the other.
Ay you may well stare. It sounds strange, but it is true, that the poor forlorn horseman, hanging like a broken man, as he was, over his tired horse, and wending his solitary way from her he loved, and resigning the field, like a goose, to the very rival he feared, did yet (like the retiring Parthian) shoot an arrow right into that pretty boudoir, and hit both his sweetheart and his rival; hit them hard enough to spoil their sport, and make a little mischief between them—for that afternoon, at all events.
The arrow came into the room after this fashion.
Kate was sitting in a very feminine attitude. When a man wants to look in any direction, he turns his body and his eye the same way and does it; but women love to cast oblique regards, and this their instinct is a fruitful source of their graceful and characteristic postures.
Kate Peyton was at this moment a statue of her sex. Her fair head leaned gently back against the corner of the window shutter, her pretty feet and fair person in general were opposite George Neville, who sat facing the window but in the middle of the room; her arms, half pendent, half extended, went listlessly aslant her and somewhat to the right of her knees, yet by an exquisite turn of the neck her grey eyes contrived to be looking dreamily out of the window to her left. Still, in this figure, that pointed one way and looked another, there was no distortion; all was easy, and full of that subtle grace we artists call Repose.
But suddenly she dissolved this feminine attitude, rose to her feet, and interrupted her wooer civilly. "Excuse me," said she, "but can you tell me which way that road on the hill leads to?"
Her companion stared a little at so sudden a turn in the conversation, but replied by asking her with perfect good humour what road she meant.
"The one that gentleman on horseback has just taken. Surely," she continued, "that road does not take to Bolton Hall."
"Certainly not," said George, following the direction of her finger, "Bolton lies to the right. That road takes to the sea-coast by Otterbury and Stanhope."
"I thought so," said Kate. "How unfortunate! He cannot know. But indeed how should he?"
"Who cannot know? and what? you speak in riddles, mistress; and how pale you are; are you ill?"
"No, not ill, sir," faltered Kate; "but you see me much discomposed. My cousin Charlton died this day; and the news met me at the very door." She could say no more.
Mr. Neville, on hearing this news, began to make many excuses for having inadvertently intruded himself upon her on such a day; but in the midst of his apologies she suddenly looked him full in the face, and said, with nervous abruptness, "You talk like a preux chevalier; I wonder whether you would ride five or six miles to do me a service?"
"Ay; a thousand;" said the young man, glowing with pleasure. "What is to do?"
Kate pointed through the window. "You see that gentleman on horseback. Well, I happen to know he is leaving the country: he thinks that he—that I—that Mr. Charlton has many years to live. He must be told Mr. Charlton is dead, and his presence is required at Bolton Hall. I should like somebody to gallop after him, and give him this letter: but my own horse is tired, and I am tired—and, to be frank, there is a little coolness between the gentleman himself and me; oh, I wish him no ill, but really I am not upon terms—I do not feel complaisant enough to carry a letter after him; yet I do feel that he must have it: do not you think it would be malicious and unworthy in me to keep the news from him, when I know it is so?"
Young Neville smiled. "Nay, mistress, why so many words? Give me your letter, and I will soon overtake the gentleman: he seems in no great hurry."
Kate thanked him, and made a polite apology for giving him so much trouble, and handed him the letter: when it came to that, she held it out to him rather irresolutely; but he took it promptly and bowed low after the fashion of the day; she curtsied; he marched off with alacrity; she sat down again and put her head in her hand to think it all over, and a chill thought ran through her; was her conduct wise? What would Griffith think at her employing his rival? Would he not infer Neville had entered her service in more senses than one? Perhaps he would throw the letter down in a rage and never read it.
Steps came rapidly, the door opened, and there was George Neville again, but not the same George Neville that went out but thirty seconds before. He stood at the door looking very black, and with a sardonic smile on his lips. "An excellent jest, mistress," said he, ironically.
"Why what is the matter?" said the lady, stoutly: but her red cheeks belied her assumption of innocence.
"Oh not much," said George, with a bitter sneer. "It is an old story; only I thought you were nobler than the rest of your sex. This letter is to Mr. Griffith Gaunt."
"Well, sir," said Kate, with a face of serene and candid innocence.
"And Mr. Griffith Gaunt is a suitor of yours."
"Say, was. He is so no longer. He and I are out. But for that, think you I had even listened to—what you have been saying to me this ever so long?"
"Oh, that alters the case," said George. "But stay!" and he knitted his brows and reflected. Up to a moment ago the loftiness of Catherine Peyton's demeanor, and the celestial something in her soul-like dreamy eyes, had convinced him she was a creature free from the small dishonesty and duplicity he had noted in so many women otherwise amiable and good.
But this business of the letter had shaken the illusion.
"Stay," said he stiffly. "You say Mr. Gaunt and you are out."
Catherine assented by a movement of her fair head.
"And he is leaving the country. Perhaps this letter is to keep him from leaving the country?"
"Only until he has buried his benefactor," murmured Kate, in deprecating accents.
George wore a bitter sneer at this. "Mistress Kate," said he, after a significant pause, "do you read Molière?"
She bridled a little, and would not reply; she knew Molière quite well enough not to want his wit leveled at her head.
"Do you admire the character of Célimène?"
No reply.
"You do not. How can you? She was too much your inferior. She never sent one of her lovers with a letter to the other to stop his flight. Well, you may eclipse Célimène; but permit me to remind you that I am George Neville, and not Georges Dandin."
Miss Peyton rose from her seat with eyes that literally flashed fire, and, the horrible truth must be told, her first wild impulse was to reply to all this Molière with one cut of her little riding-whip: but she had a swift mind, and two reflections entered it together: first that this would be unlike a gentlewoman; secondly, that if she whipped Mr. Neville, however slightly, he would not lend her his piebald horse: so she took stronger measures; she just sank down again and faltered, "I do not understand these bitter words: I have no lover at all: I never will have one again. But it is hard to think I cannot make a friend, nor keep a friend." And so lifted up her hands and began to cry piteously.
Then the stout George was taken aback, and made to think himself a ruffian.
"Nay, do not weep so, Mistress Kate," said he hurriedly. "Come, take courage. I am not jealous of Mr. Gaunt; a man that hath been two years dangling after you, and could not win you. I look but to my own self-respect in the matter. I know your sex better than you know yourselves: were I to carry that letter you would thank me now, but by and by despise me; now as I mean you to be my wife, I will not risk your contempt. 'Why not take my horse, put who you like on him, and so convey the letter to Mr. Gaunt?"
Now this was all the fair mourner wanted; so she said, "No, no, she would not be beholden to him for anything; he had spoken harshly to her, and misjudged her cruelly, cruelly: oh! oh! oh!"
Then he implored her to grant him this small favor: then she cleared up and said, well, sooner than bear malice, she would. He thanked her for granting him that favor. She went off with the letter, saying, "I will be back anon." But, once she got clear,