CHAPTER XXIII. TREATS OF A HANDKERCHIEF
Running through Beckley Park, clear from the chalk, a little stream gave light and freshness to its pasturage. Near where it entered, a bathing-house of white marble had been built, under which the water flowed, and the dive could be taken to a paved depth, and you swam out over a pebbly bottom into sun-light, screened by the thick-weeded banks, loose-strife and willow-herb, and mint, nodding over you, and in the later season long-plumed yellow grasses. Here at sunrise the young men washed their limbs, and here since her return home English Rose loved to walk by night. She had often spoken of the little happy stream to Evan in Portugal, and when he came to Beckley Court, she arranged that he should sleep in a bed-room overlooking it. The view was sweet and pleasant to him, for all the babbling of the water was of Rose, and winding in and out, to East, to North, it wound to embowered hopes in the lover’s mind, to tender dreams; and often at dawn, when dressing, his restless heart embarked on it, and sailed into havens, the phantom joys of which coloured his life for him all the day. But most he loved to look across it when the light fell. The palest solitary gleam along its course spoke to him rich promise. The faint blue beam of a star chained all his longings, charmed his sorrows to sleep. Rose like a fairy had breathed her spirit here, and it was a delight to the silly luxurious youth to lie down, and fix some image of a flower bending to the stream on his brain, and in the cradle of fancies that grew round it, slide down the tide of sleep.
From the image of a flower bending to the stream, like his own soul to the bosom of Rose, Evan built sweet fables. It was she that exalted him, that led him through glittering chapters of adventure. In his dream of deeds achieved for her sake, you may be sure the young man behaved worthily, though he was modest when she praised him, and his limbs trembled when the land whispered of his great reward to come. The longer he stayed at Beckley the more he lived in this world within world, and if now and then the harsh outer life smote him, a look or a word from Rose encompassed him again, and he became sensible only of a distant pain.
At first his hope sprang wildly to possess her, to believe, that after he had done deeds that would have sent ordinary men in the condition of shattered hulks to the hospital, she might be his. Then blow upon blow was struck, and he prayed to be near her till he died: no more. Then she, herself, struck him to the ground, and sitting in his chamber, sick and weary, on the evening of his mishap, Evan’s sole desire was to obtain the handkerchief he had risked his neck for. To have that, and hold it to his heart, and feel it as a part of her, seemed much.
Over a length of the stream the red round harvest-moon was rising, and the weakened youth was this evening at the mercy of the charm that encircled him. The water curved, and dimpled, and flowed flat, and the whole body of it rushed into the spaces of sad splendour. The clustered trees stood like temples of darkness; their shadows lengthened supernaturally; and a pale gloom crept between them on the sward. He had been thinking for some time that Rose would knock at his door, and give him her voice, at least; but she did not come; and when he had gazed out on the stream till his eyes ached, he felt that he must go and walk by it. Those little flashes of the hurrying tide spoke to him of a secret rapture and of a joy-seeking impulse; the pouring onward of all the blood of life to one illumined heart, mournful from excess of love.
Pardon me, I beg. Enamoured young men have these notions. Ordinarily Evan had sufficient common sense and was as prosaic as mankind could wish him; but he has had a terrible fall in the morning, and a young woman rages in his brain. Better, indeed, and ‘more manly,’ were he to strike and raise huge bosses on his forehead, groan, and so have done with it. We must let him go his own way.
At the door he was met by the Countess. She came into the room without a word or a kiss, and when she did speak, the total absence of any euphuism gave token of repressed excitement yet more than her angry eyes and eager step. Evan had grown accustomed to her moods, and if one moment she was the halcyon, and another the petrel, it no longer disturbed him, seeing that he was a stranger to the influences by which she was affected. The Countess rated him severely for not seeking repose and inviting sympathy. She told him that the Jocelyns had one and all combined in an infamous plot to destroy the race of Harrington, and that Caroline had already succumbed to their assaults; that the Jocelyns would repent it, and sooner than they thought for; and that the only friend the Harringtons had in the house was Miss Bonner, whom Providence would liberally reward.
Then the Countess changed to a dramatic posture, and whispered aloud, ‘Hush: she is here. She is so anxious. Be generous, my brother, and let her see you!’
‘She?’ said Evan, faintly. ‘May she come, Louisa?’ He hoped for Rose.
‘I have consented to mask it,’ returned the Countess. ‘Oh, what do I not sacrifice for you!’
She turned from him, and to Evan’s chagrin introduced Juliana Bonner.
‘Five minutes, remember!’ said the Countess. ‘I must not hear of more.’ And then Evan found himself alone with Miss Bonner, and very uneasy. This young lady had restless brilliant eyes, and a contraction about the forehead which gave one the idea of a creature suffering perpetual headache. She said nothing, and when their eyes met she dropped hers in a manner that made silence too expressive. Feeling which, Evan began:
‘May I tell you that I think it is I who ought to be nursing you, not you me?’
Miss Bonner replied by lifting her eyes and dropping them as before, murmuring subsequently, ‘Would you do so?’
‘Most certainly, if you did me the honour to select me.’
The fingers of the young lady commenced twisting and intertwining on her lap. Suddenly she laughed:
‘It would not do at all. You won’t be dismissed from your present service till you ‘re unfit for any other.’
‘What do you mean?’ said Evan, thinking more of the unmusical laugh than of the words.
He received no explanation, and the irksome silence caused him to look through the window, as an escape for his mind, at least. The waters streamed on endlessly into the golden arms awaiting them. The low moon burnt through the foliage. In the distance, over a reach of the flood, one tall aspen shook against the lighted sky.
‘Are you in pain?’ Miss Bonner asked, and broke his reverie.
‘No; I am going away, and perhaps I sigh involuntarily.’
‘You like these grounds?’
‘I have never been so happy in any place.’
‘With those cruel young men about you?’
Evan now laughed. ‘We don’t call young men cruel, Miss Bonner.’
‘But were they not? To take advantage of what Rose told them—it was base!’
She had said more than she intended, possibly, for she coloured under his inquiring look, and added: ‘I wish I could say the same as you of Beckley. Do you know, I am called Rose’s thorn?’
‘Not by Miss Jocelyn herself, certainly!’
‘How eager you are to defend her. But am I not—tell me—do I not look like a thorn in company with her?’
‘There is but the difference that ill health would make.’
‘Ill health? Oh, yes! And Rose is so much better born.’
‘To that, I am sure, she does not give a thought.’
‘Not Rose? Oh!’
An exclamation, properly lengthened, convinces the feelings more satisfactorily than much logic. Though Evan claimed only the hand-kerchief he had won, his heart sank at the sound. Miss Bonner watched him, and springing forward, said sharply:
‘May I tell you something?’
‘You may tell me what you please.’
‘Then, whether I offend you or not, you had better leave this.’
‘I am going,’ said Evan. ‘I am only waiting to introduce your tutor to you.’
She kept her eyes on him, and in her voice as well there was a depth, as she returned:
‘Mr. Laxley, Mr. Forth, and Harry, are going to Lymport to-morrow.’
Evan was looking at a figure, whose shadow was thrown towards the house from the margin of the stream.
He stood up, and taking the hand of Miss Bonner, said:
‘I thank you. I may, perhaps, start with them. At any rate, you have done me a great service, which I shall not forget.’
The figure by the stream he knew to be that of Rose. He released Miss Bonner’s trembling moist hand, and as he continued standing, she moved to the door, after once following the line of his eyes into the moonlight.
Outside the door a noise was audible. Andrew had come to sit with his dear boy, and the Countess had met and engaged and driven him to the other end of the passage, where he hung remonstrating with her.
‘Why, Van,’ he said, as Evan came up to him, ‘I thought you were in a profound sleep. Louisa said—’
‘Silly Andrew!’ interposed the Countess, ‘do you not observe he is sleep-walking now?’ and she left them with a light laugh to go to Juliana, whom she found in tears. The Countess was quite aware of the efficacy of a little bit of burlesque lying to cover her retreat from any petty exposure.
Evan soon got free from Andrew. He was under the dim stars, walking to the great fire in the East. The cool air refreshed him. He was simply going to ask for his own, before he went, and had no cause to fear what would be thought by any one. A handkerchief! A man might fairly win that, and carry it out of a very noble family, without having to blush for himself.
I cannot say whether he inherited his feeling for rank from Mel, his father, or that the Countess had succeeded in instilling it, but Evan never took Republican ground in opposition to those who insulted him, and never lashed his ‘manhood’ to assert itself, nor compared the fineness of his instincts with the behaviour of titled gentlemen. Rather he seemed to admit the distinction between his birth and that of a gentleman, admitting it to his own soul, as it were, and struggled simply as men struggle against a destiny. The news Miss Bonner had given him sufficed to break a spell which could not have endured another week; and Andrew, besides, had told him of Caroline’s illness. He walked to meet Rose, honestly intending to ask for his own, and wish her good-bye.
Rose saw him approach, and knew him in the distance. She was sitting on a lower branch of the aspen, that shot out almost from the root, and stretched over the intervolving rays of light on the tremulous water. She could not move to meet him. She was not the Rose whom we have hitherto known. Love may spring in the bosom of a young girl, like Helper in the evening sky, a grey speck in a field of grey, and not be seen or known, till surely as the circle advances the faint planet gathers fire, and, coming nearer earth, dilates, and will and must be seen and known. When Evan lay like a dead man on the ground, Rose turned upon herself as the author of his death, and then she felt this presence within her, and her heart all day had talked to her of it, and was throbbing now, and would not be quieted. She could only lift her eyes and give him her hand; she could not speak. She thought him cold, and he was; cold enough to think that she and her cousin were not unlike in their manner, though not deep enough to reflect that it was from the same cause.
She was the first to find her wits: but not before she spoke did she feel, and start to feel, how long had been the silence, and that her hand was still in his.
‘Why did you come out, Evan? It was not right.’
‘I came to speak to you. I shall leave early to-morrow, and may not see you alone.’
‘You are going–?’
She checked her voice, and left the thrill of it wavering in him.
‘Yes, Rose, I am going; I should have gone before.’
‘Evan!’ she grasped his hand, and then timidly retained it. ‘You have not forgiven me? I see now. I did not think of any risk to you. I only wanted you to beat. I wanted you to be first and best. If you knew how I thank God for saving you! What my punishment would have been!’
Till her eyes were full she kept them on him, too deep in emotion to be conscious of it.
He could gaze on her tears coldly.
‘I should be happy to take the leap any day for the prize you offered. I have come for that.’
‘For what, Evan?’ But while she was speaking the colour mounted in her cheeks, and she went on rapidly:
‘Did you think it unkind of me not to come to nurse you. I must tell you, to defend myself. It was the Countess, Evan. She is offended with me—very justly, I dare say. She would not let me come. What could I do? I had no claim to come.’
Rose was not aware of the import of her speech. Evan, though he felt more in it, and had some secret nerves set tingling and dancing, was not to be moved from his demand.
‘Do you intend to withhold it, Rose?’
‘Withhold what, Evan? Anything that you wish for is yours.’
‘The handkerchief. Is not that mine?’
Rose faltered a word. Why did he ask for it? Because he asked for nothing else, and wanted no other thing save that.
Why did she hesitate? Because it was so poor a gift, and so unworthy of him.
And why did he insist? Because in honour she was bound to surrender it.
And why did she hesitate still? Let her answer.
‘Oh, Evan! I would give you anything but that; and if you are going away, I should beg so much to keep it.’
He must have been in a singular state not to see her heart in the refusal, as was she not to see his in the request. But Love is blindest just when the bandage is being removed from his forehead.
‘Then you will not give it me, Rose? Do you think I shall go about boasting “This is Miss Jocelyn’s handkerchief, and I, poor as I am, have won it”?’
The taunt struck aslant in Rose’s breast with a peculiar sting. She stood up.
‘I will give it you, Evan.’
Turning from him she drew it forth, and handed it to him hurriedly. It was warm. It was stained with his blood. He guessed where it had been nestling, and, now, as if by revelation, he saw that large sole star in the bosom of his darling, and was blinded by it and lost his senses.
‘Rose! beloved!’
Like the flower of his nightly phantasy bending over the stream, he looked and saw in her sweet face the living wonders that encircled his image; she murmuring: ‘No, you must hate me.’
‘I love you, Rose, and dare to say it—and it ‘s unpardonable. Can you forgive me?’
She raised her face to him.
‘Forgive you for loving me?’ she said.
Holy to them grew the stillness: the ripple suffused in golden moonlight: the dark edges of the leaves against superlative brightness. Not a chirp was heard, nor anything save the cool and endless carol of the happy waters, whose voices are the spirits of silence. Nature seemed consenting that their hands should be joined, their eyes intermingling. And when Evan, with a lover’s craving, wished her lips to say what her eyes said so well, Rose drew his fingers up, and, with an arch smile and a blush, kissed them. The simple act set his heart thumping, and from the look of love, she saw an expression of pain pass through him. Her fealty—her guileless, fearless truth—which the kissing of his hand brought vividly before him, conjured its contrast as well in this that was hidden from her, or but half suspected. Did she know—know and love him still? He thought it might be: but that fell dead on her asking:
‘Shall I speak to Mama to-night?’
A load of lead crushed him.
‘Rose!’ he said; but could get no farther.
Innocently, or with well-masked design, Rose branched off into little sweet words about his bruised shoulder, touching it softly, as if she knew the virtue that was in her touch, and accusing her selfish self as she caressed it:
‘Dearest Evan! you must have been sure I thought no one like you. Why did you not tell me before? I can hardly believe it now! Do you know,’ she hurried on, ‘they think me cold and heartless,—am I? I must be, to have made you run such risk; but yet I’m sure I could not have survived you.’
Dropping her voice, Rose quoted Ruth. As Evan listened, the words were like food from heaven poured into his spirit.
‘To-morrow,’ he kept saying to himself, ‘to-morrow I will tell her all. Let her think well of me a few short hours.’
But the passing minutes locked them closer; each had a new link—in a word, or a speechless breath, or a touch: and to break the marriage of their eyes there must be infinite baseness on one side, or on the other disloyalty to love.
The moon was a silver ball, high up through the aspen-leaves. Evan kissed the hand of Rose, and led her back to the house. He had appeased his conscience by restraining his wild desire to kiss her lips.
In the hall they parted. Rose whispered, ‘Till death!’ giving him her hands.
CHAPTER XXIV. THE COUNTESS MAKES HERSELF FELT
There is a peculiar reptile whose stroke is said to deprive men of motion. On the day after the great Mel had stalked the dinner-table of Beckley Court, several of the guests were sensible of the effect of this creature’s mysterious touch, without knowing what it was that paralyzed them. Drummond Forth had fully planned to go to Lymport. He had special reasons for making investigations with regard to the great Mel. Harry, who was fond of Drummond, offered to accompany him, and Laxley, for the sake of a diversion, fell into the scheme. Mr. George Uplift was also to be of the party, and promised them fun. But when the time came to start, not one could be induced to move: Laxley was pressingly engaged by Rose: Harry showed the rope the Countess held him by; Mr. George made a singular face, and seriously advised Drummond to give up the project.
‘Don’t rub that woman the wrong way,’ he said, in a private colloquy they had. ‘By Jingo, she’s a Tartar. She was as a gal, and she isn’t changed, Lou Harrington. Fancy now: she knew me, and she faced me out, and made me think her a stranger! Gad, I’m glad I didn’t speak to the others. Lord’s sake, keep it quiet. Don’t rouse that woman, now, if you want to keep a whole skin.’
Drummond laughed at his extreme earnestness in cautioning him, and appeared to enjoy his dread of the Countess. Mr. George would not tell how he had been induced to change his mind. He repeated his advice with a very emphatic shrug of the shoulder.
‘You seem afraid of her,’ said Drummond.
‘I am. I ain’t ashamed to confess it. She’s a regular viper, my boy!’ said Mr. George. ‘She and I once were pretty thick—least said soonest mended, you know. I offended her. Wasn’t quite up to her mark—a tailor’s daughter, you know. Gad, if she didn’t set an Irish Dragoon Captain on me!—I went about in danger of my life. The fellow began to twist his damned black moustaches the moment he clapped eyes on me—bullied me till, upon my soul, I was almost ready to fight him! Oh, she was a little tripping Tartar of a bantam hen then. She’s grown since she’s been countessed, and does it peacocky. Now, I give you fair warning, you know. She’s more than any man’s match.’
‘I dare say I shall think the same when she has beaten me,’ quoth cynical Drummond, and immediately went and gave orders for his horse to be saddled, thinking that he would tread on the head of the viper.
But shortly before the hour of his departure, Mrs. Evremonde summoned him to her, and showed him a slip of paper, on which was written, in an uncouth small hand:
‘Madam: a friend warns you that your husband is coming here. Deep interest in your welfare is the cause of an anonymous communication. The writer wishes only to warn you in time.’
Mrs. Evremonde told Drummond that she had received it from one of the servants when leaving the breakfast-room. Beyond the fact that a man on horseback had handed it to a little boy, who had delivered it over to the footman, Drummond could learn nothing. Of course, all thought of the journey to Lymport was abandoned. If but to excogitate a motive for the origin of the document, Drummond was forced to remain; and now he had it, and now he lost it again; and as he was wandering about in his maze, the Countess met him with a ‘Good morning, Mr., Forth. Have I impeded your expedition by taking my friend Mr. Harry to cavalier me to-day?’
Drummond smilingly assured her that she had not in any way disarranged his projects, and passed with so absorbed a brow that the Countess could afford to turn her head and inspect him, without fear that he would surprise her in the act. Knocking the pearly edge of her fan on her teeth, she eyed him under her joined black lashes, and deliberately read his thoughts in the mere shape of his back and shoulders. She read him through and through, and was unconscious of the effective attitude she stood in for the space of two full minutes, and even then it required one of our unhappy sex to recall her. This was Harry Jocelyn.
‘My friend,’ she said to him, with a melancholy smile, ‘my one friend here!’
Harry went through the form of kissing her hand, which he had been taught, and practised cunningly as the first step of the ladder.
‘I say, you looked so handsome, standing as you did just now,’ he remarked; and she could see how far beneath her that effective attitude had precipitated the youth.
‘Ah!’ she sighed, walking on, with the step of majesty in exile.
‘What the deuce is the matter with everybody to-day?’ cried Harry. ‘I ‘m hanged if I can make it out. There’s the Carrington, as you call her, I met her with such a pair of eyes, and old George looking as if he’d been licked, at her heels; and there’s Drummond and his lady fair moping about the lawn, and my mother positively getting excited—there’s a miracle! and Juley ‘s sharpening her nails for somebody, and if Ferdinand don’t look out, your brother ‘ll be walking off with Rosey—that ‘s my opinion.’
‘Indeed,’ said the Countess. ‘You really think so?’
‘Well, they come it pretty strong together.’
‘And what constitutes the “come it strong,” Mr. Harry?’
‘Hold of hands; you know,’ the young gentleman indicated.
‘Alas, then! must not we be more discreet?’
‘Oh! but it’s different. With young people one knows what that means.’
‘Deus!’ exclaimed the Countess, tossing her head weariedly, and Harry perceived his slip, and down he went again.
What wonder that a youth in such training should consent to fetch and carry, to listen and relate, to play the spy and know no more of his office than that it gave him astonishing thrills of satisfaction, and now and then a secret sweet reward?
The Countess had sealed Miss Carrington’s mouth by one of her most dexterous strokes. On leaving the dinner-table over-night, and seeing that Caroline’s attack would preclude their instant retreat, the gallant Countess turned at bay. A word aside to Mr. George Uplift, and then the Countess took a chair by Miss Carrington. She did all the conversation, and supplied all the smiles to it, and when a lady has to do that she is justified in striking, and striking hard, for to abandon the pretence of sweetness is a gross insult from one woman to another.
The Countess then led circuitously, but with all the ease in the world, to the story of a Portuguese lady, of a marvellous beauty, and who was deeply enamoured of the Chevalier Miguel de Rasadio, and engaged to be married to him: but, alas for her! in the insolence of her happiness she wantonly made an enemy in the person of a most unoffending lady, and she repented it. While sketching the admirable Chevalier, the Countess drew a telling portrait of Mr. George Uplift, and gratified her humour and her wrath at once by strong truth to nature in the description and animated encomiums on the individual. The Portuguese lady, too, a little resembled Miss Carrington, in spite of her marvellous beauty. And it was odd that Miss Carrington should give a sudden start and a horrified glance at the Countess just when the Countess was pathetically relating the proceeding taken by the revengeful lady on the beautiful betrothed of the Chevalier Miguel de Rasadio: which proceeding was nothing other than to bring to the Chevalier’s knowledge that his beauty had a defect concealed by her apparel, and that the specks in his fruit were not one, or two, but, Oh! And the dreadful sequel to the story the Countess could not tell: preferring ingeniously to throw a tragic veil over it. Miss Carrington went early to bed that night.
The courage that mounteth with occasion was eminently the attribute of the Countess de Saldar. After that dreadful dinner she (since the weaknesses of great generals should not be altogether ignored), did pray for flight and total obscurity, but Caroline could not be left in her hysteric state, and now that she really perceived that Evan was progressing and on the point of sealing his chance, the devoted lady resolved to hold her ground. Besides, there was the pic-nic. The Countess had one dress she had not yet appeared in, and it was for the picnic she kept it. That small motives are at the bottom of many illustrious actions is a modern discovery; but I shall not adopt the modern principle of magnifying the small motive till it overshadows my noble heroine. I remember that the small motive is only to be seen by being borne into the range of my vision by a powerful microscope; and if I do more than see—if I carry on my reflections by the aid of the glass, I arrive at conclusions that must be false. Men who dwarf human nature do this. The gods are juster. The Countess, though she wished to remain for the pic-nic, and felt warm in anticipation of the homage to her new dress, was still a gallant general and a devoted sister, and if she said to herself, ‘Come what may, I will stay for that pic-nic, and they shall not brow-beat me out of it,’ it is that trifling pleasures are noisiest about the heart of human nature: not that they govern us absolutely. There is mob-rule in minds as in communities, but the Countess had her appetites in excellent drill. This pic-nic surrendered, represented to her defeat in all its ignominy. The largest longest-headed of schemes ask occasionally for something substantial and immediate. So the Countess stipulated with Providence for the pic-nic. It was a point to be passed: ‘Thorough flood, thorough fire.’
In vain poor Andrew Cogglesby, to whom the dinner had been torture, and who was beginning to see the position they stood in at Beckley, begged to be allowed to take them away, or to go alone. The Countess laughed him into submission. As a consequence of her audacious spirits she grew more charming and more natural, and the humour that she possessed, but which, like her other faculties, was usually subordinate to her plans, gave spontaneous bursts throughout the day, and delighted her courtiers. Nor did the men at all dislike the difference of her manner with them, and with the ladies. I may observe that a woman who shows a marked depression in the presence of her own sex will be thought very superior by ours; that is, supposing she is clever and agreeable. Manhood distinguishes what flatters it. A lady approaches. ‘We must be proper,’ says the Countess, and her hearty laugh dies with suddenness and is succeeded by the maturest gravity. And the Countess can look a profound merriment with perfect sedateness when there appears to be an equivoque in company. Finely secret are her glances, as if under every eye-lash there lurked the shade of a meaning. What she meant was not so clear. All this was going on, and Lady Jocelyn was simply amused, and sat as at a play.
‘She seems to have stepped out of a book of French memoirs,’ said her ladyship. ‘La vie galante et devote—voila la Comtesse.’
In contradistinction to the other ladies, she did not detest the Countess because she could not like her.
‘Where ‘s the harm in her?’ she asked. ‘She doesn’t damage the men, that I can see. And a person you can laugh at and with, is inexhaustible.’
‘And how long is she to stay here?’ Mrs. Shorne inquired. Mrs. Melville remarking: ‘Her visit appears to be inexhaustible.’
‘I suppose she’ll stay till the Election business is over,’ said Lady Jocelyn.
The Countess had just driven with Melville to Fallow field in Caroline’s black lace shawl.
‘Upwards of four weeks longer!’ Mrs. Melville interjected.
Lady Jocelyn chuckled.
Miss Carrington was present. She had been formerly sharp in her condemnation of the Countess—her affectedness, her euphuism, and her vulgarity. Now she did not say a word, though she might have done it with impunity.
‘I suppose, Emily, you see what Rose is about?’ said Mrs. Melville. ‘I should not have thought it adviseable to have that young man here, myself. I think I let you know that.’
‘One young man’s as good as another,’ responded her ladyship. ‘I ‘ve my doubts of the one that’s much better. I fancy Rose is as good a judge by this time as you or I.’
Mrs. Melville made an effort or two to open Lady Jocelyn’s eyes, and then relapsed into the confident serenity inspired by evil prognostications.
‘But there really does seem some infatuation about these people!’ exclaimed Mrs. Shorne, turning to Miss Current. ‘Can you understand it? The Duke, my dear! Things seem to be going on in the house, that really—and so openly.’
‘That’s one virtue,’ said Miss Current, with her imperturbable metallic voice, and face like a cold clear northern sky. ‘Things done in secret throw on the outsiders the onus of raising a scandal.’
‘You don’t believe, then?’ suggested Mrs. Shorne.
Miss Current replied: ‘I always wait for a thing to happen first.’
‘But haven’t you seen, my dear?’
‘I never see anything, my dear.’
‘Then you must be blind, my dear.’
‘On the contrary, that ‘s how I keep my sight, my dear.’
‘I don’t understand you,’ said Mrs. Shorne.
‘It’s a part of the science of optics, and requires study,’ said Miss Current.
Neither with the worldly nor the unworldly woman could the ladies do anything. But they were soon to have their triumph.
A delicious morning had followed the lovely night. The stream flowed under Evan’s eyes, like something in a lower sphere, now. His passion took him up, as if a genie had lifted him into mid-air, and showed him the world on a palm of a hand; and yet, as he dressed by the window, little chinks in the garden wall, and nectarines under their shiny leaves, and the white walks of the garden, were stamped on his hot brain accurately and lastingly. Ruth upon the lips of Rose: that voice of living constancy made music to him everywhere. ‘Thy God shall be my God.’ He had heard it all through the night. He had not yet broken the tender charm sufficiently to think that he must tell her the sacrifice she would have to make. When partly he did, the first excuse he clutched at was, that he had not even kissed her on the forehead. Surely he had been splendidly chivalrous? Just as surely he would have brought on himself the scorn of the chivalrous or of the commonly balanced if he had been otherwise. The grandeur of this or of any of his proceedings, then, was forfeited, as it must needs be when we are in the false position: we can have no glory though martyred. The youth felt it, even to the seeing of why it was; and he resolved, in justice to the dear girl, that he would break loose from his fetters, as we call our weakness. Behold, Rose met him descending the stairs, and, taking his hand, sang, unabashed, by the tell-tale colour coming over her face, a stave of a little Portuguese air that they had both been fond of in Portugal; and he, listening to it, and looking in her eyes, saw that his feelings in—the old time had been hers. Instantly the old time gave him its breath, the present drew back.