It seems that Telfer, disliking disagreeable sensations, and classing getting wet among such, had arisen when the thunder began to growl, and slowly wended his way homewards. But before he was halfway to Essellau the rain began to drip off his moustache, and seeing a little marble temple (the Parthenon turned into a summer-house!) close by, he thought he might as well go in and have another weed till it grew finer. Go in he did; and he'd just smoked half a cigar, and read the last chapter of "Indiana," when he looked up, and saw the Tressillian's pug, looking a bedraggled and miserable object, at his feet, and the Tressillian herself standing within a few yards of him. If Telfer had abstained from a few fierce mental oaths, he would have been of a much more pacific nature than he ever pretended to be; and I don't doubt that he looked hauteur concentrated as he rose at his enemy's entrance. Violet made a movement of retreat, but then thought better of it. It would have seemed too much like flying from the foe. So with a careless bow she sank on one of the seats, took off her hat, shook the rain-drops off her hair, and busied herself in sedulous attentions to the pug. The Major thought it incumbent on him to speak a few sentences about the thunder that was cracking over their heads; Violet answered him as briefly; and Telfer putting down his cigar with a sigh, sat watching the storm in silence, not troubling himself to talk any more.
As she bent down to pat the pug she caught his eyes on her with a cold, critical glance. He was thinking how pure her profile was and how exquisite her eyes, and—of how cordially he should hate her if his father married her. Her color rose, but she met his look steadily, which is a difficult thing to do if you've anything to conceal, for the Major's eyes are very keen and clear. Her lips curved with a smile half amused, half disdainful. "What a pity, Major Telfer," she said, with a silvery laugh, "that you should be condemned to imprisonment with one who is unfortunately such a bête noire to you as I am! I assure you, I feel for you; if I were not coward enough to be a little afraid of that lightning, I would really go away to relieve you from your sufferings. I should feel quite honored by the distinction of your hatred if I didn't know, you, on principle, dislike every woman living. Is your judgment always infallible?"
Beyond a little surprise in his eyes, Telfer's features were as impassive as ever. "Far from it," he answered, quietly "I merely judge people by their actions."
The Tressillian's luminous eyes flashed proudly. "An unsafe guide, Major Telfer; you cannot judge of actions until you know their motives. I know perfectly well why you dislike and avoid me: you listened to a foolish report, and you heard me giving your father permission to write to me. Those are your grounds, are they not?"
Telfer, for once in his life, was astonished, but he looked at her fixedly. "And were they not just ones?"
"No," said Violet, vehemently,—"no, they were most rankly unjust; and it is hard, indeed, if a girl, who has no friends or advisers that she can trust, may not accept the kindness and ask the counsels of a man fifty-five years older than herself without his being given to her as a lover, and the world's whispering that she is trying to entrap him. You pique yourself on your clear-sightedness, Major Telfer, but for once your judgment failed you when you attributed such mean and mercenary motives to me, and supposed, because, as you so generously stated, I had 'no money and no home,' I must necessarily have no heart or conscience, but be ready to give myself at any moment to the highest bidder, and take advantage of the kindness of your noble-minded, generous-hearted father to trick him into marriage." She stopped, fairly out of breath with excitement. Telfer was going to speak, but she silenced him with a haughty gesture. "No; now we are started on the subject, hear me to the end. You have done me gross injustice—an offence the Tressillians never forgive—but, for my own sake, I wish to show you how mistaken you were in your hasty condemnation. At the beginning of the season I was introduced to your father. He knew my mother well in her girlhood, and he said I reminded him of her. He was very kind to me, and I, who have no real friend on earth, of course was grateful to him, for I was thankful to have any one on whom I could rely. You know, probably as well as I do, that there is little love lost between the Carterets and myself, though, by my father's will, I must stay with them till I am of age. I have one brother, a boy of eighteen; he is with his regiment serving out in India, and the climate is killing him by inches, though he is too brave to try and get sick leave. Your father has been doing all he can to have him exchanged; the letters I have had from him have been to tell me of his success, and to say that Arthur is gazetted to the Buffs, and coming home overland. There is the head and front of my offending, Major Telfer; a very simple explanation, is it not? Perhaps another time you will be more cautious in your censure."
A faint flush came over the Major's bronzed cheek; he looked out of the portico, and was silent for a minute. The knowledge that he has wronged another is a keen pang to a proud man of an honor almost fastidious in his punctilio of right. He swung quickly round, and held out his hand to her.
"I beg your pardon; I have misjudged you, and I am thoroughly ashamed of myself for it," he said, in a low voice.
When the Major does come down from his hauteur, and let some of his winning cordial nature come out, no woman living, unless she were some animated Medusa, could find it in her heart to say him nay. His frank self-condemnation touched Violet, despite herself, and, without thinking, she laid her small fingers in his proffered hand. Then the Tressillian pride flashed up again; she drew it hastily away, and walked out into the air.
"Pray do not distress yourself," she said, with an effort (not successful) to seem perfectly calm and nonchalant. "It is not of the slightest consequence; we understand each other's sentiments now, and shall in future be courteous in our hate like two of the French noblesse, complimenting one another before they draw their swords to slay or to be slain. It has cleared now, so I will leave you to the solitude I disturbed. Come, Floss." And calling the pug after her, Violet very gracefully swept down the steps, but with a stride the Major was at her side.