"No, I will not. I wonder why you come near me at all. Go back to Florence; she is so calm, so sweet, so—somnolent,"—with a sneer,—"that she will not ruffle your temper. As for me, I hate disagreeable people! Why do you speak to me? It does neither of us any good. It only makes you ill-mannered and me thoroughly unhappy."
"Unhappy!"
"Yes," petulantly, "miserable. Surely of late you must have noticed how I avoid you. It is nothing but scold, scold, scold, all the time I am with you; and I confess I don't fancy it. You might have known, without my telling you, that I detest being with you!"
"I shall remember it for the future," returns he, in a low voice, falling back a step or two, and speaking coldly, although his heart is beating wildly with passionate pain and anger.
"Thank you," retorts Lilian: "that is the kindest thing you have said to me for many a day."
Yet the moment his back is turned she regrets this rude speech, and all the many others she has given way to during the last fortnight. Her own incivility vexes her, wounds her to the heart's core, for, however mischievously inclined and quick-tempered she may be, she is marvelously warm-hearted and kindly and fond.
For full five minutes she walks to and fro, tormented by secret upbraidings, and then a revulsion sets in. What does it matter after all, she thinks, with an impatient shrug of her pretty soft shoulders. A little plain speaking will do him no harm,—in fact, may do him untold good. He has been so petted all his life long that a snubbing, however small, will enliven him, and make him see himself in his true colors. (What his true colors may be she does not specify even to herself.) And if he is so devoted to Florence, why, let him then spend his time with her, and not come lecturing other people on matters that don't concern him. Such a fuss about a simple emerald ring indeed! Could anything be more absurd?
Nevertheless she feels a keen desire for reconciliation; so much so that, later on,—just before dinner,—seeing Sir Guy in the shrubberies, walking up and down in deepest meditation,—evidently of the depressing order,—she makes up her mind to go and speak to him. Yes, she has been in the wrong; she will go to him, therefore, and make the amende honorable; and he (he is not altogether bad!) will doubtless rejoice to be friends with her again.
So thinking, she moves slowly though deliberately up to him, regarding the while with absolute fervor the exquisite though frail geranium blossom she carries in her hand. It is only partly opened, and is delicately tinted as her own skin.
When she is quite close to her guardian she raises her head, and instantly affects a deliciously surprised little manner at the fact of his unexpected (?) nearness.