Suddenly Lisbeth stopped, flushed and panting.
“Well!” she exclaimed, staring from me to the Imp, and back again, “was ever anything so mad!”
“Everything is mad to-night,” I said; “it’s the moon!”
“To think of my running away like this with two - two - “
“Interlopers,” I suggested.
“I really ought to be very, very angry with you - both of you, she said, trying to frown.
“No, don’t be angry with us, Auntie Lisbeth,” pleaded the Imp, “‘cause you are a lovely lady in a castle grim, an’ we are two gallant knights, so we had to come an’ rescue you; an’ you never came to kiss me good-night, an’ I’m awfull’ sorry ‘bout painting Dorothy’s face - really!”
“Imp,” cried Lisbeth, falling on her knees regardless of her silks and laces, “Imp, come and kiss me.” The Imp drew out a decidedly grubby handkerchief, and, having rubbed his lips with it, obeyed.
“Now, Uncle Dick!” he said, and offered me the grubby handkerchief. Lisbeth actually blushed.
“Reginald!” she exclaimed, “whatever put such an idea into your head?”
“Oh! everybody’s always kissing somebody you know,” he nodded; “an’ it’s Uncle Dick’s turn now.”
Lisbeth rose from her knees and began to pat her rebellious hair into order. Now, as she raised her arms, her shawl very naturally slipped to the ground; and standing there, with her eyes laughing up at me beneath their dark lashes, with the moonlight in her hair, and gleaming upon the snow of her neck and shoulders, she had never seemed quite so bewilderingly, temptingly beautiful before.
“Dick,” she said, “I must go back at once - before they miss me.”
“Go back!” I repeated, “never - that is, not yet.”
“But suppose any one saw us!” she said, with a hairpin in her mouth.
“They shan’t,” I answered; “you will see to that, won’t you, Imp?”
“‘Course I will, Uncle Dick!”
“Then go you, Sir Knight, and keep faithful ward behind yon apple tree, and let no base varlet hither come; that is, if you see any one, be sure to tell me.” The Imp saluted and promptly disappeared behind the apple tree in question, while I stood watching Lisbeth’s dexterous fingers and striving to remember a line from Keats descriptive of a beautiful woman in the moonlight. Before I could call it to mind, however, Lisbeth interrupted me.
“Don’t you think you might pick up my shawl instead of staring at me as if I was - “
“The most beautiful woman in the world!” I put in.
- “Who is catching her death of cold,” she laughed, yet for all her light tone her eyes drooped before mine as I obediently wrapped the shawl about her, in the doing of which, my arm being round her, very naturally stayed there, and - wonder of wonders, was not repulsed. And at this very moment, from the shadowy trees behind us, came the rich, clear song of a nightingale.
Oh! most certainly the air was full of magic to-night!
“Dick,” said Lisbeth very softly as the trilling notes died away, “I thought one could only dream such a night as this is.”
“And yet life might hold many such for you and me, if you would only let it, Lisbeth,” I reminded her. She did not answer.
“Not far from the village of Down, in Kent,” I began.
“There stands a house,” she put in, staring up at the moon with dreamy eyes.
“A very old house, with twisted Tudor chimneys and pointed gables - you see I have it all by heart, Dick - a house with wide stairways and long pannelled chambers - “
“Very empty and desolate at present,” I added. “And amongst other things, there is a rose-garden - they call it My Lady’s Garden, Lisbeth, though no lady has trod its winding paths for years and years. But I have dreamed, many and many a time, that we stood among the roses, she and I, upon just such another night as this is. So I keep the old house ready and the gardens freshly trimmed, ready for my lady’s coming; must I wait much longer, Lisbeth?” As I ended the nightingale took up the story, pleading my cause for me, filling the air with a melody now appealing, now commanding, until it gradually died away in one long note of passionate entreaty.
Lisbeth sighed and turned towards me, but as she did so I felt a tug at my coat, and, looking round, beheld the Imp.
“Uncle Dick,” he said, his eyes studiously averted, doubtless on account of the position of my arm, “here’s Mr. Selwyn!”
With a sudden exclamation Lisbeth started from me and gathered up her skirts to run.
“Whereaway, my Imp?”
“Coming across the lawn.”
“Reginald,” I said, solemnly, listen to me; you must sally out upon him with lance in rest, tell him you are a Knight-errant, wishful to uphold the glory of that faire ladye, your Auntie Lisbeth, and whatever happens you must manage to keep him away from here, do you understand?” “Yes, only I do wish I’d brought my trusty sword, you know,” he sighed.
“Never mind that now, Imp.”
“Will Auntie Lisbeth be quite - “
“She will be all right.”
“I suppose if you put your arm - “
“Never mind my arm, Imp, go!”
“Then fare thee well!” said he, and with a melodramatic flourish of his lance, trotted off.
“What did he mean about your arm, Dick?”
“Probably this!” I answered, slipping it around her again.
“But you must get away at once,” whispered Lisbeth; “if Mr. Selwyn should see you - “
“I intend that he shall. Oh, it will be quite simple; while he is talking to me you can get back to the - “
“Hush!” she whispered, laying her fingers on my lips; “listen!”
“Hallo, Mr. Selwyn!” came in the Imp’s familiar tones.
“Why, good Heavens!” exclaimed another voice, much too near to be pleasant, “what on earth are you doing here - and at this time of night?”
“Looking for base varlets!”
“Don’t you know that all little boys - all nice little boys - should have been in bed hours ago?”
“But I’m not a nice little boy; I’m a Knight-errant; would you like to get a lance, Mr. Selwyn, an’ break it with me to the glory of my Auntie Lisbeth?”
“The question is, what has become of her?” said Mr. Selwyn. We waited almost breathlessly for the answer.
“Oh! I ‘specks she’s somewhere looking at the moon; everybody looks at the moon, you know; Betty does, an’ the lady with the man with a funny name ‘bout being bald, an’-“
“I think you had better come up to the house,” said Mr. Se1wyn.
“Do you think you could get me an ice cream if I did?” asked the Imp, persuasively; “nice an’ pink, you know, with - “
“An ice!” repeated Mr. Selwyn; “I wonder how many you have had already to-night?”
The time for action was come. “Lisbeth,” I said, “we must go; such happiness as this could not last; how should it? I think it is given us to dream over in less happy days. For me it will be a memory to treasure always, and yet there might be one thing more - a little thing Lisbeth - can you guess?” She did not speak, but I saw the dimple come and go at the corner of her mouth, so I stooped and kissed her. For a moment, all too brief, we stood thus, with the glory of the moonlight about us; then I was hurrying across the lawn after Selwyn and the Imp.
“Ah, Mr. Selwyn!” I said as I overtook them, “so you have found him, have you?” Mr. Selwyn turned to regard me, surprise writ large upon him, from the points of his immaculate, patent-leather shoes, to the parting of his no less immaculate hair.
“So very good of you,” I continued; “you see he is such a difficult object to recover when once he gets mislaid; really, I’m awfully obliged.” Mr. Selwyn’s attitude was politely formal. He bowed.
“What is it to-night,” he inquired, “pirates?”