第65章 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH(3)

I attempted to interfere and put things right. My easy philosophy and my volatile French nature, failed to see any adequate cause for this vehement exhibition of resentment on Lucilla's part. Something in my tone, as I suppose, only added to her irritation. I, in my turn, was checked sternly at the first word. "You proposed it," she said; "You are the most to blame." I hastened to make my apologies (inwardly remarking that the habit of raising a storm in a tea-cup is a growing habit with the rising generation in England). Nugent followed me with more apologies on his side. Oscar supported us with his superior influence. He took Lucilla's hand--kissed it--and whispered something in her ear. The kiss and the whisper acted like a charm. She held out her hand to Nugent, she put her arm round my neck and embraced me, with all her own grace and sweetness. "Forgive me," she said to us gently. "I wish I could learn to be patient. But, oh, Mr. Nugent, it is sometimes so hard to be blind!" I can repeat the words; but I can give no idea of the touching simplicity with which they were spoken--of her innocently earnest anxiety to win her pardon. She so affected Nugent that he too--after a look at Oscar which said, "May I?"--kissed the hand that she offered to him. As his lips touched her, she started. The bright flush which always indicated the sudden rising of a thought in her mind, flew over her face. She unconsciously held Nugent's hand in her own, absorbed in the interest of realizing the new thought. For a moment, she stood, still as a statue, consulting with herself. The moment passed, she dropped Nugent's hand, and turned gaily to me.

"Will you think me very obstinate?" she asked.

"Why, my love?"

"I am not satisfied yet. I want to try again."

"No! no! At any rate not to-day."

"I want to try again," she repeated. "Not in your way. In a way of my own that has just come into my head." She turned to Oscar. "Will you humour me in this?" It is needless to set down Oscar's reply. She turned to Nugent. "Will you?"

"Only say what you wish me to do!" he answered.

"Go with your brother," she said, "to the other end of the room. I know where you are each of you standing, at this end. Madame Pratolungo will lead me to the place, and will put me just within reach of both your hands. I want each of you in turn (arrange by a sign between yourselves which is to begin) to take my hand, and hold it for a moment, and then drop it. I have an idea that I can distinguish between you, in that way--and I want very much to try it."

The brothers went silently to the other end of the room. I led Lucilla, after them, to the place in which they stood. At my suggestion, Nugent was the first to take her hand, as she had requested; to hold it for a moment, and then to drop it.

"Nugent!" she said, without the slightest hesitation.

"Quite right," I answered.

She laughed gaily. "Go on! Puzzle me if you possibly can.

The brothers noiselessly changed places. Oscar took her hand, standing exactly where Nugent had stood.

"Oscar!" she said.

"Right again," I told her.

At a sign from Nugent, Oscar took her hand for the second time. She repeated his name. At a sign from me, the brothers noiselessly placed themselves, one on either side of her--Oscar on the left; Nugent on the right. I gave them the signal; and they each took one of her hands at the same moment. This time, she waited a little longer before she spoke. When she did speak, she was right once more. She turned smiling, towards the left side, pointed to him as he stood by her, and said, "Oscar!"

We were all three equally surprised. I examined Oscar's hand and Nugent's hand alternately. Except the fatal difference in the color, they were, to all intents and purposes, the same hands--the same size, the same shape, the same texture of skin; no scar or mark on the hand of one to distinguish it from the hand of the other. By what mysterious process of divination had she succeeded in discovering which was which?

She was unwilling, or unable, to reply to that question plainly.

"Something in me answers to one of them and not to the other," she said.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I don't know. It answers to Oscar. It doesn't answer to Nugent--that's all."

She stopped any further inquiries by proposing that we should finish the evening with some music, in her own sitting-room, on the other side of the house. When we were seated together at the pianoforte--with the twin-brothers established as our audience at the other end of the room--she whispered in my ear:

"I'll tell _you!_"

"Tell me what?"

"How I know which is which when they both of them take my hand. When Oscar takes it, a delicious tingle runs from his hand into mine, and steals all over me. I can't describe it any better than that."

"I understand. And when Nugent takes your hand, what do you feel?"

"Nothing!"

"And that is how you found out the difference between them down-stairs?"

"That is how I shall always find out the difference between them. If Oscar's brother ever attempts to play tricks upon my blindness (he is quite capable of it--he laughed at my blindness!), that is how I shall find him out. I told you before I saw him that I hated him. I hate him still."

"My dear Lucilla!"

"I hate him still!"

She struck the first chords on the piano, with an obstinate frown on her pretty brow. Our little evening concert began.