“I must go now,” he said. “Good-bye, dear! I won’t bother you to think of me or write to me--or any trouble of that sort--”
“It might be!” and he set his lips hard. “The only thing I _do_ ask is that you go and see my old Dad sometimes and let him come to see you. He’ll have all my news--field service post cards and everything--”
He paused. The winsome face of the Sentimentalist was uplifted--her lips were parted and tremulous--there were tears on her golden-brown lashes. In a reckless moment, not thinking of anything but carried away by the emotion of his soul, he caught her to his heart and kissed her once, twice, thrice, passionately.
“Forgive me!” he whispered. “I can’t help it! God bless you, dear! Good-bye!”
He turned with almost lightning suddenness, plunged through the brushwood by the river and disappeared.
There was no answer. He had gone. She stood for a moment,--pained, bewildered, and yet thrilled by the fervour of that lover’s kiss,--the first she had ever known. How abruptly he had left her!--it was perhaps the best way--and yet,--would she ever see him again. The tears welled up suddenly and fell down her cheeks.
“Oh, Jack!” she murmured, brokenly. “It _is_ hard! You need not go really!--it is your own choice!--and I--I am so lonely!”
That same evening the Philosopher took it into his head to be uncommonly disagreeable and ill-mannered. He found fault with everything, even with his dinner (which he had neither provided nor paid for) and he was judicially severe on his host for allowing himself to be “done,” as he put it, by his tradesmen.
“Call this mutton!” he said, viciously chopping at the meat on his plate. “It’s leather!--and old leather too! No wonder you’ve got the gout!--you’re eating gout now! You’ve got a cook, I suppose, and she ought to be ashamed of herself for taking such mutton into the house--she doesn’t know her business--”
The Sentimentalist interrupted him. Her cheeks were flushed with indignation and embarrassment.
“I am the one to blame,” she said, coldly. “I am alone responsible for the housekeeping. One cannot always command perfection. But please do not irritate Dad--he is easily upset--”
“Upset? I should think so!” snorted the Philosopher. “He’s got to pay for this beastly mutton!”