CHAPTER XL.THE FIRST LOVE.
“Oh, Love, poor Love, availThee nothing now thy faiths, thy braveries?There is no sun, no bloom; a cold wind stripsThe bitter foam from off the wave where dipsNo more thy prow; thy eyes are hostile eyes;The gold is hidden; vain thy tears and cries;Oh, Love, poor Love, why didst thou burn thy ships?”
“Oh, Love, poor Love, availThee nothing now thy faiths, thy braveries?There is no sun, no bloom; a cold wind stripsThe bitter foam from off the wave where dipsNo more thy prow; thy eyes are hostile eyes;The gold is hidden; vain thy tears and cries;Oh, Love, poor Love, why didst thou burn thy ships?”
“Oh, Love, poor Love, availThee nothing now thy faiths, thy braveries?There is no sun, no bloom; a cold wind stripsThe bitter foam from off the wave where dipsNo more thy prow; thy eyes are hostile eyes;The gold is hidden; vain thy tears and cries;Oh, Love, poor Love, why didst thou burn thy ships?”
“Oh, Love, poor Love, avail
Thee nothing now thy faiths, thy braveries?
There is no sun, no bloom; a cold wind strips
The bitter foam from off the wave where dips
No more thy prow; thy eyes are hostile eyes;
The gold is hidden; vain thy tears and cries;
Oh, Love, poor Love, why didst thou burn thy ships?”
John Dinsmore holds the girl off at arm’s length and looks down into the sweet, innocent young face with troubled eyes.
“You love me!” he repeated, as though he were not quite sure that he heard aright.
Jess pushes back the soft black curls from her face and laughs gayly, and the sound of her voice is like the music of silver bells. She does not answer his question in words, but nods her dark, curly head emphatically.
His hands fall from her; he turns abruptly and takes one or two turns up and down the length of the long drawing-room.
How shall he utter the words to her which he has come here to say? How shall he tell her that he is there to say good-by to her forever?
“Do you know what I have been thinking ever since I came to this house?” she asked, as he paused an instant by her side, with the deep, troubled look on his face which so mystified her.
“No,” he answered, hoarsely, glad that she was aboutto say something, for it would give him a moment or two longer in which to come to a conclusion.
“I was thinking how very stupid I am, and how wonderful it was that you married a little simpleton like me.”
That was the very opening he needed, to utter that which was weighing heavily on his mind; but without giving him the opportunity, although his lips had opened to speak, she went on, blithely:
“I am going to study hard and become very wise, like the lady I am visiting here. But, oh, I forgot; you do not know Queenie—Mrs. Brown, I mean; but, dear me, it seems so odd to call her Mrs. anybody, she is so much more like an unmarried girl. Oh, she is so lovely, and graceful, and sweet. Do you know, it occurred to me only yesterday that had you seen her first, even though she is a widow, you might have fallen in love with her instead of me.”
This was becoming almost unendurable. Who knew better than he the charms of Queenie?
“I am going to be stately and dignified like she is, and I am going to be wise and womanly. Do you think you will love me quite as much then as you do now?”
He could safely answer “Yes,” for he did not love her at all.
“Thank you so much for assuring me of it,” she murmured, seizing his white hands and covering them with kisses. “Now I shall begin with a will.”
The girl did not seem to notice the shadow that was growing each moment still deeper on his face, and the look of despair that was gathering in his troubled eyes, and the gravity, almost to sternness, that had settled about his mouth.
Each moment this bright, gay child, who loved him so dearly, and was telling him so in every word, act and deed, was making the task before him but the harder.
How would she take it when he told her that she need make no sacrifices, or study, on his account, for he never intended to see her again?
“You do not know how much I have thought about you since I left you that day on the farm,” she went on. “When you faded from my sight in the distance, though Istrained my eyes hard to look back at you, standing there on the old porch, I bowed my head and wept so piteously that poor old Lawyer Abbot was in great fear lest my heart should break. I never knew until then what love, that they talk about, really was.
“All in a moment it seemed to take a deeper root in my heart—my life seemed to merge into yours—and I lived with but one thought in my mind, of the time when you should come for me, and I should never have to leave you again—-never, never, never! And every moment since my heart has longed for you, cried out for you. You were the last thought I had when I closed my eyes in sleep; and then I dreamed of you; and my first thought on awakening was of you—always of you. Is not that the kind of love which the poets tell about, and which you feel toward me?”
This is the opportunity which he has been waiting for, and he attempts to grasp it, and get the disagreeable task over. It is the golden chance he has been so eager for.
Slowly he puts his hands on both of the girl’s shoulders, and looks down into her beaming, dimpled, happy face, and in a low, trembling voice he says:
“My little wife”—it is the first time he has called her wife. He has never before addressed her by an endearing term. It has always been “Child,” or “little Jess,” before, and every fiber of the young wife’s being responds to that sweetest of names—“My little wife.”
As John Dinsmore utters these words he sinks down in the chair opposite her, but the words he is trying to speak rise in his throat and choke him.
In an instant two soft, plump arms are around his neck, a pair of soft, warm lips are kissing his death-cold cheek, and a pair of little hands are caressing him. His child-wife has flung herself into his lap, exclaiming:
“That is the first time you ever called me wife, and, oh, how sweet it sounded to my ears.”
John Dinsmore’s heart smote him. He could not utter the words which would hurl her down from heaven to the darkest of despair just then.
“Let her live in the Paradise of her own creating at least another day,” he ruminated; and then a still brighterthought occurred to him, to write to Jess, telling her all. If she wept then, or fainted, or went mad from grief, he would not be there to witness it. He was not brave enough to give her her death wound, with the cruel words that they must part, while she was clinging to him in such rapturous bliss, covering his face with kisses.
And that was the sight that met Queenie’s gaze as she returned to the drawing-room a few moments later.
Jess in her husband’s lap, her face pressed close to his.
For a moment Queenie stood as though rooted to the threshold. She had purposely remained out of the apartment, seeing Jess enter, until he had time enough to tell her his errand there, and the picture that met her startled eyes went through her heart like the sharp thrust of a sword.
“My God! is it possible that he has changed his mind about parting from her? Does he love her?” was Queenie’s mental cry.
At the sight of the beautiful vision in the doorway, John Dinsmore springs to his feet, putting his young wife hastily from him.
Jess is blushing like a full-blown rose in June.
“Oh, Mrs. Brown—Queenie—don’t be so terribly shocked, please,” she cries, dancing to her side and flinging her arms around her. “I am going to explain something about this gentleman which will surprise you dreadfully. He is my husband!” And as she utters the words triumphantly, she steps back and looks at Queenie, cresting her pretty head sideways, like a young robin.
It is a most embarrassing moment for Dinsmore. He stands pale and silent, between them, wondering if ever mortal man was placed in such a wretched predicament. On one side stands the girl he loves, the girl he wooed and lost on that never-to-be-forgotten summer by the murmuring sea, and on the other side the girl who loves him, the girl to whom he is bound fast by marriage bonds, and to whom he owes loyalty and protection. From deathlike paleness his face flushed hotly.
He longed to seize his hat and rush from the house. In his dilemma fate favored him. There is a ring at thebell, and the next instant callers are announced in the sonorous voice of the servant.
John Dinsmore seized this opportunity to make his adieus. He never afterward remembered just how it was accomplished, or what he said. He only remembered telling Jess that she should hear from him on the morrow. The next instant the cold air of the street was blowing on his face.
He had gone without kissing the quivering mouth of his young girl-bride. He had not even seen that it was held up to him for a parting caress.
Queenie noted that fact in triumph.
“It would not take so long to get a divorce from her, and then—— Ah, Heaven! the one longing of her life would be granted. She would be his wife.”
Queenie was so carried away with her own thoughts and anticipations that she was barely conscious that the girl-wife’s arms were once more thrown about her, and Jess was whispering in her ear:
“Now you know why I could not marry the other one, and did not wish to see him again. I was already a wife. What do you think of my—my husband? Is he not adorable?”