Chapter 9 No.9

It was an hour or two later when the moon, drifting tardily up from

the south, found Miss Hugonin and Mr. Kennaston chatting amicably

together in the court at Selwoode. They were discussing the deplorable

tendencies of the modern drama.

The court at Selwoode lies in the angle of the building, the ground

plan of which is L-shaped. Its two outer sides are formed by covered

cloisters leading to the palm-garden, and by moonlight--the night

bland and sweet with the odour of growing things, vocal with plashing

fountains, spangled with fire-flies that flicker indolently among a

glimmering concourse of nymphs and fauns eternally postured in flight

or in pursuit--by moonlight, I say, the court at Selwoode is perhaps

as satisfactory a spot for a tête-à-tête as this transitory world

affords.

Mr. Kennaston was in vein to-night; he scintillated; he was also a

little nervous. This was probably owing to the fact that Margaret,

leaning against the back of the stone bench on which they both sat,

her chin propped by her hand, was gazing at him in that peculiar,

intent fashion of hers which--as I think I have mentioned--caused you

fatuously to believe she had forgotten there were any other trousered

beings extant.

Mr. Kennaston, however, stuck to apt phrases and nice distinctions.

The moon found it edifying, but rather dull.

After a little Mr. Kennaston paused in his boyish, ebullient speech,

and they sat in silence. The lisping of the fountains was very

audible. In the heavens, the moon climbed a little further and

registered a manifestly impossible hour on the sun-dial. It also

brightened.

It was a companionable sort of a moon. It invited talk of a

confidential nature.

"Bless my soul," it was signalling to any number of gentlemen at that

moment, "there's only you and I and the girl here. Speak out, man!

She'll have you now, if she ever will. You'll never have a chance like

this again, I can tell you. Come, now, my dear boy, I'm shining full

in your face, and you've no idea how becoming it is. I'm not like that

garish, blundering sun, who doesn't know any better than to let her

see how red and fidgetty you get when you're excited; I'm an old hand

at such matters. I've presided over these little affairs since Babylon

was a paltry village. I'll never tell. And--and if anything should

happen, I'm always ready to go behind a cloud, you know. So, speak

out!--speak out, man, if you've the heart of a mouse!"

Thus far the conscienceless spring moon.

Mr. Kennaston sighed. The moon took this as a promising sign and

brightened over it perceptibly, and thereby afforded him an excellent

gambit.

"Yes?" said Margaret. "What is it, beautiful?"

That, in privacy, was her fantastic name for him.

The poet laughed a little. "Beautiful child," said he--and that, under

similar circumstances, was his perfectly reasonable name for

her--"I have been discourteous. To be frank, I have been sulking as

irrationally as a baby who clamours for the moon yonder."

"You aren't really anything but a baby, you know." Indeed, Margaret

almost thought of him as such. He was so delightfully na?f.

He bent toward her. A faint tremor woke in his speech. "And so," said

he, softly, "I cry for the moon--the unattainable, exquisite moon. It

is very ridiculous, is it not?"

But he did not look at the moon. He looked toward Margaret--past

Margaret, toward the gleaming windows of Selwoode, where the Eagle

brooded:

"Oh, I really can't say," Margaret cried, in haste. "She was kind to

Endymion, you know. We will hope for the best. I think we'd better go

into the house now."

"You bid me hope?" said he.

"Beautiful, if you really want the moon, I don't see the least

objection to your continuing to hope. They make so many little

airships and things nowadays, you know, and you'll probably find it

only green cheese, after all. What is green cheese, I wonder?--it

sounds horribly indigestible and unattractive, doesn't it?" Miss

Hugonin babbled, in a tumult of fear and disappointment. He was about

to spoil their friendship now; men were so utterly inconsiderate. "I'm

a little cold," said she, mendaciously, "I really must go in."

He detained her. "Surely," he breathed, "you must know what I have so

long wanted to tell you--"

"I haven't the least idea," she protested, promptly. "You can tell

me all about it in the morning. I have some accounts to cast up

to-night. Besides, I'm not a good person to tell secrets to.

You--you'd much better not tell me. Oh, really, Mr. Kennaston," she

cried, earnestly, "you'd much better not tell me!"

"Ah, Margaret, Margaret," he pleaded, "I am not adamant. I am only a

man, with a man's heart that hungers for you, cries for you, clamours

for you day by day! I love you, beautiful child--love you with a

poet's love that is alien to these sordid days, with a love that is

half worship. I love you as Leander loved his Hero, as Pyramus loved

Thisbe. Ah, child, child, how beautiful you are! You are fairest of

created women, child--fair as those long-dead queens for whose smiles

old cities burned and kingdoms were lightly lost. I am mad for love of

you! Ah, have pity upon me, Margaret, for I love you very tenderly!"

He delivered these observations with appropriate fervour.

"Mr. Kennaston," said she, "I am sorry. We got along so nicely before,

and I was so proud of your friendship. We've had such good times

together, you and I, and I've liked your verses so, and I've liked

you--Oh, please, please, let's keep on being just friends!" Margaret

wailed, piteously.

"Friends!" he cried, and gave a bitter laugh. "I was never friends

with you, Margaret. Why, even as I read my verses to you--those

pallid, ineffectual verses that praised you timorously under varied

names--even then there pulsed in my veins the riotous p?an of love,

the great mad song of love that shamed my paltry rhymes. I cannot be

friends with you, child! I must have all or nothing. Bid me hope or

go!"

Miss Hugonin meditated for a moment and did neither.

"Beautiful," she presently queried, "would you be very, very much

shocked if I descended to slang?"

"I think," said he, with an uncertain smile, "that I could endure it."

"Why, then--cut it out, beautiful! Cut it out! I don't believe a word

you've said, in the first place; and, anyhow, it annoys me to have you

talk to me like that. I don't like it, and it simply makes me awfully,

awfully tired."

With which characteristic speech, Miss Hugonin leaned back and sat up

very rigidly and smiled at him like a cherub.

Kennaston groaned.

"It shall be as you will," he assured her, with a little quaver in his

speech that was decidedly effective. "And in any event, I am not sorry

that I have loved you, beautiful child. You have always been a power

for good in my life. You have gladdened me with the vision of a beauty

that is more than human, you have heartened me for this petty business

of living, you have praised my verses, you have even accorded me

certain pecuniary assistance as to their publication--though I must

admit that to accept it of you was very distasteful to me. Ah!" Felix

Kennaston cried, with a quick lift of speech, "impractical child that

I am, I had not thought of that! My love had caused me to forget the

great barrier that stands between us."

He gasped and took a short turn about the court.

"Pardon me, Miss Hugonin," he entreated, when his emotions were under

a little better control, "for having spoken as I did. I had forgotten.

Think of me, if you will, as no better than the others--think of me as

a mere fortune-hunter. My presumption will be justly punished."

"Oh, no, no, it isn't that," she cried; "it isn't that, is it?

You--you would care just as much about me if I were poor, wouldn't

you, beautiful? I don't want you to care for me, of course," Margaret

added, with haste. "I want to go on being friends. Oh, that money,

that nasty money!" she cried, in a sudden gust of petulance. "It

makes me so distrustful, and I can't help it!"

He smiled at her wistfully. "My dear," said he, "are there no mirrors

at Selwoode to remove your doubts?"

"I--yes, I do believe in you," she said, at length. "But I don't want

to marry you. You see, I'm not a bit in love with you," Margaret

explained, candidly.

Ensued a silence. Mr. Kennaston bowed his head.

"You bid me go?" said he.

"No--not exactly," said she.

He indicated a movement toward her.

"Now, you needn't attempt to take any liberties with me," Miss Hugonin

announced, decisively, "because if you do I'll never speak to you

again. You must let me go now. You--you must let me think."

Then Felix Kennaston acted very wisely. He rose and stood aside, with

a little bow.

"I can wait, child," he said, sadly. "I have already waited a long

time."

Miss Hugonin escaped into the house without further delay. It was very

flattering, of course; he had spoken beautifully, she thought, and

nobly and poetically and considerately, and altogether there was

absolutely no excuse for her being in a temper. Still, she was.

The moon, however, considered the affair as arranged.

For she had been no whit more resolute in her refusal, you see, than

becomes any self-respecting maid. In fact, she had not refused him;

and the experienced moon had seen the hopes of many a wooer thrive,

chameleon-like, on answers far less encouraging than that which

Margaret had given Felix Kennaston.

Margaret was very fond of him. All women like a man who can do a

picturesque thing without bothering to consider whether or not he be

making himself ridiculous; and more than once in thinking of him she

had wondered if--perhaps--possibly--some day--? And always these vague

flights of fancy had ended at this precise point--incinerated, if you

will grant me the simile, by the sudden flaming of her cheeks.

The thing is common enough. You may remember that Romeo was not the

only gentleman that Juliet noticed at her début: there was the young

Petruchio; and the son and heir of old Tiberio; and I do not question

that she had a kind glance or so for County Paris. Beyond doubt, there

were many with whom my lady had danced; with whom she had laughed a

little; with whom she had exchanged a few perfectly affable words and

looks--when of a sudden her heart speaks: "Who's he that would not

dance? If he be married, my grave is like to prove my marriage-bed."

In any event, Paris and Petruchio and Tiberio's young hopeful can go

hang; Romeo has come.

Romeo is seldom the first. Pray you, what was there to prevent Juliet

from admiring So-and-so's dancing? or from observing that Signor

Such-an-one had remarkably expressive eyes? or from thinking of Tybalt

as a dear, reckless fellow whom it was the duty of some good woman to

rescue from perdition? If no one blames the young Montague for sending

Rosaline to the right-about--Rosaline for whom he was weeping and

rhyming an hour before--why, pray, should not Signorina Capulet have

had a few previous affaires du coeur? Depend upon it, she had; for

was she not already past thirteen?

In like manner, I dare say that a deal passed between Desdemona and

Cassio that the honest Moor never knew of; and that Lucrece was

probably very pleasant and agreeable to Tarquin, as a well-bred

hostess should be; and that Helen had that little affair with Theseus

before she ever thought of Paris; and that if Cleopatra died for love

of Antony it was not until she had previously lived a great while with

C?sar.

So Felix Kennaston had his hour. Now Margaret has gone into Selwoode,

flame-faced and quite unconscious that she is humming under her breath

the words of a certain inane old song:

"Oh, she sat for me a chair;

She has ringlets in her hair;

She's a young thing and cannot leave her mother"--

Only she sang it "father." And afterward, she suddenly frowned and

stamped her foot, did Margaret.

"I hate him!" said she; but she looked very guilty.