"Well, when he does," Amanda said, "remember this—he kissed me first. You can't take that away from me—I have the first claim." She let go of Elizabeth's hands and fell back a step. There were two deep red marks from her grasp. "Now go," she said, "go to him. I knew you were going to him—I saw you thinking of it, and it made me hateyou. Go to him and tell him that I hope his love for you will last as long as it did for me." She laughed again harshly and then suddenly burst into violent weeping. "Oh, it's ignominious," she said, "it's contemptible. No one can despise me more than I do myself. I haven't any pride. I hate him—I hate him; yet I'd take him back now, if he'd come to me." She sank down on the sofa and hid her face in the red plush cushions, while her whole frame shook with convulsive sobs.
Elizabeth stood still in the middle of the floor. Mechanically she glanced at her reflection in the mirror; white, distraught, with startled eyes—a ghastly parody of the brilliant vision which had smiled back at her only a few minutes before. The hot sunlight, flooding the commonplace little room, seemed to bring out, with glaring vividness, all the tragic, sordid elements of the scene. A quarrel between two women about a lover! Could anything be more hopelessly vulgar and grotesque?
It was the sting of this thought that finally roused Elizabeth to speech. She raised her head with sudden haughtiness, and her words came clearly and fluently. "I don't know what you mean, Amanda," she said "by this scene. If there is any one whom you—you think I have taken from you, you can have him back to-morrow so far as I am concerned. I don't want any other woman's lover. It—it would be base. Whatever else you think me, I'm not—that. If it is Paul Halleck whom you mean, you can marry him, if you wish, to-morrow. At least you may be sure of one thing, that I never will." Herlow, vehement voice died away, and she waited for an answer; but none came. Amanda only sobbed on hysterically, her face buried in the sofa-cushions.
Elizabeth stood looking at her for a moment, with a feeling in which pity, anger and repulsion were strangely mingled; then she hastily left the room by the door that led directly to the street. She had presence of mind enough to avoid the shop and her aunt's unfriendly eyes. She reached the carriage, and—un-heard-of thing—touched the white pony with the whip.
Theyhad left the last house behind; they were out in the open country. Elizabeth dropped the reins and let her tears flow unchecked—hot, blinding tears, the bitterest she had ever shed. At each familiar tree and landmark she sobbed with redoubled violence. Only an hour before she had driven along this same road in the ecstatic glow of her first romance. Now all the bloom had been rubbed from that romance, all the glory faded from the hero of her dreams; she herself was a woman who had been insulted, humiliated, dragged in the dust.
By degrees a few coherent phrases detached themselves from the confused mass of painful recollections, and stung more sharply than the rest. "My mother better than yours—she wasn't even respectable; no decent people would speak to her" ... Oh, it was too bad—too bad; she had not thought it was so bad as that. Amanda must have exaggerated—she would ask her aunts; but no, no she would never speak of that interview to a soul. It was humiliating enough as it was.... "He kissed me once. Has he kissed you yet?" No, thank Heaven! that indignity had been spared her. They had hovered as yet on the borderland of love; she had put offthe inevitable declaration with instinctive coquetry, a vague unwillingness to be won too easily. She was glad now—glad and thankful; he did not know that she cared,—he should never know. She had no love for the man who had kissed Amanda.... "Selfish and spoiled—thinking only of herself?" Yes, she might be all that; but at least she would not take another woman's lover. The words "it would be base," rang in her ears. Had she spoken them, or Amanda? At all events, they were true. It would be base to marry Halleck now. In fact, she did not wish to marry him. It was he who had involved her in this horrible, sordid misery. Her aunts were right; there must be distinctions of classes. Had her father remembered this, people would not have it in their power to insult his daughter now.
Through all her complex feelings ran a sharp sense of anger against Amanda, mingled strangely with an involuntary pity, almost with an understanding of her point of view. It was not based on justice, but on fellow feeling. Amanda had resented her superiority; she, Elizabeth, knew what that was. She had felt the same herself, when smarting impotently under the patronizing friendliness of the other girls in the Neighborhood, and then had turned, with unconscious snobbery, to play the same part towards Amanda. The incongruous, grotesque humor of the situation struck her suddenly, and she laughed out loud in bitter irony. She had envied the other girls of the Neighborhood, Amanda had envied her, the girls at Bassett Mills had enviedAmanda. Strange net-work of classes in a democratic country, of distinctions the more galling for their intangibility. Of one thing Elizabeth was convinced, that she could never herself "put on airs" as Amanda had said, again; there was not a girl in the whole countryside, blessed with a good mother, who could not look down on her, if she pleased.
Her tears were falling now so fast and blinding that she could not see the road; she was not even conscious that they had reached the spot where the white pony stopped now of his own accord. And even as he did so, a young man stepped forward and grasped the reins which had fallen from Elizabeth's nerveless hand; a tall, fair young man who had been standing for the last half hour, scanning anxiously, with his bright blue eyes, the glaring dusty road.
"Elizabeth," said Halleck (he had called her that for five happy days) "Elizabeth, why are you so late? And, for Heaven's sake, what's the matter?"
Elizabeth looked up and with great effort, stopped crying; but otherwise she made no sign of pleasure in his presence or even of recognition. She put up one hand, indeed, and straightened her hat, but this was a purely mechanical concession to the force of habit. She knew that her face was flushed and tear-stained, her eyes red and swollen; she was sure that she looked an absolute fright, and she did not care. She was past caring, at least for the moment.
"Elizabeth," Halleck repeated, more and more bewildered, "what is the matter? I've been waiting for you an hour. You've been crying," he added,stating unnecessarily an obvious fact. "Won't you tell me what it is?"
"Nothing—nothing," Elizabeth answered at last, in a voice that was still thick and choked with sobs. "I haven't been crying or," struck by the futility of denial, she added hastily "if I have it—it's no matter. Will you please let me pass?" She tried to take the reins from his hands, but he grasped them firmly, and laid the other hand on the bar of the wagon.
"Won't you let me pass?" she repeated stubbornly.
"Not till you tell me what's the matter."
He eyed her coolly, determinedly, all the habit of power depicted on the lines of his handsome face. She stared back at him defiantly, with her tear-swollen eyes. Her whole attitude breathed the spirit of rebellion; a spirit new in their intercourse. Halleck saw it, at the same time that he noted the disfiguring marks of tears on her face. Oddly enough, he had never admired her so much.
Nevertheless, he was determined to remain master of the situation. He glanced up and down the road; there were never many people passing, but it was not safe to rely on this fact.
"We can't talk here," he said. "Come into the field."
"I don't wish to," she said, stubbornly. "I'm going home."
He fixed his eyes upon her. "You shall not go home," he said quietly, "till you have told me all about it." She sat immovable, her pouting underlip thrust out in a way that she had sometimes, in moments of obstinacy and displeasure. She did not meet his eyes. "Don't be childish," Paul said, pleasantly, after a moment. "You know you must tell me what it is."
She looked up reluctantly, and met his steady gaze, under which she turned first white, then red, and slowly, as if fascinated, rose from her seat. Yet still her words were unyielding. "We may as well have it out at once," she said, coldly.
Halleck could not repress a thrill of triumph. It was sweet to test his power over this beautiful, high-spirited girl, to feel her will, her intellect, like wax in his hands. But he tried not to show this consciousness in his face. She was in a strange mood; he did not understand her. Gravely and respectfully he helped her to scale the stone wall, which separated the meadow from the road. Her hand barely rested on his, and her eyes were averted carefully, but he paid no heed. He fastened the white pony to a tree, then slowly and thoughtfully followed Elizabeth across the field.
The noon-day sun beat down upon them in all its scorching brilliancy; it was pleasant to gain the shade of their usual trysting-place. Here the little brook, which had rippled and sparkled over stones and moss all the way from the mill-stream, formed itself into a quiet pool, over which weeping willows spread out long branches, and seemed to admire their own reflection in the cool green mirror beneath. Elizabeth took her usual seat on a fallen moss-covered log, drawing, as she did so, her white skirtsabout her, with what seemed an involuntary gesture of repulsion, and Halleck, who was about to place himself beside her, flushed and bit his lip. After a moment's hesitation, he threw himself down sullenly on the grass a little way off.
"Tell me," he said, in a tone that was the more determined for this little episode "tell me now what the matter is."
Elizabeth's eyes were fixed upon the cool, green water at her feet. "I don't know why you think," she said, slowly "that it has anything to do with you."
"Not when you are a full hour late for our appointment? Not when you treat me like an outcast? Oh, Elizabeth,"—the young man's voice softened suddenly, skillfully—"how can you trifle with me so, when I love you?"
He caught, or thought he did, a quiver in her face, although her eyes were still resolutely bent upon the pool. "Yes, I love you," he repeated. "I've loved you, I believe, ever since the day you came into that horrid, stuffy little room, looking like an angel—with that hair and that skin—so different from Amanda."—
He stopped as an indignant wave of color flamed in Elizabeth's cheeks. "How can you speak of Amanda—like that?" she broke out passionately, "when you loved her too, or told her so at least, when you said the same things no doubt to her that you are saying now to me?"
A light broke in upon Paul. In his relief he laughed out loud. "Amanda," he said. "Amanda!So she has been talking to you? And you believed all the nonsense she told you? And that is why you acted so strangely. I thought it was something serious!" And he laughed again in sheer light-heartedness. So all this had been only jealous pique, after all.
The gloom on Elizabeth's face did not lighten. "You seem to find the idea amusing," she said, coldly. "I do not."
"Because you don't understand how absurd it is. I never made love to Amanda—if she made love to me"—Paul stopped, warned by a curious stiffening in Elizabeth's attitude that he was on dangerous ground. She was not like other girls whom he had known—he had noticed this before; she required special treatment. "My dear child," he said, in a calm, argumentative tone "really you are a little hard on me. A man can't measure every word he says to a girl. I may have paid Amanda a few compliments, flirted with her a little, if you insist upon it, but—that's not a crime, is it? And I never gave her a thought, I hardly remembered her existence, after I had once—seen you." There was unmistakable sincerity in his voice. "Look at me, Elizabeth," he went on anxiously, "look at me, and tell me that you believe me."
Elizabeth raised her troubled eyes to his. "I—I don't know," she said, slowly. She did believe him—to some extent, at least. But what he told her did not alter the fact that it was she who had taken him away from Amanda, that, but for her, he mighthave been her cousin's admirer still. And that, after all, had been the substance of Amanda's accusation.
"Tell me the truth," she said, suddenly "if I had not come in that day—if you had never seen me, would you—would you have married Amanda?" She fixed her eager eyes upon his face, and waited breathless for his answer. He gave it with a light laugh.
"Marry Amanda!" he declared, "well, hardly! Such an idea never entered my head."
"Then," said Elizabeth, slowly "you deceived her."
He shrugged his shoulders. "She deceived herself, I think," he said. "It's not my fault if she—imagined things. Why should I marry a girl like that? She's not pretty, she's stupid, ignorant. Bah, don't talk to me of Amanda." He disposed of the matter with a wave of the hand and another light laugh. Elizabeth felt a sudden conviction of the absurdity of her own behavior. The painful, scorching flush in her cheeks was beginning to cool; the burning, angry shame in her heart was dying away. The remembrance of Amanda's words grew fainter; Paul's handsome face, his air of triumphant health and life, were again in the ascendent.
He saw the yielding in her eyes and brought out his most effective argument. He took boldly the seat beside her on the log and though she shrank away, it was not, he thought, entirely with aversion. "My darling," he said, "don't let trifles come between us. I love you, you love me; isn't thatenough? Elizabeth, you are the most beautiful woman in the world. Elizabeth, dearest" ... He put out his arm and drew her towards him. She still shrank away, fascinated yet trembling, frightened at this new delight, this thrill of pleasure in his touch.
"Don't," she gasped out, "Amanda"—He stopped her protest with a kiss.
And it was not till later, when she reached home, that she thought again of Amanda's words: "Remember, he kissed mefirst."
MissCornelia and Miss Joanna sat at the breakfast-table and looked aghast at Elizabeth, who had just informed them of her engagement. The old Dutch clock on the mantel-piece ticked loudly, the sunlight fell in shining bars upon the snowy table-cloth, the old Dutch china, the glistening silver. Miss Cornelia was reminded forcibly, painfully, of a morning in that same room many years ago, when Peter had announced his marriage. Now the shock was not so great, was not unexpected, perhaps; but it brought with it, if less horror, an even greater disappointment.
"Well," Elizabeth said, after a moment, when her important announcement had produced no response, and she looked proudly, yet half wistfully, from one to the other. "Well," she repeated, "have you nothing to say? Can't you—congratulate me?" Her voice faltered over the last words.
"My dear," Miss Cornelia tried bravely to respond to the appeal in the girl's tone. "Of course, we—we wish you every happiness," she stammered out. She stopped, for tears choked her voice. She looked despairingly at her sister. Was this the moment that they had so often talked of together, planningwith delicious thrills of pleasure all they would say and do? "This china must be Elizabeth's when—when she marries, you know." "We must lay by a little for—for Elizabeth's trousseau." This in demure whispers to each other, for they would not for the world have suggested such a possibility to the girl herself. Nice girls, of course, must not think of getting married till the time came, but—with Elizabeth's beauty, that time could not be long delayed, not even in the Neighborhood. The fairy prince would appear some day; though he had never come to them, they believed devoutly that he would come to Elizabeth. And now—and now—the fairy prince had come, or Elizabeth thought so; but they were only conscious of an overwhelming sense of doubt.
"You know so little about him, my dear," Miss Cornelia could not help at last protesting.
Elizabeth opened her eyes wide in genuine surprise. "So little of him," she repeated. "Why, I—I know everything, Aunt Cornelia." And she smiled to herself in silent amusement. Had she not seen him, every day and twice a day, for a matter of four weeks. How long did they think, these older women, that it took to know a man? "I know that he loves me," she said, after a moment, descending to further particulars "and I love him, and that's enough."
"But you can't live on love," urged Miss Joanna, practically. "You must have some money, you know, and I shouldn't think he, poor young man, had anything—at least, judging by his clothes.Those artists never have, they say. And meat, and everything indeed, never was so dear as it is now."
"I didn't know you were so worldly, Aunt Joanna," said Elizabeth, loftily. "Do you want me to marry for money?" Miss Joanna was crushed. But as she reflected in her own justification, one had to have something to eat, let lovers say what they would.
"My dear," said Miss Cornelia, coming to the rescue with the little air of dignity that she could sometimes assume "we certainly wouldn't want you—not for the world—to marry for money. But one has to be—to be prudent. We have brought you up in a way—perhaps it was unwise—poor Mother would have thought so. But at any rate you know nothing about economy, and—and you have only a little money, my dear, and he, I suppose, has nothing."
"He—he expects to make a great deal of money soon," faltered Elizabeth, coming down a little from her heights of romance. All this prudence was like a dash of cold water in the face. She felt disconcerted, indignant, and yet conscious, through it all of some reason in her aunts' objections. Yes, it was true—she had not been brought up to economy, she was fond of luxury and pretty things. In all her wishes for change, she had never thought that it would be amusing to miss any of these.
Miss Cornelia saw that she had produced some effect. "I think," she went on, still speaking with unusual decision, "that the most important thing is to find out something about him. You can't marrya man whom we know nothing about, except that—that he was born at The Mills. We must investigate his character." Miss Cornelia felt, as she brought out this last sentence, that it sounded eminently practical, and it received from Miss Joanna, indeed, its full meed of respectful admiration. Elizabeth only smiled superior.
"You can investigate as much as you like, Aunt Cornelia," she said. "I know all about him." And so the matter rested.
But how could two elderly and innocent spinsters, who had never in their lives stirred two hundred miles from home, investigate the character of a young man who had lived in Chicago and Paris and Vienna and all the four quarters of the world apparently? They had no idea how to set about it. In this perplexity Miss Cornelia again rose to the occasion, and suggested that the Rector might be a fit substitute for that invaluable possession "a man in the family," who is always supposed to accomplish so much. And the Rector, when consulted, proved unexpectedly resourceful. He had made Paul's acquaintance, and learned the name of the church in Chicago where he had sung for so many years. He had discovered, too, that the Rector of this church was an old college friend of his, and he wrote to him at once, requesting full and confidential information as to the young man's character, antecedents, and prospects.
The answer seemed to the poor ladies a long time in coming; as a matter of fact, it arrived very promptly. The Rector of St. Anne's at Chicagoregretted to inform his old friend and colleague the Rector of St. Mary's, at Bassett Mills, that he had no good account to give of Paul Halleck, who had not long ago been dismissed from the choir of his church, and had left behind him in Chicago many debts and a bad reputation. The young man was believed to have, as the Rector added, genuine musical talent; but like many artists and musicians, he was morally irresponsible, dissipated and reckless.
The Rector of St. Mary's repeated the verdict, as gently as he could, to the older ladies at the Homestead. They bore it better than he expected. There were compensations indeed in the very extent of its severity. Had Halleck been less evidently and irredeemably a black sheep, there might have been some doubts as to their own duty; but, as it was, they felt that they must break off the dreadful match at once, and at any cost.
Yet the heart of each sister misgave her as they sat in a solemn conclave, and summoned Elizabeth before it. She came, rosy, bright-eyed, fresh from talks with her lover and happy dreams of a brilliant future, which they were to share together. She stood listening in apparent indifference, while Miss Cornelia faltered out the painful result of their inquiries. And when the worst was told, she had turned perhaps a trifle pale, but otherwise she seemed unmoved.
"I don't know why you tell me all this, auntie," she said, slowly. "I—I am sorry to hear it, but it can make no difference."
"No difference!" Miss Cornelia repeated, stupefied. "No difference, Elizabeth?"
"No, it can't change my love for him," she said, defiantly. "He told me that he has enemies at Chicago, and that you would probably unearth a lot of old scandals; and I promised that it should make no difference. Perhaps some of them are true; I don't care. Auntie, I can't—I can't give him up," she went on with a sudden change of tone and clasping her hands appealingly. "I tried to once before, and—I couldn't. If he were to go away now and leave me, I—I should die. I couldn't bear to go on living without him." The girl's face was flushed, her voice tremulous with feeling; it was evident that she fully meant—or thought that she meant—what she said. Her aunts looked at her in helpless perplexity.
"My darling," Miss Cornelia faltered at last, "think how much better it is to give him up now than to—to marry him and be unhappy. You don't know—men are very bad;—one reads such things in the newspapers. If he were to ill-treat you, desert you."
"Ah, but he won't," said Elizabeth, smiling incredulously. "You needn't worry, Aunt Cornelia; we shall be very happy. But even if we were not," she concluded, with a sudden burst of defiance. "If I thought that he would beat me, treat me like a dog—I don't care; I should marry him to-morrow."
And she thrust out her full under lip, and stood facing them, with a look of obstinacy on her fair,girlish face, that for the moment bore a strong resemblance to her father.
To Miss Cornelia's mind there rose again, with startling vividness, the events of twenty years before. The recollection seemed to endow her with an unwonted and unnatural strength. She went over to where Elizabeth stood and took both the girl's hot hands in hers.
"Elizabeth," she said, desperately, "you don't know what you're saying. You will be miserable if you marry that man. You don't know what it is to live with a person who is beneath you, who—who drags you down. We know, my darling, we have seen it. Be warned by us, and give him up."
Miss Cornelia had never in all her gentle life spoken with so much vehemence. Elizabeth, in her astonishment, stood for a moment absolutely passive. She stole a glance at Miss Joanna; she was weeping quietly. Elizabeth's own face worked, her lip quivered. "I know whom you mean," she broke out, suddenly, in a quick hard voice. "You're thinking of my mother." And then, in the dismayed pause that followed, she dragged her hands away from Miss Cornelia's grasp and fled from the room.
The two older women looked at one another in silence.
"I didn't know," Miss Joanna said at last in a low, awe-struck tone "that the child knew anything about—about poor Malvina."
"Andso you let all this nonsense influence you?" Halleck asked this bitterly, staring up with moody eyes into Elizabeth's face. They were sitting under a wide-spreading tree, in a field not far from the Homestead. It was late afternoon and the shadows were long and peaceful. A ray from the sinking sun shot through the foliage overhead lighting up the red tints of Elizabeth's hair. Halleck's artistic eye rested upon them fascinated. He had never, as he told himself, been so much in love before.
"You give me up because of a little opposition?" he went on bitterly, roused to increased irritation by the thought of losing her.
"Why, what can I do?" The girl's voice was weary, and she threw out her hands with a helpless gesture. "They will give in to me, I suppose, if I insist; but it makes them too unhappy. I believe it would kill them. If they were unkind, I shouldn't care; but they only cry, and are so wretched, and I can't stand it. It makes me feel so ungrateful."
"And yet," said Halleck, anxiously, "you think they will give in in the end?"
"Oh, yes, they'll give in," said Elizabeth,wearily. "They'll give in, if I insist; and that's the very reason why I—what makes it so hard, you see."
"No, I don't see," said Paul, bluntly. "If you think they will give in, why are you so unhappy? But I understand how it is" he went on, harshly, "you don't love me. I'm too far beneath you—a Bohemian and an outcast. You are glad of an excuse to throw me over."
"Paul!" The indignant color flushed into Elizabeth's face. "How can you say such things," she asked reproachfully. "You know they are not true. I told my aunts that I would never give you up; I told them that—that I would marry you to-morrow, if I could."
"You told them that?" Paul exclaimed exultantly. He put his arm around her and drew her towards him. "Then keep your word, darling," he said. "Marry me to-morrow."
Elizabeth shrank away, startled. "Marry you," she repeated. "To-morrow, how could I?"
"Why not," said Paul, quietly. "Come up to Cranston and we will be married. Then let them say what they please."
Elizabeth was very pale. "I couldn't do that," she said in a low voice. "I don't want to be married so soon; and besides—it would kill my aunts."
He laughed. "Nonsense! People soon resign themselves to what they can't help. And then they needn't know—yet awhile. Listen, darling, this is my plan. You know that I want to go abroad—well, I have had a letter offering me a position in anopera company in Munich. If I accept it I start this week."
He stopped as Elizabeth gave a little cry and stared up at him with reproachful eyes. "This week," she said. "You go away this week?"
"Why, I can't stay here forever, you know," Paul said. "I've idled away my time unconscionably already—but that is your fault, Elizabeth. Now it is time I went to work. And that is why I say—marry me before I go. Then, while I am away, nothing can separate us."
Elizabeth, pale and thoughtful, seemed to ponder the suggestion. "Marry you," she repeated, slowly. "Marry you—now at once?"
"Yes, to-morrow," said Paul, boldly.
"And—and keep itsecret?" she went on, with a troubled look.
"Yes, for a little while," said Paul, "for a few months, till I come back. I shall have made my name and my fortune, darling, I hope, by that time, and your aunts will be quite reconciled to me."
"Then wouldn't it be better," said Elizabeth, with much reason, "to wait till then?"
"Are you willing to wait—in uncertainty all this time?" he asked, reproachfully. "Ah, Elizabeth, it is evident that you don't love me as I love you. Such an absence would be unbearable to me, if I felt that some lover was likely to come along at any time and take you from me."
Elizabeth could not help reflecting that the danger of such a catastrophe did not seem imminent, in the present condition of the Neighborhood; but she didnot put the thought into words. She only said, with some dignity: "I don't think that I am the sort of girl to change so easily."
"Ah, you can't tell," said Paul. "Women are fickle beings. I don't trust you, Elizabeth. I have a feeling that, if you don't marry me now, you never will. And why should you hesitate?" he went on eagerly. "It isn't so much that I ask. I don't even say—come abroad with me now; only give me the certainty that when I come back, I shall be able to claim you."
"You would have that certainty now," she still insisted. "I promise that I will marry you when you come back."
"Then why not marry me now," he asked, triumphantly.
Elizabeth could give no good reason to the contrary. The idea was vaguely alarming, yet it held for her a certain fascination. She sat listening in troubled uncertainty, while Paul discoursed with enthusiasm over the many advantages of his plan. He was exceedingly anxious, as he had said, to make sure of this beautiful girl, who was, he vaguely felt, a little above him—of a grade superior to that of the other girls whom he had known and made love to, for the space of a fortnight perhaps. He had been true to Elizabeth, now, for more than double that time. He really believed that he should be true to her always. There were other things that attracted him besides her beauty. The thought that Elizabeth was Miss Van Vorst of the Homestead was not unpleasant to him; the old house, the family silver,the family traditions, appealed to his artistic sense of fitness. And then though he was no fortune-hunter, and certainly would have made love to no girl whom he did not for the moment at least sincerely admire, he admitted to himself, frankly, that it was by no means inconvenient that Elizabeth should have a little money of her own and the prospect of more in the future. The Van Vorst property, while it was insignificant enough when measured by the standard of the Van Antwerps and other rich people in the Neighborhood, seemed by no means contemptible to Paul, who measured it by the standard of poverty-stricken Bohemia.
Elizabeth's feelings were more complex, less frankly selfish, much more anxious and uncertain. The money question did not enter into them to any great extent, though she had an instinctive dread of poverty, and she was convinced that, if once married to Paul, she would not be able to have the pretty gowns, and other luxurious trifles, which had hitherto seemed a necessity of life. But she was young and romantic, and this thought did not weigh with her very much. What most distressed her, and made her feel in some way vaguely in the wrong, was the trouble this, her first love affair, seemed to bring to others; to her aunts, to Amanda. She loved her aunts, and hated to run counter to their wishes; she did not love Amanda, and yet the thought of having injured her, though unconsciously, brought with it an uncomfortable sense of guilt.
She had not seen her since that terrible interview, which she still could not recall without a feelingof humiliation; but she had seen her aunt, who told her that Amanda was ill with some low fever—typhoid malaria, probably; there was always a good deal of that at The Mills. It was not considered wise that Elizabeth should see her; and besides, Amanda was delirious, and did not recognize any one. Elizabeth was more relieved than sorry to hear it. No doubt, she told herself, Amanda was already out of her head when she uttered that extraordinary outburst, and it was foolish to attach any importance to what she said in her feverish excitement. Still, Elizabeth did not like to think of it, much less of the promise she herself had given, voluntarily, in such forcible words. She had been so absolutely sincere in making it; she had broken it so completely within the hour. The whole affair was unpleasant, and weighed upon her more than those more serious charges against Paul, which had fallen vaguely upon her ear, not seeming to make any deep impression. His conduct to Amanda was at its worst a mere trifle in comparison.
Still she could not give him up. That broken promise to Amanda only proved this the more strongly. She could not face the prospect of life without him. And yet she could not face without terrible misgivings the prospect of further tears and remonstrances from her aunts. The two claims struggled for the mastery; on the one hand, the claims of the women who had brought her up, whose every thought for twenty years had centred in her; on the other, the claims of the man who had loved her in his light way some five weeks. Under thesecircumstances, it was inevitable that the claims of the man should predominate. And yet Elizabeth longed to satisfy them both.
Paul's plan seemed to suggest a compromise. And Elizabeth had not yet learned that compromise is never satisfactory to either side.
"Listen," she said, looking at him intently, with eyes that seemed to hold, even in the moment of yielding, a certain defiance of his power, "If I do as you wish, if I—I marry you to-morrow, I am free to—to come home at once, to go on with my life as if nothing were changed—not to tell my aunts, not to tell any one, till you come back? Do you promise this, on your word of honor?"
For a moment Paul hesitated. He had hardly expected her to yield so easily; perhaps if he pressed the matter she might be persuaded even to go abroad with him at once. But there were financial reasons which made that inexpedient just then. On the whole, Paul decided not to test his power too far.
"Upon my word of honor," he said, looking her steadily in the face "I promise that you shall be free as air, to go on with your life as you please, till I come back to claim you."
And so the thing was settled. Paul was to go to Cranston early the next morning to make all necessary arrangements; Elizabeth was to follow him a little later. They were to be married at once. Then Paul was to take an afternoon train for New York, Elizabeth was to return home, the whole affair should remain a secret.
Then Paul, radiantly triumphant, clasped Elizabeth in his arms, and pressed his lips to hers.
"To-morrow," he whispered, "to-morrow, my darling, at this time—though the world won't know it—still you will be my wife."
A strange feeling thrilled Elizabeth. She could not have told if it were pleasure, or some involuntary presentiment. But aloud she repeated mechanically: "Yes, I shall be your wife."
"You won't fail me, dearest," he said, scanning her face eagerly. "You won't break your word? You have promised—you won't fail me?"
"No," Elizabeth answered, "I have promised—I won't fail you."
And yet the thought crossed her mind irrelevantly, that she had broken a promise once already.
She left him and went home through the stillness and the fast gathering shadows of the evening. The days were already growing shorter. She noted the fact mechanically; noted too that the deep glowing crimson of the sunset foretold a hot day for the morrow. She entered the house and looked in at the dining-room; the table was set out for tea with all the wonted care. Her aunts sat each at one end; they were neither of them eating and both had red eyes. In the centre of the table stood Elizabeth's favorite cake—the kind with the raisins in it, which she used to beg for as a child, and which was reserved either as a reward for virtue, or for consolation in some childish trouble. Now in this trouble that was so far from childish, poor Miss Joannahad bethought herself of the old attention, and brought out the favorite cake as the only means of comfort within her power. Elizabeth could not see it without a lump in her throat.
She smoothed her ruffled hair before the glass and came in quietly to her usual place at the table. They looked up nervously at her entrance, but neither spoke; they did not reproach her with being late or ask where she had been. Miss Joanna pressed upon her the various dainties, reminding her that she had eaten no dinner; otherwise the meal was a silent one. It was not till near the end of it that Elizabeth spoke in a strained harsh voice unlike her own.
"Paul is going away." That was what she said. "He—has an engagement to go abroad. He goes to New York to-morrow. I—I hope you are satisfied."
And then she stopped, for the look of tremulous relief on both their faces was almost more than she could bear. The raisins in her favorite cake seemed suddenly to choke her. She began to doubt, after all, whether she would go to Cranston the next day.
Thiswas Elizabeth's last thought that night; it was her first in the morning. She dressed herself carefully, putting on white, according to the custom which had aroused Aunt Rebecca's criticism; and all the while she asked of the reflection that stared back at her with perplexed eyes out of the mirror: "Shall I go, or shall I not?" She put the question to a rose when she got down-stairs, repeating as she ruthlessly destroyed each petal. "Yes, no, yes, no?" But the flower answered with a "no," and she threw away the last petal in disgust.
"I think I shall drive over to The Mills this morning," she announced quietly at the breakfast-table. "There is some ribbon I want to match." Her aunts looked up startled. They wondered simultaneously at what hour Halleck was to leave for New York. Yet what if after all the child wished for one last meeting?
"You don't think it's—it's too hot to go over there to-day, my dear?" Miss Cornelia ventured at last uncertainly.
"No, I don't mind the heat," Elizabeth answered indifferently, as she sat playing with her knife and fork. She was very pale and had no appetite. Thisseemed to them only natural. They hoped that when the young man were once out of the way, their darling would be herself again.
"We must take her to the sea-shore for a little while," Miss Cornelia observed when Elizabeth had left the room. "She needs change of air." Miss Joanna cheerfully assented. The idea and the sacrifice which it involved (since to go away from home, even for a few weeks, seemed a terrible undertaking) consoled them both greatly.
And meanwhile Elizabeth went her own way. It was not till she was seated in the carriage about to start on her drive, that she observed as if by an afterthought: "Oh, by the way, if I can't match the ribbon at The Mills, I may go to Cranston for it by the trolley, so don't be worried if I don't come back till late, and don't wait dinner." Her aunts looked at one another questioningly; but she drove off at once, before they could offer any objections.
And so Elizabeth drove towards Bassett Mills. The day was dry and hot, as were most days that summer. The sun beat down out of a brazen sky, the roads were white with dust, the grass in the fields was sere and brown. The locusts all along the way kept up a loud, exultant song, the burden of which was heat.
To Elizabeth, as she drove on, there began to be something ominous in it all; in the heat and the dust and the dazzling sunshine and the locusts with their eternal noise. They seemed all part, and she with them of some horrible nightmare; she was under some spell which benumbed her, deprived her of thecapacity for thought, of all but the power to keep doggedly on the way to Bassett Mills. What she should do when she got there she did not know; her brain was torpid, there was a strange ringing in her ears. It was the sun, no doubt, that was affecting her head; it would be wise to turn back, or she might be ill. But still she kept on.
It was not far from noon when she reached Bassett Mills. There was little life about the place this hot morning; the mill-stream even seemed to dash less tumultuously, and showed signs of running dry. A group of men stood outside the drug-store, which was a great meeting-place, and discussed the drought. It was decided that if it continued the crops would be ruined; but hopes were founded on the fact that prayers for rain were to be offered in all the churches on Sunday.
"But there's not much use praying for rain," said one skeptic, "when the wind's due west."
Elizabeth heard the words as she drove up, and, alighting tied the white pony to a post and bribed a small boy to "keep an eye" on him. Then she joined the group in front of the shop, who were some waiting for the trolley, others merely passing the time of day. She did not go into the dry-goods shop to try to match her ribbon; she knew that such ribbon as she wanted was not to be had at Bassett Mills. She stood idly listening to the men's conversation, and wondering if it were indeed true, as the skeptic had declared, that it was useless to pray for an event already determined by natural causes. She had been brought up to believe implicitlyin the efficacy of prayer, and had added to her usual formula that morning a petition of unwonted fervor that she might be enabled in this perplexing situation to decide for the best. But perhaps there was no use in praying; perhaps one was not a free agent. Fate, she thought, had evidently determined that she should go to Cranston that morning to be married, since it was a thing that might so easily have been prevented—by an objection from her aunts, an offer of company on the expedition, even by the white pony going lame; she would have yielded, or so she thought, to the merest trifle, glad to have the decision taken out of her hands. But everything had been made easy; it evidently was to be. And an implicit believer in heredity might have observed that the matter had been decided for her, by events and influences which had moulded her character even before she was born. It was in just such clandestine fashion as this that her parents had once gone up to Cranston to be married; and it might be that some mysterious hereditary instinct, some force over which she had no control, was now constraining their daughter, under the same circumstances, to act in the same way.
Elizabeth, fortunately or otherwise, did not think of this. She only knew that she was standing outside the drug-store with the other loiterers, straining her eyes along the dusty white road for a sight of the trolley; and that, even while she doubted the wisdom of waiting, some fascination held her rooted to the spot. When the trolley came she took her seat at once. After all a trip to Cranston meantnothing; she might simply buy her ribbon and come back.
The trolley started off fast and jerkily, creating a teasing wind, that seemed to blow from some fiery furnace. Elizabeth clutched her hat with one hand, while with the other she tried to shield her eyes from the flying dust and glare. Soon they were past the cemetery and the straggling outskirts of Bassett Mills, out into the open country, with rolling meadow and upland on either side, all withered, scorching under the sun's fierce rays. An occasional wagon met them, wrapped in a cloud of dust; the trolley was hailed now and then from some solitary farm-house, and came to a sudden stop. The ride seemed endless, but that they were approaching Cranston was at last made evident by unmistakable signs; by the advertisements staring at them from trunks of trees and the expanse of stone walls; by the asphalt pavement that succeeded the rough country road, the increasing quantity of bicycles, carriages and dust; and finally by the neat rows of Queen Anne villas, with their gabled fronts and terraced gardens sloping to the road. Then the car, with a last triumphant jerk, turned a corner and landed its passengers squarely in the High Street of Cranston.
Elizabeth alighted rather limply, and stood looking about her in a dazed sort of way. A country woman laden with parcels addressed her timidly. "Excuse me miss," she said, "but would you tell me the best place to go for stockings?"
Elizabeth started and stared at her, as if thesimple question had been put in Hebrew. Then in a moment she recovered herself and directed the woman very civilly. She watched her bustle off upon her round of errands, then turned and slowly walked into the confectioner's shop. It was there that she had promised to meet Paul.
There was no one, as it happened, in the front part of the shop, where candy and cake were sold; no one in the little restaurant at the back. Elizabeth sat down at one of the small marble-topped tables; her head was aching, her eyes blood-shot, she was conscious of nothing but a feeling of pleasure in the coolness and darkness, of relief from the outside glare. Mechanically, she glanced at the small mirror, that hung at an unbecoming angle opposite on the wall, and felt a slight shock at the sight of herself—pale, worn, with blood-shot eyes, her white gown dusty and bedraggled. No, she did not look well—she had never looked worse in her life. Her lips curled in an unmirthful smile, as she thought irrelevantly of Aunt Rebecca, and of how she might have held forth on the folly of wearing white for such a dusty ride. And thereupon with a sudden pang, came the thought of Amanda—Amanda, tossing no doubt just then in the delirium of fever. The unpleasant idea struck Elizabeth of a resemblance between her own white face in the mirror, and her cousin's face as she had last seen it, with those staring, red-rimmed eyes. Certainly, there was a latent family likeness; but it took unbecoming conditions such as these to bring it out.She wondered languidly if any one else had ever noticed it.
Poor Amanda! Was she still, in her delirium, fretting over Paul? Or was she, perhaps, secure in Elizabeth's promise, and the pleasure of having separated them? What would she think if she knew that Elizabeth was even now waiting for him here in Cranston—waiting to be married to him? But with this thought the spell of indifference which had rested upon Elizabeth seemed suddenly to fall away, and there swept over her a sudden sense of revolt, of shame and repulsion. She started impulsively to her feet. No, she could not be married—not in that way; it was clandestine, disgraceful. There was still time to escape. If only she could reach home, without seeing Paul! She made one quick, blinded rush for the door, and then, a tall figure stood in her way, and her hands were seized in a man's eager grasp. His handsome, exultant face looked into hers.
"My brave girl," he said. "So you have not failed me."
Elizabethwith a great effort wrenched her hands away from Paul's grasp, and fell against one of the marble-topped tables. Her face was white, her dull eyes looked up at him with a sort of terror.
"I—I have failed you," she said, speaking slowly and thickly, with parched lips. "I have come, but I—cannot stay. I was going when you came in."
"Elizabeth!" The look of exultant joy faded slowly and reluctantly from Paul's face. "Elizabeth, what do you mean? Why did you come if you don't mean to stay?"
"Because I—was crazy." She was trembling now, and she clung to the table for support; but still she was firm. "I—I didn't think what I did. Now I—I know. It would be wrong to marry like this—so secretly. I must go home. Let me pass." She spoke the last words quickly, imperiously, and made a motion as if to brush past him; but he stood motionless in the door and blocked her way.
He was very angry; she had never seen him so before. The emotion lent a curious brute strength to his fair, sensuous beauty. His face was as white as hers, his full red lips were set in a curve of unwonted determination.
"Listen to me, Elizabeth." He had never spoken to her in such a tone before. "I won't be trifled with like this. I have made all the arrangements. I won't have you—jilt me now. You must come with me, or I—I'll know the reason why."
She met his gaze defiantly. "You can't compel me to come you know," she said. And again she would have passed him, and again he stopped her. She did not try a third time, but sank into a chair and put up her hands to her face. A sudden faintness came over her; it might have been the heat, or the sharp, conflicting play of emotion. He followed her and gently took her hands from her face and looked into her eyes.
"Don't be foolish, darling," he said, persuasively. "You know that you love me, that you are only playing with me. You wouldn't really throw me over now."
She looked up reluctantly, fascinated as she had often been before, by the mere physical attraction of his beauty. "I—I don't know," she began slowly, and then stopped frightened at the sound of voices in the shop. A dread flashed over her all at once of a scene in a place like this. The trifling, frivolous consideration turned the scale in Paul's favor. She rose, shook off his grasp, and gave a hasty glance in the glass.
"No, I won't throw you over," she said. "It's all wrong but—as you say, it's too late now. Take care—some one is coming." She gave a warning look at the door, as Paul pressed her hand.
So the threatened scene was averted and Elizabeth'sfate was sealed. The people who, after buying candy in the shop, came into the little back room for some ice cream, saw a young woman arranging her hair before the glass, and a young man waiting for her—a not unusual sight.
What followed seemed in after life a dream to Elizabeth. There were times when she tried to think that it had never happened; that the whole thing was a mere figment of the imagination. But on that day she was quite conscious that it was she herself, in very flesh and blood, Elizabeth Van Vorst, who walked by Paul Halleck's side through the glaring, sunny streets of Cranston, went with him into a dimly-lighted church, let him place a ring upon her finger, spoke her share in the marriage service, and wrote her maiden name for what should have been the last time, in the parish register. The clergyman was very old and mumbled over the service; the witnesses, two servants of his, were old and feeble, also, and took but small interest. The church was damp like a tomb after the heat without; Elizabeth found herself shivering as from a chill. It was a relief to come out again into the heat which had been so oppressive before. But on the church steps Elizabeth gave a little cry. A funeral was slowly filing past, its black trappings standing out in incongruous gloom against the noon-day brilliance.
Elizabeth looked at Paul. He had turned very white, and he too was shivering. "It is a bad omen," he said, in a low voice, as if to himself. He said no more, but led the way carefully in the oppositedirection from that which the funeral had taken.
They found themselves in a part of Cranston unknown to Elizabeth. The road was bordered on either side by flowering hedges and led apparently into the open country. There were no houses in sight; for the moment, even no people. Halleck suddenly turned and clasped Elizabeth almost roughly in his arms, while he pressed passionate kisses upon her brow, her lips, her hair.
"My darling," he cried "I can't—I can't give you up. I was mad to promise it. Let everything go and come with me to New York."
"No, no, I can't," she murmured faintly. "I can't." His vehemence stunned, bewildered her; but instinctively she struggled against it. "You promised," she cried out indignantly, "you promised that I should be free—till you came back. I've kept my word, you must keep yours."
He let her go and for a moment they eyed each other steadily. This time the victory remained with her. "Did I really make that promise?" he said at last with a sigh. "Well, if I did, I must keep it, I suppose. But, Elizabeth, you must be made of ice—you can't love me, or you wouldn't hold me to it."
Elizabeth was chiefly conscious of an overpowering sense of relief.
"I do love you," she said, soothingly, "but indeed it is better—much better to let things be as we arranged them. I can't go to New York in this dress"—she gave a little tremulous laugh, as sheglanced at her fluffy muslin skirts. "Only a man could suggest such a thing. And then my aunts!—they would be distracted. No, no, I must go home at once. You will be back in six months," she went on, trying to console him. "They will pass very quickly."
"Six months," he sighed. "It is an endless time." He was the picture of gloom as they turned and walked steadily back to the busy part of Cranston. And she, too, had her regrets. The compromise was satisfactory to neither.
At the corner of the High Street they parted. There was no opportunity for more than a hand-clasp, a few hurried words of farewell. Then he went his way to the railroad station, and she hurried to the trolley. The country woman with the many parcels was there before her, and told where she got the stockings, and how much she paid for them.
Back again went the trolley, along the asphalted road past the Queen Anne villas with their terraced gardens, past bicycles, carriages, wagons, and always clouds of dust; out into the open country, with rolling meadow and upland on either side, simmering in the heat of the summer afternoon, to which the morning heat was as nothing; Elizabeth sitting upright, shading her eyes from the glare, with aching head and burning eyes, and throbbing brain that refused to take in the reality of what she had done. This was her wedding journey.
An hour later the white pony brought her home.
"Did you—did you match your ribbon, dear?" Miss Joanna inquired anxiously. Elizabeth stared blankly for a moment.
"I—I never thought of the ribbon," she cried at last, and burst into hysterical laughter.
Itwas that time of year when the Neighborhood, and the whole riverside, are in their glory. Day after day dawned clear and frosty, to warm at noon-day into a mellow brilliance. On every side stretched wooded meadow and upland all aglow, resplendent in varied tints of crimson and russet, magenta and scarlet, blending in a glorious scheme of color, till they melted at last into the soft gray haze, which rested, like a touch of regretful melancholy, on the tops of the distant hills. Over the fields the golden-rod was still scattered profusely, amidst the sober browns and purples of the bay, and the pale lavender of the Michaelmas daisies. Red berries glistened on the bushes, the ground was covered, every day deeper, with a carpeting of fallen leaves and chestnut burrs.
On one of these autumn days, when the light was fading into dusk, Mrs. "Bobby" Van Antwerp came to call at the Homestead, and found no one at home but Elizabeth, who was kneeling on the hearth-rug, staring into the fire.
Elizabeth's thoughts were not pleasant ones. She had refused to go to Cranston with her aunts that afternoon, for she had never been near the place since that hot July day, nearly three months before,when she had forgotten to match her ribbon. What construction her aunts placed upon the episode she never knew. They did not allude to it in words, but treated her with added care and solicitude, as if she were recovering from some illness. In pursuance of this theory, they took her to a highly recommended and very dull seaside place, where she was extremely bored. She returned in better health, though hardly better spirits. She had now a new trouble, which increased as the autumn advanced. Paul's letters, at first many and ardent, grew fewer and colder, till they ceased altogether. Elizabeth's last letter remained unanswered, and she was too proud to write again. No doubt, she told herself, his thoughts were occupied by some new attraction. With a sudden flash of intuition, she realized that for Paul there would always be an attraction of some kind, and generally a new one.
This unpleasant perception had one good result, at least; it lightened her sense of remorse towards Amanda. She had long ago got over the ordeal of seeing her cousin again, and the strange scene between them had been relegated to a curious phase of unreality, covered up and almost obliterated, as such scenes not infrequently are among relations and intimate friends, by the thousand commonplace incidents of every-day life. And yet some sort of apology had been proffered by Amanda, as she sat up in her white wrapper, very pale and hollow-eyed, with her red hair cut short, and just beginning to come in in soft waves like Elizabeth's—a thing she had always desired.
"You know," she said, in her weak voice "I was real sick that last time you saw me. I was just coming down with the fever."
"I know you were," Elizabeth said gently, conquering the thrill of anger which swept over her at the recollection.
"I guess I said some queer things," Amanda ventured next, and gave an odd, furtive look from her light eyes.
"You certainly did," said Elizabeth, coldly. Not all the pity she felt for Amanda's weakness could avail to make her speak in any other way.
"Well, I guess," Amanda said, after a moment and closing her eyes as if wearied out, "people aren't accountable for what they say when they're sick."
"No," said Elizabeth, "I suppose not." And with this tacit apology and its acceptance, this episode between the cousins might be considered closed. Certainly, on Elizabeth's side, it was not only closed, but forgotten, in the pressure of far more serious troubles.
As she knelt that afternoon looking into the fire, a vision of her future life—colorless, empty, without joy or love—seemed to stare back at her from its glowing depths. The years stretched out before her, a dreary waste—without Paul. She was sure that he would never come back; the bond between them seemed the merest shadow. He had forgotten her in three short months, while she was more in love than ever, since she had never fully realized, at the time, the void that he would leave behind him. Fora short time her life had bloomed like the summer; and now nothing was left to her but the fast-approaching gray monotony of the November days, and the bleak cold of the winter.
Upon these cheerful reflections entered Mrs. Bobby Van Antwerp, in a short skirt somewhat the worse for wear, with dark eyes that shone brilliantly beneath her battered hat, and her small piquante face glowing with health and exercise.
"Don't get up," she said. "What a beautiful blaze!" She sat down to it at once and held out her small, gloveless hands to its pleasant warmth. "I walked all the way," she announced, triumphantly, "and I thought I would just drop in, and perhaps you'd give me a cup of tea."
One must have lived in the Neighborhood to appreciate the informality of all this. People paid calls in their carriages, with their card-cases and their best Sunday gowns—it was not good form to come on foot, even had the distances permitted. But the young woman always spoken of as "Mrs. Bobby" though her claims to a more formal designation had long since been established, was a law unto herself and cared little what the Neighborhood's laws might be. Elizabeth had already noticed that this great lady, the greatest lady in the Neighborhood, treated her with more friendliness than other people of less assured position with whom she was, theoretically, on more intimate terms. This curious fact, and the cause of it, occupied her thoughts while she rang the bell and ordered tea, a little flustered inwardly, but outwardly calm, andcomfortably conscious of the becoming neatness of her serge skirt and velveteen blouse. Whatever her troubles might be, she had not yet reached so great a pitch of desperation as to neglect her appearance.
"Aren't these autumn days beautiful!" said Mrs. Bobby, making herself at home by unfastening her coat and tossing aside her hat, whereby she disclosed to view a somewhat tousled halo of curly dark hair. "I tell Bobby that just these few days in the autumn make up to us for the bother of keeping the place, though in summer it is fearfully hot, and unspeakably dull all the year round. It must be very dull for you," said Mrs. Bobby, coming to a sudden pause.
"Oh, yes, it's dull," Elizabeth admitted, with a little sigh.
Mrs. Bobby laughed.
"Why don't you say 'oh, but I am so fond of the place,' or 'but I'm not at all dependent on society,' as the other girls in the Neighborhood do?"
"I don't know," said Elizabeth, reflectively. "I don't think, for one thing, that I am so awfully fond of the place; and as for society—I have never had any, so naturally I get on without it."
"But you would enjoy it, if you had it?"
A curious brightness shone for an instant in Elizabeth's eyes. "Ah, yes, I should enjoy it," she said, quickly. "I'm sure I should."
"I'm sure you would, too," said Mrs. Bobby. She seemed to reflect a moment. "Don't you go away in August?" she asked at last.
"Yes, this year we did," said Elizabeth. "Wewent to Borehaven. It—it wasn't very amusing." She stopped short blushing as if the last words had been wrung from her unawares; but Mrs. Bobby's smile seemed to invite confidence.
"Tell me all about it," she said. "Was it very terrible?"
"Yes, very," said Elizabeth, frankly. "There were a good many girls who used to promenade up and down, and a number of old ladies who sat in rows on the piazza and criticized the people and grumbled about the table; and they one and all treated us as if we had committed some crime. We were quite distressed till we found out that it was nothing personal—only the way they always treat new arrivals."
"Ah, I know the type of place," said Mrs. Bobby "and the people. Were there any men?"
"A few who were called men—about sixteen, I should think—most of them—but they didn't interest me particularly." And Elizabeth blushed, as she remembered the reason which had made her indifferent, at least to such men as Borehaven could boast of. Mrs. Bobby noticed the blush.
"What!" she said to herself "another attraction in this wilderness? Not that stupid Frank Courtenay—I hope not. Yet there isn't and never has been another man in the place that I ever heard of." While she pondered this problem the tea-things were brought in, and Elizabeth seated herself at the small table, behind the old silver urn, in the full glow of the firelight, which played on her hair and brought out the warm creamy tones of her skin. Mrs. Bobbywatched her silently with her bright dark eyes, her small, pointed chin supported on her hand.
"You ought to go to town for the winter," she announced at last abruptly. This seemed to be the upshot of her reflections. Elizabeth looked up with a little start, and a momentary brightening of the eyes, which faded, however, instantly.
"Oh, my aunts could never bear to leave here," she said. "They have so taken root in this place. Besides," she went on, constrained to greater frankness by the consciousness of that quality in Mrs. Bobby herself "what would be the use if we did go? We know so few people. It would be horrid to be in New York and not know any one or go anywhere."
"Yes, that wouldn't be pleasant," admitted Mrs. Bobby, to whom indeed such a state of things was inconceivable. "But you would know people," she went on, after a moment "every one does somehow. There are your cousins, the Schuyler Van Vorsts, for instance."
"Who would probably never notice us," said Elizabeth "or if they did, would ask us to a family dinner."
"Well, that certainly would be worse than nothing," Mrs. Bobby admitted. "But—how about your old school friends? You must have known some nice girls at Madame Veuillet's. You would see, no doubt, a great deal of them."
Elizabeth shook her head. "I doubt it," she said. "They spoke—some of them—of asking me to stop with them, but they have none of them done so.They don't even write to me any more. It doesn't take long for people to forget one, Mrs. Van Antwerp," said poor Elizabeth, putting into words the melancholy philosophy which experience had lately taught her.
"My dear child," cried Mrs. Van Antwerp, "you're too young to realize that—yet." She put out her hand in her warm, impulsive way, and touched Elizabeth's. "I can promise you one thing," she said. "If you come to New York, I'll do what I can to make it pleasant for you."
Elizabeth looked up with glistening eyes. "You're—you're awfully kind," she began, stammering. In another moment she would have burst into tears, and perhaps, in the sudden expansion, confided everything to this new friend—in which case her life's history would have been different. But just then she heard the sound of wheels, and immediately she stiffened and the habit of reserve, which had been growing upon her during the last three months, reasserted itself. When her aunts entered, in a little glow of excitement after their day at Cranston, Elizabeth was sitting quite cool and placid behind the tea-things, absorbed in the problems of milk and sugar.
The rest of Mrs. Bobby's visit seemed to her rather dull. They sat around the fire, and Mrs. Bobby drank her tea and ate a great many of the little round cakes which accompanied it, and which she praised warmly, to the gratification of Miss Joanna, who had made them. She told them all about her domestic affairs, and Bobby's affairs, and thefamily affairs generally, and was altogether very charming and as the Misses Van Vorst expressed it, "neighborly;" but still she said not a word further of their going to town, or of that pleasant if rather vague promise she had made in a moment of impulse, which perhaps she already regretted. It was not till she held Elizabeth's hand at parting that she invited her, as if by a sudden thought, to dinner on the following Friday.
"It will be dull, I'm afraid," she said. "Only the Rector and his wife, and the Hartingtons, and Julian Gerard, who is coming up over Sunday. You will be the only young girl, and I want you to amuse Julian. We dine at eight. Do come early, so we can have a talk beforehand."
Elizabeth, entirely taken by surprise, had only time to murmur an acceptance, when Mrs. Bobby hurried off, being hastened by the arrival of her husband, who had called for her and was waiting outside in the dog-cart. "Friday, remember," she called out from the yawning darkness beyond the door, "and come early." Then Bobby Van Antwerp's restless horse bore her off.
The Misses Van Vorst returned to the drawing-room, in a state of considerable excitement.
"Think of my dining at the Van Antwerps!" Elizabeth exclaimed, still rosy from the unexpected honor. "I was so taken aback that I could hardly answer properly. But how on earth am I to amuse Julian—whoever he may be, and what have I got to wear?"
"It's a—a very nice attention," said Miss Cornelia, complacently. "She's never asked the Courtenay girls, I know, from what their mother told me. She said they thought it a pity she was so unsociable. I think, sister, when we see them we might mention that we don't find her unsociable—just casually, you know. As for what you can wear, my dear—either your white crepe or white organdie is quite pretty enough, and much nicer than anything the Courtenay girls would have."