"But your mother must have given you some idea of what a sister would
be," continued Cornelia, presently.
"Would she? I wish I had one!" said the young man, unconscious that no
such desire had ever entered his head till now, and yet at a loss to
account for its presence. "Mine died more than twenty years ago," he
explained.
"The poor boy! I believe he don't know what a woman is!" murmured
Cornelia to herself, perhaps not displeased at the reflection that it
lay with her to enlighten him. "No wonder he looked at me as if I were a
mammoth squash, or something. I'm going down in the garden to pluck a
tea-rose bud," added she aloud. "Won't you come?"
"Yes," said Bressant, following her down the glistening granite steps
with an air of half-puzzled admiration. He liked his new sensations very
much, but knew not what to make of them; and so had a sense of
adventurous uncertainty, which was perhaps a pleasure in itself.
Cornelia walked down the path in front of him, picking her dainty steps
to avoid stray spears of grass or weeds, and gathering up her light
skirts in one hand, out of the way of the bushes which leaned lovingly
forward to drop a tear upon her. At length she reached the tea-rose
bush, and paused there. Bressant came up and stood beside her.
It was just dark enough to make the difference between a perfect and an
imperfect bud a matter of some doubt. Cornelia peeped cautiously about,
putting aside the wet twigs gingerly, and lifting up one flower after
another; desisting every once in a while to slap at the fine sting of a
mosquito on her arms or neck.
"Oh! there's one that looks nice!" exclaimed she, disposing her drapery
to reach across the bush for a distant bud which looked in every respect
satisfactory. But Bressant saw it, and plucked it without effort,
drawing blood from his finger as he did so, however. He smelt it, and
looked from it to Cornelia, apparently trying to identify an idea.
"Aren't you going to give me my bud?" demanded Miss Valeyon. "What's the
matter, sir?"
"In some way it reminds me of you," replied he, giving it to her with a
shake of the head. "I don't see how, but it does!"
Cornelia gave him a sharp side-look, to make out if he was sincere; but
his face at the moment was in shadow.
"Perhaps because it pricked your finger," said she.
She had not spoken loud, and was almost startled when his reply showed
he had heard her. There was again that expression of marvellous
efficiency and power in his face and bearing, but combined with one
partly doubt and partly shrewd scrutiny.
"I plucked the bud all the same," he remarked. Cornelia, for some
reason, felt a little provoked and a little frightened. He wasn't
entirely unsophisticated after all; and she felt quite uncertain where
the ignorance ended and the knowledge began. She put the bud in her
hair, and they walked on, Bressant being now at her side, instead of
behind. The path was hardly wide enough for two, and now and then she
felt her shoulder touch his arm. Every time this happened, she fancied
her companion gave a kind of involuntary start, and looked around at her
with a quick, inquiring expression--fancied, for she did not meet his
look, being herself conscious of a sort of irregularity of the breath
and pulse attending these contacts, which she could not understand, and
did not feel altogether at ease about. Certainly, there was something
odd in this Bressant! Cornelia hardly knew whether he strongly repelled
or powerfully attracted her. She had half a mind to run back to the
house.