Some "spirit in his feet" must have led him "who knows how," for ere long he found himself seated on a log beside Bluebell. I cannot tell what spell that syren had used to attract his footsteps so unerringly, for, little accustomed as he was to resist female influence, in thought at least Du Meresq was loyal enough to Cecil.
He made no attempt to kiss her, as he would have done before in a similar situation, but talked a while in that half-fond, half-bantering manner that had misled the inexperienced child. The sun poured its level rays upon them, and a little brown snake, with a litter of young, crawled from beneath the log. This occasioned a hasty change of quarters, and they found another seat o'ershadowed by a tangle of blackberries. It was very secluded and still, and here, with her whole soul, in her eyes, Bluebell abruptly asked Bertie her dreaded question.
Rather taken back, he answered evasively. But the ice once broken, she was not to be turned from her purpose, and repeated, as if it were a stereotyped form of words she had been practising, "I only wish to ask one single thing, are you engaged to Cecil?"
Du Meresq was no coxcomb. He was distressed at the repressed agitation in Bluebell's voice, her hueless face, and the hopeless look in eyes he remembered so beaming, and for the moment heartily wished he had never seen her.
"How young she looks, with her lap full of flowers. Like an unhappy child," thought he remorsefully. "I must tell her the truth; she'll soon get over it."
Very gently he took her hand, and said, gravely,—"I asked Cecil yesterday to marry me, and she said yes."
Bluebell staggered to her feet, with perhaps a sudden impulse of flight, but so unsteadily that Du Meresq involuntarily threw a supporting arm round her. At that moment Lola, in search of blackberries, and herself concealed by the bush she was rifling, peeped through the brambles, and remained a petrified and curious observer.
Bluebell, struggling for composure, tried to speak, but the effort only precipitated an irrepressible flood of tears, and Du Meresq, grieved and self-reproachful, in his attempts to console her, used the fatal words that Lola afterwards repeated to Cecil. The child escaped without her presence being detected.
Bluebell's emotion had passed over like a storm that clears the atmosphere. It left her calm and cold, and only anxious to be away from Du Meresq.
There is a bracing power in knowing the worst. He had gained her affections without the most distant intention of matrimony, and resentment and shame restored her to composure.