"How do you do, Ernest?" she said, coolly, but with a slight flush upon her olive skin, which betrayed that she was not quite so cool as she looked; "what are you dreaming about? I have seen you coming for the last two hundred yards, but you never saw me."
"I was dreaming of you, of course, Florence."
"O, indeed!" she answered dryly; "I thought perhaps that Eva had got over her headache--her headaches do go in the most wonderful way--and that you had seen her, and were dreaming of /her/."
"And why should I dream of her, even if I had seen her?"
"For the reason that men do dream of women--because she is handsome."
"Is she better-looking than you, then, Florence?"
"Better-looking, indeed! I am not good-looking."
"Nonsense, Florence! you are very good-looking."
She stopped, for he had turned and was walking with her, and laid her hand lightly on his arm.
"Do you really think so?" she said, gazing full into his dark eyes. "I am glad you think so."
They were quite alone in the summer twilight; there was not a single soul to be seen on the beach, or on the cliffs above it. Her touch and the earnestness of her manner thrilled him; the beauty and the quiet of the evening, the sweet freshness of the air, the murmur of the falling waves, the fading purples in the sky, all these things thrilled him too. Her face looked very handsome in its own stern way, as she gazed at him so earnestly; and, remember, he was only twenty-one. He bent his dark head towards her very slowly, to give her an opportunity of escaping if she wished; but she made no sign, and in another moment he had kissed her trembling lips.
It was a foolish act, for he was not in love with Florence, and he had scarcely done it before his better sense told him that it was foolish. But it was done, and who can recall a kiss?
He saw the olive face grow pale, and for a moment she raised her arm as though to fling it about his neck, but next second she started back from him.
"Did you mean that," she said wildly, "or are you playing with me?"
Ernest looked alarmed, as well he might; the young lady's aspect at the moment was not reassuring.
"Mean it?" he said, "O yes, I meant it."
"I mean, Ernest," and again she laid her hand upon his arm and looked into his eyes, "did you mean that you loved me, as--for now I am not ashamed to tell you--I love you?"
Ernest felt that this was getting awful. To kiss a young woman was one thing--he had done that before--but such an outburst as this was more than he had bargained for. Gratifying as it was to him to learn that he possessed Florence's affection, he would at that moment have given something to be without it. He hesitated a little.
"How serious you are!" he said at last.
"Yes," she answered, "I am. I have been serious for some time. Probably you know enough of me to be aware that I am not a woman to be played with. I hope that you are serious too; if you are not, it may be the worse for us both"; and she flung his arm from her as though it had stung her.
Ernest turned cold all over, and realised that the position was positively gruesome. What to say or do he did not know; so he stood silent, and, as it happened, silence served his turn better than speech.
"There, Ernest, I have startled you. It is--it is because I love you. When you kissed me just now, everything that is beautiful in the world seemed to pass before my eyes, and for a moment I heard such music as they play in heaven. You don't understand me yet, Ernest--I am fierce, I know--but sometimes I think that my heart is deep as the sea, and I can love with ten times the strength of the shallow women round me; and as I can love, so I can hate."
This was not reassuring intelligence to Ernest.
"You are a strange girl," he said feebly.
"Yes," she answered, with a smile. "I know I am strange; but while I am with you I feel so good, and when you are away all my life is a void, in which bitter thoughts flit about like bats. But there, good-night. I shall see you at the Smythes' dance to-morrow, shall I not? You will dance with me, will you not? And you must not dance with Eva, remember--at least not too much--or I shall get jealous, and that will be bad for us both. And now good-night, my dear, good-night"; and again she put up her face to be kissed.
He kissed it--he had no alternative--and she left him swiftly. He watched her retreating form till it vanished in the shadows, and then he sat down upon a stone, wiped his forehead, and /whistled/.
Well might he whistle!
CHAPTER VIII
A GARDEN IDYL
Ernest did not sleep well that night: the scene of the evening haunted his dreams, and he awoke with a sense of oppression that follows impartially on the heels of misfortune, folly, and lobster-salad. Nor did the broad light of the summer day disperse his sorrows; indeed, it only served to define them more clearly. Ernest was a very inexperienced youth, but, inexperienced as he was, he could not but recognise that he had let himself in for an awkward business. He was not in the smallest degree in love with Florence Ceswick; indeed, his predominant feeling towards her was one of fear. She was, as he had said, so terribly in earnest. In short, though she was barely a year older than himself, she was a woman possessed of a strength of purpose and a rigidity of will that few of her sex ever attain to at any period of their lives. This he had guessed long ago; but what he had not guessed was that all the tide of her life set so strongly towards himself.
That unlucky kiss, as it were, had shot the bolt of the sluice-gates, and now he was in a fair way to be overwhelmed by the rush of the waters. What course of action he had best take with her now it was beyond his powers to decide. He thought of taking Dorothy into his confidence and asking her advice, but instinctively he shrank from doing so. Then he thought of Jeremy, only, however, to reject the idea. What would Jeremy know of such things? He little guessed that Jeremy was swelling with a secret of his own, of which he was too shy to deliver himself. It seemed to Ernest, the more he considered the matter, that there was only one safe course for him to follow, and that was to run away. It would be ignominious, it is true, but at any rate Florence could not run after him. He had made arrangements to meet a friend, and go for a tour with him in France towards the end of the month of August, or about five weeks from the present date. These arrangements he now determined to modify; he would go for his tour at once.
Partially comforted by these reflections, he dressed himself that evening for the dance at the Smythes', where he was to meet Florence, who, however, he reflected gratefully, could not expect him to kiss her there. The dance was to follow a lawn-tennis party, to which Dorothy, accompanied by Jeremy, had gone already, Ernest having, for reasons best known to himself, declined to go to the lawn-tennis, preferring to follow them to the dance.
When he entered the ballroom at the Smythes', the first quadrille was in progress. Making his way up the room, Ernest soon came upon Florence Ceswick, who was sitting with Dorothy, while in the background loomed Jeremy's gigantic form. Both the girls appeared to be waiting for him, for on his approach Florence, by a movement of her dress, and an almost imperceptible motion of her hand, at once made room for him on the bench beside her, and invited him to sit down. He did so.
"You are late," she said; "why did you not come to the