CHAPTER XV.A DECLARATION.
Arriving at Mr. Loring’s, Geoffrey sent his name up to the young ladies, and a few minutes later Gladys came down alone.
How his heart bounded as she came tripping into the room, looking as fresh and lovely as the morning itself.
She was dressed in a morning robe of white flannel, relieved by quilted facings of pale blue silk, and fastened at the waist with a cascade of ribbons of the same hue.
Her hair was carelessly knotted at the back of her head, where it was pinned with a small shepherd’s crook of silver, while a few light rings clustered lovingly about her forehead.
In spite of the dissipation of the previous evening, her eyes were bright as stars, her cheeks flushed, and her manner animated.
“Dear old Geoff,” she cried, springing forward with a glad smile to meet him, “I imagined you were on your way back to New Haven, to bury yourself in Greek verbs and Latin nouns! What good fairy has sent you here instead?”
“Love!” was on Geoffrey’s lips as he gathered both her hands in his, but he restrained the word, and replied:
“Oh, I wanted to have a little talk with Uncle August, and so concluded to remain over another day. I have come to act as your escort home.”
“How good of you! I was dreading to go alone.”
“How is your friend this morning?”
“Addie? poor child! she is laid up with a wretched headache; the dancing and excitement were too much for her. Mrs. Loring was obliged to go out early to her dressmaker, and as Addie is compelled to keep very quiet in a darkened room, I was having quite a solitary time of it when you were announced,” Gladys explained.
Geoffrey was secretly delighted at this, although sorry for Miss Loring’s indisposition.
The coast was clear, so to speak, for him, and yet, now that everything seemed so propitious for his suit, he almost feared to put his fate to the test.
“I regret your friend’s illness,” he said, “but you are as bright and fresh as if you had not lost an hour of sleep.”
“Yes, I do not feel in the least wearied,” Gladys returned, “and I had a most delightful time. But the best of all was to have you here, Geoff. I began to fear my evening was to be spoiled, you were so late.”
“Was my presence so necessary to your enjoyment?” the young man earnestly questioned, a quick flush rising to his brow, as he searched her lovely face.
“Indeed it was; I had set my heart upon having you here—it was almost my first appearance in society, you know. How did I behave, Geoffrey?—like a novice?” Gladys asked, archly.
“No, indeed; you were quite the woman of the world, and entertained your admirers as composedly as if you had been accustomed to such homage for many a season. Do you imagine that you would enjoy a fashionable life, Gladys?”
“I think I would enjoy social life, to a certain extent, but I would not care to devote all my time to keeping up style, or to live in a fashionable whirl continually,” she replied, thoughtfully.
“And yet you are eminently fitted for just that kind of a life,” Geoffrey said, thinking how few there were who could compare with her.
“How so?” she asked, flushing slightly.
“You are beautiful and graceful; you have winning manners and a cultivated mind; you would shine anywhere,” he answered, an earnest thrill in his voice.
“Flatterer! not one of my ‘admirers,’ last night, paid me such a tribute as that,” retorted the fair girl, with a merry laugh, “and it is quite unusual, I believe, for one’s brother to be so complimentary.”
“You forget, Gladys, that I am not your brother,” Geoffrey returned, gravely, and wondering that she should have spoken thus, for she had very rarely assumed that there was any kindred tie between them.
She could not have told herself what made her use the word, and she remembered how she had repudiated Mr. Mapleson’s assumption of such a relationship; but somehow, though her own heart thrilled to Geoffrey’s assertion that he was not her brother, a sort of perverseness took possession of her, and she continued, in the same strain, with a half-injured air and a bewitching pout:
“One would think that you were rejoiced over the fact, to remind me of it in such a way.”
“I am rejoiced over the fact.”
“Why, Geoff! After all these years!” and Gladys looked up in genuine surprise, for the restraint that he had been imposing upon himself had made his tone almost stern.
“Yes, after all these years; Gladys,” he went on, eagerly, feeling that the supreme moment of his life had come, “can you conceive of no reason why I should be glad? As a boy, before I realized what you would become in the future, I was proud and happy to be allowed the privilege of regarding you as my sister; but as a man I exult in the fact that no kindred ties bind us to each other, for in that case I should have no right to love you as I do, and my life would be bereft of its sweetest hopes.”
Gladys darted one quick, searching glance into his face as he uttered these impassioned words; then a burning blush suffused her face, and her eyes drooped in confusion before the ardent light in his.
“Have I startled you, my darling, by this confession?” Geoffrey went on. “Have you never suspected how I have been growing to love you day by day? At first, as I told you, I regarded you in a brotherly way. I was delighted with your beauty, I was proud of your intellect. I loved and reverenced you for your goodness and gentleness to me, and your patience with me as an ignorant, simple-minded boy; but, as I grew older, a deeper, more sacred love took possession of me, until I came to realize that my future would be a miserable blank unless I could win your own heart’s best love. I do not forget that I am nameless, dear, that I am only a stray waif whom your father rescued from a hapless fate. I have nothing to offer you save my great love and an energy and resolutionwhich will enable me to overcome every obstacle for your dear sake. Does your heart respond to my plea, my darling? Can you give me a deeper and holier love than that of a sister for a brother, and some day, when we are both through with our studies, when I can obtain a position worthy of your acceptance, become my cherished wife?”
He reached out, took the hands that lay clasped upon her lap, and drew her gently toward him.
She lifted her sweet face to him for one brief instant, and their glances met, soul answering to soul.
“Geoffrey! you have fairly taken my breath away,” Gladys whispered, “and yet—and——”
His clasp tightened about her hands.
“‘And yet’—Gladys—what?” he breathed, eagerly.
Her bright head drooped lower to hide the crimson in her cheeks, but there was no shrinking from him, as there must have been had not her heart responded to his appeal.
“And yet, I know that you are far dearer to me than a brother could ever be,” she confessed.
He dropped her hands, and the next moment his arms were around her.
He drew her close to his wildly bounding heart and laid her head upon his breast.
“My own darling! that means that you love me even as I love you! Oh, Gladys, how I have longed to hear this confession from your lips, and yet I have never dared to betray the affection that has become a part of my very life.”
“Haven’t you, Geoff?” Gladys asked, a mischievous smile wreathing her red lips, which, however, he could not see.
“No; for I felt that it would not be right to do so. I feared that Uncle August would feel that I had betrayed his confidence, and taken an unfair advantage of his kindness. Besides, it galled me to feel that I had nothing to offer you save my nameless self, without any definite expectations for the future.”
“You imagine that you have been exceedingly circumspect, don’t you, dear?” and now a pair of merry eyes were raised to meet his.
“Have I not? Have you suspected anything of this before, Gladys?” he asked, quickly, a vivid crimson suffusing his face.
“I shall have to confess that I have—in a measure,” she replied.
“When? What made you?”
“Just before you went to college, when you told me that you were glad you had been cast adrift upon the world.”
“I remember—when I said but for that I should never have known you. It was very hard for me, then, not to tell you how well I loved you, but I believed I did conceal it. Did it trouble you, Gladys?”
“N—o; still I was taken by surprise. I had never thought of loving you in that way, or of your regarding me other than as a sister,” Gladys replied, gravely.
“Then it set you thinking and you have been learning to love me since that time?” Geoffrey asked, fondly.
“Not exactly ‘learning to love,’ Geoff, but I began then to realize the fact that I did love you,” the young girl confessed, with brilliant cheeks.
Geoffrey bent and kissed her red lips.
“Darling, I am glad I did not dare tell you then—I should have been very premature,” he said, tenderly.
“How does it happen that you have ‘dared’ even now?” she asked, roguishly.
“Because I confessed everything to Uncle August this morning, and he bade me come and win my bride if I could,” was the smiling retort.
“Geoff! did papa say that,” cried the young girl, growing crimson again.
“Yes, those very words. Uncle August is a kingly man, and his permission to let me speak to you has raised me from the depths of despair to the very heights of joy.”
“Oh, Geoffrey, what an ardent figure of speech!” laughed the happy girl.
“Indeed it is not a figure at all, you sweet, brown-eyed fay. I did not sleep a wink last night for wretchedness of mind.”
“And all for nothing, Geoff.”
“It was the fear of losing you, my darling. When I saw you so admired in these very rooms last night, I said to myself, ‘some one else will win her before I shall have any right to speak so,’ after lying awake all night, I desperately resolved to make a clean breast of everything to Uncle August. If he had told me he was unwilling to give you to me I should never have come to Brooklyn again.”
“Geoffrey,” cried Gladys, clinging to him, “you would not have left us like that.”
“I should, dear,” he answered, firmly; “I could nothave remained in the same house with you and know that I must never, by either word or look, reveal the love I bear you. But all that is past. Uncle August seems even happy in the prospect of our union. You love me—you are sure you love me well enough, Gladys, to become my wife, with no regret for—anything?” he pleaded, bending to look searchingly into her eyes.
“Yes, I am sure, Geoffrey. I have never tried to analyze the affection which I have always cherished for you, but I know, now, that it has not been of that calm nature which a sister would feel for her brother. I have been happier at your coming, I have been lonely and have drooped whenever you went from home, and I can understand now why it has been so,” Gladys answered, dropping her head again upon her lover’s breast.
“My own darling! How wonderful it is that this priceless boon should be granted me to crown all the other good gifts that I have received,” he said, in a thrilling voice; then added: “But, Gladys, I must remind you, as I have already reminded your father, that you will have to become the wife of a nameless man. Will that never trouble you?”
“Surely, the name that my father has bestowed upon you will do very well, will it not?”
“That was just what he also said, dear; but will the mystery that enshrouds me never make you uncomfortable or unhappy?”
“No; I am well content with you just as you are.”
“But—have you never thought that there may be some story of wrong—of shame, even—connected with my early life? If we should discover it to be so, some time in the future, would you not regret having given yourself to me. Gladys, dear as you are to me, I could better face a separation now, than such a regret by and by.”
“Such a story of wrong could never harm you, dear Geoff. All the shame or guilt, if any, would rest upon others—the perpetrators of it. But I have no fear that you will ever be troubled by any such discovery. I believe you will yet learn your parentage and feel honored by it. However, it will never change or mar my love for you,” Gladys replied, with grave earnestness.
Geoffrey’s face was luminous.
“This noble spirit is just what I might have expected from you, Gladys; yet, I confess, I am very sensitive over the mystery of my birth, and I should never have been fully satisfied without knowing just how you feelabout it. Oh, my love, the future looks very bright before us, though the next two years will seem very long to me.”
“Why, Geoff! I thought study was a positive delight to you,” Gladys returned, in surprise.
“And so it is, but it frets me to feel that, even after I get through college, it will perhaps be years before I can attain a position that will warrant me in asking Uncle August to give you to me finally.”
“What kind of a position would satisfy your conscientious scruples, Geoffrey?” Gladys asked, demurely.
“I would not feel willing to take you from a home of affluence to one of poverty—you must never miss the luxuries to which you have been accustomed,” he said, thoughtfully.
“Do you expect to find the treasure of a Monte Cristo somewhere?” his companion asked, in the same tone as before.
“Oh, no; I expect to provide a home and competence by my brains and hands; but it will take time——”
“How much?”
“Years perhaps.”
“How many?”
“Five or six, maybe, if I am successful; more if I am not; I shall start off to ‘seek my fortune’ just as soon as I can take my degree.”
“Meantime, what is to become of your humble servant?”
“You?—why, Gladys, you will have your home and friends the same as now.”
“And you will be out in the world, somewhere, working for me?” she said, sitting erect and turning her gaze full upon him.
“Of course; that is to be expected; doesn’t it please you?”
“No. I am no hot-house plant that requires a tempered atmosphere in order to thrive and grow! Do you think that I can afford to let you spend the best years of your life away from me, toiling to give me luxuries, while you deny yourself even the comforts and companionship of a home? My father and mother began life in an humble way, and built up their fortune together. I am of no finer clay than they or you; if I am not calculated to share your burdens as well us your pleasures, I am not worthy to be your wife at all,” Gladys concluded, with an energy and decision that made Geoffrey regard her with surprise.
“Why, Gladys, what would people think of me if I should ask you to marry me before I could provide you with a comfortable home?” he asked.
“I do not expect you will do that; but comfort and elegance are not necessarily one and the same. With the comfortable home provided, we will begin life together, and win our luxuries and elegance hand and hand; it is not a mutual love where one gives all and the other nothing.”
“My darling, I had no idea there were such intensely practical ideas in this small head of yours,” said Geoffrey, laughing, but with a very tender face.
“Had you not? Well, then, perhaps, I may astonish you again some time,” she returned, laughing, too. “But,” she added, “I think we are both rather premature in our plans, considering that we have two years more of school before us. Besides, it is time I was getting ready to go home with you, and we must not sit here talking longer.”
Later in the day the lovers returned to Brooklyn, where they were received with many smiles and significant glances, for both August Huntress and his good wife were greatly delighted by the prospect of a union between these two, upon whom all their fondest hopes had so long been centered.