“Look forward to what?” she said; “to come up here every evening, and invite me out to talk in the cold at the corner of old Crockford’s wall? I do not mind, for I’ve nothing else to amuse me now: and you have nothing else to amuse you, so far as I can see; but, presently I shall disappear like a will-o’-the-wisp, and what will you look forward to then?”
“That is what I say,” he said. “I feel it every day. You will go away, and what am I to do, where am I to find you? Every morning when I wake it is the first thing I think of—perhaps she may be gone, and not a trace, not an indication, left behind, not even a name.”
“Oh, it is not so bad as that. You know my name, but I tell you always it is a great deal better you should know no more, for what is the use? You are going to Oxford, where you will be for years and years before you can do anything. And at present you are the disinherited knight and I am a will-o’-the-wisp. Very well. We play about a little and amuse each other, and then you will ride off and I shall dance away.”
“No, no, no; for the sake of pity, if not for love—”
“What has a will-o’-the-wisp to do with these sort of things, or a young man at college? At college! it is only a school-boy a little bigger. Ride off, ride off, Sir Disinherited Knight; and as for me, it’s my part to go dancing, dancing away.”
And she was gone, disappearing with no sound but the little click of the gate, the pat of those footsteps which scarcely touched the ground, snatching from him the hand which he had tried to take, the hand which he had never yet been allowed to hold for a moment, he stood for a time at the corner of the wall, tantalized, tremulous, trying to persuade himself that she was not really gone, that she would appear again, a shadow out of the darkness. This was all he had seen of her except in distant glimpses, although their intercourse had gone so far. He was ready to pledge his life to her, and yet this was all he knew. Walter thought to himself as he went slowly down the hill, all thrilling with this interview, that never had there been a courtship before. He was proud of it, poor boy. There was something rapturous in its strangeness, in the fact that he did not even know her name, nothing but Emmy, which he had heard Martha call her. Emmy did not mean much, yet it was all he knew. He called her in his heart by names out of the poets—Una, Rosalind, Elaine. She was as much a creature of romance as any of them. He dreamed in those sweet dreams awake which are the privilege of youth, of seeing her flash out upon him from unimaginable surroundings, a princess, a peerless lady, something noble and great, something not to be put on the level of ordinary women. What she was doing in this cottage he scarcely asked himself—she who belonged to so different a sphere. But it was sweet to him to think that his love was so original, unlike that of any one else. His head was full of an intoxication of pleasure, of pride and wonder. Nobody had ever had such a story. Ah, if he had but Penton to take her home to! But anyhow he could conquer fortune for the sake of this sweet unknown.
This was how Walter spent his evenings while the others sat round the household lamp. He had the best of it. While Ally was thinking only of the visit to Penton, or at least of nothing else that she allowed even to herself, Wat, only two years older, felt himself standing on the threshold of an illimitable future, full of everything that was wonderful and sweet.
CHAPTER XVII.
GOING INTO THE WORLD.
It was very near Christmas when Walter and Ally went to Penton on the visit which had caused so much excitement. It had been arranged that on Christmas-eve they should return, for to spend that day away from their family was impossible, a thing not to be done had the invitation come from royalty itself. They went with all their new things so nicely packed, and their hearts beating, and many warnings and recommendations from the most careful of mothers.
“Wat, be careful that you never, never let them see, if it was only by a look, that you do not agree with what your father is doing. You must not let him down among his relations. You must let them see that what he does—Oh, Wat, you must be very particular to show a proper pride. Don’t look as if you had any grudge; don’t let them suppose—”