He said this fiercely, fighting down that ugly subconsciousness that the one-brick-thick villa, or the even lower horror of the cheap flat, was all that he could reasonably hope to offer that foolish woman, whoever she might be, who would ever consent to link her life with the clerk of small salary and unsatisfied ambition.
Perhaps the quick-witted girl guessed something of that which was in his mind, for her answer was given in very gentle, almost soothing, tones.
“I think the thickness of the villa must depend a good deal upon the character of the tenants,” she prettily said.
And Bayre smiled shyly, wishing that he dared say more. But she would not give him time. He was to remember that she had thrust aside all sentiment, had banished it from their intercourse. They were to behave to each other as if that crazy avowal of his love for her had never been offered. Bayre looked wistful, but he submitted. A time would come—perhaps!
“I’m grateful to you for one thing, at any rate,” she said, following the train of her thoughts rather than that of the conversation, “that you’ve got rid of Monsieur Blaise for me.”
“I!” echoed Bayre.
“Yes, you,” said Olwen, as she began to climb the steep path to the top of the cliff. “I have an idea that, but for your coming, and the mysterious visit to my uncle to which it led, I should have dropped at last, in a helpless sort of way, into the lion’s mouth.”
“You wouldn’t!” cried Bayre, indignantly. And hastening after her up the slope, he hissed out in her ear, “If I thought there was any danger of that, I’d stay here, throw up my appointment, spoil my chances in life, such as they are, and stick here like a limpet till I’d persuaded you to spoil your chances too, to come away with me, though it wouldn’t even be to the jerry-built villa, but to two rooms on some dingy top-floor, with a man who would give his life for you!”
Perhaps this bland superiority to sentiment which Miss Eden had worn so bravely was only a mask after all. Certain it is that, as she now turned fiercely and haughtily round on him, addressing him as if he were the lowest of slaves, there burned in her bright eyes a fire which was that neither of anger nor of contempt, while there was something inviting, something sympathetic in the very gesture with which she made as if to beat off her too passionate lover.
“Didn’t I forbid you to talk like that to me? How dare you? Do you suppose I want to starve myself, or to see you starve?” she asked, with her pretty head held very high and her breast heaving with excitement. “Understand, once for all, I forbid you to talk of those things. You’re to go back to your office and work, work, work; and you’re to spend the next ten years of your life perhaps in struggling, struggling to get the hearing that comes to every man who has anything to tell. And I’m going back to my life, which is not such a bad one after all. And if I liked to marry another Monsieur Blaise—(if there’s another such treasure about who would have me)” she added with demure fun sparkling in her eyes—“why, it’s no business of yours, and I’m quite at liberty to do it if I like. There!”