"Yes, you are very much changed Amey," he said in a serious yet tender voice, "but," he continued slowly, "I should recognize you all the better for the change." His words were meaningless to me, but then they had always been so when we were friends long ago. "You are changed too Mr. Dalton," I retorted reciprocatingly. "At first I did not know you at all, and it was only by rude staring that I managed to remember you. Where have you been all this time, that I have never seen you?" I asked.
"Rambling all over the world," he answered dreamily. "And so you missed me, did you?" he added, changing his tone to one of playful enquiry. "Well, Amey, so have I missed you, at least I have often thought of you in my travels and wondered how you were getting on. I need not tell you," he continued teasingly, "how often I have been haunted by the dreadful threat you made when I saw you last about—"
"Now, don't say any more," I interrupted, "I remember all that well enough. We are all a little silly sometime in our lives," I alleged in self defence.
"Poor Amey!" he said almost in a whisper, "you do not know how prone human nature is to folly—yet, when you are as old as I, you will have learned something of it."
"You speak as if you were very ancient," I exclaimed, making little of his serious talk.
"Well," he broke in slowly, "I can't be very young now, when I had Amey Hampden on my knee some fifteen years ago, but do not tell that of me, like a good child," he added in playful eagerness "for, being a bachelor yet, you see, it might harm me."
"Do you mean that it would excite formidable jealousies?" I asked rising, and laughing carelessly, and then, half sorry for having uttered these words I diverted his attention from them by announcing my wish to go inside.
He arose, and accompanied me, with as much active gallantry as if he had been twenty-five years younger. Leaning on his strong, stalwart arm, I passed into the crowded and confused ball-room feeling peculiarly revived, and strangely happier than when I had left it a short half-hour before. But I could not get rid of a suspicion that was forcing itself into my mind with regard to Mr. Dalton. There was certainly some restraint over him, and the look in his clear, soft blue eyes was not so steady as it used to be. And yet, what could I expect from him more than he had given me? I did not know, but it seemed that after our long, long separation, he ought not to be so quiet and silent. It is true that our place of meeting was a rather unpropitious one, but this did not satisfy me. He was not quite the Mr. Dalton that I remembered, that, as a child I had loved, and still I felt proudly happy to lean on his powerful arm and exchange occasional glances and remarks with him.
We walked through the ball-room where amusement was now at its zenith, and when we had reached the upper end Mr. Dalton paused and looked at the gay scene before us. He had seemingly forgotten me, while his thoughts were busy with their own weaving. We had only been there a moment when my father advanced towards me accompanied by another gentleman.
"Amey," he began before he had quite reached me, "have you forgotten our friend Dr. Campbell."
I was sensibly confused as I withdrew my hand from Mr. Dalton's arm to give it to Dr. Campbell. I bowed and smiled as at our first introduction in the library at home, and I fear I was guilty even of blushing, too.
Mr. Dalton, seeing my attention diverted, bowed himself gracefully away. My father had vanished before him, and thus was I left completely at the mercy of a trying circumstance.
Dr. Campbell broke the awkward silence happily, saying:
"It cannot be for want of an introduction, Miss Hampden, that you and I are not friends."
"No indeed," I answered stupidly, not knowing very well what to say.
"Are you dancing this evening," he next asked, in a most composed tone which made me envy him.
"Very little," said I. "I am exclusive on that subject."
"Which means that you will not honour me," he interrupted blandly, looking questioningly into my face.
"Oh, no!" I exclaimed seeing how misinterpreted my words were. "I mean with regard to the dances, not the people. I do not like fast dances."
"Neither do I particularly," he answered, offering me his arm, "except when I sit them out. May I?" he asked in such a graceful deferential way that I know I smiled approvingly as I slipped my hand within his arm and went with him into the little ante-room opposite, where coals glowed in the open fire-place and a soft rose-coloured light fell over all the delicate splendor of the furnishings.
There were two heavy plush arm-chairs already drawn up to the fender, and Dr. Campbell moving one gently towards me, smilingly remarked that "we were evidently expected."
I took one and he sank into the other with a gesture of pronounced ease. The light from the fire was full upon his face and form, and feeling secure in the shadow of a fancy screen that had been shoved beside my chair, I set myself earnestly to work to analyse this wonderful man.
He was passively handsome, with a large brow and very large, expressive eyes. They were blue, too, but not like Mr. Dalton's. They were dreamier and more attractive. His face was quite bronzed, and his fine mouth was admirably set off by well-curved brown moustaches. His chin was bare but for one little bit under the lower lip. He was caressing this seeming favorite with one white, slender hand, almost fine enough for a lady's, while I observed him with keen scrutiny. He was an English Canadian, I learned that before I ever saw him, born and bred under Canadian skies, but this implies little of his bias or disposition.
Canada has not yet shaken off the fetters of her great grandparents sufficiently to bring out in a clear, marked way her own individuality. Her native sons and daughters inherit too faithfully the English, Irish, Scotch or French tenor of the characters of their predecessors to be able to grant to our ambitious country the national peculiarities and idiosyncracies which she covets, in order to assert herself freely, as the mother of a people who bear her resemblance stamped upon their mental and moral features. When a country has succeeded in fixing a seal upon the brow of every son that is born to her, she has secured the right of being paralleled, at least in one respect, with the greatest nations of the world. In time, Canada will accomplish this, for Canadians should be wonderful people. It baffles her to-day, because it is a question of time, and in her incapacity to influence time, Canada is only equal to Caesar's Rome, or Victoria's Great Britain.
There was a look of keen intelligence in Dr Campbell's countenance that pleased me particularly, something so refreshing to see, after all the vapid expressions of uneducated men. I could easily understand now, how he gained thatprestigewhich made conquests for him wherever he went. Truly, I did not believe him a very widely informed man, but he was a man of fixed principles and a man of ambition. Moreover he had a wonderfulsavoir-fairethat carried him through all sorts of adventitious circumstances gracefully. It is a clear counterfeit of genuine acumen, and, with a world that knows no better, gets just as much favor and praise.
During the fifteen minutes that we passed together in Mrs. Hartmann's cosy morning-room, with our feet on her polished brass fender, we learned much of one another's hidden selves, that people who had known us both for years had failed to gather.
I went to supper on Dr. Campbell's arm and gave him a rose from my bouquet. He saw us to our carriage when we were leaving, and promised to call on the following Tuesday.
This is a lengthy and tedious summary of my first and last ball.
For I never went to another. What was the use? I was essentially out of place with my principles about dancing. My step-mother stormed and raged after the Hartmann's At Home, declaring that I had disgraced myself and her; that such guests as I, were a burden to a hostess and an infliction on the rest of the company. All this, along with my own private conclusions, went far towards helping me to make up my mind, once for all, that I had gone to my last "dance." And to be candid I must admit that it was no effort whatever for me to abstain from these would-be pleasures. They were literally not worth the fuss and trouble and expense of getting to them. But I went to other gatherings which were infinitely more enjoyable. I had many anothertete-a-tetewith Arthur Campbell before the winter was out. The last attraction before Parliament closed was a "Musical" at the Merivales.
Alice Merivale had "come out" with the greatest eclat into our social circles. With wealth and beauty, grace and a certain number of showy accomplishments, she had made conquests without the slightest effort on her part. She was a finished musician, and had a sweet, thrilling voice. She talked pleasant nonsense, danced beautifully, flirted very artfully, and altogether seemed the living embodiment of every attribute which is calculated to endear a human creature to its fellow-men. She even gave a peculiar tone to the circle she moved in, and it was quite a forcible guarantee that a gathering was select and most exclusive if Alice Merivale was present.
When I returned the second time from school to prepare myself for a public life Alice Merivale was the first to call upon me. She came in quite unceremoniously one morning, looking very beautiful in a sealskin mantle and hat, and declared in the prettiest manner possible that we must be great friends; we lived so near and had known each other for such a long time that there should not be anything like ceremony between us.
"I shall almost need you now that Aunt Ada is married and Edith has gone to Germany" she argued in pretty plaintiveness.
I liked this, though indeed, at the time it surprised me more than a little. I had expected to find her developed into a feather-brained, affected young lady who was shortsighted in a great many ways. I had never been able to dissociate the early impression she made on me from her later redeeming phases. Poor Florrie Grant vanishing out of the doorway under Miss Merivale's sublime contempt came back to my memory time and again, and I made up my mind that Alice Merivale and I could never claim to be kindred souls.
But when I saw her after the lapse of some years and observed the perfection of her physical loveliness I could no longer harden my heart against her. It has always been a weakness of mine to slavishly admire feminine beauty. There is a witchery about graceful curves, and heavy eyelids, drooping lashes and dimpled chins that stronger souls than mine cannot resist; and when the haughty little Alice of my girlhood stood before me in all the glory of her fresh and beautiful womanhood I forgave her all the past.
I hardly knew what she talked about, so rapturously did I gaze, now upon her delicate pink ear, now upon the melting curves that brought her white chin into provoking notice, then her roguish, winning, violet eyes with their long dark lashes and languid brows. There was everything to love in her so far as the eye could see, from the waving profusion of golden hair to the toe of her dainty slipper.
I had met her at all the entertainments of the season. I had watched her pretty manoeuvres and followed her flirtations with a quiet amusement. Her admirers were numberless and pursued her with the most emphatic devotedness. She was an item in the individual lives of young people of both sexes, exciting in some hearts the bitterest envy and jealousy, and kindling the name of an all-consuming love in many others. She had earned the palm of triumph and victory all through the gay season, and now that the end was near she decided to gather all those who had witnessed her conquests abroad, within her own home and there make her retiring courtesy under peculiarly advantageous circumstances. She was to leave in a fortnight after for an extended tour through Europe.
It was the fifteenth of March and the Merivales' "Musical" was to commence at eight o'clock. The wind blew fiercely through the stiff, naked boughs of the giant maples, and drifted the light powdery snow madly on before it. I had been in-doors all day listening to the weird wailing of the ceaseless wind as it whistled down the chimneys and swept past the house corners. I had written and read and stitched until my eyes were wearied and my fingers numb, and it was only four o'clock, that turning-point on a March day from the sunshine to the gloaming when we women know not what to do with ourselves; when it is too cold to go out or expect visitors, too late in the day to begin any occupation, too dark to read with any comfort, and too early to light the lamps. I went to the window and looked impatiently into the street but there was no comfort to be had there; a milkman's wagon stood over the way, his horse pawing the frozen ground while he filled his measure with the cold white liquid. A band of little children ran screaming by with a large dog drawing a sleigh; a beggar woman clad in flimsy rags was mounting the steps of a neighboring house, and that was all. I shrugged my shoulders and turned away with a smothered yawn. The piano stood open before me, I threw myself carelessly on the stool and thrummed languidly on the key-board for a moment or so, but I was not in the humor to play, and with another yawn I arose, crossed the hall and passed into my father's library.
He was usually there at this hour, but early that afternoon he had gone into the country to see a patient, and as he would not be back until after dinner, I appropriated his sanctum in his stead. A fire burned in the grate, not a roaring blazing fire, but a pile of steadily glowing coals, intensely red and hot, that kept the room comfortable, but threw no shadow on the tinted walls.
I wheeled the light lounge that stood opposite the door towards the fire, and sank gratefully into it to have a little "think" about the past, all to myself. I began to distinguish the spires of Notre Dame Abbey rising clearly out of the glowing embers. Faces that I loved peeped through its latticed windows, smilingly, and voices that were like the breath of summer in my ear called to me from its hallowed portals. I was back among the scenes of my early happiness, the winter day was flooded with summer warmth and sunshine; the birds twittered in the fresh green foliage, and the stream murmured placidly on at the foot of the convent garden. My languor and weariness were gone; I was cheerful and glad again, as I had been in my careless girlhood. How long it lasted according to time reckoned by minutes and hours, I knew not. In my dream many days came and went with new and repeated delights. All I know is, that when I awoke the room was shrouded in darkness and the fire had grown cheerless and dull I started up, for the change was a shock to me. I did not know I had fallen asleep, and it must have been a full hour or more since I came into the library. More than that, I felt a sharp sensation for which I could not thoroughly account. For a moment I suspected that some one must be in the room, then again, the unbroken stillness re-assured me that this was mere fancy. I felt an abiding presence which seemed to hover right around me. I raised myself on one elbow and asked in an audible whisper:
"Is anyone here?"
A coal gave way in the fire-place and the embers loosened and fell. I started involuntarily, but there was no answer to my question. I rubbed my eyes briskly and stood up. As I did so, something fell upon the floor with a clinking noise. I put my hand up instinctively to my ears. One ruby ear-ring was missing. I groped my way to the mantel-piece and struck a light. Stepping carefully back towards the lounge, with my eyes buried in the carpet, I spied a glittering object at a little distance from where I had been standing. I stooped and picked it up. To my great surprise it was not my ruby ear-ring. It was a small oval locket suspended from a few links of a heavy gold chain, one of the uppermost links was crooked and broken.
I turned it over and over between my fingers, holding the candle so that the light fell full upon it. It was not my father's; of that I was fully certain. It had a strange, unfamiliar look about it such as other people's small wares always have for us, and yet, the more I examined it, the more I began to think I had seen it somewhere before. I was mystified. As I turned my head I descried my missing ear-ring lying in the threads of a crocheted tidy that had lain under my head. Setting down the candle, I extricated it and restored it to my ear. I then blew out the light and went quietly up to my own room.
I had just closed the door and secured myself against possible intrusion when the sound of the dinner-bell broke upon my ear. I immediately rose, and storing my newly found treasure hurriedly away, I went down to the dining-room.
My step-mother was already there, chatting with Mrs. Hunter, who had come in to spend a quiet hour of the afternoon, and accepted an informal invitation to dinner.
My father had not yet returned, and as Freddie was still at college, we were quite a cosy little dinner party in ourselves.
I apologized for my delay, accusing myself of having fallen asleep, and with a smiling enquiry about the general health of the Hunter family I took my seat and began to unfold my table-napkin.
"Then you did not see what came for you this afternoon, if you've been dozing," my step-mother said pouring a ladle of soup into Mrs. Hunter's plate.
I looked eagerly towards her and exclaimed with a smile of surprise:
"No! Did anything come?"
My step-mother glanced significantly at Mrs. Hunter, but that lady was either very hungry or saw no fun in the allusion, for she went on quietly tasting her soup without looking up.
This piqued my step-mother a little, I fancy, for she said with unusual emphasis and insinuation.
"Oh, you won't be at all surprised, Amelia, it is only what you might expect now, some more of Dr. Campbell's kind attentions, that's all."
"What is it?" I put in with an uncontrollable relish and curiosity.
"Thistime," said my step-mother, "it is a box of the loveliest flowers, for to-night of course."
"Dr. Campbell is very thoughtful," Mrs. Hunter here ventured to assert, "he often sends Laura books and flowers and such pretty songs; he is a great favorite," she added, half satisfied no doubt that she had knocked all the sentiment out of this offering to me. But my step-mother was not to be baffled even if she had to show me to the highest advantage.
"Oh!" she answered, with an effort at indifference, "he knows how to be a favorite. In his profession, especially, it is far better to court popularity in this way. I would say he studied his own interest in Amey's case too," she continued, spitefully, "only that he knows, since Freddie went away, we never have any strange doctors for the household. What do you say, Amey?" she asked in a teasing tone, changing the nature of the subject.
"I am sure I cannot presume to interpret Dr. Campbell's motives," I answered quietly, "but there is no reason why his gift should not be one of friendship," I added, with conscious dignity.
Mrs. Hunter's "Of course not" put an end to this sensitive topic. It was dangerous ground and could lead to mischief. So we all thought, I fancy, for by tacit consent it was dropped for the rest of the meal.
After dinner we had a tame little chat in the drawing-room over our cups of tea, and then Mrs. Hunter left, for she too had to dress for the "Musical," and there was now not much time to spare.
Arthur Campbell's flowers were truly lovely. When I went up to my room I saw them laid out before me, and, I must confess, I felt a little flattered at this mark of preference from one who was so highly esteemed by all who knew him. I raised them tenderly and examined them one by one. They were rich and delicate and sweet smelling.
There was a little card among them with the words "Will Miss Hampden favor the giver by wearing these flowers this evening?" neatly written upon it; below them the clear signature "V. Arthur Campbell," was inscribed in the same loose but neat characters.
I could not help smiling while I dressed. Maybe I was a little conceited, but no one saw me.
The circumstances of our introduction and acquaintanceship, altogether, were so very peculiar that I could not dwell upon them with a sober face. Besides, Arthur Campbell was a lion in society, a success in his profession and the desired of many calculating mothers. What would these people say if I quietly stepped inside them in Arthur Campbell's favor?
I took up his flowers and began to choose those I should wear. After all, I thought, it was not always wealth and beauty that accomplished the greatest things. I might surprise our little world yet, though my face had no extraordinary beauty, nor my form any marvellous grace—with which hypothesis I laid a rich spray upon my breast and, finding it becoming, fastened it there.
Ah me! how vain and foolish our weak humanity can be at times! Some little unexpected circumstance gives us a key-note, and we sustain it through a heart-stirring melody that will never charm our ear save in this misty reverie. We girls of one-and-twenty summers are so easily borne along by every passing breath of unstable experience; so easily stimulated by rivalry that begins in little things but may yet creep into the great crises of our lives; so easily stung to impulsive action by the incisive smile and word of jealousy or pride; so easily led away by aspects that show us only their bright and cheerful side; so easily wearied of the happy, careless monotony of our young lives! And yet, there is an exquisite pleasure for us in the weaving of those delicate golden webs that are destined to be torn so rudely asunder by a prosy and matter-of-fact reality.
The thoughts suggested by Arthur Campbell's gracious offering took a firm and exclusive hold of my mind, from the moment I saw it, until I sat beside him in the Merivales' vast drawing-room.
He looked handsomer than ever that night, it seemed to me, as he came smiling towards me and asked leave to take the vacant chair beside me. Every one was busy talking and laughing, for the music had not yet begun and we felt quite secure in our remote corner to say and do as we pleased. It is so often quite easy to be alone in a crowd.
"I need not ask you how you are, Miss Hampden," Arthur Campbell began, sinking down carelessly into his seat, "your looks are perfect."
"Such unworthy adulation Dr. Campbell!" I exclaimed in mock indignation, "besides" I said, with some malice "I would like to know how many times you have paid this compliment before it reached me."
"This is very unfair, Miss Hampden" he retorted with a pleasant smile. "Upon my honor, I did not—well yes, to be candid, I said something like it to Miss Merivale, but she is the only one beside yourself."
"I knew it!" I interrupted triumphantly "and I daresay she is the only lady you have spoken to at all, since you came in, except myself."
He looked at me with his solemn blue eyes for a moment and then said in a half jesting, half earnest, tone:
"I wish I could make you jealous."
He did not turn away his eyes after this, but let them jest in calm scrutiny upon my half averted countenance. There was a power in his words that thrilled me for a second or so. I may have betrayed some agitation in my answer. I closed my fan and opened it again nervously before I replied:
"Have you heard that I am easily provoked to jealousy?"
"Not at all," he said in quite a serious voice, "and if I heard it a thousand times I could not believe it. You are too sure of yourself to give way to such a sentiment."
"But we cannot rely very much upon ourselves under some circumstances."
"Very true, and very fortunately, for we resolve to support attitudes under some circumstances, that are neither true to ourselves, nor fair to our fellow-creatures. Don't you think so?" he asked, taking my fan out of my lap and looking intently at it.
"I don't think I understand you very well," I answered timidly.
Just then the sounds of voices were hushed, and the loud strains of Rossini'sSemiramidefilled the room. That ended our conversation for awhile. The music proceeded with little or no intermission, for upwards of an hour. All the vocal and instrumental talent of the city was present, and the audience was treated to a rare and most happily rendered repertoire. Miss Hartmann had just finished an Arietta of Beethoven's, which was rapturously received, when Alice Merivale stole up behind me, radiant in pale green mist—as it seemed to me—to ask how I enjoyed the selections.
I could scarcely think of answering her until my eyes had taken in the full beauty of her face and form.
"I want you all to be in a very good humour, before I begin" she said coquettishly, "for I will try your patience very hard, yours especially, Dr. Campbell," she added, looking at him now for the first time, "you are such a merciless critic—a perfect epicure in music."
He smiled languidly at her, and swept a glance over her from head to foot.
"Is it any wonder" he asked lazily; "when you spoil us by feasting us with the perfection of every sort of loveliness, what else can you expect?"
She touched him smartly on the nose with a roll of music she held in her hand—for they were old friends—and flitted away, saying:
"It is a good thing that I have never had any faith in men of your profession."
He looked after her in undisguised, ardent admiration. I saw it, and if I remember well, a vague wish was creeping into my heart at the time, that I had been as lithe and fair a creature as Alice Merivale. Before I had dwelt much upon it however, silence was again restored and our charming hostess had appeared before us.
Low and sweet, the first thrilling notes came from her swan-like throat; then a strain of violin accompaniment and loud chords from the piano, and she broke forth into a passionate refrain that held her listeners spell-bound.
I had ceased to look at her, and was busy watching the expression on Arthur Campbell's face. It was one of profound admiration. His eyes were riveted upon her with a devouring look, he was lost to every surrounding, dead to every influence for the time being but the magic power of this beautiful voice that trembled in the scented air and died away into a musical whisper.
She bowed and retired as the pent up emotions of her audience had given way; exclamations of praise and enthusiasm greeted her on every side.
She deserved all this and more, if it were possible to give it to her. I had been enraptured myself over her singing, but still I could not see the necessity or appropriateness of Arthur Campbell's prolonged ecstacy. I began to think it was affected, and turned away from him to talk to a little lady with gold-rimmed spectacles who sat quietly on the other side of me.
When I addressed her she raised her glasses and wiped her eyes with a dainty lace handkerchief.
"Very beautiful, was it not?" I said, for want of something more appropriate.
"Ah! mon Dieu! oui!" she exclaimed warmly, and then proceeded to tell me in very broken English that "Mees Alice" was the pupil of her deceased sister, who had come from France some years before and had undertaken the vocal instruction ofhaut tonyoung ladies, in order to save their aged mother from a destitution which threatened her, owing to some heavy reverses which had befallen them in their native land.
I was outwardly very sympathetic as she recited these melancholy details. She did not suspect, poor thing, what an effort I was obliged to make to keep track of her subject at all, and I was conscious of having won her kind favor under false pretences. Before she could pursue her pet topic to any fuller advantage, however, the music began again and our newly made friendship was effectually nipped in the bud. During the next selection, which was a lengthy piano solo by the fashionable Miss Nibbs, I busied myself observing all that transpired about me. Miss Nibbs herself was worthy of some notice; perched upon the piano-stool, her flat feet barely reaching the pedals, and her ill-formed bulky figure swaying now on one side, now on another. Whatever Miss Nibbs had been in her youth, and to speak truly one might doubt at this period of her existence if she had ever known a younger day, she certainly was very much worn and used looking in her decline. Not even the faded remnants of an earlier grace or gentility helped to redeem the weak points of nature about her. She was a stranger to me, and yet I could have declared with the most perfect sanction of my moral certitude that she was the direct descendant of a plebeian stock. Not but that she had counterfeited patrician attributes according to her own interpretation of them as earnestly as she knew how; but such, empty pretensions as these are too transparent to the all-discerning eye of true gentility. They can not easily assume that which they have no right to claim. A haughty, overbearing demeanor, or a powerful drawl, is no guarantee of good breeding, and these were poor Miss Nibbs' only titles to it. I will admit that, in my fretted mood, I saw her at her worst. Not a wrinkle of her ill-fitting bodice escaped me, not a movement of her ungainly form passed unnoticed, I was dissecting her to a pitiful disadvantage, following up each new discovery with a moral of my own when a half-subdued voice whispered in my ear:
"Spare her, Miss Hampden."
I looked up significantly and met Dr. Campbell's mock-reproachful glance, resting full upon me.
"Spare whom?" I asked, very innocently.
"Oh! you wicked critic of human frailties," he answered slowly, "whom do you think?"
I betrayed myself with an ill-suppressed smile which broadened into a genuine laugh as poor Miss Nibbs retired most awkwardly from her post, very well satisfied with herself, no doubt.
During the interval that followed, Dr. Campbell amused himself with the indulgence of a new freak. He leaned his elbow on the back of the chair in front of us, and turning his face towards me supported his head in the palm of his hand. There was a new expression on his countenance which foreboded the tantalising remark that followed:
"Do you know, Miss Hampden," he began, looking at me through his half closed eye-lids, "you are beginning to puzzle me strangely. Did any one ever tell you you are an eccentric girl?"
"Oh dear! yes! my step-mother persuaded me to that comfortable conviction long ago," I answered laughingly.
He followed up this agreeable retort with a most expressive "Ahem!" and then paused a moment before adding in a very emphatic tone:
"Well, you are a queer girl, you know."
"Because I fall short of your standard, I suppose?" I interrupted, passing my hand languidly over my brow and eyes.
"Well that is not a bad guess, Miss Hampden, but that is not the only reason."
The shaft pierced me. Arthur Campbell was not always in a mood to flatter. I wanted to prove to him that two could play at his little game and I hardly knew how to match him.
"I suppose I ought to feel quite grieved at this intelligence," I answered consciously, "but, dear me," with an artificial sigh, "I cannot bring myself to study people's opinions; that is probably one feature of my eccentricity?" I added in an interrogative tone, looking aimlessly at him.
He was silent for a moment during which he looked around the room. Then he stood up saying:
"Let us go outside, I see the music is over."
I rose and took his proffered arm and we turned towards the door. As we passed out my eyes fell upon Mr. Dalton's solitary figure standing by the window opposite. A stern, set expression was upon his countenance, and his glance was riveted upon us. I inclined my head with a smile, but he either saw not or purposely took no notice of it, for he went on staring abstractedly until we vanished into the adjoining room.
For a second time in our lives Arthur Campbell and I were alone amidst suggestive surroundings such as met us as we passed under the heavy curtain that screened the cosiest ofboudoirsfrom the general view.
There is such a special appropriateness about certain circumstances that one cannot help speculating to some extent upon their probable and possible issues. It is a known fact that a vast percentage of society marriages are the outgrowth of these little stolentete-a-tetesthat are snatched from the gay confusion of some noisy gathering. No one will be so unreasonable as to denounce the young heart that flutters with some timid anticipation, as it forsakes the mad merry-making of the ball room for the quiet insinuating stillness of some reserved nook by a flickering fireside, where the flower-laden atmosphere whispers interesting suggestions of its own. Far be it from me to overshadow such gleams of sunlight, by censure or cruel mockery, and when I affirm most earnestly that such flutterings of vague expectation never animated my poor heart, so cold, so empty, so unbelieving, it is not that I hold it outside and above such an influence. I only lay bare the barrenness of its nature and the trustless reserve that always made the world around me seem wrapped in a gloomy pall, that inspired me with suspicion, if not altogether fear of it.
I will not take the responsibility of affirming that my views were at all odd or singular, and incompatible with the real condition of feminine hearts at that time. Neither would I like to assure the world that our blooming society girls of to-day are any more credulous or unwisely susceptible than many were at the date I speak of. It has become a popular belief, I think, that beauty coupled with a fascinating manner in a woman, is as heartless and unfeeling as a stone, and yet is just indifferent and neutral enough to abstain from inflicting any more direct pain than that to which its indiscreet victims expose themselves knowingly. There is a certain pity excited by human moths that flutter about our drawing-rooms with their smooth velvety wings charred and disfigured, but even in the sympathy expressed there is a ring of "I told you so," and "beware the next time" that makes the sufferer's burden only heavier to endure.
I can not take upon me to say that Arthur Campbell's beautiful pinions had touched the dangerous flame with any alarming results. I believed him to be very human in spite of his multiplied efforts to establish himself above or below that limit. I saw, when our acquaintanceship was only an hour old, that he was an artful man and, to no small extent, a conceited man. I did not suspect him of regulating his life according to the dictates of a scrupulous conscience. In fact I daresay I was uncharitable enough to look upon him as wanting that blessed monitor, altogether. He professed no definite religious belief, and generally held all creeds to be equally good. Sometimes when he wanted to excite the particular interest of some orthodox young lady he leaned towards the agnostics, and without upholding their tenets, exactly, wanted to know why their right to establish themselves should be so universally questioned and condemned. He liked to see pretty faces looking shocked, and his ears revelled in the sound of a plaintively persuading voice that argued on the side of old truth; he would even allow himself to be converted for the moment by a reproachful look from indignant blue eyes. It gave a flavour to a languid flirtation and "after all," he was wont to say, "what religion can be better than that whose ministers are fair and beautiful women."
He was an acknowledged flirt; a regular knave of Hearts; and yet totally unlike those professional lady-killers who carry their smooth chins so very high above their would-be rivals in fashionable drawing-rooms. There was no insinuation of his purpose or design about Arthur Campbell as he stepped quietly in among the manycoteriesof which he was a spoiled darling. His profession excused him for his late arrivals everywhere, and, in the bargain, granted him ample opportunity for intruding himself upon the notice of everyone present without being condemned for presumption or conceit. It was whispered of him that his private life was based upon free and easy principles, and that he was not altogether so circumspect a walker in the ways of righteousness as he was in the ways of society. Such an accusation, however, remained perforce under an open verdict. Too many of those who might have decided against him had delicate glass-houses of their own to care for, and it would likely prove a treacherous missile that would aim at the well-propped reputation of Doctor Campbell.
I had my own private opinion about him, which never prevented me from openly admiring his tactics, from enjoying his company, and, in a sense, from coveting his attentions. Strangely enough, I had every opportunity for indulging all three. We were thrown frequently together, and I could not help seeing that he took more than a passing notice of me. To tell the truth, until a certain time I never questioned the possible motive that might have inspired him to seek my company. I met him always with a cordial, and may be a very cordial, smile. He was an interesting man, who talked well, and as such appealed largely to my ardent appreciation. We became friends in a very little while, and probably contributed largely towards each other's mutual enjoyment. But very soon the all-seeing eye of a jealous scrutiny was upon us, and we were singled out wherever we went. Little rumors were being hatched, destined before long to creep out from under the great fostering wing of that old hen, Gossip, who is ever chuckling over some new and active brood. People caught the message and repeated it with a relish. People said that young Campbell was no fool in aspiring to succeed to Dr. Hampden's practice. People said: Trust the fellow to spy out a rich man's only daughter. People said: The Hampdens have made a dead set on Campbell, always asking him to luncheon, etc. People said: He is fooling her. In fact people gave expression to every uncomplimentary sentiment which the circumstances could possibly suggest, and it was only then that I turned my attention to the matter at all. I heard the floating verdicts that were being pronounced upon us, and thenceforth I also infused a certain purpose into our hitherto aimless relationship. I quietly resolved to meet that respectable body so widely known as the "people" in open combat. I needed no formidable weapon, an old halter would answer my purpose fully, for of course my readers know that this loud-voiced authority, this much feared power, this braying denouncer of men's private, social, or moral attitudes is only our friend the ass in a pretty well-fitting lion-skin, not nearly so dangerous as timid souls imagine, a nuisance certainly, but that is all.
When Arthur Campbell and I vacated the crowded drawing-room, therefore, and passed into the quiet retreat opposite, many a significant glance followed us besides poor Mr. Dalton's. I knew it and so did he, although no mention was made of it by either of us. We had drifted imperceptibly into that phase of a growing friendship which is silent upon certain interesting topics. We often talked in a vague and general way about the tender influences, but never now by any chance allowed our random remarks to convey any personal reflections. We were puzzling over one another, which is a fatal resource for unfortified hearts, but we prided ourselves upon our well-guarded and invulnerable affections, and, in a way, playfully defied the inevitable to conquer us.
Arthur Campbell held the heavy drapery aside until I had glided into the room. He then drew it briskly across the doorway and followed me to an ebony cabinet before which I had stood to look at a comical crockery pug that lay on one of its tiny shelves. He glanced over my shoulder at my interesting distraction, and was silent for a moment. I could feel his breath upon my hair and ear, then he said slowly:
"You seem to be fond of animals, which is your favorite?"
An answer rushed to my lips and I was conscious of a mischievous expression creeping over my face. Had I reflected for a moment I might never have uttered it, but before I had time to weigh my words, they had been pointedly pronounced.
"Man—of course," I said; "Which is yours?"
He did not answer as quickly as I had, and yet I did not dare look at him or speak again. After a moment's pause, however, I ventured to raise my eyes towards the cabinet, and as I did so, how my heart thumped, how my cheeks reddened. He had stretched one hand out to reach some object that stood on one of the ebony brackets above me, and the reflection in the little square mirror before us was, to say the least, rather suggestive. The bracket being higher than the mirror was not visible in it. The effect produced therefore was that of a broadcloth sleeve, carefully brought around two slender shoulders, and a handsome manly countenance leaning a little towards a blushing maiden's face. Worse than all, he too happened to look into the glass at the same moment, and our eyes in shrinking from one another's glance met under an awkward circumstance. He looked steadily at Amey Hampden in mirrorland, and then said in a very conventional tone, turning his eyes towards the bracket:
"Pardon me, I want to show you something."
It was a beautiful white dove which, though lifeless, had retained much of its grace and softness. In its beak was a dainty little card upon which was inscribed in large characters: "Love one another."
"Do you like it?" he asked after we had examined it silently for a moment.
"The idea is certainly original," I answered evasively.
"Yes, but do you like it?" he repeated
"Which?" I asked, "the bird, or the idea altogether?"
"The idea altogether."
"Oh! ye-e-s," I drawled as indifferently as I possibly could. "It is a very chaste conception on the whole—but—"
"But what?"
"Oh! there is not much in it after all."
"Miss Hampden! you astonish me! Not much in loving one another, especially with such an exalted, enduring love as that which the dove symbolises."
"You mistake me, Dr Campbell," I interrupted suddenly, looking up at him, but I did not finish, for some one just vanished out of the doorway as I turned my head. The curtain was still swaying when I stopped my remark abruptly, and Arthur Campbell following my glance, strode towards the entrance and looked indignantly out. The passage was clear, and he returned, laughing, saying the eavesdropper was no one more formidable than the draught. I was not so easily convinced, however, and asked to go back in to the drawing-room where the merriment was still unabating. He did not seem quite pleased, but nevertheless offered me his arm unhesitatingly, and we passed in among the noisy crowd just in time for the summons to supper.
When I awoke the morning after the Merivales' Musical, the forenoon was already pretty well advanced and a light, warm fire was burning in my room. Outside, the winter wind was shrieking plaintively, and over every pane of the window were dense layers of frosty ferns and grasses. It wanted a few minutes for the half hour after ten by the prattling little time-piece on the mantel. I arose and dressed languidly, feeling dull and oppressed and rang for a cup of strong coffee. I felt no appetite for breakfast, and drawing my warm, heavy wrapper around me I wheeled a low easy chair toward the fire and sank wearily into it.
It may be a wise policy for the votaries of gaslight pleasures to maintain that there is no baneful result arising from a constant pursuit of such distractions, but, however wise this attitude may be, I hardly think it can rely upon the sanction of our conscience. It is certainly not sound truth. For the abnormal life which society prescribes for her followers is fruitful of most injurious consequences. Evil effects do not always thrust themselves upon our notice in any directly pronounced way. Very often those which are most pernicious have a stealthy and unobtrusive progress, and it is only when their destructive mission is well accomplished that we become aware of their existence. There are physical, moral, and mental wrecks, the playthings of every varying circumstance that agitates the sea of life, who are living examples of the truth I uphold: men and women who have made an oblation of their greatest energies and capacities to lay upon the altars of a profitless materialism. This is of course the extreme limit of worldliness, but in many cases it had a tame and semi-respectable beginning, originating from circumstances as seemingly safe as those which make up our own individual lives. Who can tell whether danger will allow us to tempt and tease her with impunity. The fortifications around our personal lots are not so stable as we imagine, and they require our constant and vigilant supervision. While we are feasting and rioting the scouts of the enemy are conspiring strongly against us.
For myself I say, that every indulgence of this kind invariably brings me an uncomfortable re-action, and I have never been able to satisfy myself with the explanation which is popularly received regarding it. It is not merely the result of physical disorder, of that I am sure. There is not a morbid tendency, ever so latent within me, that is not brought forcibly to the surface during this re-action, and I never realize so fully that the pleasures of the senses are empty and fleeting as when I have given myself up to an unbridled indulgence of any of them. I have rested my eyes upon every conceivable form and phase of animate and inanimate beauty in my life-time, and to-day my poor eyes are tired and dissatisfied. My ear, that has been inclined to every sort of sweet and sad melody, is still waiting and hoping for a soul-stirring refrain that will never reach it; and my heart, that has quickened at glad surprises and fluttered during hours of the world's happiness, is still asking, still searching for a joy that will minister in full to its demands. No wonder then that so many of us pause in the midst of our gay confusion, and ask ourselves wearily: "What is the use?"
What is the use of all these vain efforts of ours to feed our inner appetites with a diet that can never nourish or sustain? What is the use of all these monotonous beginnings that never have any tangible end? What is the use of playing so burdensome a part upon the social stage? What is the use of deceiving ourselves and our fellow-men, when there is such a glorious cause of truth to fight for? Ah! it is the way of the world, and that is a power which we fear to defy. The way of the world! These little words have justified sin and crime over and over again. They have masked the vilest cunning with a surface of unquestionable propriety; they have quietly sanctioned one fashionable folly after another, until vice and virtue are brought to one level, ay, and if needs be, the former triumphs, and the latter is shoved aside to make headway for its counterfeit. It is the way of the world that poverty be sneered at and denounced, that humility be ridiculed, that modesty be mocked, not openly not daringly, but by covert and cutting insinuation, the ever are weapon of the moral coward. It is the way of the world that sorrow be held pent up in hearts that are dying for care and sympathy, the way of the world that selfish motives be the best, that might is right, and indeed who can say our dazzling, splendid, cruel world has not its way? And we, its victims, its votaries, what recompense have we?
Such reflections as these trooped in solemn order before my mental vision as I sat staring into the coals, that frosty morning after the Merivales' entertainment. Every circumstance of the preceding night rehearsed itself in my memory. I repeated Arthur Campbell's every word. I had not forgotten one. I recalled Mr. Dalton's steady look, even Miss Nibbs' funny little personality rode upon the embers, and brought a faint smile to my pensive countenance. I teazed myself with interrogative conjectures of every kind, now leaning towards one, and now towards another. Somehow the vagaries of our hope or of our fancy, like ourselves, look their best by gas-light, and show a very disappointing complexion in the open daylight. While I sat thus weaving and tangling the webs of my aimless thought, the door opened and my step-mother glided in with a dainty little note between her fingers.
"Lazy girl," she muttered in a half yawn, throwing the note into my lap. "Rouse yourself, and read this. An answer is wanted."
It was from Alice Merivale, to my surprise, and appeared to have been scratched off in a hurry:
"If you have nothing on hand for the afternoon, dear Amey, I wish you would come over at about one o'clock and take luncheon with me. It is so stupid. A. M."
I folded it up and smiled, as I went in search of my writing materials.
In half an hour after I was waiting to be admitted into their house. I was shown into Alice's apartment according to her direction. She was lying on a lounge by the fire, with her delicate hands clasped over her shapely head. Her long, yellow hair fell in soft braids on each slender shoulder. She wore anegligeeof white, with delicate trimmings of swan's down and looked, on the whole, the living impersonation of luxury and beauty. When I was shown in she greeted me with a languid smile, but did not alter her comfortable position.
"I am so glad you've come, Amey," she said looking up at me where I stood beside her. "Just throw your becoming wearables anywhere there and come and sit down for a chat."
I did as she told me, and a moment later we were both settled luxuriously before the glowing embers ready for mutual entertainment.
"Did you think I was crazy, Amey, when you received my note this morning?" Alice asked, drawing the vagrant folds of her soft wrapper about her.
"Well, no, Alice," I answered slowly, "but I found it a little queer, that was all."
"Queer world, is'nt it Amey?"
I smiled, and still looking into the fire said, as if in soliloquy.
"How much alike we girls are. I came to that very conclusion an hour ago before my own embers."
"What reason haveyouto think that?" she said, with a wondering look in her beautiful blue eyes.
"Every reason in the world."
"And I have so often envied you, Amey Hampden, and thought you a fortunate and happy girl beside a wretch like me."
"Alice!" I broke in, in consternation "how can you talk like this? You, the spoilt darling of Fortune herself, you, the cynosure of so many eyes, the possessor of untold worldly comfort and happiness."
"Go on, go on, I like that," she interrupted ironically.
"Well, you know you are," I added emphatically.
"A wretch! yes, without a doubt" she answered firmly. "I am rich in that which can buy everything but peace of mind and contentment of heart. I am fortunate enough to escape that experience which gives a flavor and a charm to existence. I am the cynosure of eyes that are content with surface glitter only, and the possessor of comforts and happiness that have made my life the empty, blighted thing it is."
She paused while the sound of her altered voice vibrated in the room, then laughed a merry, artful little laugh and rising languidly to her feet, added:
"Oh, dear! oh dear! what funny people we are!"
Before any more was said upon this tender subject we went down to lunch, laughing and chatting as gaily as though we were the freest-hearted creatures in existence.
We spent an hour in discussing the good things below, and then went back arm-in-arm to the cosy apartments we had vacated above. The fire had been renewed and our seats still in the same suggestive places attracted us towards them again. Alice threw herself upon her lounge and hummed a snatch of her last night's selection, which she suddenly interrupted with a fully-indulged yawn out of which again emerged a taunting
"Come now Amelia,a quoi penses-tu?"
"I was thinking of you," I answered, "you are such a queer girl."
"You will be still further convinced of that opinion when you know a little more about me," she said in a jocosely earnest tone. "You know I intend to go to Europe in a fortnight, ostensibly to see the time-honored sights, to gloat over venerable art, and improve my mind generally with such a broad view of experience, but Oh! what a blind that is!" she exclaimed in mock indignation. "Of course everybody knows that I am being sent out to seek my fortune, matrimonially speaking. I am too rich, and too beautiful, and too accomplished to be thrown away upon a self-made Canadian. I must go in search of patrician smiles across the sea, and win them for a plausible cause."
She curled her lips into an expression of supreme disgust, as she finished, and began to toy with the end of one golden braid.
"You don't mean half of what you say, Alice," I interposed quietly. "Since you are not satisfied with all the good things the gods have provided so far, I know only one other that can infuse a soul into your vapid and savor less comforts. It is possible for your present gloom to be dispelled by the warmth and brightness of a sunshine that cheers the loneliest lives, and I think you can never be happy without it."
"What is it?" she asked curtly.
"Love," I answered, "honest, stable, earnest love."
"Faugh!" she exclaimed, flinging her delicate braid away from her caressing fingers, "is that all?"
"That is all, a mere trifle if you will, but it is the axis around which men's temporal happiness revolves."
"Men's perhaps, but not women's," she added proudly. "I tell you what, Amey, the world waits for no one, each age has its manners, and customs, its social peculiarities and special features since the beginning of time men have had to be led by the age in which they lived, and ours is no exception. Once upon a time marriage was a contract conducted on the great principle of buying and selling. Civilization with deft and tender fingers has smoothened away the rough and repulsive aspect of such a custom, and our ministers now ask, with a bland affectation of pastoral solicitude, 'Whogiveththis woman away?' Giveth her! forsooth; and in nine cases out of ten how dearly is she bought! Why, we women are selling our bodies and our souls too, for that matter, every day that comes and goes. But we cannot help it," she added after a short pause, "and fortunately circumstances are trained to suit our dilemma. I shall go across the Atlantic for inspection, and if all goes well I shall return bespoken for life. I shall certainly not marry for love, and as compensation must be found somewhere, I will marry for position. I have the wealth myself."
Her words chilled me. Their tone was cold and hard. I looked at her and said half sadly,
"Alice, why do you talk like this? You have drifted into this peevish sort of pessimism without forethought. How can you deliberately sit in a shadow when the sun is shining all around you. With beauty and riches and intelligence you have the keys to a world of happiness. I cannot think why you should choose to hold this dreary outlook before your eyes. It seems a strange contrast to the popular belief that prevails about your happy condition."
She curled her thin, pretty lips into a smile of incisive sarcasm and drew a weary breath before she answered me. Then she said in a half melancholy tone:
"Yes, I know that it is the fate of rich people to be envied. I know that my different circumstances are coveted by girls that are a thousandfold happier than I, and it is a miserable thing to realize, but how can I help it? Amey, to tell you the wretched truth, I am sick of life, and if there can be respite for me in death, I wish I might die tonight. You may think this is the fruit of a gloomy mood, but it is the result of long reflection. Last night I was gay, I sang and played and chatted merrily. Men admired and flattered me, but what is left of it all to-day? Nothing but ashes. I know that what they said was not sincere, and still I remember it all with a girlish gratification. If we were always singing and dancing, and fooling one another, life might be more endurable, but these intervals of dreary re-action are a dear price for our social pleasures." She paused for a moment and then added slowly.
"Sometimes I am tempted to renounce my wordly life and go quietly into some holy retreat where all such troubles are kept at bay, and then the thought becomes repulsive when I think of how worthless I have been, and how worthless I would still be among useful women."
She laughed drearily as she uttered these words and came towards the fire saying
"What a fuss I make about a little human life, eh Amey?"
"It is right that you should," I answered gravely, "it is dearer to you I suppose than anything in the world."
She stroked my hair affectionately and we both looked into the fire. One of her dainty slippers rested on the fender, one of her jewelled hands lay tremulously on my shoulder.
I knew that something should be said to her while this mood was on her, but what right had I to speak? I, who advocated every dreary conviction she had just uttered! I, who was so wretched and tired of my own life, what could I say to cheer or encourage her? My heart was full, but my lips were dumb. Something was telling me that there was no perfect happiness for women on earth, but I could not permit myself to express so gloomy a belief at this critical moment, when a fair, young, beautiful creature stood waiting beside me for a stimulus to hope and perseverance.
While I sat reflecting, she herself interpreted my mental soliloquy.
"This is the way with all of us, Amey," she said in a quieter and gentler tone. "I never knew a woman who, if she told the truth, could pride herself on being happy. It is beyond the narrow limits of our present sphere. The maids that wait upon us envy us and think that in our places they would have nothing left to wish for. The discontented seamstress that stitches away at my expensive dresses fancies they must shelter a happy heart, whose lot she covets; and all the while I am wishing for anything else in the world besides what I have. Whether we marry or remain single, life is a burden to us. We go on from day to day wondering how we may best dispose of ourselves. And nothing ever comes of it but this miserable discontent which leaves no possible margin for hope for the morrow. If one could only make a virtue of the resignation which is thrust upon one by an undaunted destiny," she concluded with a long-drawn sigh, "one might be the better for it."
"Yes," I answered earnestly, "if one only could! I do believe that the only sweetness in life is in being good, and those only who have never practised virtue, doubt it. For myself, when I have devoted some time sincerely to my religious duties I know that I feel a better, and most certainly a happier, woman. My life has a higher aim, my ambition a safer guide, and my efforts a more stable support, but I am not always faithful to my good resolutions and I am easily won away from devotional pursuits."
"Well then, Amey, you must blame yourself if you are not thoroughly happy," Alice interrupted almost fiercely. "You have this great advantage over me. I have no religion. I never had any. I am supposed to belong to the Church which we occasionally frequent. I am supposed to take a lively interest in foreign missions and the Jews. I am supposed to sanction a doctrine which has never been explained to me; but do I? Not I. Only for the instinctive belief which I cannot help holding in God and a life to come, I would be no more than a very animal; and only for a something within me—a sort of moral regulator, which the Church calls conscience, I would never stop to question what is right or what is not. This is all the religion I have ever known. I have been brought up with the conviction that most creeds are tolerable, but that my own is the most fashionable, and it is certainly an easy one to live by, so I have never questioned it much. I should not care to fast or abstain or kneel as much as you Catholics do. I should abhor accusing myself, in sincere humility, of my wrong-doing, or making amends for every trifling misdemeanor, and as my religion does not ask me to do anything I dislike, I cannot quarrel with it."
"Certainly not, if you are happy in it" I put in quietly.
"I am not happy in it" she answered snappishly "but I could be I dare say, if it only assumed an authority over me; if it commanded where it counsels; if it exacted where it approves only, if it bound me under pain of grievous sin as yours does."—
"Ah! if it did! if it did, it would be no longer the same religion. It would lose nine-tenths of its present advocates. However, it is not my intention to enter upon a religious dissertation. I would not disturb your present convictions deliberately for the world, but if you wanted my assistance or asked it, I should be glad to give it to you. One thing I will tell you, however, before I go" I added, rising and confronting her, "it is a deep wrong you do your soul in allowing it to be assailed by so many doubts which you do not take the trouble to satisfy. There are many like you, Alice, I know a dozen whose souls are riding the unstable surface of a religious speculation. This is tempting God, and you owe yourself the duty of satisfying every want of your inner being. There is a why and a wherefore for everything, therefore clear away the dark clouds that lie between you and Truth. Study and read and reflect, until you can lay your hand in good faith upon your heart, and say: Now I have found the consoling truth, now my doubts have disappeared and my belief is made sure, and staunch, and consoling. That religion which shall best purify you, whose motives are entirely supernatural, which shall oblige you to exalt all humanity over yourself, which shall infuse a holy motive into your every thought, word and deed, which shall fill your life with a purpose unlike any it has hitherto known, shall make you happy here and hereafter—and if you like, you can find it with a little search."
We said no more on any subject. The afternoon was well-advanced already, and bidding her a fond good-bye, I left her with a promise to see her again before her departure for her much talked-of trip.
Leaving the Merivales' house, I wended my way in a moody silence toward my own home. The wind was rising and small snowflakes were drifting cheerlessly about in the raw wintry air. I bowed my head against the storm and plodded silently on. I was thinking of many things the while, and allowing myself to become absorbed in an earnest rehearsal of my own prosy life. Other people passed by me with better reasons to sigh I am sure, and yet mine was a deep-drawn breath, full of meaning and misery, which I would have controlled had I not been so distracted and absent-minded at the time.
I doubt if anything could have awakened me from my reverie so suddenly and so effectually as the measured slow accent which broke upon my ear at this juncture.
"How do you do Amey?"
Simple enough: a mere conventional greeting if you will, but I felt it vibrate through my whole system. I looked up and saw Mr. Dalton standing before me. The way was narrow, and he had moved aside into the deep snow to let me pass. Involuntarily, I stood and looked up at him. I felt more kindly toward him than I had ever done before, I knew not why. In some vague uncertain way he had been associated with my recent thoughts, not asserting himself as any distinct feature in connection with my cogitation, but underlying it with a merely insinuated influence that made his presence felt in a secret, undetermined sort of way. I had been wondering about him and questioning his motives within myself as I plodded through the sprinkled streets and now, he was standing before me, a real personage, the substance of a dreamy memory of him which I had been dwelling upon since my departure from the Merivales'.
When we had stopped and saluted one another an awkward silence ensued. I felt as if he had read my secret in my tell-tale countenance, but his face wore that passive look it always wore and his voice was calm and commonplace as usual as he asked.
"Are you going home now?"
"Yes" I answered, "I have been visiting Alice Merivale. I had luncheon with her and a little talk."
"I will go back with you if you like," said he turning around to follow me.
I assented of course, and we hurried on to where the path was wider that we might be companionable and walk side by side.
"You had a little talk you say? I fling discretion to the winter wind, and ask, what about?"
"It is a wonder you don't say whom about" I returned with some emphasis.
"It is" he answered. "I must have been distracted indeed not to have put it in that way, however, it will do now, will it not?"
"Quite as well" said I, "for early or late the question can elicit no definite answer, as we talked of no one."
"What?"
"Surprising, isn't it?" I asked satirically, "nevertheless it is the startling truth."
"Maybe so," said he softly. "I thought on the day after an event such as last night's young girls had a great deal to say in confidence about people and things. I see I have been mistaken, although—"
"Although what?"
"Well—although last night lay itself particularly open to an interesting criticism, I think."
"Musical evenings generally do I think."
"I mean everything else but the music."
"What else was there?"
"Desperate flirting or earnest love-making, I wish I knew which."
"I wish I could tell you really, Mr. Dalton, but you seem to know more about the matter already than I do."
"I cannot help it Amey," he said in a muffled tone, then looking up. "It promises to be a stormy night," he added in an entirely new voice.
"I am afraid so" I answered, standing before our own gate. "Will you come in for a moment?"
"Thank you, I have an engagement, good afternoon."
"Good afternoon."
He raised his hat and turned away and I passed into the house filled with the strangest emotions I had ever known. I went straight to my own room and threw myself into a capacious easy-chair near the fire. The gray shadows of the early winter evening were just touching everything around me. I was in an excited mood and for what? A new suspicion had suddenly thrust itself in between me and a happy, satisfying conviction which I had cherished of late. The reader will not question whether there is one thing in life more annoying or more discouraging than to see one's settled belief in anything suddenly uprooted and tossed about by unexpected yet not unpleasant circumstances. Some small whispering voice from the farthest depths of my heart struggled to the surface now and asked me plainly and brusquely to come to an understanding with my inner self once for all, instead of leaning in this half-decided way, now towards one conviction, now towards another.
"I cannot help it, Amey." What was he going to say? What did he think? Why did he stop there? "Desperate flirtation, or earnest love-making. I wish I knew which." Queer thing to say, that. But what a queer man he was! What did it matter to him which it was? Did he mean to allude to Arthur Campbell and me, or was he perhaps thinking of himself and somebody? Why did I dismiss him summarily? If I had urged him to come in he would have consented, and we might have talked it out. We each thought a great deal more than we said, but after all, maybe it was well as it stood. What could he ever be to me more than an old friend—twice my age—and maybe I was too precipitate and presumptuous. How did I know he thought of me in any other light than the child he had always known me? I stood up with this impediment thrown voluntarily in the way, and took off my street apparel. In a quarter of an hour later dinner was served, and I went down cheerfully to the dining-room.