“Oh, if you cannot distinguish between becoming a bookworm and talking seriously once in a way, there is no more to be said! I’m sorry I spoke. Now I suppose you will be offended with me, and the day will be spoiled?”
It was not a gracious speech, but Jack did not feel gracious, and he had not much control over his temper. An inner voice informed him that he was behaving like a cad, and he acknowledged the truth of the indictment, while in the same moment he was prepared to reply more irritably than before.
He had not the chance, however, for Mollie’s eyes met his without the faintest shadow of reproach. There was a subtle change in her expression, but it spoke neither of offence nor anger.
“No, I am not vexed; that would be stupid, for it would only make things worse. It is my nature to look on the bright side of things. I know I am thoughtless, but it won’t last. I shall be serious enough some day—perhaps sooner than we think. Don’t grudge me my little hour!”
The face raised to his looked so young and wistful that Jack felt a pang of the same remorse which one feels who has wounded a little child. He averted his eyes and drove on in silence, thinking, thinking.—The clever town girl would have been mortally insulted if he had dared to criticise her manners or attainments, and would have justified herself by a dozen plausible arguments. Mollie was ready to admit everything against herself, and only anxious to save him from any feeling of embarrassment.
She talked on impersonal topics all the rest of the way to the vicarage, and her smile when she bade him good-bye was resolutely cheerful, but he hated himself as he realised that for the first time there was an effort involved. As he turned the pony round the corner of the little lane which bordered the lawn he heard Mrs Thornton’s surprised exclamation, “Why, Mollie!” and the half-laughing exclamation, “It’s nothing! The sun is so strong, it made my eyes—smart!”
Jack Melland set his teeth and drove on in a tumult of feeling such as he had never known before in the course of his self-satisfied existence. Blundering, presumptuous wretch that he was! If any trouble came to Mollie Farrell, he would feel as guilty as if he himself had deliberately brought it to pass!