CHAPTER XXI.OLD VIENNA."How remarkable that you met Mildred," said Clover to Jack, after the four had wended their way out of Cairo and turned west."It was a lucky chance," replied Van Tassel."Where did you meet?" The fun in his face gave Clover her first suspicion."In the Ferris Wheel. Wasn't it a coincidence that we should have chosen the same cab? And I'll tell you in confidence, Clover, that I think Mildred was considerably impressed with his Wheelship.""Why should you make a confidence of that?" asked Mildred nonchalantly. "We are all impressed, aren't we?""Not to the verge of pallor, Milly.""Don't call me Milly. No one does that but Clover.""Were you really frightened, Mildred?" asked her sister with much interest."Why do you ask me? Ask Jack. He evidently knows all about it.""No, I insist on referring you to Mildred herself. She scorns petty deceits of all kinds. I cannot be relied on to tell the absolute truth."Mildred looked at the speaker with a dangerous sparkle in her eyes. "Why don't you give Clover her present?" she asked suddenly."A present for me? Why, hurry," exclaimed Clover. "What new extravagance have you been committing, Milly?""It isn't I this time, it is Jack. He has bought you the most adorable little silver hanging-lamp you ever saw. Open it, Jack; or shall we wait till we are seated in Old Vienna?""You told him I wanted it, you naughty girl.""No, I didn't." Mildred was bubbling over with mischievous satisfaction in Van Tassel's struggles to look bland. "It was purely spontaneous on his part. I even went so far as to urge him not to get it. Didn't I, Jack?"Van Tassel's reply was scarcely audible; but they had reached the guard, who with puffed sleeves and feathered hat stood motionless, spear in hand, before the entrance to the Vienna of two hundred years ago.Inside they found the Pages, standing before one of the many open shops which formed the first floors of the weather-stained, peaked, and turreted houses."Hilda is buying a spoon," announced Mr. Page as his friends approached; "but that goes without saying. I have kept careful count, and this is the seventy-seventh she has purchased while with me. Of course there may be others. I can't tell what pleasant surprises may be awaiting me when we get home.""How was the Chinese theatre?" asked Gorham, while Clover and Mildred gravitated naturally to Mrs. Page's side to lend her their aid in deciding between the merits of two spoons she was examining."Immense; you must go.""You mustn't go unless you want to be driven crazy with noise," put in Hilda. "Robert says I am deficient in the sense of humor, but you positively can't think in that place. There was a Chinese-American in the audience acting as an interpreter, and I suppose he saw that Robert was interested; so he just stayed with us, and put the crowning touch to the confusion by explaining the play at a pitch to be heard above the squealing music and the shrieking actors.""Women's parts all taken by men, of course," explained her husband, "and they jabber in a high monotonous falsetto without any change of countenance except an occasional attack of pathetic strabismus. Two lovers meet after a separation of ten years. They start, then with two simultaneous squeaks fall backward in a swoon, feet to feet, and lie there with their elaborately dressed heads sticking up in the air, while a supe runs in with wooden supports which he tucks under their necks. The interpreter explained: 'Of course they cannot spoil their hair!' Ha! ha! It was great; and as for the costumes and hangings, they would stand alone for the gold and silver embroidery in them. Confess, Hilda, they were consoling.""Yes, they were; and so was the baby we saw upstairs in the Joss-house. He was ten months old, with a black tuft of hair on top of his head exactly like the Chinese dolls, and was dressed in green silk trousers and a red silk shirt.""You must have wanted to steal him," said Mildred."That is what his mother thought, I am sure. He lay asleep in a little wagon, and when she heard me exclaim, she flew out from behind a curtain with a very suspicious expression on her pretty face. Yes, she was really pretty, and dimpled, and young; and her hands were loaded with rings. Robert, just look here one minute. Don't you think the filigree handle is the prettier?""My dear, I ate too many bananas once, and have never since been able to endure the sight of them. If you knew the sentiments with which a souvenir spoon inspires me, you would tremble.""I will take the filigree one," said Mrs. Page, with a sigh of relief.The six ate supper together at a table pleasantly distant from the fine German orchestra. Feathery bits of white cloud scudded over the blue above them. Picturesque gables and weather-beaten façades illuminated with the decorations of a bygone time closed them in from the outside world with such an atmosphere of antiquity, that even the dignified beauty of Handel's Largo, as its stately measures pealed forth on the evening air, seemed an anachronism.Mildred sat at Jack's right hand."What shall I put down for you?" he asked, looking up from the order he was writing. "I found nothing on the card injurious enough to be appropriate."Mildred smiled slightly as she glanced over the menu."You deserved a worse punishment than that," she answered."It is true it was no great punishment. I should like to give Clover all Cairo Street if she wants it."Clover was sitting opposite between the other men, and the music effectually concealed from her the above colloquy."Hurry up, Jack," she said, leaning forward; "they keep you waiting forever here. Give her bread and milk if she can't decide. It is good for the young."While the party were waiting for their meal to be brought, Jack, now at ease in the situation, produced the silver lamp, which received much praise as it was passed about.Gorham, Mildred's other neighbor, turned to her. "Your sister suggests that you must have practiced much self-control," he remarked. "She says this is just the sort of lamp you have been searching for.""Do you hear that, Jack?" asked Mildred demurely. "I am afraid Jack does not appreciate me, Mr. Page."Mildred, ever since the evening of her confidential talk with Gorham, had carried the half-nettled, wholly amused consciousness that he was regarding her with considerations of her search for that affinity she had described. She felt sure he would not repeat their talk to Jack; but if he should! The thought brought a stinging red to her cheeks.Page was not thinking of her now, however. This little circumstance of the gift of the lamp impressed him. That Jack should, while with Mildred, buy this bauble which the latter coveted and give it to Clover, looked as though Hilda's convictions might be correct. As he caught a serene glance from Clover's violet eyes it suddenly seemed to him very improbable that an impressionable fellow like his cousin should not dream by day and night of that pure and beautiful face.Jack was not worthy of her, he could not precisely state to himself why; and he ran over his acquaintances in his mind to see if he could find one the consideration of whom would rouse less antagonism. He had not succeeded when the waiter appeared with the supper."What are you indefatigable people going to do next?" asked Robert Page, lighting a cigar when their meal was finished. "I am extremely comfortable and good-natured now, but I warn you I shall turn dangerous if any one suggests the illumination. To be asked just to step over from Old Vienna to the Court of Honor sounds pleasant. It was played on me once when I was a tenderfoot; but I'm not to be roped into any such pilgrimage to-night. If I wasn't a married man, I should sit right here and listen to the music, and see the Wheel go round, until it was time to go to my little bed.""What nonsense!" remarked Hilda. "If you weren't married you would be urging me to go with you in a gondola.""My dear, where would be the use? You know the gondolas are all bespoken by this time. What a sweet consciousness it is, by the way," added Page, sighing restfully."We are going, though, some night," returned his wife. "Before we leave the White City, you must take me in a gondola and hold my hand.""See the lengths to which this woman's frenzy for spoons carries her! Why, I'll hold your hand now, my dear. Any suggestion which presupposes so little exertion as that will find me in an affirmative state of mind every time."Hilda glanced at his offered hand scornfully. "We haven't the stage-setting," she replied. "Be careful, Robert Page, or you will frighten Mildred out of getting married at all.""Is that true, Miss Mildred? Oh, I don't believe it. You are so level-headed you must see the situation in the right light. Did you ever hear the simile of the horse-car? When a man is trying to catch a horse-car and afraid it is going to escape him, he waves his arms, shouts, hurries, and disturbs himself generally. After he has caught the conveyance, if he continued to behave in the same perturbed fashion he would be set down as a lunatic. You see the point, of course?"Mildred pursed her lips and shook her head. "You are a very audacious man," she answered."Now Jack isn't smoking," continued Page argumentatively. "That indicates the restlessness of the man who is afraid he will arrive too late at the street corner.""It indicates that I am not going to stay here," returned Van Tassel."Whither away, restless one?""You will have to ask Miss Bryant. She is showing me the World's Fair to-day.""Not after your perfidious behavior," said Mildred. "I was too sophisticated, was I? Oh, for shame!""Do you speak to me of perfidy!" exclaimed Jack."Well, sha'n't we all go somewhere together?" suggested Gorham."No, I think we sha'n't, dear brother," replied Robert mildly."Do you want to stay, Hilda?" asked Gorham. "Aren't you growing tired of hearing Zwei Bier? Come with us.""No, thanks. I will stay here until it bores me, and then I will give Robert his choice of selecting another souvenir spoon or taking me out."So the other four left their seats and moved away to the martial strains of Die Wacht am Rhein.Clover found herself beside Jack a moment."It was a shame about the lamp," she murmured."What?" returned Van Tassel, looking uncomfortably into her roguish eyes."I saw how it was. Too bad; but that is another thing she will repent at leisure.""How did you know?""By Mildred's impish dimple. She has one just above her lip that never shows except when she is in mischief. At first I was taken in; but after a moment I saw the imp, and then I knew.""What a wonderful sight the Wheel is with its double row of electric lights," said Mildred to Gorham."What—yes; it has been rather warm," he replied; this irrelevance being due to the effect upon him of observing Clover's murmured colloquy with Jack.Mildred stared. When she made a remark to a man, she was accustomed to find him attentive.Page continued with another inexcusable speech."I wonder if perhaps Mrs. Van Tassel would like to go somewhere with Jack.""I believe Jack considers himself otherwise engaged this evening," returned Miss Bryant with hauteur."Oh—oh yes." Gorham's eyes fell upon the speaker with an expression which suggested that he had just become aware of her, and until this moment had been talking to himself.A light broke upon Mildred. There was but one possible explanation of such ignoring of her own preëminent right to homage."They are both in love with her!" she thought, and the slight pang that came with the idea surprised her.Clover and Jack, with the laughter on their lips, stepped forward and joined the others."Have you any wish, Mrs. Van Tassel?" asked Page."No, let us drift until something tempts us." They soon lost sight of Mildred and Jack in that stream of humanity which flowed in both directions along the Midway between the soft arc-moons. They left behind them the great Wheel, slowly revolving in sparkling light as though, sweeping through the heavens, myriad stars had caught thickly along its edges and were borne on to earth."Let me carry that precious lamp," said Page, taking Clover's parcel."I would not let Jack keep it, for fear he might give it to Mildred," she explained.Her companion looked surprised."Jack is a little weak and indulgent where Mildred is concerned," said Clover.Page did not know what to reply. Hilda had assured him in days past that no one could help seeing that Mrs. Van Tassel was unwilling Jack should ask Mildred to go to the Fair with him, and now this frank avowal of jealousy perplexed him greatly."But what—what mystifies me, Mrs. Van Tassel," he said hesitatingly, "is that you should care for a gift—but there are limits to a man's right to express his thoughts."Clover laughed out mirthfully. "Analyze me. I am perfectly willing, only it will necessitate exposing the fact that my sister is a very saucy girl."Page regarded her so earnestly that he nearly stumbled over a wheeled chair that grazed him."I don't understand it at all," he said seriously."Of course not. Well, I will tell you. Jack bought this lamp for Mildred; and she, to punish him for some offense, forced him to give it to me in the way you heard. She doesn't know that I saw through it; but now I do not propose that she shall have the fun and the lamp too."Page found the Midway grow a trifle cheerier under this disclosure. "Of course not," he answered; then, after a moment's thoughtfulness: "That was a strange prank for your sister to play," he added. "I fear I shouldn't have known how to yield as easily to the joke as Jack did.""Oh, he stuttered a good deal, poor fellow," laughed Clover. "Mildred is a spoiled child.""Not so superficial, though, as one would at first believe," returned Gorham. "There is plenty of depth to her nature. Society educates a girl to seem shallow, that is all."Clover looked surprised and pleased. She glanced at Page with quick, responsive feeling."It is very nice of you to see through Mildred," she said, and Page felt a strange glow under her approval."The folly of Hilda," he thought, "in supposing this woman could be jealous of another!"There was something too in the quiet joyousness of her sphere which assured him that whatever were her sentiments for Jack, she was not longing for his society now. She was content, he felt it, and the knowledge was bliss to him."I wonder how soon we are going to be attracted," remarked Clover, after they had walked a minute in silence.Page turned to her suddenly. "What do you mean by that?" he asked so eagerly that the surprised color rushed to his companion's face."Why, we were waiting, weren't we, for one of these side shows to tempt us beyond the point of resistance," she answered, with the glibness with which a woman can skim over a moment which threatens too much."Well, to tell the truth I had forgotten what we were doing beyond sauntering together in this very interesting, motley crowd. Isn't it strange how completely alone we are in such a place?""Or might be, if it were not for the wheeled chairs," said Clover. "It isn't safe to become introspective here.""Was I?" anxiously. "Have I been silent, Mrs. Van Tassel? My thoughts often play me tricks. Hilda is always saying that I am 'queer.' I don't know just what she means, but if you would be kind enough to mention it if I do anything you don't like, I should be—it would be a great favor.""You are very flattering," returned Clover, turning away to smile. "What a temptation you offer me!""Then I do offend you?" he exclaimed with frank consternation."No, no, I didn't mean that. I was only thinking what a temptation you hold out to a woman to mould a fellow-creature into the form she likes. But I know what an ignis fatuus that alluring idea is. Men do not alter themselves to please women.""I should say," returned Page ruminatively, "that you are wrong. I know that Hilda has changed Robert in many ways, materially.""By the force of years of influence, yes; but your brother did not know what was going on. I am certain of that.""I should suppose," said Page earnestly, "that a man could not rest in the knowledge that he was doing something offensive to the woman he loves.""Yes, you would suppose so," agreed Clover. "My knowledge of the truth is gathered from observation, not experience, as you know. I reverenced Mr. Van Tassel too completely to think of desiring to change him. In my married life it was myself I wished to alter; but I have seen a good deal of young married people, and—well, tell me, Mr. Page, did you ever hear Hilda say that she would be glad if her husband did not smoke?""Yes," replied Gorham, and said no more."Now I begin to feel a strong temptation, Mr. Page. How is it with you? Are you prepared to resist the Javanese village?""I have not been in there.""Oh, you mustn't miss that. I wonder you have been able to pass that charming, fantastic, bamboo entrance. The lightness and simplicity of this life makes it to me the most charming in the Plaisance."They entered the gateway and came suddenly upon the quiet attractions of the dainty straw village. Yes, it was still, here; still enough to hear the muffled music of the water-wheel. Clover and Page stood a moment in the hush, listening to its tinkle, and the plashing of the wavelets. A small, soft-footed Javanese occasionally passed them."I wish that I smoked," broke out Gorham suddenly."Here will be an opportunity," returned Clover. "You will be offered cigarettes at every turn in Java."Page's seriousness was unmoved. "I want you to believe that I would give it up if you asked me."Mrs. Van Tassel's serene heart quickened its pace, but she laughed. "Isn't it a pity that I shall have to remain incredulous?" then she hastened on, vaguely afraid of her companion. "Don't misunderstand me, please. I was not criticising your brother a minute ago. Do you know you have formed a shocking habit of frankness in me? You have searched out my thoughts and opinions so many times that now you have only to suggest a subject and I pour out my ideas. I think I ought to have kept my observations to myself on this topic; but since I have said so much, I don't wish to leave you with the notion that I think your brother and men like him monsters of selfishness. A woman makes an absurd mistake to marry a smoking man, and then to be grieved because he refuses when she artlessly requests him to give up the habit; but a girl nearly always thinks that all she need do is to marry a man in order to make him over into anything she likes. I tell you, Mr. Page, it is the result of my observations that all the voluntary changes a man makes at the request of his beloved are made before—before he catches the horse-car."Gorham smiled. "But I don't think Robert ought to smoke, since Hilda"—"Pardon me. I am going to defend the absent. Did he smoke while they were engaged?""Yes.""Very well. Now, do you wish to hear some words of wisdom?""Yes, indeed.""Here they are. If Hilda disliked tobacco, she should have said so, then; and she probably did. When she found Mr. Page would not give up the habit, she should have weighed the question in her mind as to whether the matter of smoking were going to affect her happiness seriously. If she thought it would, she should have broken her engagement. The great point is, that if she decided to marry him she should have realized that she took him as he was, tobacco and all, and would be likely to have rather more than less of it for the rest of her life.""A man is a selfish brute," remarked Gorham."Sometimes; but he has the same right a woman has to choose between his habit and his love; that is, if the woman speaks in time.""Hilda does not particularly dislike cigar smoke," said Page, "but she thinks smoking is bad for Robert. I wonder if all men are as thick-skinned as you say. Now, there is Jack. Do you believe he would not fling all his cigars into the lake for—for you?""Yes, indeed; so long as there were plenty more to be had.""No, Mrs. Van Tassel, be serious; and for the moment pardon personalities. If Jack were engaged to you"—He waited, gazing at Clover. She smiled at him and said, "Well, if Jack were engaged to me?"Page swallowed some impediment to speech."And you should earnestly ask him not to smoke, can you doubt the result?"Clover shrugged her shoulders. "No, I am afraid I can't. Jack is a gentleman, and such an impulsive, affectionate fellow, I know pretty well what he would do, supposing of course that he were very earnestly and deeply in love with me.""Which he is, of course." The dismal exclamation broke from Page unawares.Clover stared at him. "Oh no, he isn't," she said gently, after a minute."What!""No, indeed. Jack and I always were good comrades, and always will be, I hope."Page suddenly took both her hands excitedly, and laughed aloud."Pardon me," he said, sobering suddenly. "I was forgetting where we were." He drew her hand within his arm and they started to walk. "Pretty little light things these bamboo houses are," he continued. "What a gentle life they suggest. I don't know exactly why I am so glad to hear what you tell me, Mrs. Van Tassel. I was under a mistaken idea that you and Jack were—and it is no reflection upon Jack that I am relieved. He is a fine fellow. There is no man I like better; so it is—it is really difficult for me to explain why—why"—"Never mind trying, Mr. Page," returned Clover, smiling softly at a cage of doves outside a cottage door. "It isn't necessary," she added demurely, "to label every feeling one has.""It is a sort of habit of mine," he returned apologetically. "What is this long straw building?""The theatre.""Will you come in?""Yes; I have not visited it, but I hear it is interesting."So they entered the well-filled hall just as the performance was beginning, and were fortunate enough to find seats near the stage. At both sides of the latter were placed rows of puppets with grotesque faces, featured like the masks worn by most of the actors. At the back of the stage were ranged the musicians, sitting cross-legged in rows before their highly ornamented instruments. These were soft-toned gongs, bells, and strings of strange fashion, and instead of being solely noticeable for rhythm, like most of the music of the Midway, one heard from this orchestra plaintive harmonies and cadences which seemed but an amplification of the minor pleading in the water-wheel's play.The curtained entrances at the side back of the stage looked too small and low to admit the actors, but there was room and to spare even for the men, and still more for the dainty brown dancing-girls who soon glided forth. They were exceedingly pretty and graceful, dressed in gold-embroidered velvet trousers to the knee, and short skirts. Their dimpled shoulders and arms were bare, and their fringed sashes were used to fling over their wrists in the fascinating monotonous gestures with which they pointed their little hands as they stepped about in their white-stockinged feet.The performance was all in pantomime, the lines being read by some one hidden behind a screen in the centre of the stage. The orchestra men in their calico gowns and turbans often smiled at some sally of the clown; but Clover and Page did not need to comprehend in order to be amused. There was something tenderly comical in the pompous movements of the little people gesturing in stiff, studied fashion. From time to time the dancing-girls would appear, gliding hither and yon, and posing to the tinkling music."This is surprisingly pretty," said Page."I want one of those brown girls to take home as bricabrac," returned Clover. "Aren't they the roundest, prettiest little creatures! Really, the whole thing seems strange enough to be a sight in fairy-land; and do you hear that enchanting rustle of trees above our heads?"The light summer breeze was stirring the dried straw and grass that thatched the roof, with the lulling effect of wind in a forest."I am enchanted, I admit," answered Gorham.After the play they walked about the village, among the houses where the little inhabitants sat upon their piazzas and sang, or talked, or rested silently."I shall never see such a reposeful place again," said Gorham, when at last they passed out beneath the bamboo arch into the turbulent street. "I should like to prolong that experience indefinitely.""You can repeat it," suggested Clover."I should like to believe that; but one seldom has so much enjoyment in the same space of time as I have had this evening. I feel grateful to you for showing me all that."They passed down the remainder of the Midway and under the last viaduct. Walking north around the end of the Woman's Building, they stood a moment arm-in-arm by the lagoon, and watched the quiet boats glide by, then slowly began the homeward walk."You did not tell me," said Page, "what you knew Jack would do in our supposed case.""Haven't we finished yet with the sins of smokers?""I don't know. Perhaps we have. Were you going to say that you believed Jack would give up the habit at the request of the woman he loved?""I was going to say that he would promise to. Yes, I am quite sure what Jack would do, for I have known men of his kind to do the same thing. His fiancée—I, for example"—"No, say your sister; although he is not at all her kind.""Why, what is the matter with poor Jack, Mr. Page?" asked Clover rather resentfully. "In what category do you place him, pray?""I place him high enough," returned Gorham hastily. "I only refer to a woman's fancy, and I have an idea that Miss Bryant would prefer a more sober, studious man.""Why, I can't imagine what makes you think that!""It doesn't matter," said Page. "It can't hurt her at all for us to engage her to him for a few minutes. You are not going to say that Jack would make a promise and break it? If you think that, you rate him lower than I do.""He wouldn't mean to. This is about the way it goes, or the way I have known it to go. Supposing Mildred to be engaged to Jack, she might tell him she wished he did not smoke; that she disapproved it for many reasons. He would probably reply that he hoped she would not ask him to give it up, for if she insisted of course he should comply with her wishes. This would make such an appeal to her tenderness that she would forbear objecting awhile, feeling sure, poor thing, that her lover was completely in her power; but after a time, inclination and conviction both urging her, she would return to the subject. She might say, for instance, that she could not help wishing strongly that he would give up this habit, and that Clover had said no man would do it for any woman. At this Jack would flare up. How could Clover be guilty of such a speech! She had evidently never known any man who loved a woman as he, Jack, adored her, Mildred. He would die for her. It would be a pleasure to him to give up this comparatively slight gratification for the sake of proving his affection for his beloved. Great elation on the part of Mildred. Lying low on the part of Clover. Jack stops smoking, and is ostentatiously careless and cheerful. Mildred flatters him gratefully. He assures her that he does not care if he never sees a cigar again, and is glad if such a trifling sacrifice pleases her."Some day, perhaps before their marriage, perhaps after, it depends upon the length of the engagement, Jack, after dinner, lights a cigar with a friend. Mildred protests gently. He answers reproachfully. Of course she knows the habit is entirely broken up, she surely is not going to be puritanical and unreasonable because once in a way he lights a cigar as she would eat confectionery? She still feels uneasy, but is rather ashamed to show it. He puts his arm around her, tells her she is a nice little girl, and came just in time to save him from smoking to excess, and he thanks her for it.""Well?" said Gorham, as she paused."Well, that occasional cigar soon becomes a daily one, or one of a daily half-dozen.""Mrs. Van Tassel! How cynical you are!"Clover laughed. "Oh no, not cynical. Jack was honest in his expectation to give up his pet indulgence. He reasoned himself into thinking his course was right.""I can't believe it is always so.""Always, Mr. Page," returned Clover, nodding wisely. "Men have died and worms have eaten them, but not for love. Men have given up tobacco and endured the torment it entails, butnot—for—love!""I never wished before that I was a smoker," said Page musingly, "but I suppose it would be rather foolish to cultivate the appetite merely to deny it.""A piece of braggadocio which would be sure to reap the reward of failure," replied Clover."Don't say that, or you will tempt me to experiment. My first cigar made me dreadfully ill when I was twelve years old, and my father counter-irritated my internal misery with an outward application; so I didn't try it again for some time. In the past year I have occasionally yielded to Jack's urgency and smoked a cigar, but it doesn't interest me. I forget about it, and it goes out.""By all means let well enough alone," laughed Clover."Do you object to the use of tobacco?" asked Page earnestly."In you I should," answered the other, her eyes shining in the darkness."I wish I could give it up," he replied simply.CHAPTER XXII.ON THE LAGOON.Mildred and Jack, when they discovered that they had lost their companions, made no effort to find them."It is a great bore for more than two to try to keep together in this place. Don't you think so?" asked Van Tassel."It is very difficult, certainly," agreed the girl. "Isn't it strange to look about this wonder-world of a street and realize that it is just the Midway Plaisance? Recall the old driveway at this hour.""Yes; early evening was its most populous time too; but even then, how quiet it was. What a wild idea it would have been to expect to see Turkish dancing-girls, half-naked Dahomeyans, and all the rest, living in those still, green fields. Have you been in to Hagenbeck's and seen the marvelous trained animals?""Yes; but it is a rather creepy pleasure to watch lions, tigers, bears, and leopards walking around that one solitary man and hissing threateningly at him even while they obey.""The one moment when I found my breath short was when the trainer made five lions lie down on the ground, and threw himself on his back upon them as though on a rug. He flung his arms out and caressed their great noses. I tell you, I didn't like him to let those beasts out from under his eyes.""That was thrilling, I remember; but I felt for the lions sometimes, too. I didn't like to see them demean themselves. When one had to hold the end of a rope in his teeth and swing it to let a hound jump, it seemed rather small business to demand of the king of the forest."When the two friends, stopping often by the way to watch some curious object of interest, reached the Japanese bazaar, they went in for a few minutes. By the time they emerged, the twilight had wholly faded."See your kings of the forest!" exclaimed Jack.Mildred looked across the street. There in mid-air, apparently suspended like Mahomet's coffin, the iron cage above the entrance to the Hagenbeck arena was brilliant with electric light. Five great lions were within, and the strange effect, in the surrounding darkness, was heightened when the trainer, whip in hand, entered and closed the door behind him. In a shorter time than it takes to tell it, Jack and Mildred found themselves in the centre of an ever-growing crowd, all with upturned faces watching the wondrous apparition. The magnificent beasts glided lithely back and forth, watching the trainer, who, exciting them more and more by the whip which he cracked in the air, adroitly avoided being knocked down as they bounded about him, passing and repassing one another with increasing swiftness."A great advertisement," remarked Jack; then, as Mildred moved and turned her head, "Are you being uncomfortably crowded?" he asked."Never mind, it is worth it!" she said, rather breathlessly, as a big fellow, uncouth in his open-mouthed wonder, unconsciously shoved her against her companion.Van Tassel drew her in front of him and placed his arm between her and the countryman. The latter still pressed, but feeling an obstruction firm as a bar of iron, turned his admiring countenance vaguely around toward Van Tassel."Well, I vum," he exclaimed. "Ever seen anything like that before? Wife and I never did. Them lions hangin' betwixt earth and heaven shakin' their manes at that feller, and he dodgin' around out o' their way as cool as a cucumber! It's wife's aim to tell the truth when we get home, and it's mine, too. It's both our aims; but we might's well lie. There won't anybody believe this.""It is amazing," said Jack; "but you can see as well in one place as another. Would you kindly push the other way?""They're a-hunchin' us on this side too," explained the man; then continued to gape, oblivious of his surroundings.The trainer placed a white and gold chair in the centre of the cage, and made one of the lions spring into it. The creature placed its powerful forepaws on the chair-back, and waved its graceful tail from side to side. Another of the beasts reared on its hind legs high above the trainer's head, resting its paws against the iron bars; and its roar resounded through the crowded street.The trainer motioned the sitting lion from the chair, shot a revolver twice into the air, left the cage, and lo! the wondering spectators were gazing into blank darkness."Another dream over," said Jack into the ear so close to him.The tightly hemmed-in mass of humanity slowly dissolved into its integral parts."They ought to have a packed house after that," remarked Mildred."Shall we swell the number?""Not unless you wish it.""I don't. I wish something else very much. Will you answer as meekly and civilly when I ask it?"They had begun again their walk eastward."I don't know.""Oh, that is not encouraging.""It is wise, though. I was brought up never to be afraid to confess that I didn't know a thing.""I want you to go with me in a gondola. Compare my humility with Robert Page'ssang-froid.""A gondola will be even more difficult to catch by this time than a horse-car," suggested the girl.Jack looked at her, but her piquant smiling face taught him renewed patience."Then you will not run much risk in promising," he answered. "Shall we leave it to Fate to decide? If we find a gondola easily, will you go?""Yes, indeed."As they left the Plaisance and came around the Woman's Building, a sun-burst of fire in the east illuminated the sky."A salute to royalty," said Jack. "Queen Mildred has arrived."The white light faded, to be followed by dazzling green, ruby, and gold, as one bomb followed another, to burst above the lake and cast abroad in the heavens fountains of jewels that rained down in glittering showers."Now, let us see if Fate is good-natured," said Van Tassel, leading his companion toward the nearest gondola-landing. A graceful willow hung above and obscured it."I must laugh at you, Jack," said the girl, suiting the action to the word. "The idea of expecting to find a gondola now, way over here.""Stranger things have happened. Suppose," suddenly standing still and looking down into her eyes,—"suppose you should say that you wish it. Just for luck, you know.""I never wish for impossibilities.""Do you expect me to believe that?""Well, I try not to.""But wish for this. You know it is possible to have strawberries in January.""What a great boy you are still, Jack. Very well, I wish that two gondoliers may have been attacked by an unusual access of laziness this evening, have denied their craft to all applicants, and skulked over here away from the crowd, and that they may be waiting for us now in the shadow of the willow. Any more midsummer madness you would like me to indulge in?"Van Tassel led her down the bank. "Behold!" he said. "Mildred, what a witch you are! This is necromancy."The girl stood with lips parted, for the waiting gondoliers sent their graceful craft to her feet. She put her hand in Jack's and stepped within. In a moment Van Tassel was beside her, and they had glided away.The lagoon rippled in a light breeze. Along the edge of Wooded Island the sedges dipped in the waves. Here and there on the bank a group of water-birds showed white, as a neighboring electric light touched the soft plumage beneath which their heads nestled.Jack wanted his companion to speak first, but she kept silence long."Is the sorceress enjoying herself?" he asked gently, at last.Mildred returned his gaze as she leaned back in her cushioned corner."I am a philosopher," she answered. "I am being kidnapped, but I might as well enjoy it.""Well, that is pretty good. I should say"—"I don't want to hear anything you have to say. I am convinced that you are the most designing creature alive. Ask your minions to sing, please."Jack longed that he might know the thoughts that flitted white-winged through his companion's mind as their boat glided on, to the gondoliers' song.This ceased as they entered the Court of Honor, grown dusk now in preparation for the second playing of the electric fountains. Half the weary sightseers had gone home; no black crowd lined the railings around the Grand Basin.The rainbow jets sprang triumphant skyward. An invisible orchestra lent their colors richer meaning and beauty."Do you remember the song that Clover sang last night?" asked Jack, leaning a little toward his companion. "It suddenly came to my mind then as the water shot up. Those lines,—'I share the skylark's transport fine,I know the fountain's wayward yearning,I love—and the world is mine!'Clover says that is a man's song. I don't agree with her. A woman may be angel enough to feel divine fullness of content simply in loving; but a man who loves must be loved again, or else feel that nothing is his,—nothing; there is no beggar so poor as he. Isn't it so?"The earnest tone thrilled close to Mildred's cheek. She caught her breath quickly. "I—I don't know," she said, nervously surprised."Still true to your bringing up," remarked her companion, controlling himself with a strong will as he felt her shrink, and leaning back with a short laugh. "Not afraid to say you don't know, when such is the case. Well, I can only speak for myself. When I love and am loved I will agree with the poet,—I would even sing with her if I could:'For soft the hours repeat one story,Sings the sea one strain divine,My clouds arise, all flushed with glory,I love—and the world is mine!'"Mildred was startled. What a lover Jack would make! He was not Clover's. She was sure of it now, but the thought brought no elation, rather a new, timid humility, which made her seem strange to herself.She felt her companion's dark eyes upon her, and her usually ready tongue was mute.Van Tassel did not know whether to gather courage or alarm from her silence as they sat there side by side. The gondoliers slowly propelled the boat, keeping in view of the fountains' tossing banners of liquid light."Tell me what you are thinking, Mildred," he urged, at last."I am not thinking. Do you ever come to such times? I do always in this spot. Perhaps it is because I have no thoughts to match such unearthly beauty. At all events I never think, here. I feel. I absorb.""Yes, that is it," answered Jack simply."Give me the Peristyle," said Mildred, "and what I can see from it, and sweep all the rest of the Fair away if you like. I don't love many things in this world beside Mildred Bryant, but the Peristyle is one of them."It was a novel speech from her, and in a novel tone. The low cadence of her voice had lost the laughter or imperiousness which usually characterized it.Jack was silent for a time. "Are you warm enough?" he asked at last."Yes; but I think we had better go home.""Aren't you comfortable?""Oh, certainly, and it was very kind of you, Jack, to take so much trouble."This gentleness alarmed Van Tassel more than any amount of coldness or impertinence would have done; but he fought off dejection."I have given you one thing, then, that you can't hand on to Clover," he said lightly.The fountains leaped a last time and fell, dropping lower and lower, till only the white sea foaming about Columbia's barge was left. Soft radiance again lit up water and sculpture.Mildred longed to be at home; and soon she and Jack entered a wagonette at the Park gate and were driven to the house. When they arrived, the orchestra at the hotel was playing the music of Carmen."There is a delicate compliment to you, Jack," she suggested, as they ascended the steps."Yes; but must you go right in?" for she showed symptoms of leaving him."It has been a long day," she answered, lingering with an unusual gentle compliance from which he gathered no hope."You are tired," he said, with tender contrition. "I have had you so long, and yet—when should I be ready to let you go! Oh, Mildred,—is it any use?" he burst forth suddenly, in a low tone, seizing both her hands and holding them with painful tightness.A fluttering and wild, loud peeping came from the tangle of vines near which they stood, and a small dark object half fell, half flew down past their heads to the grass below.Mildred started. "It is Electra,—a falling star." She laughed nervously. "I am glad she fell, else I might be crying now instead of laughing. It would be such a serious unhappiness to me if I should cause you pain, Jack," she added brokenly. "You are so different from anybody else.""I am answered," he said briefly and steadily; but he did not loosen her hands. "I am going to ask a great deal of you now, Mildred. Can you forget what I have said?""I—I am afraid not.""Please try to; I will help you.""Help me?" repeated the girl, bewildered."Yes, for everything between us shall be the same as before. To-morrow morning you will say to yourself that you had a dream. That is all.""Very well." The girl regarded him questioningly. "I hope you are not—are not thinking that I might—might speak of it?"Jack threw his head back and gave an excited laugh before suddenly growing grave and gazing ardently into her eyes."Speak of it? What would it be to me, my darling, if every one knew," he said with swift ardor. "I love—but the world is not mine. That is the whole story, and the only peace for you is to forget it."Her head drooped under his look."I am dreadfully tired, Jack," she said faintly."Yes, dear, go, and forgive me." He kissed her hands passionately and released them. She passed into the house, her head and heart pulsing. Bewilderment was her chief sensation. The finality with which Jack seemed to accept defeat was so at variance with his manner.She stole upstairs silently to her room, closed the door, and turned up the light. Then she went to her mirror and questioned her own pale face with wistful eyes."I haven't expected it. I didn't know it was coming this time," she said, answering some thought. "Is Jack really so unselfish as that? Can he care for me enough to—and then cover his disappointment with gayety to save me pain?"His loving words rang in her ears, her hands still felt the wild pressure of his, and the warmth of his kisses. No one had ever received failure so before. No man had ever dared to call her "darling." A look that was almost fear came into the eyes that gazed back from the mirror. How had Jack contrived to make himself seem victor instead of vanquished?He had not even pressed his suit; he had not begged her to try to love him. How nobly he had spared her,—but how audaciously he had treated her!The color was flowing back to her cheeks. Mildred could no longer study that face in the glass. She turned away, weary, perplexed, troubled by the restless beating of her heart."I will get to sleep as quickly as possible. He told me to believe it a dream. I must try to take it all as Clover would."The thought of her sister was like calling up the image of a saint. She had not been the object of Jack's adoration, after all. How strange, strange! How much better it would have been for him. Not that Clover would have married him, but it would have been good for him merely to love her. Fevers, perplexities, could not come where Clover was; and with this thought came a great longing to breathe Clover's cool, wholesome atmosphere. Mildred slipped into a wrapper, and without pausing to think further, crossed to her door. There was but a dim light within.She spoke her sister's name very softly, not to wake her if possibly she might be asleep; but Clover herself in an instant opened the door."I thought I heard you come in, Milly.""Why, what are you doing here, all dressed, in the dark?" asked the younger, entering."Thinking." Clover laughed. "It sounds amusing, doesn't it; but the music was pleasant and my window especially enticing. I felt rather tired when I reached home a little while before you, and meant to be asleep by this time, but here I am, you see.""Let me come and think too," said Mildred; "or rather, let me come where I can't think."The two sisters sat down in the large bay window overlooking the lake."Haven't you had a pleasant day?" asked Clover."I've had all sorts of a day. How has yours been?""Delightful.""You are my despair, Clover. Things are always delightful to you."Clover heard the depression in her sister's voice, and wondered; her thoughts flew to Jack too, and she questioned what mood the day might have left him in. "Oh no," she answered, "but those nut-brown maids in the Javanese theatre would put any one into good humor. When they dance, you can no more help laughing than if you were being tickled with a feather. Such dear, cunning, absurd motions as they make, their little bits of mouths looking so serious all the time.""You take such an interest in everything," said Mildred wistfully. "It is because you have 'a heart at leisure from itself.' I have never longed for that sort of a heart as I have to-day. For quite a while it has been slowly dawning upon me that I am more self-centred than most people; but to-day Gorham Page gave me the final blow.""Mr. Page? Why, you astonish me. He has a high opinion of you. He was saying to-day how much deeper and more earnest you were"—"For mercy's sake," exclaimed Mildred, flushing to her ears, "don't tell me what he said!""Why? Are you too conscientious to accept a compliment when you haven't a 'trade'?""I have plenty of 'trades.' Jack never talks about you without using superlatives.""Dear Jack. He is far too appreciative," returned Clover, wishing it were light enough to see how her sister accepted this; "but you haven't told me how Mr. Page hurt you.""No, it was the truth that hurt me.""Mr. Page is a very good representative of that," smiled Clover."We were coming out of Old Vienna, and you and Jack fell behind to speak to one another, and I addressed Mr. Page. He looked at me vaguely, and answered at random. Well, it was the way that trifle affected me that made me see Mildred Bryant as I had never seen her before. I was deeply offended, yes, angry, that the important favor of a remark from my lips should be disregarded. Oh, Clover, the disgrace of it!"The speaker's voice was unsteady, and she suddenly covered her face with her hands.Clover leaned forward and put a hand on her knee."Isn't it beautiful," she said earnestly, "to find yourself shrinking from sin? It is so safe to condemn it in ourselves. Hatred of evil is only treacherous when we feel it for the mistakes of others.""The worst of it was that I knew I should have felt less injured had it not been that another woman was what was preoccupying his attention. He was thinking of you, and I resented it. I couldn't live if I didn't tell you. It proved to me that I was growing into a regular—oh, a regular octopus. Everything must be absorbed to feed my vanity, and especially every man.""Why, Mildred, I am so glad for you," said Clover simply, her cool tones falling on the other's scornful heat and extinguishing its fire. "We have to come to these places, you know, for we mustn't be left in our badness, and a little light is let in at a time as we can bear it.""But I can't bear it," exclaimed Mildred wildly, "for it is second nature to me to be vain and exacting.""You won't indulge it now.""Yes, I shall.""Not so carelessly as before. All this is what comes into the battle of life. One part of our dual nature loves our evils and the other hates them. You can have God's help if you ask it, you know, and you will find how little and how deceptive the progress will be that you make without Him.""Your battle seems won, Clover.""I am in one of the peaceful places now, and I am very happy and grateful. I wasn't given your tempestuous nature, dear, so our experiences always are and will be different. The Father in mercy lets us develop as irresponsibly as the plants until we get such a glimpse into our souls as you had to-day; but then responsibility begins. It is sinning against light that warps and distorts us.""I wonder if it would be good for me to be married," said Mildred musingly. "When girls are married, they haven't much time to think about themselves.""It is good for every girl to marry when she truly loves a man who is unexceptionable," returned Clover, smiling at her own triteness. "But you remember the girl must ask herself, not Can I live with this man? but Can I live without him?""Then I should certainly never marry. You didn't do that, Clover."Clover looked musingly out at the window. "No; I didn't do that. I often think of that little ignorant girl who married dear Mr. Van Tassel. I don't know whether I did right or not; but at the time I thought I did, and that is all I have any concern with; but I was not in freedom. You are in freedom. The Can I live without him? ought to mean Can we be more useful together than we could apart?""Why, you don't leave a girl any comfort in thinking about herself at all," complained Mildred, half in tears."There isn't much comfort in it, that is a fact," returned Clover, smiling. "You are tired, dear; go to bed now."They rose, and Mildred took the smaller woman in her arms and their cheeks clung together. "I am unhappy, Clover," she said, with plaintive surprise at the fact."It is so restful," replied the other, "to think you have all eternity before you. Even if we only make a beginning here, it will be all right.""I like your arms around me," said Mildred. "Let me sleep with you to-night."
CHAPTER XXI.
OLD VIENNA.
"How remarkable that you met Mildred," said Clover to Jack, after the four had wended their way out of Cairo and turned west.
"It was a lucky chance," replied Van Tassel.
"Where did you meet?" The fun in his face gave Clover her first suspicion.
"In the Ferris Wheel. Wasn't it a coincidence that we should have chosen the same cab? And I'll tell you in confidence, Clover, that I think Mildred was considerably impressed with his Wheelship."
"Why should you make a confidence of that?" asked Mildred nonchalantly. "We are all impressed, aren't we?"
"Not to the verge of pallor, Milly."
"Don't call me Milly. No one does that but Clover."
"Were you really frightened, Mildred?" asked her sister with much interest.
"Why do you ask me? Ask Jack. He evidently knows all about it."
"No, I insist on referring you to Mildred herself. She scorns petty deceits of all kinds. I cannot be relied on to tell the absolute truth."
Mildred looked at the speaker with a dangerous sparkle in her eyes. "Why don't you give Clover her present?" she asked suddenly.
"A present for me? Why, hurry," exclaimed Clover. "What new extravagance have you been committing, Milly?"
"It isn't I this time, it is Jack. He has bought you the most adorable little silver hanging-lamp you ever saw. Open it, Jack; or shall we wait till we are seated in Old Vienna?"
"You told him I wanted it, you naughty girl."
"No, I didn't." Mildred was bubbling over with mischievous satisfaction in Van Tassel's struggles to look bland. "It was purely spontaneous on his part. I even went so far as to urge him not to get it. Didn't I, Jack?"
Van Tassel's reply was scarcely audible; but they had reached the guard, who with puffed sleeves and feathered hat stood motionless, spear in hand, before the entrance to the Vienna of two hundred years ago.
Inside they found the Pages, standing before one of the many open shops which formed the first floors of the weather-stained, peaked, and turreted houses.
"Hilda is buying a spoon," announced Mr. Page as his friends approached; "but that goes without saying. I have kept careful count, and this is the seventy-seventh she has purchased while with me. Of course there may be others. I can't tell what pleasant surprises may be awaiting me when we get home."
"How was the Chinese theatre?" asked Gorham, while Clover and Mildred gravitated naturally to Mrs. Page's side to lend her their aid in deciding between the merits of two spoons she was examining.
"Immense; you must go."
"You mustn't go unless you want to be driven crazy with noise," put in Hilda. "Robert says I am deficient in the sense of humor, but you positively can't think in that place. There was a Chinese-American in the audience acting as an interpreter, and I suppose he saw that Robert was interested; so he just stayed with us, and put the crowning touch to the confusion by explaining the play at a pitch to be heard above the squealing music and the shrieking actors."
"Women's parts all taken by men, of course," explained her husband, "and they jabber in a high monotonous falsetto without any change of countenance except an occasional attack of pathetic strabismus. Two lovers meet after a separation of ten years. They start, then with two simultaneous squeaks fall backward in a swoon, feet to feet, and lie there with their elaborately dressed heads sticking up in the air, while a supe runs in with wooden supports which he tucks under their necks. The interpreter explained: 'Of course they cannot spoil their hair!' Ha! ha! It was great; and as for the costumes and hangings, they would stand alone for the gold and silver embroidery in them. Confess, Hilda, they were consoling."
"Yes, they were; and so was the baby we saw upstairs in the Joss-house. He was ten months old, with a black tuft of hair on top of his head exactly like the Chinese dolls, and was dressed in green silk trousers and a red silk shirt."
"You must have wanted to steal him," said Mildred.
"That is what his mother thought, I am sure. He lay asleep in a little wagon, and when she heard me exclaim, she flew out from behind a curtain with a very suspicious expression on her pretty face. Yes, she was really pretty, and dimpled, and young; and her hands were loaded with rings. Robert, just look here one minute. Don't you think the filigree handle is the prettier?"
"My dear, I ate too many bananas once, and have never since been able to endure the sight of them. If you knew the sentiments with which a souvenir spoon inspires me, you would tremble."
"I will take the filigree one," said Mrs. Page, with a sigh of relief.
The six ate supper together at a table pleasantly distant from the fine German orchestra. Feathery bits of white cloud scudded over the blue above them. Picturesque gables and weather-beaten façades illuminated with the decorations of a bygone time closed them in from the outside world with such an atmosphere of antiquity, that even the dignified beauty of Handel's Largo, as its stately measures pealed forth on the evening air, seemed an anachronism.
Mildred sat at Jack's right hand.
"What shall I put down for you?" he asked, looking up from the order he was writing. "I found nothing on the card injurious enough to be appropriate."
Mildred smiled slightly as she glanced over the menu.
"You deserved a worse punishment than that," she answered.
"It is true it was no great punishment. I should like to give Clover all Cairo Street if she wants it."
Clover was sitting opposite between the other men, and the music effectually concealed from her the above colloquy.
"Hurry up, Jack," she said, leaning forward; "they keep you waiting forever here. Give her bread and milk if she can't decide. It is good for the young."
While the party were waiting for their meal to be brought, Jack, now at ease in the situation, produced the silver lamp, which received much praise as it was passed about.
Gorham, Mildred's other neighbor, turned to her. "Your sister suggests that you must have practiced much self-control," he remarked. "She says this is just the sort of lamp you have been searching for."
"Do you hear that, Jack?" asked Mildred demurely. "I am afraid Jack does not appreciate me, Mr. Page."
Mildred, ever since the evening of her confidential talk with Gorham, had carried the half-nettled, wholly amused consciousness that he was regarding her with considerations of her search for that affinity she had described. She felt sure he would not repeat their talk to Jack; but if he should! The thought brought a stinging red to her cheeks.
Page was not thinking of her now, however. This little circumstance of the gift of the lamp impressed him. That Jack should, while with Mildred, buy this bauble which the latter coveted and give it to Clover, looked as though Hilda's convictions might be correct. As he caught a serene glance from Clover's violet eyes it suddenly seemed to him very improbable that an impressionable fellow like his cousin should not dream by day and night of that pure and beautiful face.
Jack was not worthy of her, he could not precisely state to himself why; and he ran over his acquaintances in his mind to see if he could find one the consideration of whom would rouse less antagonism. He had not succeeded when the waiter appeared with the supper.
"What are you indefatigable people going to do next?" asked Robert Page, lighting a cigar when their meal was finished. "I am extremely comfortable and good-natured now, but I warn you I shall turn dangerous if any one suggests the illumination. To be asked just to step over from Old Vienna to the Court of Honor sounds pleasant. It was played on me once when I was a tenderfoot; but I'm not to be roped into any such pilgrimage to-night. If I wasn't a married man, I should sit right here and listen to the music, and see the Wheel go round, until it was time to go to my little bed."
"What nonsense!" remarked Hilda. "If you weren't married you would be urging me to go with you in a gondola."
"My dear, where would be the use? You know the gondolas are all bespoken by this time. What a sweet consciousness it is, by the way," added Page, sighing restfully.
"We are going, though, some night," returned his wife. "Before we leave the White City, you must take me in a gondola and hold my hand."
"See the lengths to which this woman's frenzy for spoons carries her! Why, I'll hold your hand now, my dear. Any suggestion which presupposes so little exertion as that will find me in an affirmative state of mind every time."
Hilda glanced at his offered hand scornfully. "We haven't the stage-setting," she replied. "Be careful, Robert Page, or you will frighten Mildred out of getting married at all."
"Is that true, Miss Mildred? Oh, I don't believe it. You are so level-headed you must see the situation in the right light. Did you ever hear the simile of the horse-car? When a man is trying to catch a horse-car and afraid it is going to escape him, he waves his arms, shouts, hurries, and disturbs himself generally. After he has caught the conveyance, if he continued to behave in the same perturbed fashion he would be set down as a lunatic. You see the point, of course?"
Mildred pursed her lips and shook her head. "You are a very audacious man," she answered.
"Now Jack isn't smoking," continued Page argumentatively. "That indicates the restlessness of the man who is afraid he will arrive too late at the street corner."
"It indicates that I am not going to stay here," returned Van Tassel.
"Whither away, restless one?"
"You will have to ask Miss Bryant. She is showing me the World's Fair to-day."
"Not after your perfidious behavior," said Mildred. "I was too sophisticated, was I? Oh, for shame!"
"Do you speak to me of perfidy!" exclaimed Jack.
"Well, sha'n't we all go somewhere together?" suggested Gorham.
"No, I think we sha'n't, dear brother," replied Robert mildly.
"Do you want to stay, Hilda?" asked Gorham. "Aren't you growing tired of hearing Zwei Bier? Come with us."
"No, thanks. I will stay here until it bores me, and then I will give Robert his choice of selecting another souvenir spoon or taking me out."
So the other four left their seats and moved away to the martial strains of Die Wacht am Rhein.
Clover found herself beside Jack a moment.
"It was a shame about the lamp," she murmured.
"What?" returned Van Tassel, looking uncomfortably into her roguish eyes.
"I saw how it was. Too bad; but that is another thing she will repent at leisure."
"How did you know?"
"By Mildred's impish dimple. She has one just above her lip that never shows except when she is in mischief. At first I was taken in; but after a moment I saw the imp, and then I knew."
"What a wonderful sight the Wheel is with its double row of electric lights," said Mildred to Gorham.
"What—yes; it has been rather warm," he replied; this irrelevance being due to the effect upon him of observing Clover's murmured colloquy with Jack.
Mildred stared. When she made a remark to a man, she was accustomed to find him attentive.
Page continued with another inexcusable speech.
"I wonder if perhaps Mrs. Van Tassel would like to go somewhere with Jack."
"I believe Jack considers himself otherwise engaged this evening," returned Miss Bryant with hauteur.
"Oh—oh yes." Gorham's eyes fell upon the speaker with an expression which suggested that he had just become aware of her, and until this moment had been talking to himself.
A light broke upon Mildred. There was but one possible explanation of such ignoring of her own preëminent right to homage.
"They are both in love with her!" she thought, and the slight pang that came with the idea surprised her.
Clover and Jack, with the laughter on their lips, stepped forward and joined the others.
"Have you any wish, Mrs. Van Tassel?" asked Page.
"No, let us drift until something tempts us." They soon lost sight of Mildred and Jack in that stream of humanity which flowed in both directions along the Midway between the soft arc-moons. They left behind them the great Wheel, slowly revolving in sparkling light as though, sweeping through the heavens, myriad stars had caught thickly along its edges and were borne on to earth.
"Let me carry that precious lamp," said Page, taking Clover's parcel.
"I would not let Jack keep it, for fear he might give it to Mildred," she explained.
Her companion looked surprised.
"Jack is a little weak and indulgent where Mildred is concerned," said Clover.
Page did not know what to reply. Hilda had assured him in days past that no one could help seeing that Mrs. Van Tassel was unwilling Jack should ask Mildred to go to the Fair with him, and now this frank avowal of jealousy perplexed him greatly.
"But what—what mystifies me, Mrs. Van Tassel," he said hesitatingly, "is that you should care for a gift—but there are limits to a man's right to express his thoughts."
Clover laughed out mirthfully. "Analyze me. I am perfectly willing, only it will necessitate exposing the fact that my sister is a very saucy girl."
Page regarded her so earnestly that he nearly stumbled over a wheeled chair that grazed him.
"I don't understand it at all," he said seriously.
"Of course not. Well, I will tell you. Jack bought this lamp for Mildred; and she, to punish him for some offense, forced him to give it to me in the way you heard. She doesn't know that I saw through it; but now I do not propose that she shall have the fun and the lamp too."
Page found the Midway grow a trifle cheerier under this disclosure. "Of course not," he answered; then, after a moment's thoughtfulness: "That was a strange prank for your sister to play," he added. "I fear I shouldn't have known how to yield as easily to the joke as Jack did."
"Oh, he stuttered a good deal, poor fellow," laughed Clover. "Mildred is a spoiled child."
"Not so superficial, though, as one would at first believe," returned Gorham. "There is plenty of depth to her nature. Society educates a girl to seem shallow, that is all."
Clover looked surprised and pleased. She glanced at Page with quick, responsive feeling.
"It is very nice of you to see through Mildred," she said, and Page felt a strange glow under her approval.
"The folly of Hilda," he thought, "in supposing this woman could be jealous of another!"
There was something too in the quiet joyousness of her sphere which assured him that whatever were her sentiments for Jack, she was not longing for his society now. She was content, he felt it, and the knowledge was bliss to him.
"I wonder how soon we are going to be attracted," remarked Clover, after they had walked a minute in silence.
Page turned to her suddenly. "What do you mean by that?" he asked so eagerly that the surprised color rushed to his companion's face.
"Why, we were waiting, weren't we, for one of these side shows to tempt us beyond the point of resistance," she answered, with the glibness with which a woman can skim over a moment which threatens too much.
"Well, to tell the truth I had forgotten what we were doing beyond sauntering together in this very interesting, motley crowd. Isn't it strange how completely alone we are in such a place?"
"Or might be, if it were not for the wheeled chairs," said Clover. "It isn't safe to become introspective here."
"Was I?" anxiously. "Have I been silent, Mrs. Van Tassel? My thoughts often play me tricks. Hilda is always saying that I am 'queer.' I don't know just what she means, but if you would be kind enough to mention it if I do anything you don't like, I should be—it would be a great favor."
"You are very flattering," returned Clover, turning away to smile. "What a temptation you offer me!"
"Then I do offend you?" he exclaimed with frank consternation.
"No, no, I didn't mean that. I was only thinking what a temptation you hold out to a woman to mould a fellow-creature into the form she likes. But I know what an ignis fatuus that alluring idea is. Men do not alter themselves to please women."
"I should say," returned Page ruminatively, "that you are wrong. I know that Hilda has changed Robert in many ways, materially."
"By the force of years of influence, yes; but your brother did not know what was going on. I am certain of that."
"I should suppose," said Page earnestly, "that a man could not rest in the knowledge that he was doing something offensive to the woman he loves."
"Yes, you would suppose so," agreed Clover. "My knowledge of the truth is gathered from observation, not experience, as you know. I reverenced Mr. Van Tassel too completely to think of desiring to change him. In my married life it was myself I wished to alter; but I have seen a good deal of young married people, and—well, tell me, Mr. Page, did you ever hear Hilda say that she would be glad if her husband did not smoke?"
"Yes," replied Gorham, and said no more.
"Now I begin to feel a strong temptation, Mr. Page. How is it with you? Are you prepared to resist the Javanese village?"
"I have not been in there."
"Oh, you mustn't miss that. I wonder you have been able to pass that charming, fantastic, bamboo entrance. The lightness and simplicity of this life makes it to me the most charming in the Plaisance."
They entered the gateway and came suddenly upon the quiet attractions of the dainty straw village. Yes, it was still, here; still enough to hear the muffled music of the water-wheel. Clover and Page stood a moment in the hush, listening to its tinkle, and the plashing of the wavelets. A small, soft-footed Javanese occasionally passed them.
"I wish that I smoked," broke out Gorham suddenly.
"Here will be an opportunity," returned Clover. "You will be offered cigarettes at every turn in Java."
Page's seriousness was unmoved. "I want you to believe that I would give it up if you asked me."
Mrs. Van Tassel's serene heart quickened its pace, but she laughed. "Isn't it a pity that I shall have to remain incredulous?" then she hastened on, vaguely afraid of her companion. "Don't misunderstand me, please. I was not criticising your brother a minute ago. Do you know you have formed a shocking habit of frankness in me? You have searched out my thoughts and opinions so many times that now you have only to suggest a subject and I pour out my ideas. I think I ought to have kept my observations to myself on this topic; but since I have said so much, I don't wish to leave you with the notion that I think your brother and men like him monsters of selfishness. A woman makes an absurd mistake to marry a smoking man, and then to be grieved because he refuses when she artlessly requests him to give up the habit; but a girl nearly always thinks that all she need do is to marry a man in order to make him over into anything she likes. I tell you, Mr. Page, it is the result of my observations that all the voluntary changes a man makes at the request of his beloved are made before—before he catches the horse-car."
Gorham smiled. "But I don't think Robert ought to smoke, since Hilda"—
"Pardon me. I am going to defend the absent. Did he smoke while they were engaged?"
"Yes."
"Very well. Now, do you wish to hear some words of wisdom?"
"Yes, indeed."
"Here they are. If Hilda disliked tobacco, she should have said so, then; and she probably did. When she found Mr. Page would not give up the habit, she should have weighed the question in her mind as to whether the matter of smoking were going to affect her happiness seriously. If she thought it would, she should have broken her engagement. The great point is, that if she decided to marry him she should have realized that she took him as he was, tobacco and all, and would be likely to have rather more than less of it for the rest of her life."
"A man is a selfish brute," remarked Gorham.
"Sometimes; but he has the same right a woman has to choose between his habit and his love; that is, if the woman speaks in time."
"Hilda does not particularly dislike cigar smoke," said Page, "but she thinks smoking is bad for Robert. I wonder if all men are as thick-skinned as you say. Now, there is Jack. Do you believe he would not fling all his cigars into the lake for—for you?"
"Yes, indeed; so long as there were plenty more to be had."
"No, Mrs. Van Tassel, be serious; and for the moment pardon personalities. If Jack were engaged to you"—
He waited, gazing at Clover. She smiled at him and said, "Well, if Jack were engaged to me?"
Page swallowed some impediment to speech.
"And you should earnestly ask him not to smoke, can you doubt the result?"
Clover shrugged her shoulders. "No, I am afraid I can't. Jack is a gentleman, and such an impulsive, affectionate fellow, I know pretty well what he would do, supposing of course that he were very earnestly and deeply in love with me."
"Which he is, of course." The dismal exclamation broke from Page unawares.
Clover stared at him. "Oh no, he isn't," she said gently, after a minute.
"What!"
"No, indeed. Jack and I always were good comrades, and always will be, I hope."
Page suddenly took both her hands excitedly, and laughed aloud.
"Pardon me," he said, sobering suddenly. "I was forgetting where we were." He drew her hand within his arm and they started to walk. "Pretty little light things these bamboo houses are," he continued. "What a gentle life they suggest. I don't know exactly why I am so glad to hear what you tell me, Mrs. Van Tassel. I was under a mistaken idea that you and Jack were—and it is no reflection upon Jack that I am relieved. He is a fine fellow. There is no man I like better; so it is—it is really difficult for me to explain why—why"—
"Never mind trying, Mr. Page," returned Clover, smiling softly at a cage of doves outside a cottage door. "It isn't necessary," she added demurely, "to label every feeling one has."
"It is a sort of habit of mine," he returned apologetically. "What is this long straw building?"
"The theatre."
"Will you come in?"
"Yes; I have not visited it, but I hear it is interesting."
So they entered the well-filled hall just as the performance was beginning, and were fortunate enough to find seats near the stage. At both sides of the latter were placed rows of puppets with grotesque faces, featured like the masks worn by most of the actors. At the back of the stage were ranged the musicians, sitting cross-legged in rows before their highly ornamented instruments. These were soft-toned gongs, bells, and strings of strange fashion, and instead of being solely noticeable for rhythm, like most of the music of the Midway, one heard from this orchestra plaintive harmonies and cadences which seemed but an amplification of the minor pleading in the water-wheel's play.
The curtained entrances at the side back of the stage looked too small and low to admit the actors, but there was room and to spare even for the men, and still more for the dainty brown dancing-girls who soon glided forth. They were exceedingly pretty and graceful, dressed in gold-embroidered velvet trousers to the knee, and short skirts. Their dimpled shoulders and arms were bare, and their fringed sashes were used to fling over their wrists in the fascinating monotonous gestures with which they pointed their little hands as they stepped about in their white-stockinged feet.
The performance was all in pantomime, the lines being read by some one hidden behind a screen in the centre of the stage. The orchestra men in their calico gowns and turbans often smiled at some sally of the clown; but Clover and Page did not need to comprehend in order to be amused. There was something tenderly comical in the pompous movements of the little people gesturing in stiff, studied fashion. From time to time the dancing-girls would appear, gliding hither and yon, and posing to the tinkling music.
"This is surprisingly pretty," said Page.
"I want one of those brown girls to take home as bricabrac," returned Clover. "Aren't they the roundest, prettiest little creatures! Really, the whole thing seems strange enough to be a sight in fairy-land; and do you hear that enchanting rustle of trees above our heads?"
The light summer breeze was stirring the dried straw and grass that thatched the roof, with the lulling effect of wind in a forest.
"I am enchanted, I admit," answered Gorham.
After the play they walked about the village, among the houses where the little inhabitants sat upon their piazzas and sang, or talked, or rested silently.
"I shall never see such a reposeful place again," said Gorham, when at last they passed out beneath the bamboo arch into the turbulent street. "I should like to prolong that experience indefinitely."
"You can repeat it," suggested Clover.
"I should like to believe that; but one seldom has so much enjoyment in the same space of time as I have had this evening. I feel grateful to you for showing me all that."
They passed down the remainder of the Midway and under the last viaduct. Walking north around the end of the Woman's Building, they stood a moment arm-in-arm by the lagoon, and watched the quiet boats glide by, then slowly began the homeward walk.
"You did not tell me," said Page, "what you knew Jack would do in our supposed case."
"Haven't we finished yet with the sins of smokers?"
"I don't know. Perhaps we have. Were you going to say that you believed Jack would give up the habit at the request of the woman he loved?"
"I was going to say that he would promise to. Yes, I am quite sure what Jack would do, for I have known men of his kind to do the same thing. His fiancée—I, for example"—
"No, say your sister; although he is not at all her kind."
"Why, what is the matter with poor Jack, Mr. Page?" asked Clover rather resentfully. "In what category do you place him, pray?"
"I place him high enough," returned Gorham hastily. "I only refer to a woman's fancy, and I have an idea that Miss Bryant would prefer a more sober, studious man."
"Why, I can't imagine what makes you think that!"
"It doesn't matter," said Page. "It can't hurt her at all for us to engage her to him for a few minutes. You are not going to say that Jack would make a promise and break it? If you think that, you rate him lower than I do."
"He wouldn't mean to. This is about the way it goes, or the way I have known it to go. Supposing Mildred to be engaged to Jack, she might tell him she wished he did not smoke; that she disapproved it for many reasons. He would probably reply that he hoped she would not ask him to give it up, for if she insisted of course he should comply with her wishes. This would make such an appeal to her tenderness that she would forbear objecting awhile, feeling sure, poor thing, that her lover was completely in her power; but after a time, inclination and conviction both urging her, she would return to the subject. She might say, for instance, that she could not help wishing strongly that he would give up this habit, and that Clover had said no man would do it for any woman. At this Jack would flare up. How could Clover be guilty of such a speech! She had evidently never known any man who loved a woman as he, Jack, adored her, Mildred. He would die for her. It would be a pleasure to him to give up this comparatively slight gratification for the sake of proving his affection for his beloved. Great elation on the part of Mildred. Lying low on the part of Clover. Jack stops smoking, and is ostentatiously careless and cheerful. Mildred flatters him gratefully. He assures her that he does not care if he never sees a cigar again, and is glad if such a trifling sacrifice pleases her.
"Some day, perhaps before their marriage, perhaps after, it depends upon the length of the engagement, Jack, after dinner, lights a cigar with a friend. Mildred protests gently. He answers reproachfully. Of course she knows the habit is entirely broken up, she surely is not going to be puritanical and unreasonable because once in a way he lights a cigar as she would eat confectionery? She still feels uneasy, but is rather ashamed to show it. He puts his arm around her, tells her she is a nice little girl, and came just in time to save him from smoking to excess, and he thanks her for it."
"Well?" said Gorham, as she paused.
"Well, that occasional cigar soon becomes a daily one, or one of a daily half-dozen."
"Mrs. Van Tassel! How cynical you are!"
Clover laughed. "Oh no, not cynical. Jack was honest in his expectation to give up his pet indulgence. He reasoned himself into thinking his course was right."
"I can't believe it is always so."
"Always, Mr. Page," returned Clover, nodding wisely. "Men have died and worms have eaten them, but not for love. Men have given up tobacco and endured the torment it entails, butnot—for—love!"
"I never wished before that I was a smoker," said Page musingly, "but I suppose it would be rather foolish to cultivate the appetite merely to deny it."
"A piece of braggadocio which would be sure to reap the reward of failure," replied Clover.
"Don't say that, or you will tempt me to experiment. My first cigar made me dreadfully ill when I was twelve years old, and my father counter-irritated my internal misery with an outward application; so I didn't try it again for some time. In the past year I have occasionally yielded to Jack's urgency and smoked a cigar, but it doesn't interest me. I forget about it, and it goes out."
"By all means let well enough alone," laughed Clover.
"Do you object to the use of tobacco?" asked Page earnestly.
"In you I should," answered the other, her eyes shining in the darkness.
"I wish I could give it up," he replied simply.
CHAPTER XXII.
ON THE LAGOON.
Mildred and Jack, when they discovered that they had lost their companions, made no effort to find them.
"It is a great bore for more than two to try to keep together in this place. Don't you think so?" asked Van Tassel.
"It is very difficult, certainly," agreed the girl. "Isn't it strange to look about this wonder-world of a street and realize that it is just the Midway Plaisance? Recall the old driveway at this hour."
"Yes; early evening was its most populous time too; but even then, how quiet it was. What a wild idea it would have been to expect to see Turkish dancing-girls, half-naked Dahomeyans, and all the rest, living in those still, green fields. Have you been in to Hagenbeck's and seen the marvelous trained animals?"
"Yes; but it is a rather creepy pleasure to watch lions, tigers, bears, and leopards walking around that one solitary man and hissing threateningly at him even while they obey."
"The one moment when I found my breath short was when the trainer made five lions lie down on the ground, and threw himself on his back upon them as though on a rug. He flung his arms out and caressed their great noses. I tell you, I didn't like him to let those beasts out from under his eyes."
"That was thrilling, I remember; but I felt for the lions sometimes, too. I didn't like to see them demean themselves. When one had to hold the end of a rope in his teeth and swing it to let a hound jump, it seemed rather small business to demand of the king of the forest."
When the two friends, stopping often by the way to watch some curious object of interest, reached the Japanese bazaar, they went in for a few minutes. By the time they emerged, the twilight had wholly faded.
"See your kings of the forest!" exclaimed Jack.
Mildred looked across the street. There in mid-air, apparently suspended like Mahomet's coffin, the iron cage above the entrance to the Hagenbeck arena was brilliant with electric light. Five great lions were within, and the strange effect, in the surrounding darkness, was heightened when the trainer, whip in hand, entered and closed the door behind him. In a shorter time than it takes to tell it, Jack and Mildred found themselves in the centre of an ever-growing crowd, all with upturned faces watching the wondrous apparition. The magnificent beasts glided lithely back and forth, watching the trainer, who, exciting them more and more by the whip which he cracked in the air, adroitly avoided being knocked down as they bounded about him, passing and repassing one another with increasing swiftness.
"A great advertisement," remarked Jack; then, as Mildred moved and turned her head, "Are you being uncomfortably crowded?" he asked.
"Never mind, it is worth it!" she said, rather breathlessly, as a big fellow, uncouth in his open-mouthed wonder, unconsciously shoved her against her companion.
Van Tassel drew her in front of him and placed his arm between her and the countryman. The latter still pressed, but feeling an obstruction firm as a bar of iron, turned his admiring countenance vaguely around toward Van Tassel.
"Well, I vum," he exclaimed. "Ever seen anything like that before? Wife and I never did. Them lions hangin' betwixt earth and heaven shakin' their manes at that feller, and he dodgin' around out o' their way as cool as a cucumber! It's wife's aim to tell the truth when we get home, and it's mine, too. It's both our aims; but we might's well lie. There won't anybody believe this."
"It is amazing," said Jack; "but you can see as well in one place as another. Would you kindly push the other way?"
"They're a-hunchin' us on this side too," explained the man; then continued to gape, oblivious of his surroundings.
The trainer placed a white and gold chair in the centre of the cage, and made one of the lions spring into it. The creature placed its powerful forepaws on the chair-back, and waved its graceful tail from side to side. Another of the beasts reared on its hind legs high above the trainer's head, resting its paws against the iron bars; and its roar resounded through the crowded street.
The trainer motioned the sitting lion from the chair, shot a revolver twice into the air, left the cage, and lo! the wondering spectators were gazing into blank darkness.
"Another dream over," said Jack into the ear so close to him.
The tightly hemmed-in mass of humanity slowly dissolved into its integral parts.
"They ought to have a packed house after that," remarked Mildred.
"Shall we swell the number?"
"Not unless you wish it."
"I don't. I wish something else very much. Will you answer as meekly and civilly when I ask it?"
They had begun again their walk eastward.
"I don't know."
"Oh, that is not encouraging."
"It is wise, though. I was brought up never to be afraid to confess that I didn't know a thing."
"I want you to go with me in a gondola. Compare my humility with Robert Page'ssang-froid."
"A gondola will be even more difficult to catch by this time than a horse-car," suggested the girl.
Jack looked at her, but her piquant smiling face taught him renewed patience.
"Then you will not run much risk in promising," he answered. "Shall we leave it to Fate to decide? If we find a gondola easily, will you go?"
"Yes, indeed."
As they left the Plaisance and came around the Woman's Building, a sun-burst of fire in the east illuminated the sky.
"A salute to royalty," said Jack. "Queen Mildred has arrived."
The white light faded, to be followed by dazzling green, ruby, and gold, as one bomb followed another, to burst above the lake and cast abroad in the heavens fountains of jewels that rained down in glittering showers.
"Now, let us see if Fate is good-natured," said Van Tassel, leading his companion toward the nearest gondola-landing. A graceful willow hung above and obscured it.
"I must laugh at you, Jack," said the girl, suiting the action to the word. "The idea of expecting to find a gondola now, way over here."
"Stranger things have happened. Suppose," suddenly standing still and looking down into her eyes,—"suppose you should say that you wish it. Just for luck, you know."
"I never wish for impossibilities."
"Do you expect me to believe that?"
"Well, I try not to."
"But wish for this. You know it is possible to have strawberries in January."
"What a great boy you are still, Jack. Very well, I wish that two gondoliers may have been attacked by an unusual access of laziness this evening, have denied their craft to all applicants, and skulked over here away from the crowd, and that they may be waiting for us now in the shadow of the willow. Any more midsummer madness you would like me to indulge in?"
Van Tassel led her down the bank. "Behold!" he said. "Mildred, what a witch you are! This is necromancy."
The girl stood with lips parted, for the waiting gondoliers sent their graceful craft to her feet. She put her hand in Jack's and stepped within. In a moment Van Tassel was beside her, and they had glided away.
The lagoon rippled in a light breeze. Along the edge of Wooded Island the sedges dipped in the waves. Here and there on the bank a group of water-birds showed white, as a neighboring electric light touched the soft plumage beneath which their heads nestled.
Jack wanted his companion to speak first, but she kept silence long.
"Is the sorceress enjoying herself?" he asked gently, at last.
Mildred returned his gaze as she leaned back in her cushioned corner.
"I am a philosopher," she answered. "I am being kidnapped, but I might as well enjoy it."
"Well, that is pretty good. I should say"—
"I don't want to hear anything you have to say. I am convinced that you are the most designing creature alive. Ask your minions to sing, please."
Jack longed that he might know the thoughts that flitted white-winged through his companion's mind as their boat glided on, to the gondoliers' song.
This ceased as they entered the Court of Honor, grown dusk now in preparation for the second playing of the electric fountains. Half the weary sightseers had gone home; no black crowd lined the railings around the Grand Basin.
The rainbow jets sprang triumphant skyward. An invisible orchestra lent their colors richer meaning and beauty.
"Do you remember the song that Clover sang last night?" asked Jack, leaning a little toward his companion. "It suddenly came to my mind then as the water shot up. Those lines,—
'I share the skylark's transport fine,I know the fountain's wayward yearning,I love—and the world is mine!'
'I share the skylark's transport fine,I know the fountain's wayward yearning,I love—and the world is mine!'
'I share the skylark's transport fine,
I know the fountain's wayward yearning,
I love—and the world is mine!'
Clover says that is a man's song. I don't agree with her. A woman may be angel enough to feel divine fullness of content simply in loving; but a man who loves must be loved again, or else feel that nothing is his,—nothing; there is no beggar so poor as he. Isn't it so?"
The earnest tone thrilled close to Mildred's cheek. She caught her breath quickly. "I—I don't know," she said, nervously surprised.
"Still true to your bringing up," remarked her companion, controlling himself with a strong will as he felt her shrink, and leaning back with a short laugh. "Not afraid to say you don't know, when such is the case. Well, I can only speak for myself. When I love and am loved I will agree with the poet,—I would even sing with her if I could:
'For soft the hours repeat one story,Sings the sea one strain divine,My clouds arise, all flushed with glory,I love—and the world is mine!'"
'For soft the hours repeat one story,Sings the sea one strain divine,My clouds arise, all flushed with glory,I love—and the world is mine!'"
'For soft the hours repeat one story,
Sings the sea one strain divine,
My clouds arise, all flushed with glory,
I love—and the world is mine!'"
Mildred was startled. What a lover Jack would make! He was not Clover's. She was sure of it now, but the thought brought no elation, rather a new, timid humility, which made her seem strange to herself.
She felt her companion's dark eyes upon her, and her usually ready tongue was mute.
Van Tassel did not know whether to gather courage or alarm from her silence as they sat there side by side. The gondoliers slowly propelled the boat, keeping in view of the fountains' tossing banners of liquid light.
"Tell me what you are thinking, Mildred," he urged, at last.
"I am not thinking. Do you ever come to such times? I do always in this spot. Perhaps it is because I have no thoughts to match such unearthly beauty. At all events I never think, here. I feel. I absorb."
"Yes, that is it," answered Jack simply.
"Give me the Peristyle," said Mildred, "and what I can see from it, and sweep all the rest of the Fair away if you like. I don't love many things in this world beside Mildred Bryant, but the Peristyle is one of them."
It was a novel speech from her, and in a novel tone. The low cadence of her voice had lost the laughter or imperiousness which usually characterized it.
Jack was silent for a time. "Are you warm enough?" he asked at last.
"Yes; but I think we had better go home."
"Aren't you comfortable?"
"Oh, certainly, and it was very kind of you, Jack, to take so much trouble."
This gentleness alarmed Van Tassel more than any amount of coldness or impertinence would have done; but he fought off dejection.
"I have given you one thing, then, that you can't hand on to Clover," he said lightly.
The fountains leaped a last time and fell, dropping lower and lower, till only the white sea foaming about Columbia's barge was left. Soft radiance again lit up water and sculpture.
Mildred longed to be at home; and soon she and Jack entered a wagonette at the Park gate and were driven to the house. When they arrived, the orchestra at the hotel was playing the music of Carmen.
"There is a delicate compliment to you, Jack," she suggested, as they ascended the steps.
"Yes; but must you go right in?" for she showed symptoms of leaving him.
"It has been a long day," she answered, lingering with an unusual gentle compliance from which he gathered no hope.
"You are tired," he said, with tender contrition. "I have had you so long, and yet—when should I be ready to let you go! Oh, Mildred,—is it any use?" he burst forth suddenly, in a low tone, seizing both her hands and holding them with painful tightness.
A fluttering and wild, loud peeping came from the tangle of vines near which they stood, and a small dark object half fell, half flew down past their heads to the grass below.
Mildred started. "It is Electra,—a falling star." She laughed nervously. "I am glad she fell, else I might be crying now instead of laughing. It would be such a serious unhappiness to me if I should cause you pain, Jack," she added brokenly. "You are so different from anybody else."
"I am answered," he said briefly and steadily; but he did not loosen her hands. "I am going to ask a great deal of you now, Mildred. Can you forget what I have said?"
"I—I am afraid not."
"Please try to; I will help you."
"Help me?" repeated the girl, bewildered.
"Yes, for everything between us shall be the same as before. To-morrow morning you will say to yourself that you had a dream. That is all."
"Very well." The girl regarded him questioningly. "I hope you are not—are not thinking that I might—might speak of it?"
Jack threw his head back and gave an excited laugh before suddenly growing grave and gazing ardently into her eyes.
"Speak of it? What would it be to me, my darling, if every one knew," he said with swift ardor. "I love—but the world is not mine. That is the whole story, and the only peace for you is to forget it."
Her head drooped under his look.
"I am dreadfully tired, Jack," she said faintly.
"Yes, dear, go, and forgive me." He kissed her hands passionately and released them. She passed into the house, her head and heart pulsing. Bewilderment was her chief sensation. The finality with which Jack seemed to accept defeat was so at variance with his manner.
She stole upstairs silently to her room, closed the door, and turned up the light. Then she went to her mirror and questioned her own pale face with wistful eyes.
"I haven't expected it. I didn't know it was coming this time," she said, answering some thought. "Is Jack really so unselfish as that? Can he care for me enough to—and then cover his disappointment with gayety to save me pain?"
His loving words rang in her ears, her hands still felt the wild pressure of his, and the warmth of his kisses. No one had ever received failure so before. No man had ever dared to call her "darling." A look that was almost fear came into the eyes that gazed back from the mirror. How had Jack contrived to make himself seem victor instead of vanquished?
He had not even pressed his suit; he had not begged her to try to love him. How nobly he had spared her,—but how audaciously he had treated her!
The color was flowing back to her cheeks. Mildred could no longer study that face in the glass. She turned away, weary, perplexed, troubled by the restless beating of her heart.
"I will get to sleep as quickly as possible. He told me to believe it a dream. I must try to take it all as Clover would."
The thought of her sister was like calling up the image of a saint. She had not been the object of Jack's adoration, after all. How strange, strange! How much better it would have been for him. Not that Clover would have married him, but it would have been good for him merely to love her. Fevers, perplexities, could not come where Clover was; and with this thought came a great longing to breathe Clover's cool, wholesome atmosphere. Mildred slipped into a wrapper, and without pausing to think further, crossed to her door. There was but a dim light within.
She spoke her sister's name very softly, not to wake her if possibly she might be asleep; but Clover herself in an instant opened the door.
"I thought I heard you come in, Milly."
"Why, what are you doing here, all dressed, in the dark?" asked the younger, entering.
"Thinking." Clover laughed. "It sounds amusing, doesn't it; but the music was pleasant and my window especially enticing. I felt rather tired when I reached home a little while before you, and meant to be asleep by this time, but here I am, you see."
"Let me come and think too," said Mildred; "or rather, let me come where I can't think."
The two sisters sat down in the large bay window overlooking the lake.
"Haven't you had a pleasant day?" asked Clover.
"I've had all sorts of a day. How has yours been?"
"Delightful."
"You are my despair, Clover. Things are always delightful to you."
Clover heard the depression in her sister's voice, and wondered; her thoughts flew to Jack too, and she questioned what mood the day might have left him in. "Oh no," she answered, "but those nut-brown maids in the Javanese theatre would put any one into good humor. When they dance, you can no more help laughing than if you were being tickled with a feather. Such dear, cunning, absurd motions as they make, their little bits of mouths looking so serious all the time."
"You take such an interest in everything," said Mildred wistfully. "It is because you have 'a heart at leisure from itself.' I have never longed for that sort of a heart as I have to-day. For quite a while it has been slowly dawning upon me that I am more self-centred than most people; but to-day Gorham Page gave me the final blow."
"Mr. Page? Why, you astonish me. He has a high opinion of you. He was saying to-day how much deeper and more earnest you were"—
"For mercy's sake," exclaimed Mildred, flushing to her ears, "don't tell me what he said!"
"Why? Are you too conscientious to accept a compliment when you haven't a 'trade'?"
"I have plenty of 'trades.' Jack never talks about you without using superlatives."
"Dear Jack. He is far too appreciative," returned Clover, wishing it were light enough to see how her sister accepted this; "but you haven't told me how Mr. Page hurt you."
"No, it was the truth that hurt me."
"Mr. Page is a very good representative of that," smiled Clover.
"We were coming out of Old Vienna, and you and Jack fell behind to speak to one another, and I addressed Mr. Page. He looked at me vaguely, and answered at random. Well, it was the way that trifle affected me that made me see Mildred Bryant as I had never seen her before. I was deeply offended, yes, angry, that the important favor of a remark from my lips should be disregarded. Oh, Clover, the disgrace of it!"
The speaker's voice was unsteady, and she suddenly covered her face with her hands.
Clover leaned forward and put a hand on her knee.
"Isn't it beautiful," she said earnestly, "to find yourself shrinking from sin? It is so safe to condemn it in ourselves. Hatred of evil is only treacherous when we feel it for the mistakes of others."
"The worst of it was that I knew I should have felt less injured had it not been that another woman was what was preoccupying his attention. He was thinking of you, and I resented it. I couldn't live if I didn't tell you. It proved to me that I was growing into a regular—oh, a regular octopus. Everything must be absorbed to feed my vanity, and especially every man."
"Why, Mildred, I am so glad for you," said Clover simply, her cool tones falling on the other's scornful heat and extinguishing its fire. "We have to come to these places, you know, for we mustn't be left in our badness, and a little light is let in at a time as we can bear it."
"But I can't bear it," exclaimed Mildred wildly, "for it is second nature to me to be vain and exacting."
"You won't indulge it now."
"Yes, I shall."
"Not so carelessly as before. All this is what comes into the battle of life. One part of our dual nature loves our evils and the other hates them. You can have God's help if you ask it, you know, and you will find how little and how deceptive the progress will be that you make without Him."
"Your battle seems won, Clover."
"I am in one of the peaceful places now, and I am very happy and grateful. I wasn't given your tempestuous nature, dear, so our experiences always are and will be different. The Father in mercy lets us develop as irresponsibly as the plants until we get such a glimpse into our souls as you had to-day; but then responsibility begins. It is sinning against light that warps and distorts us."
"I wonder if it would be good for me to be married," said Mildred musingly. "When girls are married, they haven't much time to think about themselves."
"It is good for every girl to marry when she truly loves a man who is unexceptionable," returned Clover, smiling at her own triteness. "But you remember the girl must ask herself, not Can I live with this man? but Can I live without him?"
"Then I should certainly never marry. You didn't do that, Clover."
Clover looked musingly out at the window. "No; I didn't do that. I often think of that little ignorant girl who married dear Mr. Van Tassel. I don't know whether I did right or not; but at the time I thought I did, and that is all I have any concern with; but I was not in freedom. You are in freedom. The Can I live without him? ought to mean Can we be more useful together than we could apart?"
"Why, you don't leave a girl any comfort in thinking about herself at all," complained Mildred, half in tears.
"There isn't much comfort in it, that is a fact," returned Clover, smiling. "You are tired, dear; go to bed now."
They rose, and Mildred took the smaller woman in her arms and their cheeks clung together. "I am unhappy, Clover," she said, with plaintive surprise at the fact.
"It is so restful," replied the other, "to think you have all eternity before you. Even if we only make a beginning here, it will be all right."
"I like your arms around me," said Mildred. "Let me sleep with you to-night."