"Yes; but I want to enjoy it. Oh, if you could but get it for me?"
Elsley looked down. There were fifteen feet of somewhat slippery rock; then a ragged ledge a foot broad, in a crack of which the flower grew; then the dark boiling pool. Elsley shrugged his shoulders, and said, smiling, as if it were a fine thing to say—"Really, my dear, all men are not knight errants enough to endanger their necks for a bit of weed; and I cannot say that such rough tours de force are at all to my fancy."
Lucia turned away: but she was vexed. Campbell could see that a strange fancy for the plant had seized her. As she walked from the spot, he could hear her talking about its beauty to Valencia.
Campbell's blood boiled. To be asked by that woman—by any woman—to get her that flower: and to be afraid! It was bad enough to be ill-tempered; but to be a coward, and to be proud thereof! He yielded to a temptation, which he had much better have left alone, seeing that Lucia had not asked him; swung himself easily enough down the ledge; got the flower, and put it, quietly bowing, into Mrs. Vavasour's hand.
He was frightened when he had done it; for he saw, to his surprise, that she was frightened. She took the flower, smiling thanks, and expressing a little commonplace horror and astonishment at his having gone down such a dangerous cliff: but she took it to Elsley, drew his arm through hers, and seemed determined to make as much of him as possible for the rest of the afternoon. "The fellow was jealous, then, in addition to his other sins!" And Campbell, who felt that he had put himself unnecessarily forward between husband and wife, grew more and more angry; and somehow, unlike his usual wont, refused to confess himself in the wrong, because he was in the wrong. Certainly it was not pleasant for poor Elsley; and so Lucia felt, and bore with him when he refused to be comforted, and rendered blessing for railing when he said to her more than one angry word; but she had been accustomed to angry words by this time.
All might have passed off, but for that careless Valencia, who had not seen the details of what had passed; and so advised herself to ask where Lucia got that beautiful plant?
"Major Campbell picked it up for her from the cliff," said Elsley, drily.
"Ah? at the risk of his neck, I don't doubt. He is the most matchless cavalier servente."
"I shall leave Mrs. Vavasour to his care, then—that is, for the present," said Elsley, drawing his arm from Lucia's.
"I assure you," answered she, roused in her turn by his determined bad temper, "I am not the least afraid of being left in the charge of so old a friend."