Then I could not help sobbing outright, crying, "Ah, it is always the same,--I know it! I am not like the other girls in your world. People despise me, and my poor mother too."
"But this is childish," he said, gravely,--"childish and foolish. No one despises you. And--don't scratch my eyes out, Zdena--it is not your heart, merely, that is wounded at present, but your vanity, the vanity of an inexperienced little girl who knows nothing of the world or of the people in it. If you had knocked about in it somewhat, you would know how little it signifies if people in general wink and nod, and that the only thing really to care for is, to be understood and loved by those to whom we cling with affection."
He said this more gently and kindly than I can write it. He suddenly seemed very far above me in his earnest kindness of heart and his sweet reasonableness. I was instantly possessed with a feeling akin to remorse and shame, to think how I had teased him and tyrannized over him all through those last few days. And I cannot tell how it happened, but he clasped me close in his arms and bent down and kissed me on the lips,--and I let him do it! Ah, such a thrill passed through me! And I felt sheltered and cared for as I had not done since my mother's clasping arms had been about me. I was for the moment above all petty annoyances,--borne aloft by a power I could not withstand.
It lasted but a moment, for we were startled by the silken rustle of my aunt's gown, and did he release me? did I leave him? I do not know; but when Aunt Rosamunda appeared I was adjusting a rose in my breast, and Harry was--looking for his sabre!----. (When the major reached this point, he stamped on the floor with delight.)
"Aha, Rosel, which of us was right?" he exclaimed aloud. He would have liked to summon his wife from where he could see her walking in the garden, to impart to her his glorious discovery. On reflection, however, he decided not to do so, chiefly because there was a good deal of manuscript still unread, and he was in a hurry to continue the perusal of what interested him so intensely.)
----I avoided being alone with Harry all the rest of the evening, but the next morning at the railway-station, while my aunt was nervously counting over the pieces of luggage for the ninety-ninth time, I could not prevent his leaning towards me and saying, "Zdena, we were so unfortunately interrupted last evening. You have not yet told me--that----"
I felt myself grow scarlet. "Wait for a while!" I murmured, turning my head away from him, but I think that perhaps--I pressed his hand----
I must have done so, for happier eyes than those which looked after our train as it sped away I have never seen. Ah, how silly I had been! I carried with me for the rest of the journey a decided regret.----
(The major frowned darkly. "Why, this looks as if she would like to withdraw her promise! But let me see, there really has no promise passed between them."
He glanced hurriedly over the following leaves. "Descriptions of travel--compositions," he muttered to himself. "Paris--variations upon Baedeker--the little goose begins to be tiresome----Ah, here is something about her parents' grave--poor thing! And here----" He began to read again.)