CHAPTER VIII.
HOW TITA, HAVING BEEN REPULSED, GROWS ANGRY; AND HOW A VERY PRETTY BATTLE IS FOUGHT OUT; AND HOW TITA GAINS A PRESENT; AND HOW SIR MAURICE LOSES HIS TEMPER.
Her hands drop to her sides. She grows suddenly a little pale. Her eyes widen.
"What is it? What have I done now?" asks she.
The "now" has something pathetic in it.
"Done! done!" He is trying to keep down the fury that is possessing him. He had come to speak to her with a fixed determination in his heart not to lose his temper, not to let her have that advantage over him. He would be calm, judicial, but now—— What is the matter with him now? Seeing her there, so lovely and so sweet, so full of all graciousness—a very flower of beauty—a little thing—
"Light as the foam that flecks the seas,
Fitful as summer's sunset breeze"—
somehow a very rage of anger conquers him, and he feels as if he would like to take her and compel her to his will. "You have done one thing, at all events," says he. "You have forfeited my trust in you for ever."
"I have?"
"Yes, you! When I left home this morning, what was the last word I said to you? I must have been a fool indeed when I said it. I told you I left our house and our guests in your charge."
"Well?"
"Well?" He checks himself forcibly. Even now, when passion is gathering, he holds himself back. "When I came back what did I see?"
"Our house—not in flames, I hope; and our guests—enjoying themselves!" Tita has lifted her head. She allows herself a little smile. Then she turns upon him. "Ah, I told you!" says she. "You want always to find fault with me."
"I want nothing but that my wife should show some sort of dignity."
"I see! You should have asked Mrs. Bethune to see after your house—your guests!" says Tita.
She says it very lightly. Her small face has a faint smile upon it. She moves to a large lounging chair, and flings herself into it with charming abandon, crosses her lovely naked arms behind her head, and looks up at him with naughty defiance.
"Perhaps you hardly know, Tita, what you are saying," says Rylton slowly.
"Yes, I do. I do indeed. What I do not know is, what fault you have to find with me."
"Then learn it at once." His tone is stern. "I object to your playing hide-and-seek with your cousin."
"With my cousin! One would think," says Tita, getting up from her chair and staring at him as if astonished, "that Tom and I had been playing it by ourselves!"
"It seemed to me very much like that," says Rylton, his eyes white and cold.
"I know what you mean," says Tita. "And," with open contempt, "I'm sorry for you—you think Tom is in love with me! And you therefore refuse to let me have a single word with him at any time. And why? What does it matter to you, when you don't care? When you are not in love with me!" Rylton makes a slight movement. "It's a regular dog in the manger business; you don't like me, and therefore nobody else must like me. That's what it comes to! And," with a little blaze of wrath, "it is all so absurd, too! If I can't speak to my own cousin, I can't speak to anyone."
"I don't object to your speaking to your cousin," says Rylton; "you can speak to him as much as ever you like. What I object to is your making yourself particular with him—your spending whole hours with him."
"Hours! We weren't five seconds behind that screen."
"I am not thinking of the screen now; I am thinking of yesterday morning, when you went out riding with him."
"What! you have not forgotten that yet?" exclaims she, with high scorn. "Why, I thought you had forgiven, and put all that behind you."
"I have not forgotten it. I might have considered it wiser to say nothing more about it, had not your conduct of this evening——"
"Nonsense!" She interrupts him with a saucy little shrug of her shoulders. "And as for hours—it wasn't hours, any way."
"You went out with him at eight o'clock——"
"Who told you that?"
"Your maid."
"You asked Sarah?"
"Certainly I did. I had to do something before I asked my guests to sit down to breakfast without their hostess!"
"Well, I don't care who you asked," says Tita mutinously.
"You went out at eight, and you came home late for breakfast at half-past ten."
"I explained all that to you," says Tita, flinging out her hands. "Tom and I went for a race, and of course I didn't think it would take so long, and——"
"I don't suppose," coldly, "you thought at all."
"Certainly I never thought I was going to get a scolding on my return!"
"A scolding! I shouldn't dream of scolding so advanced a person as you," says Rylton—who is scolding with all his might.
"I wonder what you think you are doing now?" says Tita. She pauses and looks at him critically. He returns her gaze. His cold eyes so full of condemnation, his compressed lips that speak of anger hardly kept back, all make a picture that impresses itself upon her mind. Not, alas! in any salutary way. "Well," says she at last, with much deliberation and open, childish vindictiveness, "if you only knew how ugly you are when you look like that, you would never do it again!" She nods her head. "There!" says she.
It is so unexpected, so utterly undignified, that it takes all the dignity out of Rylton on the spot. It suddenly occurs to him that it is no good to be angry with her. What is she? A mere naughty child—or——
"You do not know who you are like!" continues she.
Rylton shakes his head; he is afraid to speak—a sudden wild desire to laugh is oppressing him.
"You are the image of Uncle George," says she, with such wicked spite that a smile parts his lips.
"Oh! you can laugh if you like," says she, "but you are, for all that. You're worse than him," her anger growing because of that smile. "I never——"
"Never what?"
"I never met such a cross cat in my life!" says Lady Rylton, turning her back on him.
"It's well to be unique in one's own line," says he grimly.
A short laugh breaks from him. How absurd she is! A regular little spitfire; yet what a pretty one. His heart is full of sadness, yet he cannot keep back that laugh. He hardly knows how he has so much mirth left in him, but the laugh sounds through the room and drives Tita to frenzy.
"Oh, you can laugh!" cries she, turning upon him. "You can laugh when—when——" She makes a frantic little gesture that flings open the loose gown she wears, and shows once again her charming neck; words seem to fail her. "Oh! I should like to shake you," says she at last.
"Would you?" said Rylton. His laughter has come to an end. "And you.
What do you think I should like to do with you?"
He looks at her.
"Oh! I know. It is not difficult to answer," with a contemptuous glance from under the long, soft lashes, beneath which his glance sinks into insignificance. "You would like to give me away!"
There is a pause.
It is on Rylton's tongue to say she has given herself away very considerably of late, but he abstains from saying so—with difficulty, however!
"No, I should not," says Rylton gravely.
"No? Is that the truth?" She bites her lips. "After all," with angry tearfulness, "I dare say it is. I believe you would rather keep me here for ever—just to be able to worry the life out of me day by day."
"You have a high opinion of me!"
Rylton is white now with rage.
"You are wrong there; I have the worst opinion of you; I think you a tyrant—a perfect Nero!"
Suddenly she lifts her pretty hands and covers her face with them.
She bursts into tears.
"And you promised you would never be unkind to me!" sobs she.
"Unkind! Good heavens!" says Rylton, distractedly. Who is unkind?
Is it he or she? Who is in fault?
"At all events you pretended to be fond of me."
"I never pretend anything," says Rylton, whose soul seems torn in twain.
"You did," cries Tita wildly. "You did." She brushes her tears aside, and looks up at him—her small, delicate face flushed—her eyes on fire! "You promised you would be kind to me."
"I promised nothing," in a dull sort of way. He feels crushed, unable to move. "It was you who arranged everything; I was to go my way, and you yours."
"It was liberal, at all events."
"And useless!" There is a prophetic note in his voice. "As you would have gone your way, whether or no."
"And you, yours!"
"I don't know about that. But your way—where does that lead? Now, look here, Tita,"—he takes a step towards her—"you are bent on following that way. But mark my words, bad will come of it."
"Nothing bad will come of my way!" says Tita distinctly.
Her eyes are fixed on his. For a full minute they regard each other silently. How much does she know? Rylton's very soul seems harassed with this question. That old story! A shock runs through him as he says those last words to himself. Is it old? That story? Marian! What is she to him now?
"As for Tom," says Tita suddenly, "I tell you distinctly I shall not give him up."
"Give him up!" The phrase grates upon his ear. "What do you mean?" demands he, his anger all aflame again.
"That I shall not insult him, or be cold to him, to please you or anybody."
"Is that your decision? Then I think it will be wise of your cousin to shorten his visit."
"Do you mean by that that you are going to be uncivil to him?"
"Yes!" shortly, and with decision.
"You will be cold to him? To Tom? To my own cousin? Maurice,
Maurice! Think what you are doing!"
She has come close up to him. Her charming face is uplifted to his.
"Think what you are doing," returns he hoarsely. He catches her hands. "If you will swear to me that he is nothing to you—nothing——"
"He is my cousin," says Tita, who hardly understands.
"Oh!" He almost flings her from him. "There—let it be as you will," says he bitterly. "It is you cousin—your house."
Tita grows very pale.
"That is ungenerous," says she.
"I have all the faults, naturally." He goes towards the door, and then suddenly comes back and flings something upon the table before her. "You once told me you were fond of rings," says he.
The case has flown open, because of his passionate throwing of it, and an exquisite diamond and pearl ring lies displayed. Tita springs to her feet.
"Oh, wait! Don't go! Oh, do stop!" cries she, in great distress. "Fancy your thinking of me when you were in town! And what a lovely, lovely ring! Oh! Maurice—I'm sorry. I am indeed!"
She holds out her hands to him. Rylton, still standing on the threshold of the door, looks back at her.
Is it an apology? An admission that she has been wrong in her dealings with her cousin? An open declaration that this night's undignified proceedings are really being repented of?
He comes slowly back to her.
"If you are sorry——" begins he.
"Oh, I am indeed. And you must let me kiss you for this darling ring. I know you hate me to kiss you—but," she flings her arms round him, "I really must do it now."
Instinctively his arms close round her. With a thoroughly astonished air, however, she wriggles herself free, and draws back from him.
"You have done your part beautifully," says she, with a little soft grimace. "You bore up wonderfully. I'll let you off next time as a consideration."
"I don't want to be let off," says Rylton.
"There, that will do," lifting her hand. "And I am sorry—remember that."
"If you are," says he, "you will promise me—not to——"
He has grown quite serious again. He hardly knows how to put it into words, and therefore hesitates; but if only she will cease from her encouragement of her cousin——
"Oh no—never. I shall never do it again," says she earnestly. "It was so—so—dreadful of me——"
"If you see it now, I wonder you didn't see it then," says Rylton, a little stiffly; this sudden conversion brings all the past back to him.
"Well, but I didn't see it then—I always talk too fast."
She hangs her pretty head.
"I don't remember what you said," says Rylton, a little at fault. "But—if you are honestly determined, Tita, to be—er—a little more circumspect in that direction in future——"
"I am—I am indeed!" cries Tita. "I'm sure I can't think how I ever said it to you! It was so rude—so horrid——"
"Said? What?" demands Rylton, with quick suspicion.
"Well, you know I did call you a cross cat!" says his wife, with a little slide glance at him, and a tremulous smile, and withal such lovely penitence, that if he had not been led astray by another thought, he would have granted her absolution for all her sins, here and hereafter, on the spot.
As it is, his wrath grows once more hot within him; so she is _not _sorry after all.
"Pshaw!" says he.
"Oh, and I called you ugly, too!" cries Tita. "Oh, how could I? But you will forgive me, won't you?" She runs after him, and lays her hand upon his arm. "You do forgive me, don't you?"
"No!" says he violently.
He almost flings her from him.
"Hypocrite!" he says to himself, as he fastens the door of his own room.
A baby's face, and the heart of a liar! She had played with him; she had fooled him; she had, at all events, refused to say she regretted her conduct with her cousin.
He goes down to the garden, feeling it impossible to sleep just now, and, coming back two hours later, finds the ring he had given her lying on his dressing-table. There is no note with it—not even a single line.