Not an hour, not fifteen minutes, when Robert returned. He looked paler than before, and spoke no word, only stared into the fire. At length, with a pitiful attempt at a smile, he said, "I'm a fool to be vexed about it,—let her please herself!"
"It is bad news, Robert!" said I softly, laying my hand on his arm. His hands were clenched hard together.
"Yes, there's no mistake about it. But, Auntie, tell me, am I a fool and a jackass? didn't you think she liked me?"
"To be sure I did!" I answered decidedly.
"Well, she says she never thought of me,—never!—and she never thought of marrying again."
The wound wouldn't bear touching,—it was too sore. So I sat silently with him, holding his hand in mine, and looking into the fire, and in almost as great a rage as he was. He knew I felt with him, and by and by he turned to kiss my cheek, but still without a word.
How I wished he could have gone to the conflict with the thought of his true love warm at his heart? Who deserved it so much? who was so brave, so heroic, so handsome?—one in ten thousand! And here was this dead-and-alive Percy Lunt, saying she never thought! "Pah!—just as if girls don't always think! If there's anything I do detest, it's a coquette!" The last sentence I unconsciously uttered aloud.
"Don't call her that, Auntie! I really think she didn't know. I wasn't just to her. I was too angry. When I spoke to her she looked really distressed and astonished. I am sure that I ought——"
"Nonsense, Robert! she must have seen your feelings. And haven't you been sending her flowers and books and pictures, and reading to her, and talking to her the whole time, this three months! Where were her eyes? I have no patience with her, I say!"
The boy had recovered his sense of justice so much sooner than I! He smiled sadly, and took both my little old hands in his. "Best of aunties! what a good hater you are! Now, if you love me, you will be kind to her, and try to love and comfort her. Somehow she looks very unhappy."