I feel so gratefully toward you, Mr. Midwinter! Is there any harm, do you think, in my offering you a cup of tea?"The magnetic influence of her touch was thrilling through him while she spoke. Change and absence, to which he had trusted to weaken her hold on him, had treacherously strengthened it instead. A man exceptionally sensitive, a man exceptionally pure in his past life, he stood hand in hand, in the tempting secrecy of the night, with the first woman who had exercised over him the all-absorbing influence of her sex. At his age, and in his position, who could have left her? The man (with a man's temperament) doesn't live who could have left her. Midwinter went in.
A stupid, sleepy lad opened the house door. Even he, being a male creature, brightened under the influence of Miss Gwilt. "The urn, John," she said, kindly, "and another cup and saucer. I'll borrow your candle to light my candles upstairs, and then I won't trouble you any more to-night." John was wakeful and active in an instant. "No trouble, miss," he said, with awkward civility. Miss Gwilt took his candle with a smile. "How good people are to me!"she whispered, innocently, to Midwinter, as she led the way upstairs to the little drawing-room on the first floor.
She lit the candles, and, turning quickly on her guest, stopped him at the first attempt he made to remove the knapsack from his shoulders. "No," she said, gently; "in the good old times there were occasions when the ladies unarmed their knights. I claim the privilege of unarming _my_ knight." Her dexterous fingers intercepted his at the straps and buckles, and she had the dusty knapsack off, before he could protest against her touching it.
They sat down at the one little table in the room. It was very poorly furnished; but there was something of the dainty neatness of the woman who inhabited it in the arrangement of the few poor ornaments on the chimney-piece, in the one or two prettily bound volumes on the chiffonier, in the flowers on the table, and the modest little work-basket in the window. "Women are not all coquettes," she said, as she took off her bonnet and mantilla, and laid them carefully on a chair. "I won't go into my room, and look in my glass, and make myself smart; you shall take me just as I am." Her hands moved about among the tea-things with a smooth, noiseless activity.
Her magnificent hair flashed crimson in the candle-light, as she turned her head hither and thither, searching with an easy grace for the things she wanted in the tray. Exercise had heightened the brilliancy of her complexion, and had quickened the rapid alternations of expression in her eyes--the delicious languor that stole over them when she was listening or thinking, the bright intelligence that flashed from them softly when she spoke.
In the lightest word she said, in the least thing she did, there was something that gently solicited the heart of the man who sat with her. Perfectly modest in her manner, possessed to perfection of the graceful restraints and refinements of a lady, she had all the allurements that feast the eye, all the siren invitations that seduce the sense--a subtle suggestiveness in her silence, and a sexual sorcery in her smile.
"Should I be wrong," she asked, suddenly suspending the conversation which she had thus far persistently restricted to the subject of Midwinter's walking tour, "if I g uessed that you have something on your mind--something which neither my tea nor my talk can charm away? Are men as curious as women? Is the something--Me?"Midwinter struggled against the fascination of looking at her and listening to her. "I am very anxious to hear what has happened since I have been away," he said. "But I am still more anxious, Miss Gwilt, not to distress you by speaking of a painful subject."She looked at him gratefully. "It is for your sake that I have avoided the painful subject," she said, toying with her spoon among the dregs in her empty cup. "But you will hear about it from others, if you don't hear about it from me; and you ought to know why you found me in that strange situation, and why you see me here. Pray remember one thing, to begin with. I don't blame your friend, Mr. Armadale. I blame the people whose instrument he is."Midwinter started. "Is it possible," he began, "that Allan can be in any way answerable--?" He stopped, and looked at Miss Gwilt in silent astonishment.
She gently laid her hand on his. "Don't be angry with me for only telling the truth," she said. "Your friend is answerable for everything that has happened to me--innocently answerable, Mr.
Midwinter, I firmly believe. We are both victims. _He_ is the victim of his position as the richest single man in the neighborhood; and I am the victim of Miss Milroy's determination to marry him.""Miss Milroy?" repeated Midwinter, more and more astonished.
"Why, Allan himself told me--" He stopped again.
"He told you that I was the object of his admiration? Poor fellow, he admires everybody; his head is almost as empty as this," said Miss Gwilt, smiling indicatively into the hollow of her cup. She dropped the spoon, sighed, and became serious again.
"I am guilty of the vanity of having let him admire me," she went on, penitently, "without the excuse of being able, on my side, to reciprocate even the passing interest that he felt in me. I don't undervalue his many admirable qualities, or the excellent position he can offer to his wife. But a woman's heart is not to be commanded--no, Mr. Midwinter, not even by the fortunate master of Thorpe Ambrose, who commands everything else."She looked him full in the face as she uttered that magnanimous sentiment. His eyes dropped before hers, and his dark color deepened. He had felt his heart leap in him at the declaration of her indifference to Allan. For the first time since they had known each other, his interests now stood self-revealed before him as openly adverse to the interests of his friend.