“Yes, yes, only do keep quiet and not go after her, or you’ll spoil everything! I’ll write to you at the old address! Johnny, I’m sorry for you from my heart, but I’m under her thumb as well as you. We must both have patience. Good-bye, now, some one will be coming.”
“Good-bye, dear,” said the man, sadly, and Cecil saw him clasp her little rosy fingers tightly in his broad palm. “God bless you, little one. I shall look for a letter soon. Write me everything about her, and I’ll try to stay away, hard as it seems!”
He sighed and turned away, going straight across the lawn to the broad gates that led to the railroad. There was something pathetic in his worn, shabby garments and slow, dejected pace in that scene of wealth and gayety, and Cecil would have been touched only for that fierce pain tugging at his heart. But he turned his eyes away from the man back to Molly, who had dropped down on her seat and was gazing after him with sad, wet eyes. He heard her murmur passionately, “It is a shame!” then she dropped her face in her hands and sobs shook her slender form.
Cecil had seen Molly in many moods, but here was a new one, and it excited in him a strange feeling, that of pity mixed with a bitter resentment, as if he had suffered some personal wrong at her hands. After a minute, and still watching the sobbing girl, he began to analyze his emotions, and as a result the color flew hotly to his face and he muttered:
“I have actually taken an undue and sentimental interest in this girl—pshaw, why mince matters? Through some unexplainable madness I have lost my heart to a madcap, and am suffering all the torments of jealousy because another man has a claim on her. Mrs. Barry was wiser than I thought, and is no doubt laughing in her sleeve this moment at my folly.”
The flush deepened on his face, and he remained for some moments watching Molly in moody silence.
It was a dangerous occupation for a man who had just found out that she was fatally fair, for Molly, as she crouched in a forlorn and drooping position on the hard bench, was a very tempting little specimen of femininity.
The day was warm and she wore a dress of thin white mull, through whose transparent texture her plump arms and shoulders gleamed rosy-white. Her hat had fallen off, and the loose dark curls half confined by a scarlet ribbon, drooped against the graceful neck, and contrasted with the warm pink of a round cheek nestled in a dainty hand. On this picture of beauty in distress fell pretty flecks of sunlight from between the green boughs overhead, bringing out glints of brightness from the wavy curls, that in the shade always looked so dark and rich, and Cecil remembered that there were golden lights in her eyes, too, when she was pleased and happy.
Then he caught himself up again with a jerk.
“Happy! How can she ever be happy again with that tramp of a lover on her mind?” angrily.