Читать книгу Westover of Wanalah (George Cary Eggleston) (Literary Thoughts Edition) - George Cary Eggleston, George Cary Eggleston - Страница 6

Those were halcyon days that followed, while Margaret lingered at Wanalah. The barriers were broken down now between these two; the vexing suspense was over and the most precious certainty that human kind can know had taken its place.

And there was not the embarrassment of others' knowing. No word of their awakened love had been spoken, or could be spoken until Margaret's return to The Oaks should impose upon her lover the duty of announcing their understanding to her father and invoking his sanction of their troth. Until that time should come they were not "engaged" and might pass their days and nights under one roof without offending even Virginian propriety. Convention had no claim to control over them in those blissful intervening days.

But the shadow of it fell on the morning of the day when Margaret was to journey homewards in company with her maid.

"I will visit Colonel Conway at The Oaks to-morrow," Boyd promised as the pair strolled through the garden during the morning hours that alone remained to them now.

"I wonder how he will receive the news—our news, Margaret?"

"How he will receive it? Why, of course he—"

"He's rather rigid, you know, in his views of propriety, and I've sinned against light in that respect. You see I addressed you in my own home, and not only so, but at a time when you were not able to run away."

Margaret laughed half below her breath.

"That was very terrible of course," she said in an amused tone. "But I see a way out of it, Boyd."

"Of course you do. That's feminine instinct. But tell me about it."

"Why, it's simple enough. If Father finds fault with that, you can take it all back and say it all over again at The Oaks."

Boyd smiled over the conceit, but he was not reassured by it. The case was one in which the least shadow of uncertainty seemed more than he could endure.

"Oh I forgot," the girl went on, teasingly; "perhaps it wouldn't be agreeable to you to rehearse the scene."

Boyd said not a word in reply, but he managed in another way to convince her that her doubt on that point was unfounded. When she had readjusted the "flat" that she wore as headgear—it had somehow become disarranged—she put jest aside, saying:

"I think we needn't fear anything of that sort, Boyd. My father is apt to make distinctions, just as other people are. If he disliked you or disapproved of you, he would make trouble of course; but as it is I reckon he will brush the thing aside and scold about the idiocy that makes such silly rules."

She paused in her speech for a space. Then she added, in a tone which the young man afterwards recalled in doubt and distress:

"At any rate it makes no difference. Nothing can make any difference—now."

"Tell me, please," he said gently, "just what you mean by that."

"I am not a women to love lightly, or lightly to forget. Love seems to me a holy thing and to trifle with it is blasphemy. I have given you my love, Boyd, and there is no power in all the universe that can make me take it back. Even you could not do that. Nothing you might do—even if it were crime itself—could alter the fact that my love is all yours, now and forever."

He drew her to him in a tender embrace, but spoke no word in reply. Speech in such a case must be an impertinence. Presently she went on:

"That is what I meant, Boyd. I have promised to be your wife. I shall keep that promise if the stars fall. I have no doubt my father will cordially give his consent; but if it should be otherwise, it will make no difference—I shall keep my promise."

How those words came back in after time to Boyd Westover! And how he pondered them in amazement and bitterness of soul!