"Time tries the troth in everything."—Thomas Tusser.
—Thomas Tusser.
Thevoice comes to her distinctly across the sward, browned by Winter's frown, and over the evergreens that sway and rustle behind her back.
"Shall I answer?" says Dulce to herself, half uncertainly; and then she hesitates, and then belies the old adage because she is not lost, but decides on maintaining a discreet silence. "If he comes," she tells herself, "he will only talk,talk,talk! and, at his best, he is tiresome; and then he worries so that really life becomes a burden with him near. And the day, though cold, is bright and frosty and delicious, and all it should be at Christmas time, and when one is wrapped in furs one doesn't feel the cold," and she really means to enjoy herself with her book, and now—
"Dulce!" comes the voice again, only nearer this time, and even more pathetic in its anxiety, and Dulce moves uneasily. Perhaps, after all, she ought to answer. Has she not promised many things. Shall she answer or not, or—
This time her hesitation avails her nothing; a step can be heard dangerously close, and then a figure comes up to her very back, and peers through the thick hedge of evergreens, and finally Stephen makes his way through them and stands before her.
He is flushed and half angry. He is uncertain how totranslate the extreme unconcern with which she hails him.Didshe hear him call, or did she not? That is the question. And Stephen very properly feels that more than the fate of a nation depends upon the solution of this mystery.
"Oh! here you are at last," he says, in a distinctly aggrieved tone. "I have been calling you for the last hour. Didn't you hear me?"
When one has been straining one's lungs in a vain endeavor to be heard by a beloved object, one naturally magnifies five minutes into an hour.
Dulce stares at him in a bewildered fashion. Her manner, indeed, considering all things, is perfect.
"Why didn't you answer me?" asks Mr. Gower, feeling himself justified in throwing some indignation into this speech.
"Were you calling me?" she asks, with the utmost innocence, letting her large eyes rest calmly upon his, and bravely suppressing the smile that is dying to betray her; "really? How was it I didn't hear you? I was sitting here all the time. These evergreensmustbe thick! Do you know I am horribly afraid I shall grow deaf in my old age, because there are moments even now—such, for example, as the present—when I cannot bring myself to hearanything."
This last remark contains more in it than appears to Mr. Gower.
"Yet, only last night," he says resentfully, "you told me it would be dangerous to whisper secrets near you to another, as you had the best ears in the world."
"Did I say all that? Well, perhaps. I am troublesome in that way sometimes," says Miss Blount, shifting her tactics without a quiver. "Just now," glancing at a volume that lies upon her lap, "I daresay it was the book that engrossed my attention; I quite lose myself in a subject when it is as interesting as this one is," with another glance at the dark bound volume on her knee.
Gower stoops and reads the title of the book that had come between him and the thoughts of his beloved. He reads it aloud, slowly and with grim meaning—"Notes on Tasmanian Cattle!It sounds enthralling," he says, with bitter irony.
"Yes, doesn't it," says Miss Blount, with such unbounded audacity, and with such a charming laugh as instantly scattersall clouds. "You must know I adore cattle, especially Tasmanian cattle." As a mere matter of fact she had brought out this book by mistake, thinking it was one of George Eliot's, because of its cover, and had not opened it until now. "Come and sit here beside me," she says, sweetly, bent on making up for her former ungraciousness, "I have been so dull all the morning, and you wouldn't come and talk to me. So unfeeling of you."
"Much you care whether I come to talk to you or not," says Mr. Gower, with a last foolish attempt at temper. This foolish attempt makes Miss Blount at once aware that the day is her own.
"You may sit on the edge of my gown," she says, generously—she herself is sitting on a garden-chair made for one that carefully preserves her from all damp arising from the damp, wintry grass; "on theveryedge, please. Yes, just there," shaking out her skirts; "I can't bear people close to me, it gives me a creepy-creepy feel. Do you know it?"
Mr. Gower shakes his head emphatically. No, he does not know the creepy-creepy feel.
"Besides," goes on Dulce, confidentially, "one can see the person one is conversing with so much better at a little distance. Don't you agree with me?"
"Don't I always agree with you?" says Mr. Gower, gloomily.
"Well, then, don't look so discontented, it makes me think you are only answering me as you think I want to be answered, and no woman could stand that."
Silence. The short day is already coming to a close. A bitter wind has sprung from the East and is now flitting with icy ardor over the grass and streamlet; through the bare branches of the trees, too, it flies, creating music of a mournful kind as it rushes onward.
"Last night I dreamt of you," says Stephen, at last.
"And what of me?" asks she, bending slightly down over him, as he lies at her feet in his favorite position.
"This one great thing: I dreamt that you loved me. I flattered myself in my dreams, did I not?" says Gower, with an affectation of unconcern that does not disguise the fear that is consuming him lest some day he shall prove his dream untrue.
"Now what is love, I will thee tell,It is the fountain and the wellWhere pleasure and repentance dwell,"
quotes she, gaily, with a quick, trembling blush.
"I expect some fellows do all the repentance," says Stephen, moodily. Then, with a sudden accession of animation born of despair, he says, "Dulce, once for all, tell me if you can care for me even a little." He has taken her hand—of course her right hand on which a ring is—and is clasping it in the most energetic manner. The ring has a sharp diamond in it, and consequently the pressure creates pain. She bears it, however, like a Cranmer.
"I don't think even my angelic temper would stand a cross-examination on such a day as this," she says, with a slight frown; it might be slighter but for the diamond. "Besides, I have made answer to that question a thousand times. Did I not, indeed, answer it in the most satisfactory manner of all when I promised to marry you?"
"Yes, you promised to marry me, I know that, but when?" asks he, quickly. "Up to this you have always declined to name any particular date."
"Naturally," says Miss Blount, calmly. "I'm not even dreaming of being married yet, why should I? I should hate it."
"Oh! if you would hate it," says Stephen, stiffly.
"Yes, hate it," repeats she, undauntedly. "Why, indeed, should we be married for years? I am quite happy, aren't you?"
No answer. Then, very severely, "Aren'tyou?"
"Yes, of course," says Mr. Gower, but in a tone that belies his words.
"Just so," says Dulce, "then let us continue happy. I am sure all these past months I have been utterly content."
"You mean ever since Roger's departure?" asks he, eagerly.
"Yes; principally, I supposebecauseof his departure." There is a good deal of unnecessary warmth in this speech. Yet the flush has faded from her cheeks now, and she is looking down toward the sea with a little set expression round her usually mobile lips.
"We are happy now, but why should we not be even happier if we were married?" asks Stephen, presently, trying to read her averted face.
"Why? Who can answer that?" exclaims she, turningher face inland again, with a little saucy smile. Her thoughts of a moment since are determinately put out of sight, resolutely banished. "You surely don't believe at this time of day that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush? That is old-world rubbish! Take my word for it, thattwobirds in the hand do not come up to even one sweet, provoking, unattainable bird in the bush!"
She has risen, and is now standing before him, as she says this, with her hands clasping each other behind her head, and her body well thrown back. Perhaps she does not know how charming her figure appears in this position. Perhaps she does. She is smiling down at Gower in a half defiant, wholly tantalizing fashion, and is as like the "sweet, provoking, unattainable bird" as ever she can be.
Rising slowly to his feet, Gower goes up to her, and, as is his lawful right, encircles her bonnie round waist with his arm.
"I don't know about the bird," he says, "but this Idoknow, that in my eyes you are worth two of anything in all this wide world."
His tone is so full of feeling, so replete with real, unaffected earnestness and affection that she is honestly touched. She even suffers his arm to embrace her (for the time being), and turns her eyes upon him kindly enough.
"How fond you are of me," she says, regretfully. "Too fond. I am not worth it." Then, in a curious tone, "How strange it is that you should love me so dearly when Roger actuallydislikedme!"
"You are always thinking of your cousin," exclaims he, with a quick frown. "He seems never very far from your thoughts."
"How can I help that," says Dulce, with an attempt at lightness; "it is so difficult to rid the mind of a distasteful subject."
"And," eagerly—"it is a distasteful subject? You are really glad your engagement with him is at an end?"
"Of course I am glad," says Miss Blount, impatiently; "why should I be otherwise? How often have you told me yourself that he and I were unsuited to each other—and how many times have you reminded me of his unbearable temper! I hope," with passionate energy, "I shall never see him again!"
"Let us forget him," says Gower, gently; "there are plenty of other things to discuss besides him. For one thing, let me tell you this—that though we have been engaged for a long time now, you have never once kissed me."
"Yes—and don't you know why?" asks Miss Blount, sweetly, and with all the air of one who is about to impart the most agreeable intelligence—"Can't you guess? It is because I think kissing amistake. Not only a mistake, but a positivebétise. It commonizes everything, and—and—is really death to sentiment in my opinion."
"Death to it?—an aid to it, I should say," says Mr. Gower, bluntly.
"Should you? I am sure experience will prove you wrong," says Dulce, suavely, "and, at all events, I hate being kissed."
"Do you? Yet twice I saw you let your cousin kiss you," says Stephen, gloomily.
"And see what came of it," retorts she, quickly. "He got—that is—webothgot tired of each other. And then we quarrelled—we were always quarrelling, it seems to me now—and then he—that is, webothgrew to hate each other, and that of course ended everything. I really think," says Miss Blount, with suppressed passion, "I am the one girl in the world he cordially dislikes and despises. He almost told me so before—before we parted."
"Just like him, unmannerly beast!" says Mr. Gower, with deep disgust.
"It was just as well we found it all out in time," says Dulce, with a short, but heavily-drawn sigh—probably, let us hope so, at least—one of intense relief, "because he was really tiresome in most ways."
"I rather think so; I'm sure I wonder how you put up with him for so long," says Gower, contemptuously.
"Force of habit, I suppose. He was always in the way when he wasn't wanted. And—and—and the other thing," says Miss Blount, broadly, who wants to say 'vice versa,' but cannot remember it at this moment.
"Never knew when to hold his tongue," says Stephen, who is a rather silent man; "never met such a beggar to talk."
"And so headstrong," says Dulce, pettishly.
"Altogether, I think he is about the greatest ass I evermet in my life," says Mr. Gower, with touching conviction, and out of the innocence of his heart.
"Is he?" asks Dulce, with a sudden and most unexpected change of tone. A frown darkens the fair face. Is it that she is looking back with horror upon the time when she was engaged to this "ass," or is it—"You have met a good many, no doubt?"
"Well, a considerable few in my time," replies he. "But I must say I never saw a poorer specimen of his kind—and his name, too, such an insane thing. Reminds one of that romping old English dance and nothing else. Why on earth couldn't the fellow get a respectable name like any other fellow."
This is all so fearfully absurd, that at any other time, and under any other circumstances, it would have moved Dulce to laughter.
"Isn't the name, Roger, respectable?" asks she, sweetly, as though desirous of information.
"Oh, well, it's respectable enough, I suppose; or at least it is hideous enough for that or anything."
"Must a thing be hideous to be respectable?" asks she again, turning her lovely face, crowned with the sunburnt hair, full on his.
"You don't understand me," he says, with some confusion. "I was only saying what an ugly name Dare has."
"Now,doyou think so?" wonders Miss Blount, dreamily, "I don't. I can't endure my cousin,as you know, but I really think his name very pretty, quite the prettiest I know, even," innocently, "prettier than Stephen!"
"I'm sorry I can't agree with you," says Stephen, stiffly.
Miss Blount, with her fingers interlaced, is watching him furtively, a little petulant expression in her eyes.
"It seems to me you think more of your absent cousin than of—of anyone in the world," says Gower, sullenly. Fear of what her answer may be has induced him to leave his own name out of the question altogether.
"As I told you before, one always thinks most of what is unpleasing to one."
"Oh, I daresay!" says Mr. Gower.
"I don't think I quite understand you. What do you mean by that?" asks she, with suspicious sweetness.
"Dulce," says Stephen, miserably, "say youhateRoger."
"I have often said it. I detest him. Why," with a sudden touch of passion, "do you make me repeat it over and over again? Why do you make me think of him at all?"
"I don't know," sadly. "It is madness on my part, I think; and yet I believe I have no real cause to fear him. He is so utterly unworthy of you. He has behaved so badly to you from first to last."
"What you say is alltootrue," says Dulce, calmly; then, with most suspicious gentleness, and a smile that is all "sweetness and light," "wouldyou mind removing your arm from my waist. It makes me feel faint. Thanks,somuch."
After this silence again reigns. Several minutes go by, and nothing can be heard save the soughing of the rising wind, and the turbulent rushing of the stream below. Dulce is turning the rings round and round upon her pretty fingers; Stephen is looking out to sea with a brow as black as thunder, or any of the great gaunt rocks far out to the West, that are frowning down upon the unconscious ocean.
Presently something—perhaps it is remorse—strikes upon Dulce's heart and softens her. She goes nearer to him and slips one small, perfect hand through his arm, she even presses his arm to her softly, kindly, with a view to restoring its owner to good temper.
This advance on her part has the desired effect. Stephen forgets there is such a thing as a sea, and, taking up the little, penitent hand, presses it tenderly to his lips.
"Now, do not let us be disagreeable any more," says Dulce, prettily. "Let us try to remember what we were talking about before we began to discuss Roger."
Mr. Gower grasps his chance.
"I was saying that though we have been engaged now for some time you have never once kissed me," he says, hopefully.
"And would you," reproachfully, "after all I have said, risk the chance of making me, perhaps, hate you, too? I have told you how I detest being kissed, yet now you would argue the point. Oh, Stephen! is this your vaunted love?"
"But it is a curious view you take of it, isn't it, darling?" suggests Gower, humbly, "to say a kiss would raise hatred in your breast. I am perfectly certain it would makemeloveyoumore!"
"Then you could love me more?" with frowning reproach.
"No, no! I didn't mean that, only—"
"I must say I am greatly disappointed in you," says Miss Blount, with lowered eyes. "I shouldn't have believed it of you. Well, as you are bent on rushing on your fate, I'll tell you what I will do."
"What?" he turns to her, a look of eager expectancy on his face. Is she going to prove kind at last?
"Sometime," begins she, demurely, "no doubt I shall marry you—some time, that is, in the coming century—and then, when the time is finally arranged, just the very morning of our marriage, you shall kiss me, not before. That will prevent our having time to quarrel and part."
"Do you mean to tell me," indignantly, "you have made up your mind never to kiss me until we are married?"
"Until the morningofour marriage," corrects she.
"You might as well saynever!" exclaims Gower, very justly incensed.
"I will, if you like," retorts she, with the utmostbonhommie.
"It is getting too cold for you to stay out any longer," says Stephen, with great dignity; "come, let us return to the house."
"'Tis impossible to love and be wise."
Theyreturn. The early Winter night has fallen, and in the smaller drawing-room the curtains are already drawn, and though no lamps are lit, a sweet, chattering, gossiping fire sheds a radiance round that betrays all things to the view.
As Dulce enters the room everyone says, "Well, Dulce," in the pleasantest way possible, and makes way for her, but Miss Blount goes into the shade and sits there in a singularly silent fashion.
Sir Mark, noting her mood, feels within him a lazy desire to go to her and break the unusual taciturnity that surrounds her.
"Why so mute, fair maid?" he asks, dropping into a chair near hers.
"Am I mute?" she asks in her turn, thereby betraying the fact that she has been very far from them in her inmost thoughts.
"Rather," says Sir Mark; "would you think me rude if I asked the subject of your waking dreams?"
"No; I was merely thinking what an unsatisfactory place this world is." She says this slowly, turning her large eyes somewhat wistfully on his. If she likes any one on earth honestly it is Mark Gore.
"What a morbid speech," returns he. "Do you want a footstool, or a cup of tea, or what? Evidently something has made the whole worldgrayto you. And I can't even agree with you, I think this present world an uncommonly good old place, all things considered. Rough on us now and then, but quite passible."
"You are happy," she says.
"And you?"—he lets his keen eyes seek hers—"of what can you complain? You seem one of fortune's favorites. Have you not got as your most devoted slave the man of your heart?"
"I suppose so." There is a thorough lack of enthusiasm in her tone, that irritates him. He puts the end of his mustache into his mouth and chews it slowly, a certain sign that he is both grieved and annoyed. Then he changes his glass from his right eye to his left, after all of which he feels better for the moment.
"And besides," he says, with a valiant determination to follow his cross-examination to its bitter end, "you have successfully got rid of the man you hate. I refer to Roger."
"I suppose so." Just the same answer, in just the same tone.
Sir Mark is plainly indignant. Perhaps he had hoped to see her betray some emotion on the mention of her cousin's name, but if so he is disappointed.
"You grow apathetic," he says, somewhat sharply. "Soon you will care for nothing. A bad trick for any girl to learn."
"I have learned that trick already. I care for very little now," says Dulce, in a perfectly even tone. Her hands, lying in her lap, are without motion. Her eyelids are without a tremor. "And yet she isnotheartless," says Sir Mark to himself, reflectively. "I suppose she is only acting formy special benefit, and though it is rather a good performance, it is of no earthly use, as I can see right through her."
Nevertheless he is angry with her, and presently rising, he goes away from her to where Dicky Browne is holding high revelry amongst his friends.
Dicky has only just arrived. He has been absent all day, and is now being questioned—desired to give an account of himself and his time ever since breakfast-time.
"It is something new to be asked where I have been," says Mr. Browne, who also thinks it will be as new as it is nice for him to take the aggrieved tone and go in heavily on the ill-used tack.
"Never mind that," says Julia; "tell us only—wherehaveyou been?"
"Well, really, I hardly quite know," says Dicky, delightfully vague as usual. "Round about the place, don't you know."
"But you must remember where?"
"As a rule," says Mr. Browne, meditatively, "I come and go, and no account is taken of my wanderings. To-night all is different, now I am put under a cross-examination that reduces me to despair. This is unfair, it is cruel. If you would always act thus it would be gratifying, but to get up an interest in me on rare occasions such as the present, is, to say the least of it, embarrassing. I am half an orphan, some of you might be a father to me sometimes."
"So we will, Dicky, in a body," says Mark Gore, cheerfully.
"I like that," says Portia, laughing. "Instead of looking afteryou, Dicky, I rather think we want some one to look afterus."
"Well, I'll do that with pleasure," says Mr. Browne. "It is my highest ambition. To be allowed to look after you has been the dream of my life for months:
"'Thy elder brother I would be,Thyfather,anythingto thee!'"
"By-the-by, Dicky, where is your father now?" asks Stephen Gower, who is leaning against the mantelpiece in Dulce's vicinity, but not quite close to her. Ill-temper, called dignity, forbids his nearer approach to his goddess.
"Down South," says Dicky. "Notin Carolina, exactly, but in Devon. Itdoesremind one of the ten little niggerboys, doesn't it?" Then he begins with a quite uncalled for amount of energy, "'Eight little nigger boys traveling in Devon, one overslept hisself, and then there were seven,'" and would probably have continued the dismal ditty up to the bitter end, but that Sir Mark calls him up sharp.
"Never mind the niggers," he says, "tell us about your father. Where is he now?"
"Down at the old place, cursing his fate, no doubt. By-the-bye, talking of my ancestral home, I wish some day you would all come and put in a month there. Will you?"
"We will," says Julia, directly. Julia is always ready to go anywhere, children and all, at a moment's notice.
"Is it a nice place, Dicky?" asks Sir Mark, cautiously.
"No, it isn't," says Mr. Browne; "notnow, you know. I hear it used to be; but there's no believing old people, they lie like fun. I'll get it settled up for all of you, if you'll promise to come, but just at present it isn't much. It is an odd old place, all doors and dust, and rats, I shouldn't wonder."
"That's nothing," says Gower. "Anything else against it?"
"Well, I don't know," replies Dicky, gloomily. "Itsmells, I think."
"Smells! good gracious, of what?" asks Julia.
"Bones!" says Mr. Browne, mysteriously. "Deadbones!"
"What sort of bones?" asks Portia, starting into life, and really growing a little pale, even beneath the crimson glare of the pine logs.
"Human bones!" says Dicky, growing more gloomy as he says this, and marks with rapture the impression it makes upon his audience. "It reminds one of graves, and sarcophaguses, and cemeteries, and horrid things that rustle in coffin cloths, and mop and mow in corners. But if you will come, I will make you all heartily welcome."
"Thank you. No, I don't thinkI'llcome," says Julia, casting an uneasy glance behind her; the recesses of the room are but dimly lit, and appear ghostlike, highly suggestive of things uncanny from where she sits. "Dicky," pathetically, not to say affrightedly, "you have told us plenty about your horrid old house; don't tell us any more."
"There isn't any more to tell," says Dicky, who is quite content with his success so far.
"You haven't yet told us where you were all day," says Portia, lowering her fan to look at him.
"In the village for the most part—I dote on the village—interviewing the school and the children. Mr. Redmond got hold of me, and took me in to see the infants. It was your class I saw, I think, Dulce; it was so uncommonly badly behaved."
Dulce, in her dark corner, gives no sign that she has heard this gracious speech.
"I don't think much of your schoolmaster either," goes on Mr. Browne, unabashed. "His French, I should say, is not his strong point. Perhaps he speaks it 'after the scole of Stratford-atte-Bowe,' for certainly 'Frenche of Paris, is to him unknowe?'"
"I shouldn't think one would look for foreign languages from a village schoolmaster," says Sir Mark, lazily.
"Ididn'tlook for it, my good fellow, he absolutely showered it upon me; and in the oddest fashion. I confess I didn't understand him. He has evidently a trick of coloring his conversation with fine words—a trick beyond me."
"What did he say to you, Dicky?" asks Julia, whose curiosity is excited.
"He told me a story," says Mr. Browne; "I'll tell it again to you now, if you like, but I don't suppose youwilllike, because, as I said before, I don't understand it myself. It was hardly a story either, it was more a diatribe about his assistant."
"Peter Greene?"
"Ye—es. This objectionable young man's name was Peter, though, if the the schoolmaster is to be believed, he isn'tgreen. 'Sir,' said he to me, 'that Peter is a bad lot—no worse. He can teach the Latin, and the Greek, and the astronomy, fust-class; but as for probity or truth, or honest dealin's of any sort, he isau revoir!' What on earth did he mean?" says Mr. Browne, turning a face, bright with innocence, upon the group that surrounds the fire.
"To-morrow will be Christmas Day," says the Boodie, suddenly. She is lying, as usual, full length upon the hearth-rug, with her chin sunk between both her palms, and her eyes fixed upon the fire. This remark she addresses apparently to a glowing cinder. "I wonder if I shall get many presents," she says, "and if they will be things tolove."
"How sweet it is to study the simplicity, the lack ofmercenarythought in the little child," says Dicky, regarding her with admiration; "now this dear Boodie of ours would quiteas soon have an ugly present as a pretty one; she thinks only of the affection of the giver of it."
"I do not," says the Boodie, stoutly, "and I'dhatean ugly present;" then, with a sudden change of tone, "have you anything for me?"
"Darling," murmured Julia, with mild reproof.
"Certainly not," says Mr. Browne, promptly; "I want you to love me for myself alone!"
"Reallynothing?" persists the Boodie, as if unable to credit her senses.
"Really nothing."
"Then what did you go to London for last week?" demands the irate Boodie, with rising and totally unsuppressed indignation.
This question fills Mr. Browne with much secret amusement.
"There have been rare occasions," he says, mildly, "on which I have gone to town to do a few other things besides purchasing gifts for you."
"I never heard anything so mean," says the Boodie, alluding to his unprofitable visit to the metropolis, "I wouldn't"—with the finest, the most withering disgust—"have believed it of you! And let me tell you this, Dicky Browne, I'll take very good care I don't give you the present I have been keeping for you for a whole week; and by-and-bye, when you hear what it is, you will be sorrier than ever you were in your life."
This awful speech she delivers with the greatest gusto. Mr. Browne, without a moment's hesitation, flings himself upon his knees before her in an attitude suggestive of the direst despair.
"Oh,don'tdo me out of my Christmas-box," he entreats, tearfully; "I know what your gifts are like, and I would not miss one for any earthly consideration. My lovely Boodie! reconsider your words. Iwillgive you a present to-morrow" (already the biggest doll in Christendom is in her nurse's possession, with strict injunctions to let her have it, with his love and a kiss, the first thing in the morning); "I'll doanything, if you will only bestow upon me the priceless treasure at which you have darkly hinted."
"Well, we'll see," returns the Boodie, in a reserved tone;after which Mr. Browne once more returns to his seat and his senses.
But, unfortunately, the Boodie has not yet quite finished all she has to say. Rolling her little, lithe body over until she rests upon her back, and letting her arms fall behind her sunny head in one of her graceful, kittenish ways, she says, pathetically:
"Oh, how I wish Roger was here! He always was good to us, wasn't he, Pussy?" to her sister, who is striving hard to ruin her sight by stringing glass beads in the flickering firelight. "I wonder where he is now!"
As Roger Dare's name has been tabooed amongst them of late, this direct and open allusion to him falls like a thunderbolt in their midst.
Nobody says anything. Nobody does anything. Only in one dark corner, where the light does not penetrate, one white hand closes nervously upon another, and the owner of both draws her breath hurriedly.
Dicky Browne is the first to recover himself. He comes to the rescue with the most praiseworthy nonchalance.
"Didn't you hear about him?" he asks the Boodie, in a tone replete with melancholy. "He traveled too far, his hankering after savages was as extraordinary as it was dangerous; inhiscase it has been fatal. One lovely morning, when the sun was shining, and all the world was alight with smiles, they caught him. It was breakfast hour, and they were hungry; therefore they ate him (it is their playful habit), nicely fried in tomato sauce."
At this doleful tale, Jacky, who is lying about in some other corner, explodes merrily, Pussy following suit; but the Boodie, who is plainly annoyed at this frivolous allusion to her favorite, maintains her gravity and her dignity at the same time.
"Nobody would eat Roger," she says.
"Why not? Like 'the boy, Billie,' he is still 'young and tender.'"
"Nobody would be unkind to Roger," persists the Boodie, unmoved. "And besides, when he was going away he told me he would be back on New Year's Day, and Roger never told a lie."
"'He will return, I know him well,'" quotes Mr. Browne.
This quotation is thrown away upon the Boodie.
"Yes, he will," she says, in all good faith. "He will be here, Iknow, to-morrow week. I am going to keep the present I have for him, until then. I'm afraid I won't be able to keep it any longer," says the Boodie, regretfully, "because—"
She hesitates.
"Because it wouldn't let you. I know what it is, it is chocolate creams," says Dicky Browne, making this unlucky speech triumphantly.
It is too much! The bare mention of these sweetmeats, fraught as they are to her with bitterest memories, awake a long slumbering grief within Dulce's breast. Fretted by her interview with Stephen; sore at heart because of the child's persistent allusion to her absent cousin, this last stab, this mention of the curious cause of their parting, quite overcomes her.
Putting up her hands to her face, she rises precipitately to her feet, and then, unable to control herself, bursts into tears.
"Dulce! what is it?" exclaims Portia, going quickly to her, and encircling her with her arms. Stephen, too, makes a step forward, and then stops abruptly.
"It is nothing—nothing," sobs Dulce, struggling with her emotion; and then, finding the conflict vain, and that grief has fairly conquered her, she lays down her arms, and clinging to Portia, whispers audibly, with all the unreasoning sorrow of a tired child, "I want Roger."
Even as she makes it, the enormity of her confession comes home to her, and terrifies her. Without daring to cast a glance at Stephen, who is standing rigid and white as death against themantelpiece, she slips out of Portia's arms and escapes from the room.
Another awkward pause ensues. Decidedly this Christmas Eve is not a successful one. To tell the truth, everyone is very much frightened, and is wondering secretly how Stephen will take it. When the silence has become positively unbearable, Sir Mark rises to the situation.
"That is just like Dulce," he says—and really the amount of feigned amusement he throws into his tone is worthy of all admiration; though to be quite honest I must confess it imposes upon nobody—"when she is out of spirits she invariably asks for somebody on whom she is in the habit of venting her spleen. Poor Roger! he is well out of it to-night, I think. We have all noticed, have wenot," turning, with abject entreaty in his eyes, to every one in the room except Stephen, "that Dulce has been very much depressed during the last hour?"
"Yes, we have all noticed that," says Portia, hurriedly, coming nobly to his assistance.
Dicky Browne, stooping towards her, whispers, softly:
"Quoth Hudibras—'It is in vain,I see, to argue 'gainst the grain!'"
"I don't understand," says Portia; just because she doesn't want to.
"Don't you?—well, you ought. Can't you see that, in spite of her determination to hate Roger, she loves him a thousand times better than that fellow over there?—and I'm very glad of it," winds up Dicky, viciously, who has always sorely missed Roger, and, though when with him quarrelled from dawn to dewy eve, he still looks upon him as the one friend in the world to whom his soul cleaveth.
"Yes, I, too, have noticed her curious silence. Who could have vexed her! Was it you, Stephen?" asks Julia, who is as clever as Dicky at always saying the wrong thing.
"Not that I am aware of," replies Gower, haughtily. Calling to mind his late conversation with his betrothed, he naturally looks upon himself as the aggrieved party. All she had said then, her coldness, her petulance—worse than all, her indifference—are still fresh with him, and rankles within his breast. Coming a little more into the ruddy light of the fire, he says, slowly, addressing Portia,
"As—as Miss Blount seems rather upset about something, I think I shall not stay to dinner to-night. Will you excuse me to her?"
"Oh, do stay!" says Portia, uncertain how to act. She says this, too, in spite of a pronounced prod from Dicky Browne, who is plainly desirous of increasing the rupture between Stephen and Dulce. May not such a rupture reinstate Roger upon his former throne? Oddly enough, Dicky, who has no more perspicacity than an owl, has arranged within himself that Roger would be as glad to renew his old relations with Dulce as she would be to renew hers with him.
"There are other things that will take me home to-night, irrespective of Dulce," says Stephen, smiling upon Portia, and telling his lie valiantly. "Good night, Miss Vibart."
And then he bids adieu to the others, quite composedly, though his brain is on fire with jealousy, not even omitting the children. Sir Mark and Dicky, feeling some vague compassion for him, go with him to the hall door, and there, having bidden him a hearty farewell, send him on his way.
"I give you my word,"saysDicky Browne, confidentially detaining Sir Mark, forcibly, "we haven't had a happy day since she engaged herself to Gower; I mean since Roger's departure. Look here, Gore, it is my opinion she doesn't carethatfor him," with an emphatic and very eloquent snap of his fingers.
"For once in my life, Dicky, I entirely agree with you," says Sir Mark, gloomily.
"Sir, You are very welcome to our house:It must appear in other ways than words,Therefore Iscantthis breathing courtesy."—Shakespeare.
—Shakespeare.
FromChristmas Day to New Year's Day we all know is but a week—butwhata week it is! For my part I think this season of supposed jollity the most uncomfortable and forlorn of any in the year. During all these seven interminable days the Boodie still clings to her belief in Roger, and vows he will surely return before the first day of '82 shall have come to an end. It is very nearly at an end now; the shadows have fallen long ago; the night wind has arisen; the snow that all day long has been falling slowly and steadily, still falls, as if quite determined never again to leave off.
They are all sitting in the library, it being considered a snugger room on such a dreary evening that the grander drawing-room. Stephen Gower, who has just come in, is standing by the centre-table with his back to it, and is telling them some little morsel of scandal about a near neighbor. It is a bare crumb, yet it is received with avidity and gratitude, and much laughter, so devoid of interest have been all the other hours of the day.
Nobody quite understands how it now is with Dulce and Stephen. That they have patched up their late quarrel isapparent to everybody, and as far as an ordinary eye can see, they are on as good terms with each other as usual.
Just now she is laughing even more merrily than the rest at his little story, when the door opens, and Sir Christopher and Fabian enter together.
Sir Christopher is plainly very angry, and is declaring in an extremely audible voice that "he will submit to it no longer;" he furthermore announces that he has "seen too much of it," whatever "it" may be, and that for the future he "will turn over a very different leaf." I wonder how many times in the year this latter declaration is made by everybody?
Fabian, who is utterly unmoved by his vehemence, laying his hand upon his uncle's shoulder, leads him up to the fireplace and into the huge arm-chair, that is his perpetual abiding-place.
"What is it?" asks Sir Mark, looking up quickly.
"Same old story," says Fabian, in a low voice, with a slight shrug of his shoulders. "Slyme. Drink. Accounts anyhow. And tipsy insolence, instead of proper explanation." As Fabian finishes, he draws his breath hastily, as though heartily sick and tired of the whole business.
Now that he is standing within the glare of the fire, one can see how altered he is of late. His cheeks are sunken, his lips pale. There is, too, a want of energy about him, alanguor, a listlessness, that seems to have grown upon him with strange rapidity, and which suggests the possibility that life has become rather a burden than a favor.
If I say he looks as dead tired as a man might look who has been for many hours engaged in a labor trying both to soul and body, you will, perhaps, understand how Fabian looks now to the eyes that are gazing wistfully upon him from out the semi-darkness.
Moving her gown to one side, Portia (impelled to this action by some impulsive force) says, in a low tone:
"Come and sit here, Fabian," motioning gently to the seat beside her.
But, thanking her with great courtesy, he declines her invitation, and, with an unchanged face, goes on with his conversation with Sir Mark.
Portia, flushing hotly in the kindly dark, shrinks back within herself, and linking her fingers tightly together, triesbravely to crush the mingled feelings of shame and regret that rise within her breast.
"I can stand almost anything myself, I confess, but insolence," Sir Mark is saying,à proposof the intoxicated old secretary. "It takes it out of one so. I have put up with the most gross carelessness rather than change any man, but insolence from that class is insufferable. I suppose," says Sir Mark, meditatively, shifting his glass from his left to his right eye, "it is because one can't return it."
"One can dismiss the fellow, though," says Sir Christopher, still fuming. "And go Slyme shall. After all my kindness to him, too, to speak as he did to-night! The creature is positively without gratitude."
"Don't regret that," says Dicky Browne, sympathetically. "Youare repining because he declines to notice your benefits; but think of what Wordsworth says—