Mrs. Senter had luggage come to meet her here, and she appeared at dinner in our private sitting-room looking quite startlingly handsome, in a black chiffon dress embroidered in pale gold, exactly the colour of her hair. The weather had turned rather cold, however, since the rain at Exeter, so, gorgeous as the moonlight was, she wanted to stop indoors after dinner, and proposed bridge, as usual.
That was the signal for me to slip away. I'd finished "Lorna Doone," which is the loveliest love story in the English language (except part of "Richard Feverel"), so I thought I would go into the garden. I felt moderately secure from Dick, because, even if he really _is_ in love with me, he is as much in love with bridge, and besides, he's afraid of his aunt, for some reason or other. As for Sir Lionel, it didn't occur to me that he might even _want_ to come.
I strolled about at first, not far from the hotel. Then I was tempted farther and farther down the cliff path, until I found a thatched summer-house, where I sat and thought what a splendid, ornamental world it would be to live in if one were _quite_ happy.
By this time the sky and sea were bathed in moonlight, the stone pines--so like Italian pines--black against a silver haze. In the dark water the path of the moon lay, very broad and long, all made of great flakes of thick, deep gold, as if the sea were paved with golden scales.
It was so lovely it saddened me, but I didn't want to go indoors; and presently I heard footsteps on the path. I was afraid it was Dick, after all, as he is horribly clever about finding out where one has gone--so detectivey of him!--but in another second I smelt Sir Lionel's kind of cigarette smoke. It would make me think of him if it were a hundred years from now! Still, Dick borrows his cigarettes often, as he says they're too expensive to buy, so I wasn't safe. Indeed, _which ever_ it turned out to be, I wasn't safe, because one might be silly, and the other might scold.
But it was Sir Lionel, and he saw me, although I made myself little and stood in the shadow, not daring to sit down again, because the seat squeaked.
"Aren't you cold?" he asked.
I answered that I was quite warm.
Then he said that it was a nice night, and we talked about the weather, and all that idiotic sort of thing, which means empty brains or hearts too full.
By and by, when I was beginning to feel as though I should scream if it went on much longer, he stopped suddenly, in a conversation about fresh fish, and said: "Ellaline, I think I must speak of something that's been on my mind for some days."
He'd never called me "Ellaline" before, but only "you," and this gave me rather a start, to begin with, so I said nothing. And, as it turned out, that was probably the best thing I could have done. If I'd said anything, it would have been the wrong thing, and then, perhaps, we should have started off with a misunderstanding.
"I should hate to have you think me unsympathetic," he went on. "I'm not. But--do you want to marry Dick Burden, some day?"
If he'd put it differently I might have hesitated what to answer, for I _am_ afraid of Dick, there's no use denying it--of course, mostly on Ellaline's account, but a little on my own too, because I'm a coward, and don't want to be disgraced. As it was, I _couldn't_ hesitate, for the thought of marrying Dick Burden would have been insupportable if it hadn't been ridiculous. So you see, I forgot to dread what Dick might do if he heard, and just blurted out the truth.
"I'd sooner go into a convent," said I.
"You mean that?" Sir Lionel pinned me down.
"I do," I repeated. "Could you imagine a girl wanting to marry Dick Burden?"
"No, _I_ couldn't," said Sir Lionel. And then he laughed--such a nice, happy laugh, like a boy's, quite different from the way I have heard him laugh lately--though at first, in London, he seemed young and light-hearted. "But I'm no judge of the men--or boys--a girl might want to marry. Dick's good-looking, or near it."
"Yes," I admitted. "So is your little chauffeur. But I don't want to marry it."
"Are you flirting with Dick, then?" Sir Lionel asked, not sharply, but almost wistfully.
I couldn't stand that. I had to tell the truth, no matter for to-morrow!
"I'm not flirting with him, either," I said.
"What then?"
"Nothing."
"But he seems to think there is something--something to hope."
"Did he tell you so?"
"No. He sent me word."
"Oh! Words get mixed, when they're sent. He _knows_ I'm not flirting with him."
"Does he know--forgive me--does he know that you don't love him--a little?"
"He knows I don't love him at all."
"Then I--can't understand," said Sir Lionel.
"Would you like me to love him?" I couldn't help asking.
"No," he began, and stopped. "I should like you to be happy, in your own way," he went on more slowly. "I've been at a loss, because a little while ago you said you didn't like Burden, and then you seemed to change your mind----"
"It was only seeming," I continued on my reckless course. "My mind toward him stands where it did."
"If that is so, what have you done to him, to give him hope?"
"Nothing I could help," I said.
"There's a strange misunderstanding somewhere, apparently," Sir Lionel reflected aloud.
"Oh, don't let there be one between us!" I begged, looking up at him suddenly.
He put his hand out as suddenly, and grabbed--literally grabbed--mine. I was so happy! Isn't it nice that men are so much stronger than women, and that we're meant to like them to be? It can make life so interesting.
As his fingers pressed mine, I let mine press his too, and felt we were friends. "By Jove, no, we won't," he said. And though it wasn't much to say, nothing could have pleased me better. The words and the tone seemed to match the close clasp of our hands.
"Would you be willing to trust me?" I asked.
"Of course. But in what way do you mean?"
"About Dick Burden. He _doesn't_ think I'm flirting, and he doesn't think I care for him. Yet I want you to trust me, and not say anything to him or to his aunt. Let Dick and me fight it out between us."
He laughed again. "With all my heart, if you want to fight. But I won't have you annoyed. If he annoys you he must go. I will get rid of him."
"Dick can't annoy me if he doesn't make trouble for me with you, Sir Lionel," I said. (And that was the truth.) "Only, if you'll just trust me to manage him?"
"You're very young to undertake the management of a man."
"Dick isn't a man. He's a boy."
"And you--are a child."
"I may seem a child to you," I said, "but I'm not. I'll be so happy, and I'll thank you so much, if you'll just let things go on as they are for a little while. You'll be glad afterward if you do."
And he will, when I've gone and Ellaline has come. He will be glad he didn't give himself too much trouble on my account. But I'm not going to think now of what his opinion of me may be _then_. At present he has a very good, kind opinion. Even though I am a child in his eyes, I am a dear child; and though it can't last, it does make me happy to be dear to him, in any way at all--this terrible Dragon of Ellaline's.
But that isn't the end of our conversation. The real end was an anti-climax, perhaps, but I liked it. For that matter, the tail of a comet's an anti-climax.
It was only that, when we'd talked on, and he'd promised to trust me, and leave the reins in my hands, while he attended solely to the steering of his motor-car, I said: "Now we must go in. Mrs. Senter will be wanting to finish her rubber." (I forgot to tell you that he explained she'd had a telegram, and had been obliged to hurry and write a letter, to catch the last post. That had stopped a game in the middle.)
"Oh, hang it all, I suppose she will!" he grumbled, more to himself than to me, because, if he'd paused to think, he would have been too polite to express himself so about a guest, whatever his feelings were. But that's why I was pleased. He spoke impulsively, without thinking. Wasn't it a triumph, that he would rather have stayed there in the garden, even with a "child," than hurry back to that radiant white-and-gold (and black) vision?
Now you know why I am so pleased with life.
All that happened last night, and to-day we have had "excursions," but no "alarums." We (every one, not just he and I) have been to Kent's Cavern, where prehistoric tigers' teeth grinned at us from the walls, and have taken a walk to Babbicombe Bay, where we had tea. I think it was the loveliest path I ever saw, that cliff way, with the gray rocks, and the blue sea into which the sky had emptied itself, like a cup with a silver rim. And the wild flowers--the little, dainty, pink-tipped daisies, which I couldn't bear to crush--and the larks that sprang out of the grass! There are things that make you feel so at _home_ in England, dear. I think it is like no other country for that.
To-morrow we are to motor to Princetown, on Dartmoor--Eden Phillpotts land--and are coming back to Torquay at night. If I have time I'll write you a special Dartmoor letter, for I have an idea that I shall find the moor wonderfully impressive. But we mayn't get back till late; and the day after we are to start early in the morning for Sir Lionel's county, Cornwall. Afterward we shall come back into another part of Devonshire, and see Bideford and Exmoor. That's why I've been able to forget some of my worries in "Westward Ho!" and "Lorna Doone" lately. But Sir Lionel can't wait longer for Cornwall, and, so day-after-to-morrow night my eyes shall look upon--only think of it--"dark Tintagel by the Cornish sea." That is, we shall see it, Apollo permitting, for motors and men gang aft aglee.