Part 43

"Now," I said as I rejoined Lisbeth and the Imp, "I shall be glad if you will tell me how long it should take for my garden to look fair enough to welcome you?"

"Oh, well, it depends upon the gardener, and the weather, and--and heaps of things," she answered, flashing her dimple at me.

"On the contrary," I retorted, shaking my head, "it depends altogether upon the whim of the most beautiful, tempting--"

"Supposing," sighed Lisbeth, "supposing we talk of fish!"

"You haven't been fishing lately, Uncle Dick," put in the Imp.

"I've had no cause to," I answered; "you see, I am guilty of such things only when life assumes a grey monotony of hue and everything is a flat, dreary desolation. Do you understand, Imp?"

"Not 'zackly--but it sounds fine! Auntie Lisbeth," he said suddenly, as we paused at the Shrubbery gate, "don't you think my outlaw must be very, very fond of Uncle Dick to kiss his hand?"

"Why, of course he must," nodded Lisbeth.

"If," he went on thoughtfully, "if you loved somebody--very much--would you kiss their hand, Auntie Lisbeth?"

"I don't know--of course not!"

"But why not--s'posing their hand was nice an' clean?"

"Oh, well--really I don't know. Imp, run along to bed; do."

"You know now that I wasn't such a pig as to eat all that food, don't you?" Lisbeth kissed him.

"Now be off to bed with you."

"You'll come an' tuck me up, an' kiss me good-night, won't you?"

"To be sure I will," nodded Lisbeth.

"Why, then, I'll go," said the Imp; and with a wave of the hand to me he went.

"Dick," said Lisbeth, staring up at the moon, "it was very unwise of you, to say the least of it, to set a desperate criminal at large."

"I'm afraid it was, Lisbeth; but then I saw there was good in the fellow, you know, and--er--"

"Dick," she said again, and then laughed suddenly, with the dimple in full evidence; "you foolish old Dick--you know you would have done it anyway for the sake of that dying old soldier."

"Poor old Jasper!" I said; "I'm really afraid I should." Then a wonderful thing happened; for as I reached out my hand to her, she caught it suddenly in hers, and before I knew had pressed her lips upon it--and so was gone.

VII

THE BLASTED OAK

I had quarrelled with Lisbeth; had quarrelled beyond all hope of redemption and forgiveness, desperately, irrevocably, and it had all come about through a handkerchief--Mr. Selwyn's handkerchief.

At a casual glance this may appear all very absurd, not to say petty; but then I have frequently noticed that insignificant things very often serve for the foundation of great; and incidentally quite a surprising number of lives have been ruined by a handkerchief.

The circumstances were briefly these: In the first place, I had received the following letter from the Duchess, which had perturbed me not a little:

MY DEAR DICK: I hear that that Agatha Warburton creature has written threatening to cut off our dear Lisbeth with the proverbial shilling unless she complies with her wish and marries Mr. Selwyn within the year. Did you ever know of anything so disgusting?

If I were Lisbeth, and possessed such a "creature" for an aunt, I'd see her in Timbuctoo first--I would! But then I forget the poor child has nothing in the world, and you little more, and "love in a cottage" is all very well, Dick, up to a certain time. Of course, it is all right in novels but you are neither of you in a novel, and that is the worst of it. If Providence had seen fit to make me Lisbeth's aunt, now, things might have been very different; but alas! it was not to be. Under the circumstances, the best thing you can do, for her sake and your own, is to turn your back upon Arcadia and try to forget it all as soon as possible in the swirl of London and everyday life.