|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 33
"You can see for yourself if you like."
As she spoke, she was turning to go back into the outhouse, with a sign
to him to follow her. But even as she did so, another thought must have
struck her, for she shut the door and turned back again.
"No," she said, decisively, "of course you don't want to see anything so
much as the outside of this gloomy old house. Don't think me ungrateful;
I am not, but"--she came a little nearer to Max, so that she could
whisper very close to his ear--"if Granny knew that I'd let a stranger
into the place while she was away, I should never hear the last of it;
and--and--when she's angry I'm afraid of her."
Max felt a pang of compassion for the girl.
"If you are afraid of her being angry," said he, "you had better let her
see me and hear my explanation. I can make things right with her. I have
great powers of persuasion--with old ladies--I assure you; and you don't
look as if you were equal to a strife of tongues with her or with
anybody just now; and I'd forgotten; I've brought something for you."
Max took from the pocket of his overcoat the little flat bottle filled
with brandy with which he had provided himself; but the girl pushed it
away with alarm.
"Don't let Granny see it!" she whispered.
"All right. But I want you to taste it; it will do you good."
She shook her head astutely.
"I am not ill," she said, shortly, "and I don't know that I should take
it if I were. I see too much of those things not to be afraid of them.
And, now, sir, will you go?" After a short pause she added, in an
ominous tone--"while you have the chance."
Max still lingered. He had forgotten his curiosity, he had almost
forgotten what had brought him to the house in the first instance. He
did not want to leave this girl, with the great, light-blue eyes and the
scarlet lips, the modest manner and the moving voice.
When the silence which followed her words had lasted some seconds, she
turned from him impatiently, and leaving him by the door, crossed the
little room quickly, opened one of the two wooden doors which stood one
on each side of the fireplace, revealing a cupboard with rows of
shelves, and took from the bottom a few chips of dry wood, evidently
gleaned from the wharf outside, a box of matches and part of a
newspaper, and dropping down on her knees on the hearth, began briskly
to rake out the ashes and to prepare a fire.
Max stood watching her, divided between prudence, which urged him to go,
and inclination, which prompted him to stay.
She went on with her work steadily for some minutes, without so much as
a look behind. Yet Max felt that she was aware of his presence, and he
knew also, without being sure how the knowledge came to him, that the
girl's feeling toward himself had changed now that she was no longer
alone in the house with him. The constraint which might have been
expected toward a person of the opposite sex in the strange
circumstances, which had been so entirely absent from her manner on
their first meeting, had now stolen into her attitude toward him.
Yet, although the former absence of this constraint had been a most
effective part of her attraction for him, Max began to think that the
new and slight self-consciousness which caused her to affect to ignore
him was a fresh charm. Before, while she implored him to come into the
house with her, it was to a fellow-creature only that the frightened
girl had made her appeal. Now that her grandmother had returned, and she
was lonely and unprotected no longer, she remembered that he was a man.
This change in her attitude toward him was strikingly exemplified when,
having lit the fire, she rose from her knees, and taking a kettle from
the hob, turned toward the door.
"You haven't gone then?" said she.
"No!"
She came forward, taking the lid off the kettle as she walked.
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|