The good God gave hands, left and right,To deal with divers foes in fight;And eyes He gave all sights to hold;And limbs for pacings manifold;Gave tongue to taste both sour and sweet,Gave gust for salad, fish and meat;But, Christian Sir, whoe'er thou art,Trust not thy many-chambered heart!Give not one bow'r to Blonde, and yetRetain a room for the Brunette:Whoever gave each other part,The devil planned and built the heart!—In a Double Locket.
Clara, Amidon and Blatherwick were on their way to Bellevale. The professor was in the smoking-car, his daughter and Florian in the parlor-car. Amidon, his nerves strained to the point of agony, sat dreading the end of the journey, as one falling from an air-ship might shrink from the termination of his. Madame le Claire brooded over him maternally.
"Of course," said Amidon, "this Brassfield must have adopted some course of behavior toward Miss Waldron, when——"
"You must call her Elizabeth," said Madame le Claire, "and——"
"And what?" he inquired, as she failed to break the pause. "Have you found out—much—about it—from him?"
"Not so very much," she replied, "only she'll expect such things as 'dearest' and 'darling' at times. And occasionally 'pet' and 'sweetheart'—and 'dearie.' I can't give them all; you must extemporize a little, can't you?"
"Merciful heaven!" groaned Amidon; "I can't do it!"
"You have," said Madame le Claire; "and more—a good deal more."
"It was that scoundrel Brassfield," said he, in perfect seriousness. "More? What do you mean by 'more'?"
"Well, sometimes you——"
"He, not I!"
"You, I think we had better say—sometimes, when you were alone, your arm went about her waist; her head was drawn down upon your bosom; and with your hand, you turned her face to yours, and——"
"Clara, stop!" Amidon's bashful being was wrung to the sweating-point as he uttered the cry. "I never could have done it! And do you mean to say I must now act up to a record of that kind—and with a strange woman? She—she won't permit it—— Oh, you must be mistaken! How do you know this?"
Madame le Claire blushed, and seemed to want words for a reply. Amidon repeated the question.
"I want to know if you are sure," said he. "To make a mistake in that direction would be worse than the other, you know."
"Ah, would it?" said Clara; "I didn't know that!"
"Oh! I think we may take that for granted."
"You really don't get a grain of good from your Brassfield experience," said she, "or you'd know better." Here ensued a long silence, during which Amidon appeared to be pondering on her extraordinary remark.
"But, as to the fact," urged he at last, "how can you guess out any such state of things as you describe?"
"Can'tyouguess a little bit more once in a while? I know about it, from Mr. Brassfield's treatment—of—of me—when I made him think—that I—was Elizabeth! Oh, don't you see that I had to do it, so as to know, and tell you? Oh, I wish I had never, never begun this! I do, I do!"
A parlor-car has no conveniences whatever for heroics, hysterics or weeping, so miserably are our American railways managed; and Clara winked back into her eyes the tears which filled them, and Amidon looked at her tenderly.
"Did I, really," said he confusedly—"to you?"
"M'h'm," said Madame le Claire, nodding affirmatively; "I couldn't stop you!"
"It must have been dreadful—for you," said Amidon.
"Awful," said she; "but the work had to be done, you know."
"Oh, if it were you, now," said he, laying his hand on hers, "I could do it, if you didn't mind. I—I should like to, you know."
"Now see here," said Clara; "if you're just practising this, as a sort of rehearsal, you must go further and faster than a public place like this allows, or you'll seem cold by comparison with what has passed. If you mean what you say, let me remind you that you're engaged!"
Mr. Amidon swore softly, but sincerely. Somehow, the pitiful case of the girl who had written that letter with which he had fallen in love, had less and less of appeal to him as the days drifted by. And now, while the duty of which he had assured himself still impelled him to her side, he confessed that this other girl with the variegated hair and eyes, and the power to annihilate and restore him, the occultist with the thrilling gaze and the strong, supple figure, was calling more and more to the aboriginal man within him. So, while he took Elizabeth's letters from his pocket and read them, to get, if possible, some new light on her character, it was Clara's face that his eyes sought, as he glanced over the top of the sheet. Ah, Florian, with one girl's love-letter in your hands, and the face of another held in that avid gaze, can you be the bashful banker-bachelor who could not discuss the new style of ladies' figures with Mrs. Hunter! And as we thus moralize, the train sweeps on and on, and into Bellevale, where Judge Blodgett waits upon the platform for our arrival.
The judge stood by the steps to seize upon Amidon as he alighted. That gentleman and Madame le Claire, however, perversely got off at the other end of the car. As they walked down the platform, Florian met his first test, in the salutation of a young woman in a tailor-made gown, who nodded and smiled to him from a smart trap at a short distance from the station, where she seemed to be waiting for some one.
"Any baggage, Mr. Brassfield?" said a drayman.
"Yes," said Amidon; "take the checks."
"Do these go to the hotel, or——" The man waited for directions.
"I don't—that is," said the poor fellow, "I really—— Just wait a minute! Judge," this in a whisper to his friend, who had reached his side, "this is terrible! Where do I want to go?—and for the love of Heaven, where does this hound take my luggage?"
"Your lodgings at the Bellevale House!" returned the judge.
"To my lodgings at the Bellevale House," announced Amidon.
"And say," said the judge, "don't look that way; but the young woman in the one-horse trap across the way is your intended."
"No!" said Amidon. "I lifted my hat to her—she nodded to me, you know!"
"The devil!" said the judge; "I'll bet you didn't put any more warmth than a clam into your manner. Well, you'll have to go over, and she'll take you up-town, I suppose. Don't stay with her long, if you can help it, and come to me at the hotel as soon as you can. She's been driving over to see who got off every New York train ever since I came. Go to her, and may the Lord be merciful to you! Here are these notes, if you think they'll help you any—I've added some to 'em since I got down here."
Amidon waved a contemptuous rejection of the notes, and, casting a despairing glance at Madame le Claire, walked over toward his fate. He could have envied the lot of the bull-fighter advancing into the fearful radius of action of a pair of gory horns. He would gladly have changed places with the gladiator who hears the gnashing of bared teeth behind the slowly-opening cage doors. To walk up to the mouths of a battery of hostile Gatlings would have seemed easy, as compared with this present act of his, which was nothing more than stepping to the side of a carriage in which sat a girl, for a place near whom any unattached young man in Bellevale would willingly have placed his eternal welfare in jeopardy.
Point by point, the girl's outward seeming met Amidon's eyes as he neared her. From the platform, it was an impressionistic view of a well-kept trap and horse, and a young woman wearing a picture-hat with a sweeping plume, habited in a gown of modish tailoring, and holding the reins in well-gauntleted hands. As he reached the middle of the street-crossing, the face, surmounted by dark hair, began to show its salient features—great dark eyes, strongly-marked brows, and a strong, sweet mouth with vivid lips. Then came the impression of a form held erect, with the strong shoulders and arms which come from athletics, and the roundnesses which denote that superb animal, the well-developed woman. But it was only as he stood by the side of the carriage that he saw and felt the mingled dignity and frankness, the sureness and lightness of touch, with which she acted or refrained from acting; the lack of haste, the temperateness of gesture and intonation, which bespoke in a moment that type of woman which is society's finished product.
Her lips were parted in a half-smile; the great dark eyes sought his in the calling glance which seeks its companion; and in the face and voice there was something tremulous, vibrant and pleadingly anxious. Yet she did and said only commonplaces. She gave him her hand, and threw over the lap-robe as an invitation for him to take the seat beside her.
"I am glad to see you back, dear," said she, "and a little surprised."
"I hardly expected to come on this train," he answered, "until the very hour of starting. I can—hardly say—how glad I am—to be here."
She was silent, as she drove among the drays and omnibuses, out into the open street. He looked searchingly, though furtively, at her, and blushed as if he had been detected in staring at a girl in the street as she suddenly looked him straight in the face.
"Have you been ill, Eugene?" said she. "You look so worn and tired."
"I have had a very hard time of it since I left," said he; "and have been far from well."
She patted him lightly with her glove.
"You must be careful of yourself," said she, and paused as if to let him supply her reasons for so saying. "I hope your trouble is over, dear."
"Thank you," said he. "I am sure that after a few hours in my rooms, I shall be quite refreshed. Will you please put me down at the Bellevale House? I shall beg the privilege of calling soon."
"Why!" She looked swiftly at him, looked at the horse, and again at him. "Soon?" she went on, as if astonished. "I shall be alone this evening—if you care about it!"
"Oh, yes!" said he confusedly, "this evening, yes! I meant sooner—in a few minutes, you know!"
"No," said she, in that tone which surely denotes the raising of the drawbridge of pique; "you must rest until this evening. Who is the old gentleman who has been waiting two or three days to see you?"
"Judge Blodgett, an old friend," said he, relieved to find some matter with reference to which he could tell the truth.
"And the queer-looking lady—do you know her?"
"Oh, yes!" said Amidon; "she is a good friend, too."
"Ah!" the girl answered, in a tone which said almost anything, but was not by any means without significance. "And who is she?"
"Her professional name is Madame le Claire; in private life, she is Miss Blatherwick."
"I didn't see the rest of the troupe," said Miss Waldron icily; "or perhaps she's an elocutionist."
"No," said Amidon, "she's an occultist—a sort of—well, a hypnotist."
There was a long pause here, during which they drew near to the big brick building on the side of which Amidon saw the sign of the Bellevale House.
"Also an old friend?" inquired Miss Waldron.
"Oh, no!" said Florian; "I met her only a week or two ago."
"She must be very charming," said Elizabeth, "to have inspired so much friendship in so short a time. Here we are at the hotel. Do you really think you'll call this evening?Au revoir, then."
Even the unsophisticated Amidon could perceive, now, that the drawbridge was up, the portcullis down, and all the bars and shutters of the castle in place. Moreover, in the outer darkness in which he moved, he imagined there roamed lions and wolves and ravening beasts—and he with no guide but Judge Blodgett, who stands there in the lobby, so wildly beckoning to him.
When Adam strayedIn Eden's bow'rs,One little maidAmused his hours.He fell! But, friend,I leave to youWhere he'd have droppedHad there been two!—Paradise Rehypothecated.
"Now, Florian," said Judge Blodgett, as they sat in Amidon's rooms, "search yourself, and see if you don't feel a dreamy sense of familiarity here in these rooms—the feeling that the long-lost heir has when he crawls down the chimney as a sweep and finds himself in his ancestral halls, you know."
"Never saw a thing here before," said Amidon, "and have no feeling except surprise at the elegance about me, and a sneaking fear that Brassfield may come in at any time and eject us. The fellow had taste, anyhow!"
"Didn't you recognize anything," went on the judge, "in the streets or buildings or the general landscape?"
"Nothing."
"Nor in the young lady? Wasn't there a sort of—of music in her voice, like long-forgotten melodies, you understand—like what the said heir notices in after years when his mother blunders on to him?"
"Well," said Florian, "her voice is musical, if that's what you mean—musical and low, and reminds one of the sounds made by a great master playing his heart out in the lowest notes of the flute; but it is so far from being familiar to me that I'm quite sure I never heard a voice like it before."
The judge strode up and down the room perturbedly.
"Why," said he, "it's enough to make a man's hair stand!"
"It does," said Amidon. "What can I say to her?"
"You haven't a piece of property here," said the judge, going on with the matters uppermost in his mind, "that you could successfully maintain replevin for, if anybody converted it. They'd ask you on cross-examination if it was yours, and you'd have to say you didn't know! And there's a world of property, I find. They could take it all away from you without your knowing it, if they only knew. Have you any course mapped out—any plans?"
"To a certain extent, yes," said Florian. "I shall call on her this evening."
"For help, yes," said the judge. "She must bring Brassfield up, so that we can find out about some property matters."
"I don't mean that," said Amidon. "I must call on Miss Waldron—Elizabeth."
"And neglect——" began the judge.
"Everything," said Florian firmly. "This is something that concerns my honor as a gentleman. While it remains in its present state, I can't bother with these property matters. Have I an office?"
"Have you!" said the judge. "Well, just wait until you see them."
"And an office force?"
"Confidential manager named Stevens, as per the notes,"; said Judge Blodgett. "Bookkeeper, assistant bookkeeper and stenographer. Tried to pump 'em and got frozen out. Yes, you've got an office force."
"Well, then," said Amidon, "we'll go down there in the morning, and I'll tell this man Stevens—is that what you call him?—to show you all through the books and things—going to buy or take a partnership, or something. Then we can go through the business together. We can do it that way, without being suspected, can't we?"
"Maybe," meditatively, "maybe we can. Take a sort of invoice, hey? But don't you think we'd better have Brassfield on the witness-stand for a while this evening? A sort of cramming—coaching—review, on the eve of trial, you know?"
"No, no!" answered Florian. "No more of that, if it can be avoided."
The judge stroked his mustache in silence for a time.
"See here," asked he finally, "what did we bring madame and the professor down here for, anyway, I'd like to know?"
"I know," said Amidon, "but, somehow, I feel like getting along without it if I can. As little of her—of their—services as possible, Judge, from now on."
"Oh!" said the judge, in a tone of one who suddenly sees the situation; "all right, Florian, all right. Maybe it's best, maybe it's best. Abnormal condition, as the professor says, and all that; effect on the mind, and one thing and another. Yes—yes—yes!"
"If I have any duties to perform here, Judge, you must help me to keep straight. I've never had much tendency to go wrong, you know, but that was for lack of temptation, don't you think, Blodgett?"
"Well, well, Florian, I can't say as to that; can't say. Yes—and say! You'll want to go over to the Waldron residence this evening. I'll take you out and show you the house. By George! It must seem extraordinarily odd to walk about among things you are supposed to know like a book, and to be, in fact, a perfect stranger. Dante could have used that idea, if it had occurred to him."
"An idea for Dante, indeed!" thought Amidon, as he walked toward the house, which, from afar, the judge had pointed out to him. "For theInferno: a soul thrown into a realm full of its friends and enemies, its loves and hates, shorn of memory, of all sense of familiarity, of all its habits, stripped of all the protection of habitude. For theInferno, indeed!—Now this must be the house, with the white columns running up to the top of the second story; crossing the ravine and losing sight of it for a few minutes makes even the house look different. Outside, I can get accustomed to it, in this five-minute inspection. But, inside—oh, to be invisible while I get used to it! Well, here goes!"
"Ding-a-ling-ting-ting!" rang the bell somewhere back in the recesses of the house, and the footsteps of a man approached the door. Amidon was frightened. He had expected either Elizabeth herself, or a maid to take his card, and was prepared for such an encounter only. A little dark, bright-eyed man opened the door and seized his hand.
"Why, Brassfield, how are you?" he exclaimed. "Heard you'd got back. Sorry I couldn't meet you in New York. Got my telegram, I suppose?"
"I just called," said Amidon, "to see Miss Waldron."
"Oh, yes!" said the little man; "nothing but her, now. But she isn't here. Hasn't been for over a week. Nobody here but me. Can't you stay a while? Say, 'Gene, we put Slater through the lodge while you were gone, and he knows he's in, all right enough. Bulliwinkle took that part of yours in the catacombs scene, and you ought to have heard the bones of the early Christians rattle when he bellered out the lecture. 'Here, among the eternal shades of the deep caves of death, walked once the great exemplars of our Ancient Order!' Why, it would raise the hair on a bronze statue. And when, in the second, they condemned him to the Tarpeian Rock, and swung him off into space in the Chest of the Clanking Chains, he howled so that the Sovereign Pontiff made 'em saw off on it, and take him out—and he could hardly stand to receive the Grand and Awful Secret. Limp as a rag! But impressed? Well, he said it was the greatest piece of ritualistic work he ever saw, and he's seen most of 'em. Go to any lodges in New York?"
"No," said Amidon, who had never joined a secret order in his life, "and do you think we ought to talk these things out here?"
"No, maybe not," said the Joiner; "but nobody's about, you know. Come in, can't you?"
"No, I must really go, thank you. By the way," said Florian, "where does Miss—er—I must go, at once, I think!"
"Oh, I know how it is," went on his unknown intimate; "nothing but Bess, now. Might as well bid you good-by, and give you a dimit from all the clubs and lodges, until six months after the wedding. You'll be back by that time, thirstier than ever. By the way, that reminds me: the gang's going to give you a blow-out at the club. Kind of anAuld lang synebusiness, 'champagny-vather an' cracked ice,' chimes at midnight, won't go home till morning, all good fellows and the rest of it. Edgington spoke to you about it, I s'pose?"
"Only in a general way," replied Amidon, wondering who and what Edgington would turn out to be. "I don't know yet how my engagements will be——"
"Oh, nothing must stand in the way of that, you know," the little man went on. "Why, gad! the tenderest feelings of brotherly—— Oh, you don't mean it! But I mustn't keep you. Bessie told me that the plans for your house have come. She's got 'em over there, now. I say, old man, I envy you your evening. Like two birds arranging the nest. Sorry you can't come in; but, good night. And, say! Your little strawberry blonde is in town! Wouldn't that jar you?"
"Heavens!" ejaculated Amidon. "How am I ever to get through with this?"
The genuine agony in Florian's tones fixed the attention of the little man, and seemed to arouse some terrible suspicion.
"Why, 'Gene," said he, "you don't mean that there's anything in this blonde matter, do you, that will—— By George! And she's a sister of one of the most prominent A. O. C. M.'s of Pittsburg—and you remember our solemn obligation!"
"No," said Amidon, "I don't!"
"What! You don't!"
"No!" said Florian. "I've forgotten it!"
"Forgotten it!" said his questioner, recoiling as if in horror. "Forgotten it! And with the sister of the Past Sovereign Pontiff of Pittsburg Lodge No. 863! I tell you, Brassfield, I don't believe it. I prefer to think you're bughouse! Cracked! Out of your head! But, 'Gene," added his unknown brother, in a stage-whisper, "if there has been anything between you and anything comes up, you know, Jim Alvord, for one, knowing and understanding your temptations—for the strawberry blondes are the very devil—will stand by you until the frost gathers six inches deep on the very hinges of—— Say, Mary's coming in at the side door. Good night! Keep a stiff upper lip; stay by Bess, and I'll stay by you, obligation or no obligation. 'F. D. and B.', you know: death, perhaps, but no desertion! So long! See you to-morrow."
And Amidon walked from the house of his unfamiliar chum, knowing that his sweetheart but once seen was waiting in her unknown home for him to come to her, and had as a basis for conversation the plans for their house. He could imagine her with the blue-prints unrolled, examining them with all a woman's interest in such things, and himself discussing with her this house in which she expected him to place her as mistress. And the position she thought she held in his heart—vacant, or—— He leaned against a fence, in bewilderment approaching despair. His mind dwelt with horror on the woman whom he could think of only under the coarse appellation of the strawberry blonde. Was there a real crime here to take the place of the imagined putting away of Brassfield? Brassfield! The very name sickened him. "Strawberry blondes, indeed!" thought Florian; and "Brassfield, the perjured villain!" Certain names used by the little man in the wrong house came to him as having been mentioned in the notes of the professor and the judge. Alvord, the slangy little chap who took so familiar an attitude toward him—this was the judge's "ministerial" friend! Yet, had there not been mention of "ritualistic work" and "Early Christians" in his conversation? And this woman of whom he spoke,—it took no great keenness of perception to see that the "strawberry blonde" must be the "child of six or eight years" whom he had called "Daisy," and sometimes "Strawberry!" Here was confirmation of Alvord's suspicion, if his allusion to the violation of an "obligation" expressed suspicion. Here was a situation from which every fiber of Amidon's nature revolted, seen from any angle, whether the viewpoint of the careful banker and pillar of society, or that of the poetic dreamer waiting for his predestined mate.
In a paroxysm of dread, he started for the hotel. Then he walked down the street toward the railway station, with the thought of boarding the first train out of town. This resolve, however, he changed, and I am glad to say that it was not the thought of the fortune of which Judge Blodgett had spoken that altered his resolution, but that of the letter which greeted his return to consciousness as Florian Amidon, and the image of the dark-eyed girl with the low voice and the strong figure, who had written it, and who waited for him, somewhere, with the roll of plans. So he began searching again for the house with the white columns; and found it on the next corner beyond the one he had first tried.
Elizabeth sat in a fit of depression at the strangeness of Mr. Brassfield's conduct—a depression which deepened as the evening wore on with no visit from him. She sprang to her feet and pressed both hands to her bosom, at the ring of the door-bell, ran lightly to the door and listened as the servant greeted Mr. Brassfield, and then hurried back to her seat by the grate, and became so absorbed in her book that she was oblivious of his being shown into the room, until the maid had retired, leaving him standing at gaze, his brow beaded with sweat, his face pale and his hands unsteady. The early Christian had entered on his martyrdom.
From Camelot to CameliardThe way by bright pavilions starred,In arms and armor all unmarred,To Guinevere rode Lancelot to claim for Arthurhis reward.
Down from her window look't the maidTo see her bridegroom, half afraid—In him saw kingliness arrayed:And summoned by the herald Love to yield, her woman'sheart obeyed.
From Cameliard to CamelotRode Guinevere and Lancelot—Ye bright pavilions, babble not!The king she took, she keeps for king, in spite ofshame, in spite of blot!—From Cameliard to Camelot.
It is a disagreeable duty (one, however, which you and I, madam, discharge with a conscientiousness which the unthinking are sometimes unable to distinguish from zeal) to criticize one's friends. The task is doubly hard when the animadversion is committed to paper, with a more or less definite idea of ultimate publication. I trust, beloved, that we may call Mr. Florian Amidon a friend. He is an honest fellow as the world goes, in spite of the testimony of Simeon Woolaver regarding the steers; and he wishes to do the right thing. In a matter of business, now, or on any question of films, plates or lenses, we should find him full of decision, just and prompt in action. But (and the disagreeable duty of censure comes in here) there he stands like a Stoughton-bottle in a most abject state of woe, because, forsooth, he possesses the love of that budding Juno over there by the grate, and knows not what to do with it! What if hedoesn'tfeel as if he had the slightest personal acquaintance with her? What if the image of another, and the thought——? But look with me, for a moment, at the situation.
There she sits, so attentive to her book (is it theRubaiyat? Yes!) that his entrance has not attracted her notice—not at all! One shapely patent-leather is stretched out to the fender, and the creamy silk of the gown happens to be drawn back so as to show the slender ankle, and a glimpse of black above the leather. The desire for exactness alone compels a reference to the fact that the boundary lines of this silhouetted black area diverge perceptibly as they recede from the shoe. It is only a detail, but even Florian notices it, and thinks about it afterward. Her face is turned toward the shadows up there by the window, her eyes looking at space, as if in quest of Iram and his Rose, or Jamshyd and his Sev'n-ring'd Cup, or the solution of the Master-knot of Human Fate. The unconscious pose showing the incurved spine, and the arms and shoulders glimpsing through falls of lace at sleeve and corsage, would make the fortune of the photographer-in-ordinary to a professional beauty. And yet that man Amidon stands there like a graven image, and fears to rush in where an angel has folded her wings for him and rests!
There she sits so attentive to her book that his entrance has not attracted her notice[Illustration: There she sits so attentive to her bookthat his entrance has not attracted her notice]
There she sits so attentive to her book that his entrance has not attracted her notice[Illustration: There she sits so attentive to her bookthat his entrance has not attracted her notice]
He knows that he is expected to claim some of the privileges of the long-absent lover. He has some information as to their nature. His eyes ought to apprise him (as they do us, my boy!) of their preciousness. He is not without knowledge concerning past conduct of that type which, beginning in hard-won privileges, ripens into priceless duties, not to discharge which is insult all the more bitter because it is not to be mentioned. It is not to be denied that the tableau appeals to him; and because another woman has lately touched him in a similar way, he stands there and condemns himself for that! There is small excuse for him, I admit, sir. Her first token of his presence should have been a kiss on the snowy shoulder. You suggest the hair? Well, the hair, then, though for my part, I have always felt—— But never mind! Had it been you or I in his place——
Yes, my dear, this digression is becoming tedious. Let us proceed with the story.
Elizabeth rose with a little start of surprise, a little flutter of the bosom, and came forward with extended hands. He took them with a trembling grasp which might well have passed as evidence of fervor.
"Ah, Eugene," said she, holding him away, "it has seemed an age!"
"Yes," said he truthfully, "an eternity, almost."
"Sit down by the fire," said she, in that low voice which means so much. "You are cold."
"I am a little cold," he replied. "I must have remained outside too long."
"Y-e-s?" she returned; and after a long pause: "It doesn't seem to take long—sometimes. And the wind is in the east."
Now, when a bride-elect begins to deal in double meanings of this sort with her fiancé, the course of true love is likely to be entering on a piece of rough road-bed.
"How did you find Estelle when you called?"
Estelle? Estelle? Estelle! Nothing in Blodgett and Blatherwick's notes about Estelle. "A whole directory of names," as Judge Blodgett had said, but no Estelle. The world full of useless people—a billion and a half of them—and not an Estelle at poor Amidon's call in this time of need. Hence this long hiatus in the conversation.
"Really, Miss—er—a—my dear, I haven't had time to call on any one."
"It will be a little hard to explain," said she after a silence, "to my prospective bridesmaid and dearest friend, that you were so long in New York and could not call. It is not quite like you, Eugene."
He was sitting where he could see her well, and because she looked into the fire a good deal, he found himself gazing fixedly at her. Her manifold perfections filled him with the same feeling of astonishment experienced by that beggar who awoke in the prince's chamber, clothed in splendor, and with a royal domain in fee.
(Personally, I regard the domain which spread itself before Amidon, as imperial.)
As she pronounced her gentle reproof, her eyes turned to his, and he started guiltily.
"No," he confessed, "it was not the right thing. You must forgive me, won't you?"
"I hope," said she, smiling, "I may be able to do more than that: maybe I shall be so fortunate as to get you Estelle's forgiveness."
"Thank you," he said; and then seeking for safer ground: "Haven't you something for us to look over—some plans or something?"
"'Or something'!" she repeated with a ripple of laughter.
It was the first time he had heard this laugh; and Marot's lines ran through his mind:
"Good God! 'twould make the very streets and waysThrough which she passes, burst into a pleasure!******No spell were wanting from the dead to raise me,But only that sweet laugh wherewith she slays me!"
"'Or something!'" she repeated, I say; "it might just as well be the profiles of a new pipe-line survey, for all the interest you take in it. I oughtn't to look at them with you; but come, they're over here on the table."
Somehow, this lady's air required the deferential offer of his arm; and somehow, the deference seemed to please her. So he felt that the tension was lessened as she turned over the blue-prints. Moreover, in matters of architecture he felt at home—if he could only steer clear of any discussion of the grounds. He had no idea of the location of these.
Soon their heads were close together over the plans. A dozen times her hair brushed his lips, two or three times his fingers touched the satin skin of her arms and shoulders, and all the time he felt himself within the magic atmosphere which enwraps so divine a maiden, as odorous breezes clothe the shores of Ceylon. Her breath, the faint sweet perfume in her hair, the soft frou-frou of her skirts, the appealing lowness of her voice—all these wrought strongly on Florian; and when she leaned lightly upon him as she reached past him for one of the sheets, he felt (I record it to his credit) as if he must take her to his arms, and complete the embrace she had involuntarily half begun. But the feeling that she was, after all, a strange young girl, and was revealing herself to him altogether under a mistake as to his identity, restrained him.
Soon their heads were close together over the plans[Illustration: Soon their heads wereclose together over the plans]
Soon their heads were close together over the plans[Illustration: Soon their heads wereclose together over the plans]
She did not lean against him any more. There were some little improvements in the plans which had occurred to Elizabeth, especially in the arrangement of kitchen, pantry and laundry.
"I'll have the architect come and see you about these," said Amidon.
"What!" said she, in apparent astonishment—"from Boston?"
"Ah—well," he stammered, "I didn't know—that is—— Yes, from Boston! We want these matters as you want them, you know, if it were from Paris or Calcutta. And I think there should be some provision for prism-glass to light up the library. It could be cut in right there on that north exposure; don't you think so?"
"Oh, yes, and what an improvement it will be!" she replied. "And may I have all the editions of Browning I want, even if I couldn't explain whatChilde Roland to the Dark Tower Camemeans?"
"Oh, does that point puzzle you?" exclaimed Florian, greeting the allusion to Browning as the war-horse welcomes the battle. "Then you have never chanced to run across the first edition of Child'sScottish Ballads. You get the story there, of Childe Roland following up the quest for his sister, shut up by enchantment in the Dark Tower, in searching for which his brothers—Cuthbert and Giles, you remember, and the rest of 'The Band'—had been lost. He must blow a certain horn before it, in a certain way—you know how it goes, 'Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set!' It's quite obvious when you know the story, and not a bit of an enigma. The line inLearshows that the verses must have been commonly sung in Shakespeare's time——"
The girl was looking at him with something like amazement; but her answer referred to the matter of his discourse.
"Yes," said she, "I can see now how the 'Dark Tower' lightens up. I must read it again in the light of this explanation of yours. Shall we read it together, soon?"
"Oh, by all means!" said he. "Only I warn you I never tire when I find any one who will study Browning with me. I tried to readThe Ring and the Bookwith a dear friend once, and reading my favorite part, 'Giuseppe Caponsacchi,' as I raised my eyes after that heartbreaking finale, 'O, great, just, good God! Miserable me!' I saw she was dozing. Since then, I read Browning with his lovers only——"
"Yes, you are right in that. But, Eugene," she exclaimed, "you said to me many times that his verse was rot, that Nordau ought to have included him in his gallery of degenerates, that he is muddy, and that there isn't a line of poetry in his works so far as you have been able to dig into them. And you citedChilde Rolandas proof of all of this! And you never would listen to any of Browning, even when we almost quarreled about it! Now, if that was because—— Why, it was——!"
She paused as if afraid she might say too much. Florian, who had rallied in his literary enthusiasm, collapsed into his chronic state of terror. Even in so impersonal a thing as Browning, the man who does not know what his habits are takes every step at his peril.
"Oh,thatthat I said!" he stammered. "Yes—yes. Well, thereareobscurities, you know. Even Mr. Birrell admits that. But on the whole, don't you agree with me?"
"Quite," said she dryly; "if I understand you."
There was an implied doubt as to her understanding of his position, and the only thing made clear was that the drawbridge was up again. So Florian began talking of the plans. He grew eloquent on ventilators, bath-rooms, and plumbing. He drew fine and learned distinctions between styles.
"The colonial," said he, "is not good unless indulged in in great moderation. Now, what I like about this is the way in which ultra-colonialism is held in check, and modified in the direction of the Greek ideal. Those columns, supporting the broad portico, hark back to the Parthenon, don't they? I like that taste and flavor of the classic."
She listened in much the same wondering way in which she had regarded him at the beginning of his outburst on Browning. Was it possible that, after all, this lover of hers, whose antecedents were so little known, but whose five years of successful life in Bellevale had won for him that confidence of his townsmen in which she had partaken, was, after all, possessed of some of those tastes in art and literature, the absence of which had been the one thing lacking in his character, as it appeared to her? It would seem so. And yet, why had he concealed these things from her, who so passionately longed for intellectual companionship? Somehow, resentment crept into her heart as she looked at him, and there was something in his attitude which was not frank and bold, as she liked to see a man—but this would not do. He was so lovely in his provision for the future, and surely his conversation disclosed that he had those tastes and that knowledge!
"I think the moon must be letting me look at its other side to-night," said she. "Have you been saving up the artist and poet in you, to show them to me now?"
"Oh, no," said he, "not at all—why, any one knows these little things. Now let's go through the arrangement of the chambers; shall we?"
"Not to-night, if you please. Let us sit by the fire again. It will be a grand house, dear. Sometimes I think, too grand for Bellevale; and quite often I feel, too grand, too elegant—for me."
"Who then," answered Florian, who saw his conversational duty, a dead-sure thing, and went for it there and then, "who then could have such a house, or ought to have it, if not you?"
The girl looked questioningly, pathetically at him, as if she missed something of the convincing in his words.
"To deny that you feel so—felt so about it when you gave orders for the building, would be foolish," said she at last. "And it was very dear of you to do it. But once a man, having a little gem which he thought of perfect water, placed it in a setting so large and so cunningly wrought that nobody ever saw the little stone, unless it was pointed out to them."
"He saw it," said Florian, "whenever he wanted to—and no setting can be too beautiful for a moon-stone."
He felt that he was rallying nobly.
"Really," he thought, "I am getting quite ardent. And under different circumstances, I could be so in the utmost good faith; for I know she's as good and true as she is queenly and beautiful. But after all, it is duty, only, and——"
"In such a house," she went on, "people may live a little closer than acquaintances, or not quite so close, as the case may be, with their lives diluted by their many possessions."
"Yes?" said he expectantly.
"Before it comes to that," she burst forth, her eyes wide and her hands clasped in her lap, "I want to die! I could gather the fagots for the fire, and cuddle down by it on a heap of straw by the roadside, with the man I love; and if I knew he loved me, he might beat me, and I would bear it, and be happy in his strength—far happier than in those chambers you spoke of a moment ago, with an acquaintance who merely happened to be called a husband! I would rather walk the streets than that!"
Now, a lovers' quarrel requires lovers on both sides. Had Amidon really been one, this crisis would have passed naturally on to protestation, counter-protestation, tears, kisses, embraces, reconciliation. But all these things take place through the interplay of instincts, none of which was awakened in Florian. So he sat forlorn, and said nothing.
"I am going to let you go home, now," said she, rising. "I gave out the date of the wedding, as you requested, the day after you went away. If it were not for that, I should ask you to wait a while—until the house is finished—or even longer. As it is, you mustn't be surprised if I say something surprising to you soon."
"I—I assure you——" began Amidon. "Good night, my——"
He had schooled himself for this farewell, and remembering what Madame le Claire had told him, had decided on a course of action. The two had walked out into the hall and he had put on his top-coat. Now he went bravely up to her and stooped to kiss her.
She raised her face to his, and again the feeling that this man was only a mere acquaintance passed into her being, as she looked into his eyes. She turned her lips away. But Florian, as the feeling of strangeness impressed her, lost it himself in the contemplation, brief but irresistible, of the upturned lips with their momentary invitation so soon withdrawn. The primal man in him awoke. His arm tightened about the lissome waist; the divine form in the creamy silk, on which he had only now almost feared to look, he drew to him so tightly as almost to crush her; and with one palm he raised the averted face to his, and made deliberate conquest of the lips of vivid red. Once, twice, three times—and then she put her hands against his shoulders and pushed him away. Her face flamed.
"Eugene!" she exclaimed, "how——"
"Good night!" he answered, "my dearest, my darling, good night!"
And he ran down the street, in such a conflict of emotions that he hardly knew whither he went.