“Yes, worse than insult!” She rode over the interruption. “You know very well what you told me yesterday. You love me! Bah! To write—” she choked with scorn and indignation — “to write to another girl that you cannot live without her, and in the very room where you had said exactly the same thing to me not two hours before!
“If that is what your love is like, I am glad it is no longer mine. I wish it never had been. I wish I’d never seen you. What if I had believed you? What if I had admitted — that is — what if I had pretended to return your love? You, who cannot live without Baba. Oh, you... you monster!”
“It was true!” exclaimed the young man as she paused for breath.
“Ah! You declare it to my face!”
“I mean,” he stammered, “I mean that I love you.”
“Bah!” Her eyes blazed. “As though you could write to another — to someone like that if you loved me!”
“I could and did,” replied Besant, a little more calmly. “What is the use of pretending, Sylvia, when you know? Why, Baba — the girl I wrote to — she knows I love you!”
“She?”
“Yes. That is, she knows I love someone. That’s why — she went away, you see — that’s why I had to write. She told me to, if ever — And why not?” he demanded fiercely. “If I cannot have your love, why should I not take what I can get? You say I insult you. Good Heavens! What do you care? If I insult anyone it is she who loves me — who will always love me—”
He stopped, swallowing hard, and walked to the window.
As he did so a servant appeared, bearing a platter and a pot of coffee, and Higgins’s voice came from the doorway announcing that the car was waiting. But at the sight of Miss Herrow and the sound of Mr. Besant’s sharp answer they both retreated in confusion.
Presently, as the young man stood looking out on the April sunshine, a voice came from behind:
“Who is she?”
He made no answer. Again the voice:
“Is her name Baba?”
At that he turned and observed dryly:
“Miss Herrow, you have no right to ask those questions. Her name is not Baba. I call her that. You do not know her.”
Then, as the girl started back at the rebuff, he continued calmly:
“You see, you make a mistake if you think your indignation proceeds from a sense of insult. It comes from selfishness. For two years you tell me that you can never love me until you end by convincing me. Then, when I turn to one who loves me — Heaven knows why, but she does — then what happens? You don’t want me; then what does it matter where I go, or to whom?”
“I didn’t say I could never love you,” replied Miss Herrow.
“I beg your pardon; the last time you said it was yesterday.”
“I did not! I merely said that I didn’t happen to love you at that moment.”
“If there has been a more auspicious moment in the past two years, I have failed to find it.”
“Perhaps you didn’t try hard enough. But then—” a sigh — “that is all over now.”
“Yes,” the young man assented grimly, “it is.”
“You have written to... to her?”
“I have.” He crossed to the table, picked up the paper, and put it in his pocket.
“I suppose — she will come?”
“She will.” He smiled — a smile of assurance, almost of happiness.
“She... she loves you?”
“Yes. Of course, you can’t understand that; but she does.”
“And what will you do when... when she comes?”
“What will I do?” He stared. “Go to meet her, I suppose.”
“At the train?”
“Yes. She comes by train.”
There ensued a long silence. Besant walked to the window; the girl seated herself abruptly in a chair, then abruptly got up again. For six seconds she gazed at the young man’s broad back, then exclaimed suddenly and fiercely:
“I hate her!”
Besant turned in surprise.
“I mean,” stammered the girl, flushing, “I mean — she has no right to love you! I mean, there is no earthly reason for it!”
“I admit it is inexplicable,” agreed Besant. “But I assure you such is the case.”
“Tell me her name.”
“Miss Herrow!”
“Yes. Well... yes. I want to know.”
“You know very well I will do nothing of the sort. You should not—” He stopped suddenly and glanced at his watch. “Good Heavens! It’s seven o’clock! Only ten minutes. Miss Herrow — you’ll pardon me—” He started for the door.
“But you haven’t had your breakfast!”
“I’ll have to go without it,” came from the hall. “Higgins, bring my bag! Good-by, Miss Herrow!”
The girl stood motionless, amazed. He was actually going — like that!
She heard the outer door open and close with a bang; then, through the window, came the sound of a motor whirring and the voice of Besant urging someone to go like the devil. Miss Herrow hesitated no longer. One bound and she was in the hall; another carried her to the outer door.
The next instant she was running like a deer down the gravel walk that encircled the house; and just as Higgins started to close the door of the tonneau after throwing in the bag, a streak of blue rushed past him and deposited itself on the seat beside Mr. Besant.
“What—” began the young man, dazed with wonder. Then he spoke to the chauffeur: “Go on! We have only seven minutes.”
The car leaped forward like a mad bull. It reached the gateway — a short, swift turn — then shot forward on the smooth, level road. Besant sat looking straight ahead, with the expression of one who is performing a painful duty.
“I don’t see why we are hurrying so fast,” observed Miss Herrow presently — if one may be said to observe anything when going at the rate of fifty miles an hour. “You aren’t going to catch that train, you know.”
“Yes, I am,” shouted the young man without turning his head. “It’s only five miles and we have six minutes. We’ll make it easy.”
“That isn’t what I meant. I mean you’re not going to get on it.”
“On what?”
“The train.”
He did not appear to think this worthy of an answer. She waited ten seconds, then added:
“Because I won’t let you.”
Still no answer. The car was eating up the road hungrily with great bounds and leaps; the fence posts and nearby landscapes were an indistinct blur. She waited till they had crossed a raised bridge, holding tightly to the seat to keep from bouncing out; then called:
“Mr. Besant!”
No answer.
“Ned!”
Even at that he did not turn. She saw the spire of the village church over some trees two miles away, and fancied she heard the whistle of a train — the train that was to carry him to Baba. She shouted in desperation:
“Ned, do you love me?”
Then, and then only, did the young man appear to find the conversation interesting. He turned.
“Yes!” he shouted back.
“Then don’t go! Because I love you, too! I do, indeed! And she can’t be very nice, or she wouldn’t let you send for her like that. Please! I do love you! Don’t go!”
Besant’s face had turned white, and the wind had brought the tears to his eyes. But his voice was loud and firm enough:
“Will you marry me?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t hear you!”
“Yes!”
Besant reached forward, touched the chauffeur’s arm, and shouted something in his ear. The car slowed down, stopped, backed, turned around, and headed back.
Then — it was a lonely country road, and the chauffeur, like all Mrs. Hartshorn’s servants, was well trained — Besant firmly put his arms where they had wanted to be for two years, and at the same time something caused a delicious sensation of warmth to creep around his neck. And if there was no conversation on the homeward journey, it was because there are times when lips have something more important to do than talk.