CHAPTER XVII.
“Pray come to me; I am waiting for you in the garden of the Square.”
In those two lines, Ovid’s note began and ended. Mrs. Gallilee’s maid—deeply interested in an appointment which was not without precedent in her own experience—ventured on an expression of sympathy, before she returned to the servants’ hall. “Please to excuse me, Miss; I hope Mr. Ovid isn’t ill? He looked sadly pale, I thought. Allow me to give you your hat.” Carmina thanked her, and hurried downstairs.
Ovid was waiting at the gate of the Square—and he did indeed look wretchedly ill.
It was useless to make inquiries; they only seemed to irritate him. “I am better already, now you have come to me.” He said that, and led the way to a sheltered seat among the trees. In the later evening-time the Square was almost empty. Two middle-aged ladies, walking up and down (who considerately remembered their own youth, and kept out of the way), and a boy rigging a model yacht (who was too closely occupied to notice them), were the only persons in the enclosure besides themselves.
“Does my mother know that you have come here?” Ovid asked.
“Mrs. Gallilee has gone out. I didn’t stop to think of it, when I got your letter. Am I doing wrong?”
Ovid took her hand. “Is it doing wrong to relieve me of anxieties that I have no courage to endure? When we meet in the house either my mother or her obedient servant, Miss Minerva, is sure to interrupt us. At last, my darling, I have got you to myself! You know that I love you. Why can’t I look into your heart, and see what secrets it is keeping from me? I try to hope; but I want some little encouragement. Carmina! shall I ever hear you say that you love me?”
She trembled, and turned away her head. Her own words to the governess were in her mind; her own conviction of the want of all sympathy between his mother and herself made her shrink from answering him.