CHAPTER XLVI.
Thea could not help writing a surreptitious little note of farewell to her dear friend Nellie Bentley:
“Dear Nellie,—I hope you are not mad with me about Cameron. They say he shot himself on my account. Oh, Nellie, please don’t think I led him on, for I never thought of such a thing. You know we were all just sociable together, but I didn’t try to make him love me. I liked him ever so much as a friend, but I was desperately in love with my dear guardian all the time. And now I am to marry him, you know, and I am so happy I can not describe my feelings. I hope dear Cameron will soon be well again, and that he will forget his fancy for me, and marry some lovely girl like that Miss Faris, who likes him that way, I feel certain—only don’t tell her I said so, for she might get mad. To-morrow I am going to New York with Mrs. de Vere to order my wedding-dress. Only think of it—and I not eighteen, probably! But I am to be married in a month, and we will go to Paris on our wedding-tour. I shall bring you a souvenir, Nellie. And, oh! I hope that everything will blow over in a month, and that your mamma will let you be my bride-maid. I will write to you again from New York, and I will never forget the lovely week I spent at Orange Grove. I would send my love to everybody, only I am afraid they are a little vexed with me. A dozen kisses. Your loving“Thea.”
“Dear Nellie,—I hope you are not mad with me about Cameron. They say he shot himself on my account. Oh, Nellie, please don’t think I led him on, for I never thought of such a thing. You know we were all just sociable together, but I didn’t try to make him love me. I liked him ever so much as a friend, but I was desperately in love with my dear guardian all the time. And now I am to marry him, you know, and I am so happy I can not describe my feelings. I hope dear Cameron will soon be well again, and that he will forget his fancy for me, and marry some lovely girl like that Miss Faris, who likes him that way, I feel certain—only don’t tell her I said so, for she might get mad. To-morrow I am going to New York with Mrs. de Vere to order my wedding-dress. Only think of it—and I not eighteen, probably! But I am to be married in a month, and we will go to Paris on our wedding-tour. I shall bring you a souvenir, Nellie. And, oh! I hope that everything will blow over in a month, and that your mamma will let you be my bride-maid. I will write to you again from New York, and I will never forget the lovely week I spent at Orange Grove. I would send my love to everybody, only I am afraid they are a little vexed with me. A dozen kisses. Your loving
“Thea.”
It was arranged at first that Norman was to remain at Verelands; but he suddenly discovered that he would like to go to New York, too, on alleged business with his publisher. It was a most flimsy excuse, but it served his purpose, and the next day Verelands was shut up and Norman accompanied Thea, his mother, and her maid northward for the all-important purpose of choosing the bridal robe for his beautiful young love.
“There is one thing you must let me do—that is, invite the Hintons to my wedding. I want to make friends with everybody, now that I am so happy,” coaxed Thea, on her journey.
“They would only accuse you of more inveterate flirtingthan ever since you have captured such an old fellow as I am,” Norman de Vere returned, laughingly.
“You shall not call yourself old. You seem no older to me than other men—only wiser and handsomer,” answered his frank Sweetheart, and his face glowed with pleasure.
It did indeed seem to him that he had grown younger since Thea West had come back to Verelands in all the charm of her young beauty. Could any boy love her more ardently, or with more keen appreciation of her charms than he did? His heart answered no, and he began to realize that the feeling he had had for queenly, capricious, tormenting Camille had not borne comparison with this later, deeper love.
“She is all the world to me. Pray Heaven her love may make up to me in sunshine for all the shadows of my past,” he thought many times in that happy month, when he laid aside his pen and gave himself up to the pleasure of escorting Thea daily about the modern Babylon, that charmed and frightened the country-bred girl all in one breath, it was so stupendous, and its rush and roar so dreadful to her unaccustomed ears.
“I should feel frightened at even finding myself alone in those busy streets. I believe I should wail aloud like a lost child in mere terror,” she said to him once, with a shiver; and the day came when, all alone in his cruel despair, he thought of her words with a sort of terror, wondering if she had found the reality grievous as the anticipation.