CHAPTER XVIII.
HOW TITA GETS A SCOLDING, AND HOW SHE REBELS AND ACCUSES SIR MAURICE OF BREACH OF CONTRACT.
"Can I come in?"
Rylton's voice is a little curt as he knocks at his wife's door. It is not the door opening into the corridor outside, but the inner door that leads from her room to his, and to the dressing-room beyond.
"Yes, of course," cries Tita pleasantly.
She is just on the point of dismissing her maid for the night—the maid who has so little to do; no long hair to brush, only the soft little curly locks that cover her mistress's head. She has taken off Tita's evening gown, and, now that the little locks have been carefully seen to, has taken off her dressing-gown also. It occurs to Tita that she might as well take herself off as well, and as soon as possible.
This thought makes her laugh.
"You can go now, Sarah," says she to the maid, who loves her; "and don't bring me my tea before eight to-morrow, because I'm as sleepy as sleepy can be."
She nods kindly to the dismissed maid, and, going to the door where
Rylton is presumably standing, lets him in.
"How early you are!" says she, thinking of the glories of the smoking-room below.
"How late you are!" returns he. "I half fancied you would have been asleep by this time!"
"Oh, well, I soon shall be!" says she. "I was just going to say my prayers as you came in; after that it won't take me a minute to get out of my clothes, and," with a little laugh, "into my bed."
Her clothes, as she stands at present, are so becoming that it seems quite a pity that she should ever get out of them. Her neck and arms—soft and fair and round as a little child's—are shining in the lamplight, and beneath them the exquisite lace petticoat she wears gives her the air of one who is just going to a fancy ball. It is short enough to show the perfect little feet and the slender ankles beneath it.
"How inhospitable of you to desert your friends so soon!" says she. "Why, you never come up till two, do you?—at least, so you tell me."
"You will catch cold if you stay like that," says he.
It is a somewhat irrelevant remark; but, for the first time in all his knowledge of her, the tender charm that is her own becomes clear to him. It seems to him that she is a new being—one he has never seen before; and, with this fresh knowledge, his anger towards her grows stronger.
"I!—in this weather! Why, it is hardly chilly even yet, in spite of the rain; and, besides, I have this fire!" She catches his hand, and draws him towards the hearthrug. "I am sure you have something to say to me," says she. "Come and sit by the fire, and tell me all about it."
"It is nothing, really," says Rylton, resisting her pretty efforts to push him into a luxurious lounging chair. "It is only a question about your cousin."
He leans his elbow on the chimney-piece, and looks down at her—a dainty fairy lying now in the bosom of some soft pink cushions, with her legs crossed and her toes towards the fire. She has clasped her arms behind her head.
"About Minnie?"
"No."
His heart hardens again. Is this duplicity on her part? How small, how innocent, how girlish, how—reluctantly this—beautiful she looks! and yet——
"About Tom, then?"
"About Mr. Hescott"—coldly—"yes."
"What! you don't like him?" questions Tita, abandoning her lounging attitude, and leaning towards him.
"So far as he is concerned," with increasing coldness, "I am quite indifferent to him; it is of you I think."
"Of me! And why of me? Why should you think of me?"
"I hardly know," somewhat bitterly; "except that it is perhaps better that I should criticise your conduct than—other people."
"I don't know what you mean!" says Tita slowly.
Her charming face loses suddenly all its vivacity; she looks a little sad, a little forlorn.
"There is very little to know," says Rylton hurriedly, touched by her expression.
"But you said—you spoke of my conduct!"
"Well, and is there nothing to be said of that? This cousin——" He stops, and then goes on abruptly: "Why does he call you Titania?"
"Oh, it is an old name for me!" She looks at him, and, leaning back again in her chair, bursts out laughing. She has flung her arms over her head again, and now looks at him from under one of them with a mischievous smile. "Is that the whole?" says she. "He used to call me that years ago. He used to say I was like a fairy queen."
"Used he?"
Rylton's face is untranslatable.
"Yes. I was the smallest child alive, I do believe." She springs to her feet, and goes up to Rylton in a swaying, graceful little fashion. "I'm not so very big even now, am I?" says she.
Rylton turns his eyes from hers with open determination; he steels his heart against her.
"About this cousin," he says icily. "He is the one who used to say you had hands like iron, and a heart like velvet?"
"Yes. Fancy you remembering that!" says Tita, a sudden, quick gleam of pleasure dyeing her pretty cheeks quite red.
"I always remember," returns Rylton distantly.
His tone is a repulse. The lovely colour fades from her face.
"I'm tired," says she suddenly, petulantly. She moves to the other end of the room, and, opening a wardrobe, pretends to make some rearrangements with its contents. "If you have nothing more to say"—with perhaps more honesty than politeness—"I wish you would go away."
"I have something more to say." The very nervousness he is feeling makes his tone unnecessarily harsh. "I object to your extreme intimacy with your cousin."
Tita drops the dress she has just taken from the wardrobe, and comes back once more into the full light of the lamp. Her barer and slender arms are now hanging straight before her, her fingers interlaced; she looks up at him.
"With Tom?"
"With Mr. Hescott."
"I have known Tom all my life," defiantly.
"I don't care about that. One may know people all one's life, and yet have very unpleasant things said about one."
"Can one——" She stops suddenly, facing him, her eyes fixed on his; her lips part, her slight little frame quivers as if with eagerness. It grows quite plain that there is something she desires passionately to say to him—something terrible— but all at once she controls herself; she makes a little gesture with her right hand, as if throwing something from her, and goes on quickly, excitedly: "What do you mean? Who has been talking about me?"
"I didn't say anyone had been talking about you."
"Yes, you did! You hinted it, at all events. Go on. Tell me who it was."
"Even if I knew I should not tell you," says Rylton, who is now white with anger.
He had understood her hesitation of a moment since. He had known exactly what she wanted to say to him, and unfortunately the pricking of is conscience had only served to add fuel to the fire of his discontent towards her.
"Well, I'll tell you," says Tita, coming a step closer to him, her eyes blazing. "It was Mrs. Bethune. I know that she is no friend of mine. And I may as well say at once that I detest her. You may like her, but I don't, and I never shall. She's a beast!"
"Tita!"
Her husband stares at her aghast. The small form seems transfigured.
Has she grown?
"Yes—a beast! I don't care what you think. I'm not afraid of you—remember that! I was not even afraid of Uncle George. I shall never be afraid of anyone in all this wide, wide world!"
Suddenly her passion breaks down. Her arms fall to her sides, and she leans back against the end of her bed like a broken lily.
"Tita—if you would let me explain," says Rylton, who is overcome by her forlorn attitude, "I——"
"No." He would have laid his hands gently upon her pretty bare shoulders, but she repulses him. "I want no explanation; there isn't one."
Then, to his surprise and misery, she covers her face with both her hands and bursts into tears.
"You are unkind," sobs she wildly. "And you are not true. You don't tell the truth. You said—you said," passionately, "that you would be good to me. That you would let me do as I liked—that I should be happy! That was why I married you! That I might be happy! And now—now——"
"But to do as you liked! Tita, be reasonable."
"Oh, reasonable! Uncle George used to talk to me like that. He was a reasonable person, I suppose; and so are you. And he—hated me!" She grows silent as one might when some dreadful thought assails one. "Perhaps," says the poor child, in a quick, frightened sort of way, "you hate me too. Perhaps everyone hates me. There are people whom everyone hates, aren't there?"
"Are there?" asks Rylton drearily.
At this moment, at all events, he feels himself to be hateful. What a pitiful little face he is looking at!
"Yes, my uncle detested me," says Tita slowly, as if remembering things. "He said I ought not to have had all that money. That if I had not been born, he would have had it. But one can't help being born. One isn't asked about it! If"—she pauses, and the tears well up into her eyes again—"if I had been asked, I should have said no, no, NO!"
"Don't talk like that," says Rylton.
There is a sensation of chokiness about his throat. How young she is—how small—and to be already sorry that ever she was born! What a slender little hand! Just now it is lying crushed against her breast. And those clear eyes. Oh, if only he could have felt differently towards her—if he could have loved her! All this passes through his mind in an instant. He is even thinking of making her some kindly speech that shall heal the present breach between them, when she makes a sudden answer to his last remark.
"If you weren't here, I shouldn't have to talk at all," says she.
"True," he returns, feeling a little discomfited. "Well, good-night,
Tita."
"Good-night."
She refuses to see his proffered hand.
"Of course," says Rylton, who now feels he is in the wrong, "I am very sorry that I—that I——"
"Yes, so am I," with a saucy little tilting of her chin.
"Sorry," continues Rylton, with dignity, "that I felt it my duty to—to——"
"Make a fool of yourself? So am I!" says Lady Rylton.
After this astounding speech there is silence for a moment or two. Then Rylton, in spite of himself, laughs. And after a faint struggle with _her_self, Tita joins in his mirth. Emboldened by this departure, and really anxious to make it up with her, Rylton bids her good-night again, and this time would have added a kiss to his adieu. But Tita pushed him away.
"Kiss you? Not likely!" says she scornfully; "I shall never want to kiss you again in all my life!"