ITH her whole being in a whirl of new sensations and feelings, the happy girl made her way up slowly through the plantation of olive and orange trees. More than once she stopped walking, and pressed her hands to her temples. Was it, indeed, she, Lily Fairfield, who had just gone through that wonderful experience with a man of whom she had never heard a month ago, and yet whom she now knew would be henceforth the whole world to her?
Like most girls brought up entirely with older people, there was something at once childlike and mature about Lily Fairfield. She realised dimly that only an exceptional man, one with a very high sense of honour, would have said to her what he had said to-night. He had not tried to rush her into an immediate marriage as almost any young man who cared for her as he seemed to care would have done.
As to his having taken her in his arms and kissed her—Lily loved him all the more for that. It showed her that he was human after all! Perhaps it was the training of fastidious, old-fashioned Aunt Emily—perhaps it was something in the girl's own nature—but ever since she had begun to think of such things, which was not so very long ago, Lily had always thought of a kiss between a man and a woman a sacred thing. No man had ever kissed her till Angus Stuart's lips had first trembled on her lips a few minutes ago.
Oddly enough, there came to her to-night a memory of the sudden repulsion she had felt for a young man, whom otherwise she had thought a very jolly kind of boy, when he had once observed laughingly, perhaps a trifle boastingly, that he only cared to go to a dance where there was a conservatory in which he could kiss the girls!
Yet it was a comfort to feel that she need not consider herself “engaged” to Angus. It would take a long time for her letter to reach Uncle Tom, and for his letter to reach her, and then she would be within sight of the time when she was due to leave La Solitude.
Perhaps because of what Angus Stuart had said, as she drew nearer and nearer to the house, there came over her an overwhelming desire to go away as soon as possible from La Solitude. With the easy generosity of youth she asked herself why she shouldn't simply hand over to Aunt Cosy the money which she would have had to pay had she stayed on till March? It was the five pounds a week Aunt Cosy valued, not her company—though that the Countess was fond of her in a way, was clear to the girl.
How strange to think that a dwelling-place which had brought her such immeasurable happiness—for had she not come to La Solitude she would never have met the man who had just left her—yet filled her with a curious, sense of foreboding and discomfort.
As she emerged on to the lawn and saw, in the bright moonlight, the long, low house, there came over her just the feeling she had had this morning—a feeling of acute, unreasoning discomfort—and again with that disquieting sensation seemed to be coupled the odious personality of the old Dutchman, Mr. Vissering. Perhaps because of that silent, fleeting meeting with the woman who kept the Utrecht Hotel, she had thought of him several times that day, half fearing she might come across him.
Now, to-night, the thought of him was overwhelmingly present, though she had no reason to suppose that she would ever again be brought face to face with his strange, sinister, and, yes, insolent personality. She hoped with all her heart that Beppo was in no way in his power.
She walked up on to the terrace and knocked lightly on one of the drawing-room shutters, for so she had arranged to do with Cristina. What seemed a long time, perhaps five minutes, went by, and she knocked again, a little louder this time. And then, at last, she heard the window within being opened, and the shutter unbarred.
It was Aunt Cosy who let her in—Aunt Cosy, who so very seldom sat up after half-past nine.
“I thought Beppo would have returned with you,” said the Countess, and there were both regret and relief struggling in her voice. “I have been listening for the sound of a motor, though I did not expect you to be so soon back, dear child.”
Lily felt rather guilty, nervously afraid lest Aunt Cosy should cross-examine her as to how she had got home, and who had brought her back. She told herself desperately that if she was thus questioned she would take a leaf out of Aunt Cosy's own book and say that M. Popeau had brought her back!
But Aunt Cosy asked no questions. Instead she only said in a preoccupied way: “And now we will go to bed.”