Remember him? ah!
Berry could have laughed aloud at the tender question.
She knew that she could never forget his glance and smile of this morning her whole life long.
Yet, with her pretty head poised, coquettishly, on one side, and her eyes half veiled under their shady lashes, she faltered demurely:
“I—I—believe you are the same gentleman that passed with Miss Montague this morning, and bowed to me.”
“Yes, you are right,” he answered, with a soft laugh, as he leaned his elbows on the gate with his face very close to her, while he continued tenderly:
“And from the first moment I saw your lovely face I could not get you out of my mind. I asked Miss Montague who was that pretty young girl, and she frowned at me, and said: ‘There’s not a pretty face that can escape you, Charley; but that is only little Berry Vining, the daughter of a poor tailoress, not in our set at all, so don’t ask for an introduction.’”
Berry’s cheeks grew hot, and her heart thumped with anger as she said to herself:
“I’ll pay you out for that, my proud lady, by taking him away from you!”
Handsome Charley Bonair continued wheedlingly:
“As I couldn’t get properly introduced to you, I thought I’d present myself. I see you are wearing some of my roses.”
“Thank you so much for them; I love roses dearly,” murmured Berry, in shy bliss, her head in such a whirl under his laughing, ardent glance, that she hardly knew whether she was standing on her head or on her feet.
In his black evening suit, and a white carnation in his buttonhole, he was superbly handsome, and carried with him that subtle aroma of wealth and position so alluring to a poor girl brought for the first time in contact with uppertendom. It was as if a being from another sphere, a distant star, had fallen at her feet, stooping to lift her to his dazzling height.
Trembling with mingled pride and love and joy, she looked up at him with her heart in her eyes, her tender secret plain as day to him, almost too easy a conquest to the blasé young man of the world.
But he continued to smile very tenderly at her, and venturing to clasp her little hand as it clung to the top of the fence, he said:
“I am due at the Montagues’ lawn fête presently, but will you come with me for a little spin in my run-about first? It is just around the corner, and this is the finest night I ever saw for a moonlight drive.”
“Oh, I shall be delighted—but—but—I must ask mamma first,” declared the happy girl.
“Oh, no, for explanations would delay our drive, since I must soon be back to the hall. We will be home before she knows we are gone. Only a two-mile spin, dear little girl,” pleaded the tempter, pressing her little hand.
She thought:
“Mamma is asleep by now, and it would be a pity to arouse her from her nap. Surely there’s no harm in going, as I shall be back before she misses me! And I shall so like to have this triumph over proud Miss Montague, who tried to belittle me in his dear eyes.”
He saw that she was yielding, and, unlatching the gate, quickly drew her outside, placing her small, trembling hand on his arm, and leading her to the waiting trap.
A moment more, and he was lifting her into the elegant little trap, drawn by a magnificent blooded bay horse, whose silver-mounted harness glittered in the moonlight. Seating himself by her side, he took up the reins, and away they went through the town and out upon the broad country road, where the air, with the salty tang from the sea, was fresh and sweet and exhilarating.
“Almost seems like eloping, does it not?” laughed Charley Bonair. “What if it were so, dear little girl?”
Berry caught her breath with a startled gasp, a dizzy suspicion running through her mind.
Did he mean it?
Was it an elopement sure enough? Was he taking her away to marry her, now, to-night?
What would Rosalind Montague say?
She never dreamed of resisting if such were his will.
Poor little Berry was under the intoxicating spell of a maiden’s first love, and it did not seem to her as if her splendid hero could do anything wrong.
The bay horse flew over the smooth road, the fresh air blew in their faces, lifting the soft curls from Berry’s white brow, and she felt like one in Elysium. She was dwelling in a new and beautiful world, the golden land of love.
Yet, when her companion gently attempted to slip an arm about her waist, she decisively repulsed him.
“No, no; you must not make so free—we are almost strangers,” she exclaimed, blushing warmly.
“Strangers! Why I love you, little girl! Cannot you love me a little in return?” he pleaded.
Berry was about to answer him yes, taking this for a proposal of marriage, when she suddenly remembered the gossip about his betrothal to Rosalind, and drawing back, she faltered tremulously:
“But—but—they say that you are engaged to marry Miss Montague!”
“Bah! What has that to do with your being my sweetheart, I wonder; she need not know about it,” laughed Charley Bonair, leaning as close to her as she would permit, for she was recoiling in perplexity, murmuring:
“But is it true?”
“Why, yes, little one, I’m to marry her some day, I suppose! Deuced pretty girl, you know, and in ‘my set,’ and all that—very proper, of course. But I mean to have as many sweethearts as I like, before and after the wedding, if you please!”
If he had thrust a knife in her tender heart Berry could not have moaned more piteously, for all at once he seemed to her a monster instead of an adorable Prince Charming. With that heartbreaking little moan, she cried plaintively:
“Oh, take me home, take me home quickly! Please, please, please!”
And though the moon and stars still gleamed on as brightly as before, it seemed to her tortured mind as though the whole sky were veiled in inky darkness, and her dream of love and happiness had faded as before a chilling wintry blast.
He had told her he was indeed to marry Rosalind, but that he should continue to have as many sweethearts as he pleased! He dared even think she would consent to be one of them!
She began to tremble like a wind-blown leaf, and as he only laughed in answer to her pleading, she added wildly:
“You are cruel; you are wicked, to be making love to me when you are to marry another! I will have no more to do with you, so there, there, there!” and tearing the roses from her breast and hair, Berry flung them in his face with the passionate fury of “the woman scorned.”
“You dear little vixen!” he exclaimed, boisterously, without turning back.