‘I begged for another day,’ said Hillyard, following her into the room. ‘I daresay I was a fool for my pains. It may be years before I return again. I asked for another day.’
‘I am sure godmamma will be very glad,’ said Mary, courteously; ‘but somehow it was very startling to see you, and not Ben.’
And she gave a momentary glance out, as if still she expected the other to appear. Such a reception to a man who had come on Hillyard’s errand was like frost to a brook. It bound him, shrank him up within himself. He stood looking at her with a half-stupefied, wistful gaze, saying nothing. Ben; always Ben! Was that the only thought in her mind? Was it possible she could see him thus, and meet his eye, and not see his errand was altogether apart from Ben?
Mary, however, was so much occupied with her tremor and start, and curious little flutter of expectation, that it did not occur to her as strange for some minutes that her present companion said no more. She took his silence with the composure of perfect indifference. She was not even curious about him, further than concerned her cousin. Why should she be curious about Mr. Hillyard? But at last it did strike her that politeness required that she should speak to him. And, looking up, she caught the expression of his face and of his attitude all in a moment, and the ardent light in his eyes. Such a look is not to be mistaken. With a sudden rallying of all her blood to her heart, and steadying of her nerves for an utterly unforeseen but unmistakable emergency, Mary faltered and stopped in her intended speech, waiting for what was to come.
‘Miss Westbury,’ he said, ‘I might as well tell you at once that I see what a fool I am. I have my answer before I have spoken. You think no more of me than if I were Ben Renton’s horse, or his dog, or anything that belonged to him. I see it quite plain, and I might have seen it before I went away on Wednesday; but there are things in which a man cannot be anything but a fool.’
‘I don’t know what you mean, Mr. Hillyard?’ said Mary. ‘I hope I have not been rude. You are a stranger to us all. It is only through Ben we have known you; and it was natural when I saw you that I should think of my cousin. If I have hurt your feelings I am sure I beg your pardon.’
In all this she was talking against time, hoping that Frank or somebody would come in.
‘No,’ he said; ‘I know I had no right to think of anything else. Of course I am a stranger. Ben’s dog,—that is about it! I am not sneering, Miss Westbury. I should not have minded your calling me so when I came.’
And there he stood, turning his eyes away from her, a big strong man of the woods as he looked, abashed and disconcerted, like a chidden child. He gazed out blankly, pulling his beard, with a flush of such quick mortification and downfall as a boy might feel when he sees his hasty projects fall to nought, and yet a deeper pang underneath than any boy could bear. Altogether the man looked so humbled and sore and sad, silenced in the very moment of effusion, that Mary’s heart was moved. She was sorry for him, and remorseful for her own indifference. It seemed almost needful to let him say out his say by way of consolation.
‘We all called you Ben’s friend,’ she said; ‘his best friend, whom we have heard of for years. Nobody else could have come among us at such a time. You must not think I mean anything disrespectful or unkind.’