won't kiss you, and I won't be friends, and you may walk by yourselves"; and before anybody could stop her she was gone.
Ernest whistled softly, reflecting that Dorothy was not good at standing chaff. Then, after waiting awhile, he and Jeremy started to pay their call.
But they were destined to be unfortunate. Eva, whom Ernest had never seen, and of whom he had heard nothing beyond that she was "good-looking"--for Jeremy, notwithstanding his expressed intention of consulting him, could not make up his mind to broach the subject--was in bed with a bad headache, and Florence had gone out to spend the afternoon with a friend. The old lady was at home, however, and received them both warmly, more especially her favourite Ernest, whom she kissed affectionately.
"I am lucky," she said, "in having two nieces, or I should never see anything of young gentlemen like you."
"I think," said Ernest, audaciously, "that old ladies are much pleasanter to talk to than young ones."
"Indeed, Master Ernest! then why did you look so blank when I told you that my young ladies were not visible?"
"Because I regretted," replied that young gentleman, who was not often at a loss, "having lost an opportunity of confirming my views."
"I will put the question again when they are present to take their own part," was the answer.
When their call was over, Ernest and Jeremy separated, Jeremy to return home, and Ernest to go to see his old master, Mr. Halford, with whom he stopped to tea. It was past seven on one of the most beautiful evenings in July when he set out on his homeward path. There were two ways of reaching Dum's Ness, either by the road that ran along the cliff, or by walking on the shingle of the beach. He chose the latter, and had reached the spot where Titheburgh Abbey frowned at its enemy, the advancing sea, when he suddenly became aware of a young lady wearing a shady hat and swinging a walking-stick, in whom he recognised Florence Ceswick.
"How do you do, Ernest?" she said, coolly, but with a slight flush upon her olive skin, which betrayed that she was not quite so cool as she looked; "what are you dreaming about? I have seen you coming for the last two hundred yards, but you never saw me."
"I was dreaming of you, of course, Florence."
"O, indeed!" she answered dryly; "I thought perhaps that Eva had got over her headache--her headaches do go in the most wonderful way--and that you had seen her, and were dreaming of /her/."
"And why should I dream of her, even if I had seen her?"
"For the reason that men do dream of women--because she is handsome."
"Is she better-looking than you, then, Florence?"
"Better-looking, indeed! I am not good-looking."
"Nonsense, Florence! you are very good-looking."
She stopped, for he had turned and was walking with her, and laid her hand lightly on his arm.
"Do you really think so?" she said, gazing full into his dark eyes. "I am glad you think so."
They were quite alone in the summer twilight; there was not a single soul to be seen on the beach, or on the cliffs above it. Her touch and the earnestness of her manner thrilled him; the beauty and the quiet of the evening, the sweet freshness of the air, the murmur of the falling waves, the fading purples in the sky, all these things thrilled him too. Her face looked very handsome in its own stern way, as she gazed at him so earnestly; and, remember, he was only twenty-one. He bent his dark head towards her very slowly, to give her an opportunity of escaping if she wished; but she made no sign, and in another moment he had kissed her trembling lips.
It was a foolish act, for he was not in love with Florence, and he had scarcely done it before his better sense told him that it was foolish. But it was done, and who can recall a kiss?
He saw the olive face grow pale, and for a moment she raised her arm as though to fling it about his neck, but next second she started back from him.
"Did you mean that," she said wildly, "or are you playing with me?"
Ernest looked alarmed, as well he might; the young lady's aspect at the moment was not reassuring.
"Mean it?" he said, "O yes, I meant it."
"I mean, Ernest," and again she laid her hand upon his arm and looked into his eyes, "did you mean that you loved me, as--for now I am not ashamed to tell you--I love you?"
Ernest felt that this was getting awful. To kiss a young woman was one thing--he had done that before--but such an outburst as this was more than he had bargained for. Gratifying as it was to him to learn that he possessed Florence's affection, he would at that moment have given something to be without it. He hesitated a little.
"How serious you are!" he said at last.
"Yes," she answered, "I am. I have been serious for some time. Probably you know enough of me to be aware that I am not a woman to be played with. I hope that you are serious too; if you are not, it may be the worse for us both"; and she flung his arm from her as though it had stung her.
Ernest turned cold all over, and realised that the position was positively gruesome. What to say or do he did not know; so he stood silent, and, as it happened, silence served his turn better than speech.
"There, Ernest, I have startled you. It is--it is because I love you. When you kissed me just now, everything that is beautiful in the world seemed to pass before my eyes, and for a moment I heard such music as they play in heaven. You don't understand me yet, Ernest--I am fierce, I know--but sometimes I think that my heart is deep as the sea, and I can love with ten times the strength of the shallow women round me; and as I can love, so I can hate."
This was not reassuring intelligence to Ernest.
"You are a strange girl," he said feebly.
"Yes," she answered, with a smile. "I know I am strange; but while I am with you I feel so good, and when you are away all my life is a void, in which bitter thoughts flit about like bats. But there, good-night. I shall see you at the Smythes' dance to-morrow, shall I not? You will dance with me, will you not? And you must not dance with Eva, remember--at least not too much--or I shall get jealous, and that will be bad for us both. And now good-night, my dear, good-night"; and again she put up her face to be kissed.
He kissed it--he had no alternative--and she left him swiftly. He watched her retreating form till it vanished in the shadows, and then he sat down upon a stone, wiped his forehead, and /whistled/.
Well might he whistle!
CHAPTER VIII
A GARDEN IDYL
Ernest did not sleep well that night: the scene of the evening haunted his dreams, and he awoke with a sense of oppression that follows impartially on the heels of misfortune, folly, and lobster-salad. Nor did the broad light of the summer day disperse his sorrows; indeed, it only served to define them more clearly. Ernest was a very inexperienced youth, but, inexperienced as he was, he could not but recognise that he had let himself in for an awkward business. He was not in the smallest degree in love with Florence Ceswick; indeed, his predominant feeling towards her was one of fear. She was, as he had said, so terribly in earnest. In short, though she was barely a year older than himself, she was a woman possessed of a strength of purpose and a rigidity of will that few of her sex ever attain to at any period of their lives. This he had guessed long ago; but what he had not guessed was that all the tide of her life set so strongly towards himself.
That unlucky kiss, as it were, had shot the bolt of the sluice-gates, and now he was in a fair way to be overwhelmed by the rush of the waters. What course of action he had best take with her now it was beyond his powers to decide. He thought of taking Dorothy into his confidence and asking her advice, but instinctively he shrank from doing so. Then he thought of Jeremy, only, however, to reject the idea. What would Jeremy know of such things? He little guessed that Jeremy