“And you said only yesterday,” complained Ridgie, “that Englishmen make better lovers than Americans because they have leisure and the sense of leisure, while Americans are forever looking at watches and clocks.”
“Did I? But that was yesterday,” retorted his wife. “Besides, I said lovers—not husbands. Give me an English lover, but a hard-working, stay-away-from-home American husband.”
“Do you wonder that I watch a wife who talks like that?” said Ridgie cheerfully.
Frothingham and Cecilia rode the next morning. Getting away from the staid old house in Mount Vernon Street seemed to have revived and cheered her. There was colour in her cheeks, life in her eyes, and she showed by laughing and talking a great deal that she was interested in the earth for a moment at least. Ridgie had given Frothingham a difficult horse, but as he rode well he succeeded in carrying on a reasonably consecutive conversation with Cecilia. She asked him many questions about country life in England, and drew him on to tell her much of his own mode of living. And he ended with, “Altogether, I’d be quite cheerful and happy if I were properly established.”
Cecilia became instantly silent and cold—and again he had the feeling that she was expecting something to happen.
“What the place needs,” he went on boldly, “what I need, is—a woman—such a woman as you.”
His horse reared, leaped in the air, tried to bolt. It was full a minute before he got it under control. “Nasty brute,” he said, resettling his eyeglass, and turning his face toward her again. He thrilled with hope. “Is there a chance for me?” he asked. “I have not spoken to your father—that isn’t the American way, is it? And I sha’n’t trouble you with a lot of—of the usual sort of talk—until I know whether it’s welcome. You’re not the sort of girl a man ventures far with unless he’s jolly sure he knows where he’s going.”
“Thank you,” she said simply. “I shall be frank with you. My father wishes me to marry you. If his will were not stronger than mine I shouldn’t think of it. It is only fair to tell you why.” She was looking at him tranquilly. “I loved a man—loved him well enough to have, where he was concerned, a stronger will than my father. But he died. I love him still. I shall always love him. When my father told me that he wished me to marry you, I asked my lover—and he—said that I ought to obey. He has been urging me to marry—except occasionally—ever since he died.”
Frothingham stared at her in utter amazement. “Do you mind——” he began, but again his horse tried to throw him. When he got it under control he saw that she was much amused—apparently at him. She rode up close beside him, laid her hand on his horse’s neck and said, “Please, Stanley, don’t!” in a curiously tender tone. The horse instantly became quiet.
“You were saying?” she asked.