Algernon 杭州龙凤兼职论坛 perhaps more consciously set aside considerations of the future. He was but a boy, however; and he always had a great gift of enjoying the present moment, and sending Janus-headed Care, that looks forward and backward, to the deuce. As yet there was no Lord Seely on his horizon; no London society; no diplomatic career. The latter indeed was but an Ancramism of his mother’s, when she spoke of it to Mr. Diamond, and Algy at that time had never entertained the idea of it.
So these two young persons sat side by side, on the bench outside the Welsh cottage, and were as happy as the midsummer days were long.
But long as the midsummer days were, they passed. Then came the time for going back to Whitford. The day before their return home Rhoda received a shock of pain—the first, but not the last, which she ever felt from this love 杭州家庭式个人保健 of hers—at these words, said carelessly, but in a low voice, by Algy, as he lounged at her side, watching the sunset:
“Rhoda, darling, you must not say a word to any one about—about you and me, you know.”
Not say a word! What had she to say? And to whom? “No, Algy,” she answered, in a faint little voice, and began to meditate. The idea had been presented to her for the first time that it was her duty, or Algy’s duty, to drag their secret from its home in Fairyland, and subject it to the eyes and tongues of mortals. But being once there, the idea stayed in her mind and would not be banished. Her father—Mrs. Errington—what would they say if they knew that—that she had dared to love Algernon? The future began to look terribly hard to her. The glittering mist which had hidden it was drawn away like a gauze curtain. How could she 杭州按摩网 not have seen it all before? Would any one believe for evermore that she had been such a child, such a fool, so selfishly absorbed in her pleasant day-dreams, as not to calculate the cost of it for one moment until now?
“Oh, Algy!” the poor child broke out, lifting a pale face and startled eyes to his; “if we could only go on for ever as we are! If it would be always summer, and we two could stay in this village, and never go back, or see any of the people again—except father,” she added hastily. And a pang of remorse smote her as her conscience told her that the father who loved her so well, and was so good to her, whatever he might
be to others, was not at all necessary to the happiness of her existence henceforward.
“Don’t let’s be miserable now, at all events,” returned Algernon cheerfully. “Look at that purple bar of cloud 杭州桑拿龙凤论坛419 on the gold! I wonder if I could paint that. I wish I had my colour-box here. The pencil sketches are so dreary after all that colour.”
Rhoda had no doubt that Algernon could paint “that,” or anything else he applied his brush to. After a while she said, with her heart beating violently, and the colour coming and going in her cheeks: “Don’t you think it would be wrong, deceitful—to—if we—not to tell——” Poor Rhoda could not frame her sentence, and was obliged to leave it unfinished.
“Deceitful! Am I generally deceitful, Rhoda? Oh, I say, don’t cry; there’s a pet! Don’t, my darling! I can’t bear to see you sorry. But,
look here, Rhoda, dear; I’m so young yet, that it wouldn’t do to talk about being in love, or anything of that sort. Though I know I shall never change, they would declare I didn’t know my own mind, and would 杭州油压毛推哪里好 make a joke of it”—this shot told with Rhoda, who shrank from ridicule, as a sensitive plant shrinks from the north wind—”and bother my—our lives out. Can’t you see old Grimgriffin’s great front teeth grinning at us?”
It was in these terms that Algy was wont to allude to that respectable spinster, Miss Elizabeth Grimshaw.
Rhoda knew that Algy wished and expected her to smile when he said that; and she tried to please him, but the smile would not come. Her lip quivered, and tears began to gather in her 杭州洗浴小姐 eyes again. She would have sobbed outright if she had tried to speak. The more she thought the sadder and more frightened she grew. Ridicule was painful, but that was not the worst. Her father! Mrs. Errington! She lay awake half the night, terrifying herself with imaginations of their wrath.
Algy found an opportunity the next morning 杭州桑拿介绍 to whisper to her a few words. “Don’t look so melancholy, Rhoda. They’ll wonder at Whitford what’s the matter if you go back with such a wan face. And as to what you said about deceit, why we shan’t pretend not to love each other! Look here, we must have patience! I shall always love you, darling, and I’m sure to get my own way with my mother in the long run; I always do.”
So then there would be obstacles to contend with on Mrs. Errington’s part, and Algy acknowledged that there would. Of course she 杭州spa信息 had known before that it must be so. But Algy had declared that he would always love her; that was the one comforting thought to which she clung. Rhoda had grown from a child to a woman since yesterday. Algy was only older by four-and-twenty hours.
After their return to Whitford came Mr. Filthorpe’s letter. Then his mother’s 杭州桑拿会所体验网 application to Lady Seely, brought about by an old acquaintance of Mrs. Errington, who lived in London, and kept up an intermittent correspondence with her. Both these events were talked over in Rhoda’s presence. Indeed, the girl filled the part towards Mrs. Errington that the confidant enacts towards the prima donna in an Italian opera. Mrs. Errington was always singing scenas to her, which, so far as Rhoda’s share in them went, might just as well have been uttered in the shape of a soliloquy. But the 杭州spa养生会所 lady was used to her confidant, and liked to have her near, to take her hand in the impressive passages, and to walk up the stage with her during the symphony.
So Rhoda heard Algernon’s prospects canvassed. In her heart she longed that he should accept Mr. Filthorpe’s offer. It would keep him nearer to her in every sense. She had few opportunities of talking with him alone now—far fewer than at dear Llanryddan; but she was able to say a few words privately to him one afternoon (the very afternoon of Dr. Bodkin’s whist-party), and she timidly hinted that if Algy went to Bristol, instead of to London amongst all those great folks, she would not feel that she had lost him so completely.