“I want you,” she said, laying her delicately gloved hand on his arm, “to promise me one thing. Will you?”
“Anything and everything in the world!” said the Major recklessly.
“It is only just this,—do not talk to me at all, or ask me what I feel, about Boy.” Her voice trembled a little,—then she went on,—“It is no use,—it only makes me think of what might have been and what is not. I am a little disappointed,—but then—what of that? We all have disappointments, and it is no use brooding upon them. We only make ourselves and others miserable. You see I loved Boy as a child;—he is not a child now—he is getting to be a young man,—and—he does not want me,—it is not natural he should want me. Do you understand?”
The Major was profoundly moved, but he only nodded and said,—
“Yes,—I understand!”
“He is just a college lad now,—like—like all the rest,” went on Miss Letty quietly—“and it was my mistake to have expected him to be in any way different. He will no doubt turn out very well and be a good soldier. But”—and she suddenly looked up with a swift glance and smile that went straight to the Major’s heart—“he is Robert D’Arcy-Muir now,—he is not Boy!”
The Major said not a word, but he took up the little gloved hand resting on his arm and kissed it. A moment afterwards Violet entered, looking like a blush rose in a pretty gown of pink chiffon; and the two elderly folks, welcoming her presence as a relief from emotion and embarrassment, turned to admire her sweet and fresh appearance. And then they went to the theatre, and enjoyed “David Garrick,” and the subject of Boy was avoided among them by mutual consent, both on that evening and for many a long day afterwards.
But he was not forgotten. Day after day, night after night, Miss Letty thought of him and wondered what he was doing, but she never heard whether he had passed his examination or not. His mother never wrote,—and he himself was evidently unmindful of his promise. Major Desmond, however, kept his eyes and ears open for news of him, not so much for the lad’s own sake, as for Miss Letty’s. He had friends at Sandhurst, and to them he confided his wish to know all the information they could get concerning “young D’Arcy-Muir,” if he should eventually go there. To which he received the reply that if the young chap did get to Sandhurst at all, they would let him know. With this he had to be satisfied, knowing that it would be worse than useless to enquire about him from his parents, the Honourable Jim being half paralysed, and Mrs. D’Arcy-Muir being incapable of giving a straight answer at any time to a straight question.
By-and-by, however, the attention of Major Desmond and Miss Letty began to be entirely engrossed by a new cause of anxiety and perplexity. Violet was looking ill, and getting pale and thin, and it was evident she was unhappy. Yet she never complained, and always tried to be cheerful, though it seemed an effort to her.
“Look here, Letty,—what is the matter with the girl?” asked the Major bluntly one day. “I have worried her to tell me, and she won’t. Does she tell you?”