And then he looked at her with eyes full of reproach, and a certain appeal—while she met his look with incipient tears, with her child’s gaze of wonder, and sorrow, and eloquent deprecation. “Please forgive me!” she said, in a whisper. She even advanced her hand to him by instinct, with a shy half-conscious movement, stopping short out of regard for the many pairs of eyes in the room, not for any other cause. “I am so very, very sorry,” she said, and the water shone in her blue eyes like dew on flowers. Fred, though he was not emotional, was more deeply moved than he had yet been. Throughout all this strange interview, though he meant every word he said, he had yet been more or less playing a part. But now her ingenuous look overcame him. Something of the imbecility of tenderness came into his eyes. He made a little clutch at the finger-tips which had been held out to him, and would have kissed them before everybody, had not Kate given him a warning look, and blushed, and quickly drawn the half-offered hand away. She would not have drawn it away had they been alone. Would she have heard him more patiently, given him a still kinder response? Fred could not tell, but yet he felt that his first effort had not been made in vain.
It was Mr Crediton himself who interrupted this tête-à-tête. He came up to them with a look which might have been mere curiosity, and might have been displeasure. “Kate,” he said, gravely, “it seems to me you are neglecting your guests. Instead of staying in this favourite corner of yours, suppose you go and look after these young ladies a little. Mr Huntley will excuse you, I am sure.”
“I am so lazy, I am out of spirits; and so is Mr Huntley; we have been condoling with each other,” said Kate; but she got up as she spoke, with her usual sweet alacrity, not sorry, if truth were told, to escape. “Keep my seat for me, papa, till I come back,” she said, with her soft little laugh. Mr Crediton did as he was told—he placed himself in her chair, and turned round to Fred and looked at him. While she tripped away to the other girls to resume her interrupted duties, her father and her new lover confronted each other, and cautiously investigated what the new danger was.
“My dear Huntley,” said the elder man, “I am sure your meaning is the most friendly in the world; but my daughter is very young, and she is engaged to be married; and, on the whole, I think it would be better that you did not appropriate her so much. Kate ought to know better, but she is very light-hearted, and fond of being amused.”
“I don’t think I have been very amusing to-night,” said Fred. “Thanks, sir, for your frankness; but I am going away to-morrow, and I may claim a little indulgence, perhaps, for my last night.”
“Going away to-morrow!” said Mr Crediton, with surprise.
“Yes, I have no choice. Shall I say it is sudden business—a telegram from Oxford—a summons home? or shall I tell you the real reason, Mr Crediton?” cried Fred, with emotion. “You have always been very good to me.”
Mr Crediton was startled, notwithstanding his habitual composure. He looked keenly at the young man, and saw what few people had ever seen—the signs of strong and highly-wrought feeling in Fred Huntley’s face; and the sight was a great surprise to him. He had thought the two had been amusing themselves with a flirtation, a thing he did not approve of; but this must surely have gone beyond a flirtation. “If you have anything to say to me, come to the library after they have gone to bed,” he said. Fred answered by a nod of assent, and the two separated without another word. Nor did Kate see the new claimant to her regard any more that night. He had disappeared when she had time to look round her, and recall the agitating interview which had broken the monotony of the evening. It came to her mind when she was talking, returning again and again amid the nothings of ordinary conversation. How strange it all was, how exciting! what a curious episode in the tedious evening! And what did he, what could he, mean? And what would John think? And was it possible that Fred Huntley could feel like that—Fred, that man of the world? She was confused, bewildered, flattered, pleased, and sorry. It was a new sensation, and thrilled her through and through when she was rather in want of something to rouse her up a little. And she was so sorry for him! She almost hoped he would spring up from some corner, and be chidden and comforted, and made more miserable by the soft look of compassion she would give him—the “Pardon me!” which she meant to say; but Fred made no further appearance, and the Pardon me! was not said that night.
CHAPTER XXIII.
It puzzled Kate very much next morning to find that Huntley had not reappeared. It was not in the nature of things that she could avoid thinking about him, and wondering over and over again what he could mean,—whether he was mystifying her—but that was impossible; or if it was really, actually true? And the fact was that she went down-stairs a little earlier than usual, with a great curiosity in her mind as to how Fred would look, and whether she should see any traces in his face of last night’s agitation. When she had taken this trouble, it may be supposed that it was hard upon her to find Fred absent; and she “did not like”—a new expression in Kate’s vocabulary—to ask what had become of him. She caught herself looking at the door anxiously every time it opened, but he did not come. Some one at last relieved her anxiety by asking the point-blank question, “What has become of Huntley? has he gone away?” It was an idea which never had occurred to Kate. She looked up in blank dismay at the suggestion, and met her father’s eye fully fixed upon her, and trembled, and felt that in two minutes more she must cry—not for Fred, but because he was decidedly an exciting new plaything, and he had gone away.