“And I suppose I am the magician who is to be discomfited and put to flight,” said John, with a grim attempt at a smile.
And here Kate’s best qualities made her cruel. “You are—whatever you please,” she said, turning upon him with the brightest sudden smile. She could not bear, poor fellow, that his feelings should be hurt, when she felt herself so relieved and easy in mind; and John, out of his despondency, went up to dazzling heights of confidence and hope. Fred, riding up, saw the smile, and said to himself, “What! gone so far already?” with a curious sensation of pique. And yet he had no occasion to be piqued. He had never set up any pretensions to Kate’s favour. He had foreseen how it would be when he last saw them together. It was something too ridiculous to feel as if he cared. Of course he did not care. But still there was a little pique in his rapid reflection as he came up to them. And they were all three a little embarrassed, which, on the whole, seemed uncalled for, considering the perfectly innocent and ordinary circumstances, which the boating-party immediately began with volubility to explain.
“We have been on the river,” said Kate. “Mr Mitford so kindly offered to take me before I went away. And we hoped to have Mrs Mitford with us; but at the last moment she could not come.”
I daresay not, indeed, Fred Huntley said in his heart; but he only looked politely indifferent, and made a little bow.
“Perhaps it was better she did not, for the boat is very small,” said John, carrying on the explanation. Was it an apology they were making for themselves? And so all at once, notwithstanding Kate’s romance about the knight on the white horse, all the enchantment disappeared from the fairy wood. Birds and rabbits and squirrels, creatures of natural history, pursued their common occupations about, without any fairy suggestions. It was only the afternoon sun that slanted among the trees, showing it was growing late, and not showers of golden arrows. The wood became as commonplace as a railroad, and Kate Crediton related to Fred Huntley how she was going home, and what was to happen, and how she hoped to meet his sisters at the Camelford ball.
Thus the crisis which John thought was to decide everything for him passed off in bathos and commonplace. He walked on beside the other two, who did all the talking, eating his heart. Had she been playing with him, making a joke of his sudden passion? But then she would give him a glance from time to time which spoke otherwise. “There is still an evening and a morning,” John said to himself; and he stood like a churl at the Rectory gate, and suffered Huntley to ride on without the slightest hint of a possibility that he should stay to dinner. Such inhospitable behaviour was not common at Fanshawe Regis. But there are moments in which politeness, kindness, neighbourly charities, must all give way before a more potent feeling, and John Mitford had arrived at one of these. And his heart was beating, his head throbbing, all his pulses going at the highest speed and out of tune—or, at least, that was his sensation. Kate disappeared while he stood at the gate, shutting it carefully upon Fred, and heaven knows what frightful interval might be before him ere he could resume the interrupted conversation, and demand the answer to which surely he had a right!
John’s mind was in such a whirl of confusion that he could not realise what he was about to do. If he could have thought it over calmly, and asked himself what right he had to woo a rich man’s daughter, or even to dream of bringing her to his level, probably poor John would not only have stopped short, but he might have had resolution enough to turn back and leave his father’s door, and put himself out of the reach of temptation till she was safe in her own father’s keeping. He had strength enough and resolution enough to have made such a sacrifice, had there been any time to think; but sudden passion had swept him up like a whirlwind, and conquered all his faculties. He wanted to have an answer; an answer—nothing more. He wanted to know what she meant—why it was that she was so eager with him to bring his doubtfulness to a conclusion. If he took her advice, what would follow? There was a singing in his ears, and a buzzing in his brain. He could not think, nor pause to consider which was right. There was but one thing to do—to get his answer from her; to know what she meant. And then the Deluge or Paradise—one thing or the other—would come after that, but were it Paradise, or were it the Flood, John’s anchors were pulled up, and he had left the port. All his old prospects and hopes and intentions had vanished. He could no more go back to the position in which he had stood when he first opened his heart to Kate than he could fly. Fanshawe Regis, and his parents’ hopes, and the old placid existence to which he had been trained, all melted away into thin air. He was standing on the threshold of a new world, with an unknown wind blowing in his face, and an unknown career before him. If it might be that she was about to put her little hand in his, and go with him across the wilderness! But, anyhow, it was a wilderness that had to be traversed; not those quiet waters and green pastures which had been destined for him at home.
“How late you are, John!” his mother said, meeting him on the stair. She was coming down dressed for dinner, with just a little cloud over the brightness of her eyes. “You must have stayed a long time on the river. Was that Kate that has just gone up-stairs?”
“Miss Crediton went on before me. I had to stop and speak to Huntley at the gate.”
“You should have asked him to stay dinner,” said Mrs Mitford. “My dear, I am sure you have a headache. You should not have rowed so far, under that blazing sun. But make haste now. Your papa cannot bear to be kept waiting. I will tell Jervis to give you five minutes. And, oh, make haste, my dear boy!”