"A pinch for stale news," says she, at last, with a frivolity most unworthy of the occasion, but in the softest, merriest whisper.
They are both young. The laugh is contagious. After a moment's struggle with his dignity, he echoes it.
"You can jest," says he: "surely that is a good sign. If you were going to refuse me you would not laugh. Beloved,"—taking her into his fond arms again—"say one little word to make me happy."
"Will any little word do? Long ago, in the dark ages when I was a child, I remember being asked a riddle à propos of short words. I will ask it to you now. What three letters contain everything in the world? Guess."
"No need to guess: I know. YES would contain everything in the world for me."
"You are wrong, then. It is ALL—all. Absurd, isn't it? I must have been very young when I thought that clever. But to return: would that little word do you?"
"Say 'Yes,' Molly."
"And if I say 'No,' what then? Will you throw yourself into this small river? Or perhaps hang yourself to the nearest tree? Or, worse still, refuse to speak to me ever again? Or 'go to skin and bone,' as my old nurse used to say I would when I refused a fifth meal in the day? Tell me which?"
"A greater evil than all those would befall me: I should live with no nearer companion than a perpetual regret. But"—with a shudder—"I will not believe myself so doomed. Molly, say what I ask you."
"Well, 'Yes,' then, since you will have it so. Though why you are so bent on your own destruction puzzles me. Do you know you never spoke to me all this evening? I don't believe you love me as well as you say."
"Don't I?" wistfully. Then, with sudden excitement, "I wish with all my heart I did not," he says, "or at least with only half the strength I do. If I could regulate my affections so, I might have some small chance of happiness; but as it is I doubt—I fear. Molly, do you care for me?"
"At times,"—mischievously—"I do—a little."
"And you know I love you?"
"Yes—it may be—when it suits you."
"And you,"—tightening his arms round her—"some time you will love me, my sweet?"
"Yes—perhaps so—when it suits me."
"Molly," says Luttrell after a pause, "won't you kiss me?"
As he speaks he stoops, bringing his cheek very close to hers.
"'Kiss you'?" says Molly, shrinking away from him, while flushing and reddening honestly now. "No, I think not. I never in all my life kissed any man but John, and—I don't believe I should like it. No, no; if I cannot be engaged to you without kissing you, I will not be engaged to you at all."
"It shall be as you wish," says Luttrell, very patiently, considering all things.
"You mean it?" Still keeping well away from him, and hesitating about giving the hand he is holding out his to receive.
"Certainly I do."
"And"—anxiously—"you don't mind?"
"Mind?" says he, with wrathful reproach. "Of course I mind. Am I a stick or a stone, do you think? You might as well tell me in so many words of your utter indifference to me as refuse to kiss me."
"Do all women kiss the men they promise to marry?"
"All women kiss the men they love."
"What, whether they ask them or not?"
"Of course I mean when they are asked."
"Even if at the time they happen to be married to somebody else?"
"I don't know anything about that," says Luttrell, growing ashamed of himself and his argument beneath the large, horror-stricken eyes of his companion. "I was merely supposing a case where marriage and love went hand in hand."
"Don't suppose," says Miss Massereene; "there is nothing so tiresome. It is like 'fourthly' and 'fifthly' in a sermon: you never know where it may lead you. Am I to understand that all women want to kiss the man they love?"
"Certainly they do," stoutly.
"How very odd!" says Molly.
After which there is a most decided pause.
Presently, as though she had been pondering all things, she says:
"Well, there is one thing: I don't mind your having your arms round me a bit, not in the least. That must be something. I would quite as soon they were there as not."
"I suppose that is a step in the right direction," says Luttrell, trying not to see the meaning in her words, because too depressed to accept the comic side of it.
"You are unhappy," says Molly, remorsefully, heaving a quickly suppressed sigh. "Why? Because I won't be good to you? Well,"—coloring crimson and leaning her head back against his shoulder with the air of a martyr, so that her face is upturned—"you may kiss me once, if you wish—but only once, mind—because I can't bear to see you miserable."
"No," returns Luttrell, valiantly, refusing by a supreme effort to allow himself to be tempted by a look at her beauty, "I will not kiss you so. Why should you be made unhappy, and by me? Keep such gifts, Molly, until you can bestow them of your own free will."
But Molly is determined to be generous.
"See, I will give you this one freely," she says, with unwonted sweetness, knowing that she is gaining more than she is giving; and thus persuaded, he presses his lips to the warm tender ones so near his own, while for one mad moment he is absurdly happy.
"You really do love me?" asks Molly, presently, as though just awakening to the fact.
"My darling!—my angel!" whispers he, which is conclusive; because when a man can honestly bring himself to believe a woman an angel he must be very far gone indeed.
"I fancy we ought to go in," says Molly, a little later; "they will be wondering where we are."
"They cannot have missed us yet; it is too soon."
"Soon! Why, it must be hours since we came out here," says Molly, with uplifted brows.
"Have you found it so very long?" asks he, aggrieved.
"No,"—resenting his tone in a degree—"I have not been bored to death, if you mean that; but I am not so dead to the outer world that I cannot tell whether time has been short or long. And it is long," viciously.
"At that rate, I think we had better go in," replies he, somewhat stiffly.
As they draw near the house, so near that the lights from the open drawing-room windows make yellow paths across the grass that runs their points almost to their feet—Luttrell stops short to say:
"Shall I speak to John to-night or to-morrow morning?"
"Oh! neither to-night nor to-morrow," cries Molly, frightened. "Not for ever so long. Why talk about it at all? Only a few minutes ago nothing was farther from my thoughts, and now you would publish it on the house-tops! Just think what it will be to have every one wondering and whispering about one, and saying, 'Now they have had a quarrel,' and 'Now they have made it up again.' Or, 'See now she is flirting with somebody else.' I could not bear it," says Molly, blind to the growing anger on the young man's face as he listens to and fully takes in the suggestions contained in these imaginary speeches; "it would make me wretched. It might make me hate you!"
"Molly!"
"Yes, it might; and then what would you do? Let us keep it a secret," says Molly, coaxingly, slipping her hand into his, with a little persuasive