“What is it you want me to tell, my dear child?” Hyacinth inquired, putting his hand into her arm. “I’ll tell you anything you like.”
“I dare say you’ll tell me a lot of trash! Certainly, I tried kindness,” Miss Henning declared.
“Try it again; don’t give it up,” said her companion, strolling along with her in close association.
She stopped short, detaching herself, though not with intention. “Well, then, has she—has she chucked you over?”
Hyacinth turned his eyes away; he looked at the green expanse, misty and sunny, dotted with Sunday-keeping figures which made it seem larger; at the wooded boundary of the Park, beyond the grassy moat of Kensington Gardens; at a shining reach of the Serpentine on one side and the far façades of Bayswater, brightened by the fine weather and the privilege of their view, on the other. “Well, you know I rather think so,” he replied, in a moment.
“Ah, the nasty brute!” cried Millicent, as they resumed their walk.
Upwards of an hour later they were sitting under the great trees of Kensington Gardens, those scattered over the slope which rises gently from the side of the water most distant from the old red palace. They had taken possession of a couple of the chairs placed there for the convenience of that part of the public for which a penny is not, as the French say, an affair, and Millicent, of whom such speculations were highly characteristic, had devoted considerable conjecture to the question whether the functionary charged with collecting the said penny would omit to come and ask for his fee. Miss Henning liked to enjoy her pleasures gratis, as well as to see others do so, and even that of sitting in a penny chair could touch her more deeply in proportion as she might feel that nothing would be paid for it. The man came round, however, and after that her pleasure could only take the form of sitting as long as possible, to recover her money. This question had been settled, and two or three others, of a much weightier kind, had come up. At the moment we again participate in the conversation of the pair Millicent was leaning forward, earnest and attentive, with her hands clasped in her lap and her multitudinous silver bracelets tumbled forward upon her wrists. Her face, with its parted lips and eyes clouded to gentleness, wore an expression which Hyacinth had never seen there before and which caused him to say to her, “After all, dear Milly, you’re a good old fellow!”
“Why did you never tell me before—years ago?” she asked.
“It’s always soon enough to commit an imbecility! I don’t know why I tell you to-day, sitting here in a charming place, in balmy air, amid pleasing suggestions, without any reason or practical end. The story is hideous, and I have held my tongue for so long! It would have been an effort, an impossible effort, at any time, to do otherwise. Somehow, to-day it hasn’t been an effort; and indeed I have spoken just because the air is sweet, and the place ornamental, and the day a holiday, and your company exhilarating. All this has had the effect that an object has if you plunge it into a cup of water—the water overflows. Only in my case it’s not water, but a very foul liquid indeed. Excuse the bad odour!”
There had been a flush of excitement in Millicent’s face while she listened to what had gone before; it lingered there, and as a colour heightened by emotion is never unbecoming to a handsome woman, it enriched her exceptional expression. “I wouldn’t have been so rough with you,” she presently remarked.