as good as the last,’ he said, looking into her face with anxiety; for though that face was blooming, it seemed full of a doubt as to how her next information would be taken.

‘O yes; it is good, because everybody says so. We are going to take a delightful journey. My new-created uncle, as he seems, and I, and my aunt, and perhaps Charlotte, if she is well enough, are going to Nice, and other places about there.’

‘To Nice!’ said Somerset, rather blankly. ‘And I must stay here?’

‘Why, of course you must, considering what you have undertaken!’ she said, looking with saucy composure into his eyes. ‘My uncle’s reason for proposing the journey just now is, that he thinks the alterations will make residence here dusty and disagreeable during the spring. The opportunity of going with him is too good a one for us to lose, as I have never been there.’

‘I wish I was going to be one of the party!... What do YOU wish about it?’

She shook her head impenetrably. ‘A woman may wish some things she does not care to tell!’

‘Are you really glad you are going, dearest?--as I MUST call you just once,’ said the young man, gazing earnestly into her face, which struck him as looking far too rosy and radiant to be consistent with ever so little regret at leaving him behind.

‘I take great interest in foreign trips, especially to the shores of the Mediterranean: and everybody makes a point of getting away when the house is turned out of the window.’

‘But you do feel a little sadness, such as I should feel if our positions were reversed?’

‘I think you ought not to have asked that so incredulously,’ she murmured. ‘We can be near each other in spirit, when our bodies are far apart, can we not?’ Her tone grew softer and she drew a little closer to his side with a slightly nestling motion, as she went on, ‘May I be sure that you will not think unkindly of me when I am absent from your sight, and not begrudge me any little pleasure because you are not there to share it with me?’

‘May you! Can you ask it?... As for me, I shall have no pleasure to be begrudged or otherwise. The only pleasure I have is, as you well know, in you. When you are with me, I am happy: when you are away, I take no pleasure in anything.’

‘I don’t deserve it. I have no right to disturb you so,’ she said, very gently. ‘But I have given you some pleasure, have I not? A little more pleasure than pain, perhaps?’

‘You have, and yet.... But I don’t accuse you, dearest. Yes, you have given me pleasure. One truly pleasant time was when we stood together in the summer-house on the evening of the garden-party, and you said you liked me to love you.’

‘Yes, it was a pleasant time,’ she returned thoughtfully. ‘How the rain came down, and formed a gauze between us and the dancers, did it not; and how afraid we were--at least I was--lest anybody should discover us there, and how quickly I ran in after the rain was over!’

‘Yes’, said Somerset, ‘I remember it. But no harm came of it to you.... And perhaps no good will come of it to me.’

‘Do not be premature in your conclusions, sir,’ she said archly. ‘If you really do feel for me only half what you say, we shall--you will make good come of it--in some way or other.’

‘Dear Paula--now I believe you, and can bear anything.’

‘Then we will say no more; because, as you recollect, we agreed not to go too far. No expostulations, for we are going to be practical young people; besides, I won’t listen if you utter them. I simply echo your words, and say I, too, believe you. Now I must go. Have faith in me, and don’t magnify trifles light as air.’

‘I THINK I understand you. And if I do, it will make a great difference in my conduct. You will have no cause to complain.’

‘Then you must not understand me so much as to make much difference; for your conduct as my architect is perfect. But I must not linger longer, though I wished you to know this news from my very own lips.’

‘Bless you for it! When do you leave?’

‘The day after to-morrow.’

‘So early? Does your uncle guess anything? Do you wish him to be told just yet?’

‘Yes, to the first; no, to the second.’

‘I may write to you?’

‘On business, yes. It will be necessary.’