“THE great cake has at last arrived, dear lady! ” Rose gaily announced to Mrs. Beever, who waited, before acknowledging the news, long enough to suggest to her son that she was perhaps about to act on his advice.
“I’m much obliged to you for having gone to see about it ” was, however, what, after a moment, Miss Armiger’s hostess instructed herself to reply.
“It was an irresistible service. I shouldn’t have got over on such a day as this,” said Rose, “the least little disappointment to dear little Jean.”
“To say nothing, of course, of dear little Effie,” Mrs. Beever promptly rejoined.
“It comes to the same thing the occasion so mixes them up. They’re interlaced on the cake with their initials and their candles. There are plenty of candles for each,” Rose laughed, “ for their years have been added together. It makes a very pretty number!”
“It must also make a very big cake,” said Mrs. Beever.
“Colossal.”
“Too big to be brought out? ”
The girl considered. “Not so big, you know,”
she archly replied, “as if the candles had to be yours and mine!” Then holding up the “ orna ment ” to Paul, she said: “ I surrender you my trust. Catch!” she added with decision, making a movement to toss him a small case in red morocco, which, the next moment, in its flight through the air, without altering his attitude, he intercepted with one hand.
Mrs. Beever’s excited mistrust dropped at the mere audacity of this: there was something per ceptibly superior in the girl who could meet hall way, so cleverly, a suspicion she was quite con scious of and much desired to dissipate. The lady of Eastmead looked at her hard, reading her desire in the look she gave back. “ Trust me, trust me,” her eyes seemed to plead; “ don’t at all events think me capable of any self-seeking that’s stupid or poor. I may be dangerous to myself, but I’m not so to others; least of all am I so to you.” She had a presence that was, in its way, like Tony Bream’s: it made, simply and directly, a difference in any personal question exposed to, it. Under its action, at all events, Mrs. Beever found herself suddenly feeling that she could after all trust Rose if she could only trust Paul. She glanced at that young man as he lay in the hammock, and saw that in spite of the familiarity of his posture which indeed might have been assumed with a misleading purpose his diminished pupils, fixed upon their visitor, still had the expression imparted to them by her own last address. She hesitated; but while she did so Rose came straight up to her and kissed her. It was the very first time, and Mrs. Beever blushed as if one of her secrets had been surprised. Rose explained her impulse only with a smile; but the smile said vividly: “ I’ll polish him off! ”
This brought a response to his mother’s lips. “I’ll go and inspect the cake! ”
Mrs. Beever took her way to the house, and as soon as her back was turned her son got out of the hammock. An observer of the scene would not have failed to divine that, with some profundity of calculation, he had taken refuge there as a mute protest against any frustration of his interview with Rose. This young lady herself laughed out as she saw him rise, and her laugh would have been, for the same observer, a tribute to the natural art that was mingled with his obvious simplicity. Paul himself recognised its bearing and, as he came and stood at the tea-table, acknowledged her criticism by saying quietly: “ I was afraid dear mamma would take me away.”
“On the contrary; she has formally surrendered you.”
“Then you must let me perform her office and help you to some tea.”
He spoke with a rigid courtesy that was not without its grace, and in the rich shade of her umbrella, which she twirled repeatedly on her shoulder, she looked down with detachment at the table. “ I’ll do it for myself, thank you; and I should like you to return to your hammock,”
“I left it on purpose,” the young man said. “Flat on my back, that way, I’m at a sort of disadvantage in talking with you.”
“That’s precisely why I made the request. I wish you to be flat on your back and to have nothing whatever to reply.” Paul immediately re traced his steps, but before again extending himself he asked her, with the same grave consideration, where in this case she would be seated. “ I sha’n’t be seated at all,” she answered; “Til walk about and stand over you and bully you.” He tumbled into his net, sitting up rather more than before; and, coming close to it, she put out her hand. “ Let me see that object again.” He had in his lap the little box he had received from her, and at this he passed it back. She opened it, pressing on the spring, and, inclining her head to one side, considered afresh the mounted jewel that nestled in the white velvet. Then, closing the case with a loud snap, she restored it to him. “ Yes, it’s very good; it’s a wonderful stone, and she knows. But that alone, my dear, won’t do it.” She leaned, facing him, against the tense ropes of the hammock, and he looked up at her. “You take too much for granted.”
For a moment Paul answered nothing, but at last he brought out: “ That’s just what I said to my mother you had already said when she said just the same.”
Rose stared an instant; then she smiled again. “It’s complicated, but I follow you! She has been waking you up.”
“She knows,” said her companion, “that you advise me in the same sense as herself.”
“She believes it at last her leaving us together was a sign of that. I have at heart perfectly to justify her confidence, for hitherto she has been so blind to her own interest as to suppose that, in these three weeks, you had been so tiresome as to fall in love with me.”
“I particularly told her I haven’t at all.”
Paul’s tone had at moments of highest gravit}’ the gift of moving almost any interlocutor to mirth. “I hope you’ll be more convincing than that if you ever particularly tell any one you have at all!” the girl exclaimed. She gave a slight push to the hammock, turning away, ajnd he swung there gently a minute.<............