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Ebook has 1776 lines and 77700 words, and 36 pages

THE PROFESSOR'S EXPERIMENT

MRS. HUNGERFORD'S NOVELS

LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY.

MRS. HUNGERFORD

IN THREE VOLUMES

THE

PROFESSOR'S EXPERIMENT

'Heart's-ease I found where love-lies-bleeding Empurpled all the ground; Whatever flower I missed, unheeding, Heart's-ease I found.'

The day is still lingering, but one can see that night is beginning to coquet with it. Tender shadows lie here and there in the corners of the curving road, and in and among the beech-trees that overhang it birds are already rustling with a view to slumber. The soft coo-coo of the pigeon stirs the air, and on the river down below, 'Now winding bright and full with naked banks,' the first faint glimmer of a new moon is falling--falling as though sinking through it to a world beneath.

'What are you thinking of, Susan?' asks Crosby at last, when the sound of their feet upon the road has been left unbroken for quite five minutes. Susan has chatted to him quite gaily all down the avenue, and until the gates are left behind, but after that she has grown--well, thoughtful.

'Thinking?' She looks up at him as if startled out of a reverie.

'Yes. What have you been thinking of so steadily for the past five minutes?'

Thus brought to book, Susan gives him the truest answer.

'I was thinking of Lady Muriel Kennedy. I was thinking that I had never seen anyone so beautiful before.'

'That's high praise.'

'You think so too?'

'Well--hardly. She is handsome, very handsome, but not altogether the most beautiful person I have ever seen.'

'To me she is,' says Susan simply.

'That only shows to what poor use you have put your looking-glass,' says he, and Susan laughs involuntarily as at a most excellent joke. Crosby, glancing at her and noting her sweet unconsciousness, feels a strong longing to take her hand and draw it within his arm and hold it, but from such idyllic pleasures he refrains.

The dusky shades are growing more pronounced now: 'Eve saddens into night.' The long and pretty road, bordered by overhanging trees, though still full of light just here, looks black in the distance, and overhead

'The pale moon sheds a softer day, Mellowing the woods beneath its pensive beam.'

After a little silence Susan turns her head and looks frankly at him.

'Are you going to be married to her?' asks she, gently and quite naturally.

'What!' says Crosby. He is honestly amazed, and conscious of some other feeling, too, that brings a pucker to his forehead. 'Good heavens, no! what put that into your head?'

'I never think you anything but just what you are,' says Crosby slowly. 'I wonder if you could be rude if you tried. I doubt it. However, don't try. It would spoil you. As for Lady Muriel, she wouldn't look at me.'

Susan remains silent, pondering over this. Would he look at her?

'Should you like her to?' asks she at last.

'To look at me?' Crosby is now openly amused. 'A cat may look at a king, you know.'

'Is not the cat? That's rude, any way. Susan, I take back all the handsome things I said of you just now. So I'm the cat, and she is the queen, I suppose. Well, no; I don't want Queen Muriel to look at me. It would be rather embarrassing, considering all things. She is a very high and mighty young lady, you know, and I'm terribly shy. On the whole, Susan'--he pauses, and studies her a minute--'I should prefer you to look at me.'

His studying goes for naught; not a vestige of blush appears on Susan's face or any emotion whatever. His little flattery has gone by her.

'Oh, you know what I mean,' says she.

'Do I? You are often very deep, you know; but if you mean that perhaps I should like to marry Lady Muriel--well, I shouldn't.'

'How strange!' says Susan. 'I think if I were a man I should be dreadfully in love with her.'

Crosby laughs.

'So you think you could be dreadfully in love?' says he.

Susan's lips part in a little smile.

'Dreadfully in love? How do you know I am not--with somebody else?'

She shakes her head.

'No, you are not,' says she. 'After all, I think you are just as little likely to be dreadfully in love with anyone as I am.'

'Susan! You are growing positively profound,' says he.

'Mr. Crosby,' says she, and now the hand that comes from the pocket has something in it. 'I--all day, I'--tremulously--'have been wanting to give you something for your birthday. I know'--she pauses, and slowly and reluctantly, and in a very agony of shyness, now holds out to him the little silken bag filled with fragrant lavender--'I know'--tears filling her eyes--'after what I saw to-day ... those other gifts, that it is not worth giving, but--I made it for you.'

She holds it out to him, and Crosby, who has coloured a dark red, takes it from her, but never a word comes from him.

The dear, darling child! To think of her having done this for him!... To Susan his silence sounds fatal.

'Care for it! Oh, Susan! To call yourself my friend and so misjudge me! I care for it a good deal more, I can tell you, than for all those other things up there put together.'

There is no mistaking the genuine ring in his tone. Indeed, his delight and secret emotion amaze even himself. Susan's spirits revive.

'Oh no,' protests she.

'Yes, though! No one else,' says Crosby, 'took the trouble to make me anything! That's the difference, you see. To make it for me--with your own hands. It is easy to buy a thing--there is no trouble there.' He looks at her present, turning and twisting it with unmistakable gratification. 'What a lovely little bag, and filled with lavender, eh?'

'It is to put in your drawer with your handkerchiefs,' says Susan, shyly still; but she is smiling now, and looking frankly delighted. 'Betty made me one last year, and I keep it with mine.'

'So we have a bag each,' says Crosby, and somehow he feels a ridiculous pleasure in the knowledge that he and she have bags alike, and that both their handkerchiefs will be made sweet with the same perfume. And now his eyes fall on the worked words that lie criss-cross in one of the corners: 'Mr. Crosby, from Susan.'

'Do you mean to say you actually did that too?' asks he, with such extreme astonishment that Susan grows actually elated.

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