“Oh, no—I know he’s not like Herbert Pryce,” said Nora, panting, but undaunted. “There, that was disgusting of me!—don’t remember that I ever said that, Connie!—I know Mr. Falloden needn’t be a snob, because he’s got everything that snobs want—and he’s clever besides. But it is snobbish all the same to be so proud and stand-off, to like to make other people feel small and miserable, just that you may feel big.”
“Go away!” said Constance, and taking up one of her pillows, she threw it neatly at Nora, who dodged it with equal skill. Nora retreated to the other side of the door, then quickly put her head through again.
“Connie!—don’t!”
“Go away!” repeated Connie, smiling, but determined.
Nora looked at her appealingly, then shut her lips firmly, turned and went away. Connie spent a few minutes in meditation. She resented the kind of quasi-guardianship that this clever backfisch assumed towards her, though she knew it meant that Nora had fallen in love with her. But it was inconvenient to be so fallen in love with—if it was to mean interference with her private affairs.
“As if I couldn’t protect myself!”
The mere thought of Douglas Falloden was agitating enough, without the consciousness that a pair of hostile eyes, so close to her, were on the watch.
She sprang up, and went through her dressing, thinking all the time. “What do I really feel about him? I am going to ride with him on Monday—without telling anybody; I vowed I would never put myself in his power again. And I am deliberately doing it. I am in my guardian’s house, and I am treating Uncle Ewen vilely.”
And why?—why these lapses from good manners and good feeling? Was she after all in love with him? If he asked her to marry him again, as he had asked her to marry him before, would she now say yes, instead of no? Not at all! She was further—she declared—from saying yes now, than she had been under his first vehement attack. And yet she was quite determined to ride with him. The thought of their rides in the radiant Christmas sunshine at Cannes came back upon her with a rush. They had been one continuous excitement, simply because it was Falloden who rode beside her—Falloden, who after their merry dismounted lunch under the pines, had swung her to her saddle again—her little foot in his strong hand—so easily and powerfully. It was Falloden who, when she and two or three others of the party found themselves by mistake on a dangerous bridle-path, on the very edge of a steep ravine in the Esterels, and her horse had become suddenly restive, had thrown himself off his own mount, and passing between her horse and the precipice, where any sudden movement of the frightened beast would have sent him to his death, had seized the bridle and led her into safety. And yet all the time, she had disliked him almost as much as she had been drawn to him. None of the many signs of his autocratic and imperious temper had escaped her, and the pride in her had clashed against the pride in him. To flirt with him was one thing. The cloud of grief and illness, which had fallen so heavily on her youth, was just lifting under the natural influences of time at the moment when she and Falloden first came across each other. It was a moment for her of strong reaction, of a welling-up and welling-back of life, after a kind of suspension. The strong young, fellow, with his good looks, his masterful ways, and his ability—in spite of the barely disguised audacity which seemed inseparable from the homage it pleased him to pay to women—had made a deep and thrilling impression upon her youth and sex.
And yet she had never hesitated when he had asked her to marry him. Ride with him—laugh with him—quarrel with him, yes!—marry him, no! Something very deep in her recoiled. She refused him, and then had lain awake most of the night thinking of her mother and feeling ecstatically sure, while the tears came raining, that the dear ghost approved that part of the business at least, if no other.