CHAPTER XXX.
LOVE AND PRIDE.
It was useless trying to disguise the truth from her own heart. Miss Winton’s eagerly anticipated visit, instead of adding to Eva’s happiness, only made her more miserable.
It brought back too clearly the dead past—the long weeks and months of wretchedness side by side with the days and hours of ecstatic joy when she had been Rupert’s plighted bride!
They could but talk of old days to each other. Eva was fain to ask questions—Ada glad to answer.
She must know how all her old friends were faring, she had such a kindly interest in them all. She learned that the clever, genial young Doctor Merry had formed a very romantic attachment for a beautiful schoolgirl whom he was to marry when she completed her education.
Ada told her that the kindly, earnest Doctor Bertrand still pursued the even tenor of her way, and that the superintendent had resigned his position and sought a more congenial field of usefulness. As the doctor’s agency in ferreting out Doctor Rupert’s secret, and preventing his marriage, had long since leaked out, he was despised and execrated by many who had formerly respected him, and few missed himfrom the position he had disgraced. He was supplanted by a less impressionable superintendent, in whose eyes womanhood stood on a higher plane of purity and goodness.
Ada had one little item of personal news. Aunt Susan had left her a small estate that would keep her in comfort, and she need not work at the insane asylum any more.
“You might have left it long ago if you would but have accepted what I wished to do for you!” Eva answered reproachfully.
“Forgive my foolish pride, dear,” laughed Ada quickly, and to turn the subject she spoke aloud a name that was always in their thoughts, though held back from the lips.
“Dear, I know that Doctor Ludington is in New York—to tell you the truth, we have corresponded occasionally ever since he went away. Don’t turn so pale with jealousy, little Eva! I believe he only wrote for news of you—a sort of heart-hunger, you know! Have you ever seen him since he came here?”
The ice thus broken, Eva confessed everything.
Ada heard all about the two handsome lovers; the one she wished to marry but must not, the one she could marry and did not want.
“Oh, you poor, suffering darling! Are you still so set against your poor Rupert?”
“I can never, never marry him, though it breaks my heart!”
“I think you are wrong!” declared Ada, taking her former stand.
“I am sure that I am right, Ada! But, oh! I am so wretched I am almost tempted to take my father’s and aunt’s advice and marry Reggie, just for something to make me forget!” cried Eva so piteously that it made Ada’s heart ache. “Oh, Ada, do you believe that they are right? That the best remedy for my trouble is to marry another?”
“I do not know; I am sure I should not wish to try it in my own case,” declared Ada frankly. “But when I have seen this Mr. Hamilton I can judge better whether he could make you happy.”
“He is coming to-night, so you can soon decide,” cried Eva anxiously, starting as her friend added:
“Now, Eva, darling, I have something to ’fess,’ as children say. I wrote a note to Doctor Ludington requesting him to call on me here this evening, and he is coming. You will not mind my receiving him in some little reception room alone, will you, dear, if you do not wish to see him again?”
Eva’s pallor was startling. She clasped her tiny, jeweled hands over her heart to still its jealous throbbing, while she moaned:
“Oh, Ada, be frank with me! Do you love Rupert? Has his heart turned away from me to you?”
It seemed to her as if Ada really blushed, though she answered lightly:
“Don’t be such a little silly, my dear! Of course he loves no one but you, and never will as long as youremain single! But if you should marry your grand New York lover you would not mind if I learned to care for your old love and tried to catch his heart in the rebound, would you?”
“I—I—am afraid I should care very much—for I am a silly girl, as you say, Ada!” moaned poor Eva, in despair that was bitter enough to soften a heart of stone.
It must have softened Ada’s, for she said tremulously, stroking the golden head pillowed on her breast:
“There, there, darling, I was only jesting with you! I only regard Doctor Ludington as a dear friend, and it is only as such that I wish to meet him this evening. You are welcome to be present if you wish.”
“Can I believe her? How could she help loving him?” Eva thought, with secret bitter jealousy that she tried to hide under a careless smile as she faltered:
“No, no, I must not, cannot meet him—just yet! Besides, Reggie will be calling on me, you know. So you must send away your caller early that you may meet my guest.”
Thus it was that Ada’s visit kept alive in hapless Eva’s heart the cruel pain of her hopeless love.
And to make matters worse, Reginald Hamilton did not call that evening, so Eva did not have his presence to distract her attention from Ada’s visitor.
He sent an excuse, saying he was detained by the unexpected arrival of an English friend, to whom he must do the honors of the city. He would call, ifpermitted, the next evening, bringing his friend with him.
But Doctor Ludington did not fail to keep his appointment with Ada.
Eva had no right to be jealous, but she could not help seeing how beautifully her friend was dressed and what a pleasant sparkle of excitement shone in her clear, brown eyes. She envied Ada beyond all telling the happiness of that evening.
To be near him for more than an hour, to listen to his musical voice and his pleasant laughter, to gaze unchecked on his handsome face, to touch his firm, warm hand in greeting and parting—oh, how she envied Ada such perfect bliss!
She sighed to herself:
“How can I bear his presence in the house, yet apart from me, the guest of another! I am afraid I should be listening at the door for the tones of his voice; perhaps be unable to resist the temptation of entering and sharing with Ada the joy of his presence. I—I—will not remain in the house! I will go off to the theatre—or somewhere!”
Alas! Auntie was lying down with one of her spells of neuralgia, and papa was off to Philadelphia for a few days on business. She could not go anywhere unchaperoned.
She decided to seclude herself in her own room, where not a sound of his coming could penetrate to her ears. She would get a thrilling novel and readit so as to lose herself in its pages and temporarily forget the world.
Alas! the gifted author seemed dull and prosy to excited Eva. She could not help listening for the ring of the doorbell; she knew when his card was brought to Ada, and when the latter went down to receive him in the pretty reception room next the drawing-room.
Her heart gave a wild leap in her breast and tears sprang to her eyes. She dashed them away, exclaiming to herself:
“I am a little silly, as Ada said! It is nothing to me whom he calls on or whom he marries. I have no claim on him!”
She threw the book aside. Then she rang for her maid to bring her some fruit and chocolate bonbons, her favorite sweets. She thought, perhaps, that aching pain came from hunger.
She remembered that she had scarcely touched anything at dinner. And now the fruit and the sweets tasted bitter, she said petulantly to her maid.
The unsuspecting Maria replied that if her lady’s tongue had a bitter taste she must be bilious and needed some calomel. She was sure the fruit and the candy were all right.
“Take them all away. I will go down to the conservatory for some flowers,” was the impatient reply.
She glanced in the long mirror as she passed and saw that she was looking her loveliest in the turquoise blue silk dinner gown with fluffy lace all about it andpearls on her neck and in her hair—the golden hair that was like an aureole about her lovely head.
Rupert thought that golden hair was the prettiest in the world; he often told Eva so. She was glad that Ada’s was not golden—just a lovely chestnut brown.
She went slowly, nervously, down to the drawing-room, and as she passed near the curtains that divided it from the reception room the sound of low voices mixed with laughter came to her ears.
Their gayety went like a sword through Eva’s heart. It seemed to her as if he must indeed be in love with Ada.
She wondered how she would feel if he should fall in love with Ada and marry her, and her aching heart replied:
“I should envy her so bitterly I could never bear the sight of her again!”
She darted away from the curtains lest she should catch herself listening to their words and hear some chance sentence that would break her heart.
The possibility of his loving and marrying another had seldom occurred to her mind before. Though she had sent him away from her in the moment of their bridal, with cruel words on her lips, he still seemed in some subtle sense to belong to her. She secretly resented the bare idea of his turning from his hopeless love to find happiness with another.
How sweet and still it was in the mellow light of the conservatory. The flowers threw out rich odors,and the fountain tinkled low music as it dripped back into the marble basin where the goldfish swam.
Eva wandered from flower to flower, laying her hot, burning cheeks against their cool, dewy leaves and pinning some white jasmine flowers on her breast for their sweet odor.
She murmured:
“He has been here almost an hour now, I am sure. I should think he would be going now, if he is so very busy at the hospital—unless he is in love with Ada and hates to tear himself away! I wonder what they have been talking of so long! Old times in Weston, I suppose, and of where he has been since he left there. Will they speak of me? Does he think it would be only politeness if I should go in a minute and thank him for what he did for me the other day? It would look rude otherwise. I ought to speak to him—just a minute!”
Eva could not withstand the subtle tempting of her eager heart that was drawing her by yearning cords to the presence of Doctor Ludington.
She turned with a thrill of ardent pleasure to seek his presence.
“Will he be glad to see me? Or sorry that I interrupted his tête-à-tête with Ada?” she wondered.
Then she drew back abruptly into the shadow of some tall palms. She caught the sound of voices of persons coming in. Ada was bringing her visitor to see the flowers.
Even now Eva might have escaped by another door,but she stood spellbound, unable to move, held by the tones of the voice she loved so well.
“Oh, why cannot I hate him?” she thought desperately. “I used to despise him heartily enough in the old days at home, when we met and passed as strangers!”
But she could not go; she stood still, and consoled herself with the thought that it was only politeness. She ought really to thank him for his kindness the other day.
The other two came slowly along, stopping to smell the flowers and exclaim at their beauty.
“How fortunate Eva is. She has everything that heart can wish,” said Miss Winton.
“She deserves it all!” Doctor Ludington replied gently, and Eva’s heart thrilled with joy.
Then Ada broke a rosebud and fastened it in his buttonhole.
Eva, peering through the leaves, saw the fair, handsome head bent over Ada, and the smile on the lips as he thanked her for the gift.
She remembered that when she had used to pin flowers on his coat he had always taken her in his arms and kissed her lips. Would he reward Ada in the same fashion?
If he did she could not bear it. She felt as if she should fall down upon the floor and cry out to Heaven to let her die—life was too cruel to be borne any longer.
When she saw them move apart again she gave agreat bursting sigh of relief that what she feared and dreaded had not happened.
They came on toward her, and she knew that she must make her presence known. To remain silent any longer would seem like eavesdropping.
She put her golden head and white hand out from among the leaves with a secret prayer to Heaven for calmness, and said gayly:
“How you startled me, you two, when I thought myself alone among the flowers; but I am glad to see you, Doctor Ludington, and to have an opportunity to thank you for your kindness to me the day of the accident!”
She was actually holding out her white jeweled hand to him with simple courtesy as to an everyday acquaintance, and her clear, cool society tone had in it not one throb of her wildly beating heart.
So much for her social culture in the world.
“She has indeed grown heartless!” Doctor Ludington said to himself, with a sort of contempt for her coolness, though to match it he took and pressed the offered hand in one that was as icy cold as hers was hot and burning, while he said carelessly:
“Indeed you owe me no special thanks, Miss Somerville. I would have done the same thing as readily for any one else.”
“Perhaps even more readily!” Eva retorted, forgetting her pride in angry pique. “Well, I cannot blame you, but, all the same, I am very grateful.”
He bowed with cold, grave, blue eyes fixed on her face, and she added nervously:
“Do you like flowers? Pray, take all you want.”
“I thank you, but Miss Winton has taken the liberty to give me one. I do not care for any more!” he replied, with freezing indifference that cut her to the heart.
“Now I am quite sure that he loves Ada! He prefers her flowers to mine! Oh, I wish she had not come to be my cruel rival in his heart!”
From his careless tone and proud air she could never have dreamed that he was thinking:
“What a falsehood I told her, poor little Eva! Ah, if she could know how I have treasured all the sweet flowers she used to give me, and for which she let me thank her by taking her in my arms and kissing the sweet red lips that speak to me so coldly now!”
They stood looking at each other in momentary silence, with hungry eyes and hearts that yearned to each other across the gulf they might not bridge—the swift-running stream of a cousin’s blood.
And yet it is possible, that, if they had mutually guessed the passion of each other’s heart, they might have overleaped all barriers and sprung into each other’s arms, so mighty and resistless is the power of love!
But she thought him fickle and resentful; he believed her cold and unforgiving. So that even as they gazed at each other the rushing stream grew wider, forcing them apart.
While she struggled for calmness he smiled coldly and said:
“I am very glad that you are recovered from your slight injury, but do not trouble yourself to go out too soon to show Miss Winton the sights of the city. I shall have ample leisure to escort her around, and shall find the greatest pleasure in doing so,” and, with a parting bow that chilled her with its coldness, he took an abrupt leave.
He could not have borne the pain of this meeting a moment longer—not one; but she misunderstood him, as he intended. His pride and his jealousy of Hamilton were up in arms. She should not know he cared.
He hurried out with Ada, and poor, humiliated Eva stood there drooping among the flowers like a crushed lily.