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Flaming June

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<h3>Chapter Fifteen.</h3> The moment of tension passed, and the strain relaxed. Captain Guest stoutly defended his position, and Cornelia vouchsafed a generous sympathy, while not budging an inch from her ultimate decision. She disapproved, but she had wept; the tears had rolled unchecked down her cheeks on his behalf. After that they could no longer be mere, casual acquaintances. By the end of the first hour they had left the personal element behind, and were chatting busily about a dozen varying subjects—the English landscape; Trusts; Free Trade; Miss Alice Roosevelt; chafing dishes, and the London season. Cornelia had a cut-and-dried opinion on each, and was satisfied that every one who did not agree with her was a “back number,” but her arguments and illustrations were so apt and humorous, that Guest was abundantly entertained. Throughout the entire journey their tête-à-tête was uninterrupted, for though several passengers approached the carriage with intent to enter, one and all followed the example of the stout lady, and dropped the handle at sight of the two occupants. The third time that this interesting little pantomime was enacted Cornelia laughed aloud, and cried serenely— “Guess they think we’re a honeymoon couple; they’re so scared of getting in beside us!” Her colour showed not the faintest variation as she spoke. It was Guest who grew hot and embarrassed, and was at a loss how to reply. He need not have troubled himself, however, for Cornelia continued her exposition touching the superiority of American everything, over the miserable imitations of other countries, with hardly as much as a comma’s pause for breath. Guest sat back in his corner, looking at her with every appearance of attention, but in reality his thoughts were engaged in following a bewildering suggestion. “They think we are a honeymoon couple.” ... Suppose—it was folly, of course, but for one moment, suppose they were! He would be looking at his wife! She would smile across at him, and call him fond, silly little names. He would kiss her—she had beautiful lips to kiss! and hold her hand—it was a soft little hand to hold, and tease her about her shaded hair, and her sharp little nose, and her ridiculous, pointed shoes! They would get out at the terminus, but instead of bidding each other a polite good-bye, would drive off together in a fly, discussing joint plans for the evening. Later on they would have dinner at a little table in the great dining-hall of the hotel, criticising their neighbours, and laughing at their peculiarities. In the theatre they would whisper together, and when the curtain went up on the heels of a critical moment, he would see the tear-drops shining once more on her lashes.—It was a lonely business going off to a man’s club, where nobody wanted you, or cared a brass farthing whether you came or went. Not that for a moment he wished to be married—least of all to Cornelia Briskett. There were a dozen things about her which jarred on his nerves, and offended his ideas of good taste. He objected to her accent, her unconventional expressions, her little tricks of manner; while on almost every subject her point of view appeared to be diametrically opposed to his own. In her company he would be often jarred, annoyed, and discomfited, but of a certainty he would never be bored! Rapidly reviewing his life for the last few years, it appeared to Guest that he had existed in a chronic state of boredom. If “we were a honeymoon couple,” that dreariness at least would come to an end! He looked at Cornelia’s ungloved left hand resting upon the dark cushions—she wore a ring, a wide, flat band of gold, with one fine diamond standing far out, in a claw setting. American ladies affect solitaire rings, as tokens of betrothal—did this mean that the honeymooning question was already settled? If it were so, the fact would account for the girl’s absence of embarrassment in his own company; all the same, he did not believe it, for there was in her manner a calm, virginal composure, an absence of sentimentality, which seemed to denote that the citadel had not yet been stormed. Cornelia noted his gaze, without in the least guessing its meaning. “It was the other wrist that was sprained— The right one!” she said, holding it up as she spoke, and carefully moving it to and fro. “It’s heaps better, thanks to you. I set Mury to rub it, according to instructions, and—there you are! It’s most as well as the other.” “Ready to shake hands, now?” “Oh, yes.” “Mentally, as well as physically?” The white teeth showed in a smile of comprehension. “I—guess so! I never was one to harbour animosity.” “I am glad of that! You bade me such a frigid good-bye on Thursday afternoon that I was afraid you had taken a violent dislike to me.” “My stars and stripes, that’s pretty calm! What about you, I beg to ask?” Cornelia rolled indignant eyes to the hanging lamp. “I didn’t hev to think; I heard from your own lips what you thought about me! I couldn’t rest easy in my bed, for fear you went home and did away with Mr Greville, for making you drive me home. I never supposed I should live to endoor the degradation of having a man do things for me against his will, but I had to come to England to find my mistake. And then you sit there and accuse me of disliking you!—Well!!!” Guest flushed with embarrassment; with something deeper than embarrassment; with honest shame. He clasped his hands between his knees, and bent forward eagerly. “You are quite right, Miss Briskett, there is no excuse for me. I behaved like a cad. Things got me on the raw, somehow. I imagined—all sorts of things which weren’t true! That’s no excuse, I know. I should have controlled myself better. But if I was annoyed at starting on that drive, I was far more so when it came to an end. You had your revenge! And you don’t deny that you disliked me in return.” “I did so! I did heaps more than that. I thought you just the hatefullest person I’d ever met.” “And now?” Cornelia laughed easily. “Oh, well—we’ve had a pretty good time together, haven’t we? We can let bygones be bygones. You’re English—vurry, vurry English, but I guess you’re nice!” “What do you mean by English?” But even as he put the question Captain Guest straightened himself, and reared his neck within his stiff, upstanding collar, with that air of ineffable superiority which marks the Englishman in his intercourse with “inferior” nations. Cornelia laughed, a full-throated ha-ha of amusement. “It’s ‘English’! There’s no other word to it. You are about as English at this moment as you’ve been in the whole of your life.—I guess we must be getting pretty near London now, for I ken see nothing but smoke.” “Yes, we are nearly there. Will you—may I call at your hotel some day, on the chance of finding you in?” “Why, suttenly! I’d love to have you. You could take me round. If the Moffatts have fixed-up a dinner for themselves, some night, we might go to a theatre together!” “Um—yes!” Guest surveyed her with doubtful eyes. “I suppose it would be easy enough to find some other lady to play chaperon.” “I don’t want a chaperon. Why should I? It’s no fun having her poking round, and listening to every word one says. It’s ever so much nicer alone.” “I don’t doubt it, but—in Rome one must do as the Romans do, Miss Briskett! In England a man does not take a girl to a theatre unchaperoned. It’s not the thing.” “I don’t care a mite. It’s the custom with us, anyway, and there’s no country in the world where women are more respected. What’s the harm, I want to know!” “No harm at all. That’s not the question. It’s simply not the custom.” “Do you mean to say you refuse to take me alone, even if I ask you?” “I do!” “Then you’re a mean old thing, and I shan’t go at all!” Guest laughed; an amused little laugh, in which there was an unwonted softness. Somehow, he quite enjoyed being called “a mean old thing” by Cornelia Briskett. There was an intimacy in the sound, which more than nullified the disparagement. “I think you will! You are too ‘straight’ to punish me for what is not my fault. It would be much more amusing for me to take you about unattended, and so far as I’m concerned, I can afford to ignore conventions. A man can do as he likes. It is you I am thinking of. You may not approve of our ideas, but that does not alter their existence, or the fact that whip; you are here you must be judged by them. You would not like to be considered careless of your reputation?” “I don’t care a mite what the old fossils, think.” “I do, then; and I will take no part in putting you in a false position.” Cornelia pouted, but in her heart admired his firmness, as any woman would. She stared at the forest of chimney-tops without speaking, for several minutes, then suddenly turned towards him, speaking in what was evidently supposed to be a lifelike imitation of the English accent, as spoken by the Lady of the Manor. “Th–anks; aw-fly tha–anks! How varry kind! I shall be charmed. ... Too aw-fly sweet of you, don’t-cher-know!” “That’s all right!” laughed Guest, happily. “We’ll manage to enjoy ourselves, never fear! There’s such a thing as taking two chaperons and letting them play with each other. ... Here we are at Paddington. Are your friends coming to meet you?” “They are. I guess they’ll be waiting on the platform. She’s tall and fine-looking, and dresses fit to kill—” She paused with a sharp little intake of breath, for the train, as it snorted into the station, had passed by the figure of a woman standing conspicuously alone—a tall woman, with hair of a violent peroxide gold, holding up an elaborate white gown, to display a petticoat of flounced pink silk. It was Cornelia’s first introduction to Mrs Moffatt in “shore clothes,” and to an eye accustomed to Norton simplicity the vision was sufficiently startling. Also—it was hateful to think such things—but, that hair! On the steamer it had been just an ordinary brown! Cornelia would have died rather than own it, but she felt a qualm. On the platform she saw other ladies standing waiting the arrival of the train; smart, well-dressed, even golden-headed ladies not a few, but none in the least resembling Mrs Silas P Moffatt. A swift desire arose that Guest might depart before her hostess made her way through the crowd, followed by a resigned recollection that that would be of no avail, since the two were bound to meet sooner or later. She stepped out of the carriage, keeping her head turned in an opposite direction, but almost immediately a crisp rustling of skirts, a strong odour of violette de parme, and a loud—“Say! is that you?” proclaimed that the search was at an end. Cornelia forced a smile to her lips, and acknowledged her identity in suitable terms, and Mrs Moffatt gushed over her, in a Yankee accent, strong enough to cut with a knife, casting the while, arch, questioning glances in Guest’s direction. Cornelia suffered qualm number two. Even to her ears, the tone of her friend’s voice sounded unduly loud and nasal, and looking from her to her late travelling companion, it appeared that to be “English” need not be invariably a disadvantage. Of course, Mrs Moffatt was not a good type of American; she belonged to the class who brought that honourable title into disrepute. How was it that she herself had hitherto been blind to peculiarities which now aroused an instant prejudice? “Don’t you want to introduce me to your friend, dear? I never came across such a girl. Someone flying around after you wherever you go!” cried Mrs Moffatt, genially, and Cornelia mumbled the necessary words, with an unusual display of embarrassment. She dared not look at the expression of Guest’s face, and his cool, easy voice gave no hint of his real feelings. She turned aside to give instructions to a porter, while her ears strained to catch every word which passed between her companions. Mrs Moffatt was talking about her, gushing over her, in fulsome phrases. Cornelia this! Cornelia that! What business had she to use that name, anyway? She had never received permission to do so. It was impertinent to assume such an air of familiarity! The three made their way together towards the luggage van, where Cornelia claimed her two big boxes, and saw them hoisted on the top of a four-wheeler. The elation of ten minutes back had died a sudden death, and she felt depressed and lonesome. Among all the crowd no one seemed a greater stranger than this woman by her side; in comparison with her, Captain Guest appeared an old and proven friend. She raised her eyes to his, as the cabman busily strapped the last box to the roof, and found his eyes fixed on her face with a very grave scrutiny. She did not know how pale and dejected was her own appearance, how different from the jaunty self-confidence of an hour before; but Guest had been keen to notice the quickly succeeding expressions, and was saying to himself: “She is upset. Something is different from what she expected. It’s a bad lookout for her with that terrible woman, but she must have known her before...” Mrs Moffatt glanced from one to the other, giggled meaningly, and stepped into the cab. They were alone; as much alone in the midst of the noise and confusion, as in the quiet of the railway carriage. “Well,” said Guest, regretfully; “I suppose I must say good-bye! I’ll come round soon to see how you are getting along, and—Miss Briskett, here is my card.—It gives the address of my club. If you should need me for anything, at any time, ring me up! You will promise, won’t you? I could be with you in a few minutes.” Cornelia smiled faintly. “Oh, thanks; I don’t know about needing. Mr Moffatt will be round to look after us, but—Norton’s my only home over here, and you seem like a bit of it! I’ll be real glad to see you.” She held out her hand to him; he held it for a moment in a tight, protective grasp, then took off his hat to Mrs Moffatt, and turned away. Twenty yards farther on the cab passed him, and he caught another glimpse of the two faces; one small and white, the other heavy in outline, and suspiciously blue-pink as to cheeks. “Thank heaven, I came up!” said Captain Guest to himself. <hr></div> <div class="bodytext"> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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