‘But that would not be true.’
‘Make it true, then. It lies with you to do so.’
‘No, Captain Norris,’ she replied gently, withdrawing her hand from his. ‘I cannot—at least just yet. Give me a little time to recover myself. Remember that but a few weeks back I considered myself betrothed to Monsieur de Courcelles.’
‘And you love him still,’ he answered roughly, in his disappointment.
‘No, no, I do not! I despise him for his falsehood and treachery, and for his despicable conduct in trying to evade the consequences of his own fault, at the expense of the character of the woman he once professed to love. If there were not another man in all the world, I would never place myself again under the yoke of Henri de Courcelles. But to engage myself so soon to you—it would be hardly decent.’
‘Have your own way then,’ replied Hugh Norris, as he rose from his seat, and took his cap in his hand. ‘I have asked you for the third time, and failed. I shall begin to disbelieve in my good luck. It evidently doesn’t lie in an uneven number.’
‘There are such slight intervals between your askings,’ said Lizzie, laughing. But she ceased to laugh when she found herself alone.
The honest, disinterested love of Hugh Norris was beginning to work its way into her heart, and heal the wounds made by the other’s defalcation. She would have liked to call him back and tell him that she would follow the dictates of her feelings, and give him his answer at once, without any regard to the dictum of the world; but womanly pride prevented her doing so. She was terribly afraid, also, of being deceived a second time. The scalded dog fears cold water, and though her sense told her that Hugh Norris’s character and disposition were utterly different from those of Henri de Courcelles, she dreaded making another mistake, and finding out, when too late, that they were unsuited to each other. His summary departure had the effect, however, of causing her a sleepless night, and as soon as the sun was up the following morning, she found her way to Mr Courtney’s office.
‘Well, Lizzie,’ said the planter kindly, ‘and so you wouldn’t join our festivities yesterday. It was a grand sight, though, and you would have enjoyed it; and I missed you several times during the breakfast, I can tell you.’
‘You have always been too kind to me, Mr Courtney; but you know my reasons for not being with you. No one wishes Quita health and happiness more than I do, and every sort of prosperity; but I was better at home. Besides, I don’t think I could have come, under any circumstances,’ continued Lizzie, smiling, ‘for do you know we had two new arrivals on the plantation yesterday? Chloe, the mulatto, and Aunt Jane, William Hall’s wife, both had daughters during the forenoon, and both are determined to call them “Maraquita,” in honour of the wedding. I did laugh so to see the two black woolly-headed little Maraquitas; but the proud mothers saw nothing incongruous in the idea.’