“Don’t want to have it cured, ma’am.�
Meanwhile, Skelton had joined Sylvia and Lewis in the summerhouse, which had been built expressly to harbour those two first named, but which, as Mr. Shapleigh truly said, had never held them together in their lives.
Lewis was rather pleased at Skelton’s arrival. He fancied a kind of rivalry between Skelton and himself with Sylvia, and was immensely delighted at the notion of letting Skelton see how well he stood in Sylvia’s good graces. Sylvia, too, was not insensible to the honour of Skelton’s company, and sometimes wondered if—if—her surmises here became totally confused; but Skelton was undoubtedly the most charming man she had ever known, and a woman of Sylvia’s intelligence was peculiarly sensitive to his charm. On Skelton’s part, he felt profoundly grateful towards anybody who was kind to Lewis Pryor, and nothing could have brought Sylvia’s attractions more seductively before him than her kindness to the boy.
Sylvia and Skelton grew so very friendly that Lewis, feeling himself slighted, stiffly said good-morning, and went back to Deerchase, when he got in his boat and sailed straight down the river, past Lone Point, and did not get back until the afternoon.
Left alone together, the man and the woman suddenly felt a sensation of intimacy. It was as if they had taken up again that thread which had been broken off so many years ago. Skelton pointed to the spot on the shore where she had said good-bye to him on that gusty September evening.
“There was where you kissed me,� he said. At this Sylvia coloured deeply and beautifully and took refuge in levity, but the colour did not die out of her face, and Skelton noticed that her eyelids fluttered. She was such a very innocent creature, that, in spite of her cleverness, he could read her like a book.
Something impelled him to speak to her of Elizabeth Blair. “Good God!� he said, “that any human being should have the power to inflict the suffering on another that that woman inflicted on me nearly twenty years ago! And every time Conyers preaches about blessings in disguise I always think of that prime folly of my youth. Elizabeth Blair is good and lovely, but how wretched we should have been together. So I forgive her!� He did not say he forgave Blair.
Sylvia looked at him gravely and sympathetically. Skelton was smiling; he treated his past agonies with much contempt. But women never feel contempt for the sufferings of the heart, and listen with delight to that story of love, which is to them ever new and ever enchanting.
“How charming it must be to have had a great romance,� said Sylvia, half laughing and yet wholly earnest—“one of those tremendous passions, you know, that teaches one all one can know! I am afraid I shall never have one, unless dear little Lewis comes to the rescue.�
“You will know it one day, and that without Lewis,� answered Skelton. “Some women are formed for grand passions, just as men come into the world with aptitude for great affairs.�