“I mean nothing, father,” she said. “I’m just telling you what happened. He came to me looking like a dog that’s going to be washed——”
“Why, of course; he was nervous, my dear.”
“Of course. He couldn’t know that I was going to refuse him.”
She was breathing quickly. He started to speak, but she went on looking straight before her. Her face was very white in the moonlight.
“He took me into the rose-garden. Was that Sir Thomas’s idea? There couldn’t have been a better setting, I’m sure—the roses looked lovely. Presently I heard him gulp, and I was so sorry for him. I would have refused him then, and put him out of his misery, only I couldn’t very well till he had proposed, could I? So I turned my back and sniffed at a rose, and then he shut his eyes—I couldn’t see him, but I knew he shut his eyes—and began to say his lesson.”
“Molly!”
“He did—he said his lesson. He gabbled it. When he had got as far as ‘Well don’t you know, what I mean is, that’s what I wanted to say, you know,’ I turned round and soothed him. I said, I didn’t love him. He said, ‘No, no, of course not.’ I said he had paid me a great compliment. He said, ‘Not at all,’ looking very anxious, poor darling, as if even then he was afraid of what might come next. But I reassured him, and he cheered up, and we walked back to the house together, as happy as could be.”
McEachern put his hand round her shoulder. She winced, but let it stay. He attempted gruff conciliation.
“My dear, you’ve been imagining things. Of course he isn’t happy. Why, I saw the young fellow——”
Recollecting that the last time he had seen the young fellow—shortly after dinner—the young fellow had been occupied in juggling, with every appearance of mental peace, with two billiard-balls and a box of matches, he broke off abruptly.