She looked at him with a shiver, yet a smile. “Ah, you are so young! your heart has no ghosts like mine.”
“Speak respectfully of my heart, for it is yours. The ghosts shall be laid and the troubles will fly away. What are ghosts to you and me? One may be subject to them, but two can face the world.”
“O dreamer,” she cried, but the reflection of the light in his face came into hers, almost against her will.
“Not dreamer: lover, a better word. Don’t spend your strength for nothing, my lady and mistress. Do you really believe that you can make me afraid, today?”
She shook her head, not answering, which indeed he scarcely left her time to do, he had so much to say. His very nature seemed changed, the proud, fastidious, taciturn Warrender babbling like a happy boy, in the sudden overflow of a bliss which was too much for him. But while he ran on, a louder voice than hers interrupted him—the bell that meant the commonest of all events, the bell for luncheon. It fell into the soft retirement of that paradise, which was something of a fool’s paradise to Theo, scaring and startling the pair. She made a start from his side with a guilty blush, and even he for a moment paused with something like a sense of alarm. They looked at each other as if they had been suddenly cited to appear before a tribunal and answer for what they had done. Then he broke into a breathless laugh. “I shall have to leave you. I can’t face that ordeal. Oh, what a falling off is here—luncheon! must I leave everything for that?”
“Yes, go, go—it is too much,” she murmured, like a culprit whose accomplice may be saved, but who herself must face the judge. “I could not bear it; I could not hold up my head, if you were there.”
“One moment!” She was leaning towards him, when Geoff’s hasty steps were heard in the hall and his voice that seemed to sound sharp in her very ears, “Where’s mamma?” Lady Markland fell back with a face like a ghost, covering it with her hands. Warrender felt as if a sudden flame was lit in his heart. He seized her almost with violence. “I will come back tonight, when he is in bed. Be in the avenue. I must see you again today.”
“I will, Theo.”
“At nine o’clock.” He pulled away the hand which still was over her eyes. “You are mine, remember, mine first. I shall count the minutes till I come back. Mine first, mine always.”
“Oh, Theo, yes! for the love of heaven go!”
Was that how to conclude the first meeting of happy lovers? Warrender rushed through the hall, with his blood on fire, almost knocking over Geoff, who presented himself, very curious and sharp-eyed, directly in the way.
“Oh, I say, Theo!” cried Geoff. “Where are you going, Theo? that’s lunch! lunch is on the table. Don’t you hear the bell? Can’t you stay?”
Warrender waved his hand, he could make no reply. He could have taken the child by the collar and flung him far away into the unknown, if that had been practicable. Ghosts, she had said: Geoff was no ghost, but he was insupportable; not to be seen with composure at that tremendous moment. The young man rushed down the steps and struck across the drive at a pace like a racehorse, though he was only walking. He forgot even the big black, munching his hay tranquilly in the stable and thinking no harm.
XXVIII
Lady Markland came out of her room a little after, paler than usual, with a great air of stateliness and gravity, conscious to her finger points of the looks that met her, and putting on an aspect of severity which was very unusual to her. Geoff seized and clung to her arm as he was wont, and found it trembling. He had begun to pour forth his wonder about Theo even before he made this discovery.
“Why, Theo has gone away! He wouldn’t stop for lunch. I shouted to him, but he never paid any attention. Is he ill, or is he in trouble, or what’s the—Why, mamma! you are all trembling!”
“Nonsense, Geoff, I have been—sitting with the window open: and it is a little cold today.”
“Cold!” Geoff was so struck by the absurdity of the statement that he stopped to look at her. “Ah,” he said, “you have not been running up and down to the stables or you never would think that.”
“No, I have been sitting—writing.”
“Oh!” said the child again, “were you writing all the time Theo was there? I thought you were talking to Theo. He gave me a holiday because he had something he wanted to say to you.”
“I have told you a great many times, Geoff, that you should not call Mr. Warrender Theo. It is much too familiar. You must not presume because he is so very kind to you—”
“Oh, he doesn’t mind,” said Geoff lightly. “What was he saying to you, mamma?”
By this time they were at table, that is, she was at the bar, seated indeed as a concession to her weakness, about to be tried for her life before those august judges, Geoff and old Soames, both of whom had their attention fixed on her with an intentness which the whole bench could scarcely equal. She held her head very high, but she did not dare to lift up her eyes.
“Will you have this, or some of the chicken?” she asked, with a voice of solemnity not quite adapted to the question.
“I say, mamma, was it about me? or was it some trouble he was in?”
“My dear Geoff, let us attend to our own business. The chicken is better for you. And why have you been running up and down to the stables? I thought I had said that I objected to the stables.”
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