Misgivings.
“I looked for that which is not, nor can be.”
A few days before Alvar’s interview with his father, Rupert had left Oakby to make his personal application to Ruth Seyton’s guardians, backed up by a letter from Mr Lester, and by her own communication to her grandmother. Of course, nothing could be said of the six months of mutual understanding, and this concealment weighed lightly enough on Ruth’s conscience. She vexed Virginia by her reserve on all the details of her engagement, but what really troubled her was her parting interview with Rupert, as they were alone together in the garden at Elderthwaite.
This had once been laid out in the Italian style, with fountains, statues, and vases, stiff, neat paths, and little beds cut in the smooth turf and full of gay colour. Of all kinds of gardening, this kind can least bear neglect, and at Elderthwaite a few occasional turns with the scythe and a sprinkling of weedy-looking flowers did not suffice to make it a pleasant resort.
Ruth sat on the pedestal of a broken nymph by the side of a dried-up fountain. This garden was supposed to be “kept up,” so some flaring yellow nasturtiums and other inexpensive flowers filled the little beds round. It was a dull day, and the weather was chilly, and Ruth in her crimson shawl looked by far the most cheerful object in the garden. Rupert had stuck some of the nasturtiums in her hat, and they suited her dark hair and warm, clear skin. After a great deal of talk, entirely satisfactory to both, Rupert said, lightly,—
“By the way, I thought I would take Master Cherry to task for his manner to you the other night.”
“Cherry—his manner—what do you mean?” stammered Ruth, with changing colour.
“Well, I was rather sorry I had said anything about it, but he was very frank, poor boy, and told me you had refused him.”
“I—I did not think you would have asked him such a question,” said Ruth, hardly knowing what she said in the agony of fear, relief, and shame.
“Oh, well, we’re almost like brothers, you know, and I was not going to have him make such great eyes at you for nothing. What had he to reproach you with?”