Even death had laid a heavy hand on him; she was the last of her race, and she knew he earnestly desired that she should marry and bear children so that it might not become extinct. And now this chance, this princely chance, which, from his point of view, seemed to fill every possible condition, had come unawares, like a messenger from Heaven, and she refused its entertainment. Looked at through his eyes the position was indeed cruel.
Yet, deeply as she sympathised with him in his disappointment, Stella never for one moment wavered in her determination. Marry Mr. Layard! Her blood shrank back to her heart at the very thought, and then rushed to her neck and bosom in a flood of shame. No, she was sorry, but that was impossible, a thing which no woman should be asked to do against her will.
The subject wearied her, but as brooding on it could not mend matters, she dismissed it from her mind, and turned her thoughts to Morris. Why, she did not know, but something had come between them; he was vexed with her, and what was more, disappointed; she could feel it well enough, and—she found his displeasure painful. What had she done wrong, how had she offended him? Surely it could not be—and once again that red blush spread itself over face and bosom. He could not believe that she had accepted the man! He could never have so grossly misunderstood her, her nature, her ideas, everything about her! And yet who knew what he would or would not believe? In some ways, as she had already discovered, Mr. Monk was curiously simple. How could she tell him the truth without using words which she did not desire to speak? Here instinct came to her aid. It might be done by making herself as agreeable to him as possible, for surely he must know that no girl would do her best to please one man when she had just promised herself to another. So it came about that quite innocently Stella determined to allay her host’s misgivings by this doubtful and dangerous expedient.
To begin with, she put on her best dress—a low bodice of black silk relieved with white and a single scarlet rose from the hothouse. Round her neck also, fastened by a thin chain, she wore a large blood-red carbuncle shaped like a heart, and about her slender waist a quaint girdle of ancient Danish silver, two of the ornaments which she had saved from the shipwreck. Her dark and waving hair she parted in the middle after a new fashion, tying its masses in a heavy knot at the back of her head, and thus adorned descended to the library where Morris was awaiting her.
He stood leaning over the fire with his back towards her, but hearing the sweep of a skirt turned round, and as his eyes fell upon her, started a little. Never till he saw her thus had he known how beautiful Stella was at times. Quite without design his eyes betrayed his thought, but with his lips he said merely as he offered her his arm,—
“What a pretty dress! Did it come out of Northwold?”
“The material did; I made it up, and I am glad that you think it nice.”
This was a propitious beginning, and the dinner that followed did not belie its promise. The conversation turned upon one of the Norse sagas that Stella had translated, for which Morris had promised to try to find a publisher. Then abandoning the silence and reserve which were habitual to him he began to talk, asking her about her work and her past. She answered him freely enough, telling him of her school days in Denmark, of her long holiday visits to the old Danish grandmother, whose memory stretched back through three generations, and whose mind was stored with traditions of men and days now long forgotten. This particular saga, she said, had, for instance, never been written in its entirety till she took it down from the old dame’s lips, much as in the fifteenth century the Iceland sagas were recorded by Snorro Sturleson and others. Even the traditional music of the songs as they were sung centuries ago she had received from her with their violin accompaniments.
“I have one in the house,” broke in Morris, “a violin—rather a good instrument; I used to play a little when I was young. I wish, if you don’t mind, that you would sing them to me after dinner.”
“I will try if you like,” she answered, “but I don’t know how I shall get on, for my own old fiddle, to which I am accustomed, went to the bottom with a lot of other things in that unlucky shipwreck. You know we came by sea because it seemed so cheap, and that was the end of our economy. Fortunately, all our heavy baggage and furniture were not ready, and escaped.”