PAGE 6
The Knight Errant
by
The words came with a rush. She began to tremble all over. She was almost sobbing.
Rivington’s fingers closed very slowly, barely perceptibly, till his grip was warm and close. “Take your time,” he said gently. “It’s all right, you know–all right.”
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Well, I saw him. He was in a dangerous–a wild-beast mood. He told me I needn’t try to run away any longer, for I was caught. He said–and I know it was true–that he had obtained my mother’s full approval and consent. He swore that he wouldn’t leave me until I promised to marry him. He was terrible, with a sort of suppressed violence that appalled me. I tried not to let him see how terrified I was. I kept quite quiet and temperate for a long time. I told him I could never, never marry him. And each time I said it, he smiled and showed his teeth. He was like a tiger. His eyes were fiendish. But he, too, kept quiet for ever so long. He tried persuasion, he tried flattery. Oh, it was loathsome–loathsome! And then quite suddenly he turned savage, and–and threatened me.”
She glanced nervously into Rivington’s face, but it told her nothing. He looked merely thoughtful.
She went on more quietly.
“That drove me desperate, and I exclaimed, hardly thinking, ‘I wouldn’t marry you if you were the only man in the world–which you are not!’ ‘Oh!’ he said at once. ‘There is another man, is there?’ He didn’t seem to have thought that possible. And I–I was simply clutching at straws–I told him ‘Yes.’ It was a lie, you know–the first deliberate lie I think I have ever told since I came to years of discretion. There isn’t another man, or likely to be. That’s just the trouble. If there were, my mother wouldn’t be so angry with me for refusing this chance of marriage, brilliant though she thinks it. But I was quite desperate. Do you think it was very wrong of me?”
“No,” said Rivington deliberately, “I don’t. I lie myself–when necessary.”
“He was furious,” she said. “He swore that no other man should stand in his way. And then–I don’t know how it was; perhaps I wasn’t very convincing–he began to suspect that I had lied. That drove me into a corner. I didn’t know what to say or do. And then, quite suddenly, in my extremity, I thought of you. I really don’t know what made me. I didn’t so much as know if you were in town. And in a flash I thought of sending that announcement to the paper. That would convince him if nothing else would, and it would mean at least a temporary respite. It was a mad thing to do, I know. But I thought you were elderly and level-headed and a confirmed bachelor and–and a sort of cousin as well—-“
“To the tenth degree,” murmured Rivington.
“So I told him,” she hurried on, unheeding, “that we were engaged, and it was just going to be announced. When he heard that, he lost his head. I really think he was mad for the moment. He sprang straight at me like a wild beast, and I–I simply turned and fled. I’m pretty nimble, you know, when–when there are mad bulls about.” Her quick smile flashed across her face and was gone. “That’s all,” she said. “I tore up to my room, and scribbled that paragraph straight away. I dared not wait for anything. And then I wrote to you. You had my letter with the paper this morning.”
“Yes, I had them.” Rivington spoke absently. She had a feeling that his eyes were fixed upon her without seeing her. “So that’s all, is it?” he said slowly.
Again nervously her hands moved beneath his.
“I’ve been very headlong and idiotic,” she said impulsively. “I’ve put you in an intolerable position. You must write at once and contradict it in the next issue.”