IX
Young Rutherford bounded from his chair. The tall clock in the hall, as though loth to mark the passage of Time,—Time,—who had been its friend for something more than a hundred and fifty years,—the steadfast old clock began to mark three very slow, slow notes.
“Miss Adgate, forgive me! I suppose I ought to go, you should be left to rest!” he held out his hand. “I've never known any pleasure comparable to this afternoon's. May I come again? The whole of Oldbridge shall envy me to-day,—I'm too vain not to tell them where I've lunched. Good-bye, goodbye,” he repeated. He gave Ruth a furtive glance and flushed, very red.
“Good-bye, Rutherford,” said General Adgate. He smiled indulgence to the young man who still malingered. “We'll see you to-night,” he reassured him, with a nod. “Ruth, you're to make yourself splendid tonight. I'm to take you to dine at the Wetherbys. They are giving a dinner party in your honour, for knowing you were not ridden yet with engagements I accepted for you. There will be some sort of a reception afterwards—you'd call it At Home wouldn't you? Everyone's coming. Everybody wants to meet Miss Adgate.” He laughed, as though well pleased.
“I believe he's proud of me,” thought Miss Adgate, gratefully.
The door at last closed on Rutherford. Niece and uncle stood together in the hall, where the voice of the family time-piece, its brass face marking the phases of the sun and moon, underlined the pervading stillness of the house with an austere, admonitative, solemn “tick-tack!”
“Ruth,” said her uncle abruptly, “why did you come to America?”
“Why?—To see you, of course,” Ruth said, her tone one of innocent surprise, but she felt a little guilty catch at her heart.
“Oh,—me!” her uncle said. “You young witch, you never crossed the seas to look at an old man. It was as much my business to cross them to look after you. Come,” said he, with a look of raillery, “there was some precipitating cause. You came in a hurry. Something happened—for you might have put your journey off for another year. Something occurred, to induce you—to come—in a hurry.”
Ruth hesitated. She gave a light laugh—then she looked away. “Shall I really tell you?” she asked.
“The sooner you tell me,” said the old General, “the better,—for then we'll understand one another.”
“I left Europe,”—Ruth said, embarrassed, “because—because—I wanted to see—my uncle—and have a look at my ancestral acres!” she still prevaricated, yet dimpling with amusement.
“Your ancestral acres!”—repeated her uncle, sceptically. “Well?” he encouraged.
“Oh—well—because,—if you must have another reason still, well—because—well—I felt sore.”
“Why?” said General Adgate.
“Why?” said Ruth with a persistent and feminine reluctance to reveal her real self, speak her true reasons: “Uncle,—I wish—you wouldn't ask me!”
“Out with it,” said her uncle.
“Bertram, Crown Prince of Altronde, wanted me to marry him morganatically. I felt outraged, though they told me it would be a legal marriage. Harry Pontycroft and Lucilla sympathised with my disgust and packed me off. And—that is why.”
The old man looked grave. “Damned European whelps,” he muttered. “No wonder your Puritan ancestors shook that dust from their souls. You did well,” he said, patting Ruth on the back.