Whosoever Shall Offend - F. Marion Crawford

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the storm and took no notice of him. She thought that he would come back, but there was just the least doubt about it, which introduced an element of chance and was perfectly delightful while it lasted. Was there ever a woman, since the world began, who did not know that sensation, either by experience or by wishing she might try it? What pleasure would there be in angling if the fish did not try to get off the hook, but stupidly swallowed it, fly and all? It might as well crawl out of the stream at once and lay itself meekly down in the basket.

      And Marcello came back, before he had taken four steps.

      "Is that what you meant when you said that you might never come here again?" he asked, and there was something rough in his tone that pleased her.

      "No," she answered, as if nothing had happened. "Mamma talked to me a long time last night."

      "What did she say?"

      "Do you want to know?"

      "Yes."

      "There is no reason why I should not tell you. She says that we must not come here after I go into society, because people will think that she is trying to marry me to you."

      She looked at him boldly for a moment, and then turned her eyes to the sea.

      "Why should she care what people think?" he asked.

      "Because it would prevent me from marrying any one else," answered Aurora, with the awful cynicism of youth. "If every one thought I was engaged to you, or going to be, no other man could ask for me. It's simple enough, I'm sure!"

      "And you wish other men to ask you to marry them, I suppose?"

      Marcello was a little pale, but he tried to throw all the contempt he could command into his tone. Aurora smiled sweetly.

      "Naturally," she said. "I'm only a woman."

      "Which means that I'm a fool to care for you!"

      "You are, if you think I'm not worth caring for." The girl laughed.

      This was so very hard to understand that Marcello knit his smooth young brow and looked very angry, but could find nothing to say on the spur of the moment. All women are born with the power to put a man into such a position that he must either contradict himself, hold his tongue, or fly into a senseless rage. They do this so easily, that even after the experience of a life-time we never suspect the trap until they pull the string and we are caught. Then, if we contradict ourselves, woman utters an inhuman cry of triumph and jeers at our unstable purpose; if we lose our tempers instead, she bursts into tears and calls us brutes; and finally, if we say nothing, she declares, with a show of reason, that we have nothing to say.

      "HE FLUSHED AGAIN, VERY ANGRY THIS TIME, AND HE MOVED AWAY TO LEAVE HER, WITHOUT ANOTHER WORD."

      Marcello lost his temper.

      "You are quite right," he said angrily. "You are not worth caring for. You are a mere child, and you are a miserable little flirt already, and you will be a detestable woman when you grow up! You will lead men on, and play with them, and then laugh at them. But you shall not laugh at me again. You shall not have that satisfaction! You shall wish me back, but I will not come, not if you break your silly little heart!"

      With this terrific threat the boy strode away, leaving her to watch the storm alone in the lee of the sandbank. Aurora knew that he really meant to go this time, and at first she was rather glad of it, since he was in such a very bad temper. She felt that he had insulted her, and if he had stayed any longer she would doubtless have called him a brute, that being the woman's retort under the circumstances. She had not the slightest doubt of being quite reconciled with him before luncheon, of course, but in her heart she wished that she had not made him angry. It had been very pleasant to watch the storm together, and when they had come to the place, she had felt a strong presentiment that he would kiss her, and that the contrast between the kiss and the howling gale would be very delightful.

      The presentiment had certainly not come true, and now that Marcello was gone it was not very amusing to feel the spray and the sand on her face, or to watch the tumbling breakers and listen to the wind. Besides, she had been there some time, and she had not even had her little breakfast of coffee and rolls before coming down to the shore. She suddenly felt hungry and cold and absurdly inclined to cry, and she became aware that the sand had got into her russet shoes, and that it would be very uncomfortable to sit down in such a place to take them off and shake it out; and that, altogether, misfortunes never come singly.

      After standing still three or four minutes longer, she turned away with a discontented look in her face, all rosy with the wind and spray. She started as she saw Corbario standing before her, for she had not heard his footsteps in the gale. He wore his shooting-coat and heavy leathern gaiters, but he had no gun. She thought he looked pale, and that there was a shade of anxiety in his usually expressionless face.

      "We wondered where you were," he said. "There is coffee in the verandah, and your mother is out already."

      "I came down to look at the storm," Aurora answered. "I forgot all about breakfast."

      They made a few steps in the direction of the cottage. Aurora felt that Corbario was looking sideways at her as they walked.

      "Have you seen Marcello?" he asked presently.

      "Did you not meet him?" Aurora was surprised. "It is not five minutes since he left me."

      "No. I did not meet him."

      "That is strange."

      They went on in silence for a few moments.

      "I cannot understand why you did not meet Marcello," Aurora said suddenly, as if she had thought it over. "Did you come this way?"

      "Yes."

      "Perhaps he got back before you started. He walks very fast."

      "Perhaps," Corbario said, "but I did not see him. I came to look for you both."

      "Expecting to find us together, of course!" Aurora threw up her head a little disdainfully, for Marcello had offended her.

      "He is generally somewhere near you, poor boy," answered Corbario in a tone of pity.

      "Why do you say 'poor boy' in that tone? Do you think he is so much to be pitied?"

      "A little, certainly." Corbario smiled.

      "I don't see why."

      "Women never do, when a man is in love!"

      "Women"—the flattery was subtle and Aurora's face cleared. Corbario was a man of the world, without doubt, and he had called her a woman, in a most natural way, as if she had been at least twenty years old. It did not occur to her to ask herself whether Folco had any object in wishing to please her just then, but she knew well enough that he did wish to do so. Even a girl's instinct is unerring in that; and Corbario further pleased her by not pursuing the subject, for what he had said seemed all the more spontaneous because it led to nothing.

      "If Marcello is not in the cottage," he observed, as they came near, "he must have gone off for a walk after he left you. Did you not see which way he turned?"

      "How could I from the place where I stood?" asked Aurora in reply. "As soon as he had turned behind the bank it was impossible to say which way he had gone."

      "Of course," assented Folco. "I understand that."

      Marcello had not come home, and Aurora was sorry that she had teased him into a temper and had then allowed him to go away. It was not good for him, delicate as he was, to go for a long walk in such weather without any breakfast, and she felt distinctly contrite as she ate her roll in silence and drank her coffee, on the sheltered side of the cottage, under the verandah. The Signora Corbario had not appeared yet, but the Contessa

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