"It will break my heart," she said quietly, "to leave Tredowen. I think that if I have to go away from the pictures and the garden, and the sea, I shall never be happy any more.""You are a child," he remarked contemptuously; "you do not understand. If you go away, you can learn to paint pictures yourself like those at Tredowen. You will find that the world is full of other beautiful places!"The sympathetic aspect of his words was altogether destroyed by the thin note of careless irony, which even the child understood. She felt that he was mocking her.
"I could never be happy," she said simply, "away from Tredowen. You understand, don't you?" she added, turning confidentially to Aynesworth.
"You think so now, dear," he said, "but remember that you are very young.
There are many things for you to learn before you grow up.""I am not a dunce," she replied. "I can talk French and German, and do arithmetic, and play the organ. Father used to teach me these things. I can learn at Tredowen very well. I hope that my friends will let me stay here."Wingrave took no more notice of her. She and Aynesworth walked together to the station. As they passed the little whitewashed cottage, she suddenly let go his hand, and darted inside.
"Wait one moment," she cried breathlessly.
She reappeared almost at once, holding something tightly clenched in her right hand. She showed it to him shyly.
"It is for you, please," she said.
It was a silver locket, and inside was a little picture of herself. Aynesworth stooped down and kissed her. He had had as many presents in his life as most men, but never an offering which came to him quite like that! They stood still for a moment, and he held out her hands. Already the morning was astir. The seagulls were wheeling, white-winged and noiseless, above their heads; the air was fragrant with the scent of cottage flowers. Like a low, sweet undernote, the sea came rolling in upon the firm sands--out to the west it stretched like a sheet of softly swaying inland water. For those few moments there seemed no note of discord--and then the harsh whistle of an approaching train! They took hold of hands and ran.
It was, perhaps, as well that their farewells were cut short. There was scarcely time for more than a few hurried words before the train moved out from the queer little station, and with his head out of the window, Aynesworth waved his hand to the black-frocked child with her pale, eager face already stained with tears--a lone, strange little figure, full of a sort of plaintive grace as she stood there, against a background of milk cans, waving a crumpled handkerchief!
Wingrave, who had been buried in a morning paper, looked up presently.
"If our journeyings," he remarked drily, "are to contain everywhere incidents such as these, they will become a sort of sentimental pilgrimage."Aynesworth shrugged his shoulders.
"I am sorry," he said, "that my interest in the child has annoyed you. At any rate, it is over now. The parson was mysterious, but he assured me that she was provided for."Wingrave looked across the carriage with cold, reflective curiosity.
"Your point of view," he remarked, "is a mystery to me! I cannot see how the future of an unfledged brat like that can possibly concern you!""Perhaps not," Aynesworth answered, "but you must remember that you are a little out of touch with your fellows just now. I daresay when you were my age, you would have felt as I feel. I daresay that as the years go on, you will feel like it again."Wingrave was thoughtful for a moment.
"So you think," he remarked, "that I may yet have in me the making of a sentimentalist."Aynesworth returned his gaze as steadfastly.
"One can never tell," he answered. "You may change, of course. I hope that you will.""You are candid, at any rate!"
"I do not think," Aynesworth answered, "that there is any happiness in life for the man who lives entirely apart from his fellow creatures. Not to feel is not to live. I think that the first real act of kindness which you feel prompted to perform will mark the opening of a different life for you."Wingrave spread out the newspaper.
"I think," he said, with a faint sneer, "that it is quite time you took this sea voyage."
