THE wise one sat at the window and looked out. The view commanded by Bloomsbury Place was not a specially imposing or attractive one. Four or five tall, dingy houses with solitary scrubby shrubs in their small front slips of low-spirited looking gardens, four or five dingy and tall houses without the scrubby shrubs in their small front slips of low-spirited looking gardens, rows of Venetian blinds of various shades, and one or two lamp-posts,—not much to enliven the prospect.
The inhabitants of the houses in Bloomsbury Place were not prone to sitting at their front windows, accordingly; but this special afternoon, the weather being foggy, Aimée finding herself alone in the parlor, had left the fire just to look at this same fog, though it was by no means a novelty. The house was very quiet. 'Toinette was out, and so was Mollie, and Tod was asleep, lying upon a collection of cushions on the hearth-rug, with two fingers in his mouth, his round baby face turned up luxuriously to catch the warmth.
The wise one was waiting for Mollie, who had gone out a few hours before to execute divers commissions of a domestic nature.
“She might have been back in half the time,” murmured the family sage, who sat on the carpet, flattening her small features against the glass. “She might have done what she has to do inlessthan half the time, but I knew how it would be when she went out. She is looking in at the shop windows and wishing for things. I wish she would n't. People stare at her so, and I don't wonder. I am sure I cannot help watching her myself, sometimes. She grows prettier every day of her life, and she is beginning to know that she does, too.”
Five minutes after this the small face was drawn away from the window-pane with a sigh of relief.
“There she is now. What a time she has been! Who is with her, I wonder? I cannot see whether it is Phil or Mr. Gowan, it is getting so dark. It must be Mr. Gowan. 'Toinette would be with them if it was Phil.”
“Why, Mollie,” she exclaimed, when the door opened, “I saw somebody with you, and I thought it was Mr. Gowan. Why did n't he come in? Don't waken Tod.”
Mollie came in rather hurriedly, and going to the fire knelt down before it, holding out her hands to warm them. Her cheeks were brilliant with color and her eyes were bright; altogether, she looked a trifle excited.
“It was n't Mr. Gowan,” she answered. “Ugh! how cold it is,—not frosty, you know, but that raw sort of cold, Aimée. I would rather have the frost myself, would n't you?”
But Aimée was not thinking of the weather.
“Not Mr. Gowan!” she ejaculated. “Who was it, then?”
Mollie crept nearer to the fire and gave another little shudder.
“It was—somebody else,” she returned, with a triumphant little half-laugh. “Guess who!”
“Who!” repeated Aimée. “Somebody else! It was not any one I know.”
“It was somebody Phil knows.”
The wise one arose and came to the fire herself.
“It was some one taller than Brown!”
“Brown!” echoed Mollie, with an air of supreme contempt. “He istwiceas tall. Brown is only about five feet high, and he wears an overcoat ten times too big for him, and it flaps—yes, itflapsabout his odious little heels. I should think it wasn't Brown. It was a gentleman.”
The wise one regarded her pretty, scornful face dubiously.
“Brown is n't so bad as all that implies, Mollie,” she said. “His coat is the worst part of him. But if it was n't Brown and it was n't Mr. Gowan, who was it?”
Mollie laughed and shrugged her shoulders again, and then looked up at her small inquisitor charmingly defiant.
“It was—Mr. Chandos!” she confessed.
Aimée gazed at her for a moment in blank amazement.
“But,” she objected, “you don't know him any more than I do. You have only seen him once through the window, and you have never been introduced to him.”
“I have seen him twice,” said Mollie. “Don't you recollect my telling you that he picked up my glove for me the night I carried Dolly's dress to Bra-bazon Lodge, and,” faltering a little and dropping her eyes, “he introduced himself to me. He met me in town. I was passing through the Arcade, and he stopped to ask about Phil. He apologized, of course, you know, for doing it, but he said he was very anxious to know when Phil would be at home, and—and perhaps I would be so kind as to tell him. He wants to see him about a picture. And—then, you know, somehow or other, he said something else, and—and I answered him—and he walked to the gate with me.”
“He took a great liberty,” said Aimée. “And it was very imprudent in you to let him come. I don't know what you could be thinking of. The idea of picking up people in the street like that, Mollie; you must be crazy.”
“I could n't help it,” returned Mollie, not appearing at all disturbed. “He knows Phil and he knows Dolly—a little. And he is very nice. He wants to know us all. And he says Mr. Gowan is one of his best friends. I liked him myself.”
“I dare say you did,” despairingly. “You are such a child. You would like the man in the moon or a Kaffre chief—”
“That is not true,” interposed the delinquent. “I don't know about the man in the moon. He might be well enough—at any rate, he would be travelled and a novelty, but Kaffre chiefs are odious. Don't you remember those we saw last winter?”
“Mollie,” said Aimée, “you are only jesting because you are ashamed of yourself. Youknowyou were wrong to let that man come home with you.”
Then Mollie hung her head and made a lovely rebellious move.
“I don't care,” she said; “if it was n't exactly correct, it was nice. But that is always the way,” indignantly, “nice things are always improper.”
Here was a defection for you. The oracle quite shuddered in her discreet disapproval.
“If you go on in that way,” she said, “you will be ending by saying that improper things are always nice.”
“Never mind how I end,” observed the prisoner at the bar. “You have ended by wakening Tod;” which remark terminated the conversation somewhat abruptly.
A day or so later came Chandos—upon business, so he said, but he remained much longer than his errand rendered necessary, and by some chance or other it came to pass that Phil brought him into the parlor, and introduced him to their small circle, in his usual amiable, informal manner. Then he was to be seen fairly, and prepossessing enough he was. Mollie, sitting in her corner in the blue dress, and looking exquisite and guileless, was very demurely silent at first; but in due time Aimée began to see that she was being gradually drawn out, and at last the drawing out was such a success, subtle as it was, that she became quite a prominent feature in the party, and made so many brilliant speeches without blushing, that the family eyes began to be opened to the fact that she was really a trifle older than she had been a few years ago, after all. The idea had suggested itself to them faintly on one or two occasions of late, and they were just beginning to grasp it, though they were fully as much startled as they would have been if Tod had unexpectedly roused himself from his infantile slumbers, and mildly but firmly announced his intention of studying for the ministry or entering a political contest.
Aimée was dumbfounded. She had not expected this. She was going to have her hands full, it was plain. She scarcely wondered now at her discovery of two evenings before. And then she glanced slyly across the room again, and took it all in once more,—Mollie, bewitching in all the novelty of her small effort at coquetry; Chandos, leading her on, and evidently enjoying the task he had set himself intensely.
It was quite a new Mollie who was left to them after their visitor was gone. There was a touch of triumph and excitement in the pretty flushed face, and a ghost of defiance in the brown eyes. She was not quite sure that young Dame Prudence would not improve the occasion with a short homily.
So she was a trifle restless. First she stood at the window humming an air, then she came to the table and turned over a few sketches, then she knelt down on pretence of teasing Tod.
But impulse was too much for her. She forgot Tod in a few minutes and fell into a sitting position, folding her hands idly on the blue garment.
“I knew he would come,” she said, abstractedly. Then Dame Prudence addressed her.
“Did you?” she remarked. “How did you?”
She started and blushed up to her ears.
“How?” she repeated. “Oh, I knew!”
“Perhaps he told you he would,” put in Dame P. “Did he?”
“Aimée,” was the rather irrelevant reply, rather suddenly made, “do you like him?”
“I never judge people,” primly enunciated, “upon first acquaintance. First impressions are rarely to be relied upon.”
“That 's a nice speech,” in her elder sister's most shockingly flippant manner, “and it sounds well, but I have heard it before—thousands of times. People always say it when they want to be specially disagreeable, and would like to cool you down. There is the least grain of Lady Augusta in you, Aimée.”
“And considering that Lady Augusta is the most unpleasant person we know,thatis a nice speech,” returned the oracle.
“Oh, well, I only said 'a grain,' and a grain is not much.”
“It is quite enough.”
“Well,” amiably, “suppose we say half a grain.”
“Suppose we say you are talking nonsense.”
Mollie's air was Dolly's own as she answered her,—people always said she was like Dolly, despite the fact that Dolly was not a beauty at all.
“There may be something in that,” she said.
“Suppose we admit it and return to the subject. Do you think he is nice, Aimée?”
“Do you?”
“Yes, I do,” but without getting rose-colored this time.
Aimée looked at her calmly, but with some quiet scrutiny in her glance.
“As nice,” she put it to her,—"as nice as Ralph Gowan?”
She grew rose-colored then in an instant up to her ears again and over them, and she turned her face aside and plucked at the hearth-rug with nervous fingers.
“Well?” suggested Aimée.
“He is as handsome and—as tall, and he dresses as well.”
“Do you like him as well?” said Aimée.
“Ye-es—no. I have not known him long enough to tell you.”
“Well,” returned Aimée, “let me tell you. As I said before, I do not think it wise to judge people from first impressions, but this I do know,Idon't like him as I like Mr. Gowan, and I never shall. He is not to be relied upon, that Gerald Chandos; I saw it in his eyes.”
And she set her chin upon her hand, and her small, round, fair face covered itself all at once with an anxious cloud.
She kept a quiet watch upon Mollie after this, and in the weeks that followed she was puzzled, and not only puzzled, but baffled outright many a time. This first visit of Mr. Gerald Chandos was not his last. His business brought him again and again, and when the time came that he had no pretence of business, he was on sufficiently familiar terms with them all to make calls of pleasure. So he did just as Ralph Gowan had done, slipped into his groove of friend and acquaintance unobtrusively, and was made welcome as other people were,—just as any sufficiently harmless individual would have been under the same circumstances. There was no dragon of high renown to create social disturbances in Vagabondia.
“As long as a man behaves himself, where's the odds?” said Phil; and no one ever disagreed with him.
But Mr. Gerald Chandos had not been to the house more than three times before Aimée found cause to wonder. She discovered that Ralph Gowan was not so enthusiastically attached to him, after all; and furthermore she had her reasons for thinking that Gowan was rather disturbed at his advent, and would have preferred that he had not been adopted so complacently.
“If Dolly was at home,” she said to herself, “I should be inclined to fancy he was a trifle jealous; and if he cared just a little more for Mollie, I might think he was jealous; but Dolly is away, and though he is fond of Mollie, and thinks her pretty, he does n't care for her in that way exactly, so there must be some other reason. He is not the sort of person to have likes or dislikes without reason.”
In her own sage style she approved of Ralph Gowan just as she approved of Griffith. And then, as I have said, Mollie puzzled her. It was astonishing how the child altered, and how she began to bloom out, and adopt independent, womanly airs and graces. She took a new and important position in the household. From her post of observation the wise one found herself looking on with a smile sometimes, there was such a freshness in her style of enacting therôleof beauty. She struck Phil's friends dumb now and then with her conscious power, and the unhappy Brown suffered himself to be led captive without a struggle.
“Her 'prentice han' she tried on Brown,” Dolly had said, months before, in a wretched attempt at parody; and certainly the tortures of Brown were prolonged and varied. But it was her manner toward Chandos that puzzled Aimée. Perhaps she was a trifle proud of his evident admiration; at all events, she seemed far from averse to it, and the incomprehensible part of the affair was that sometimes she allowed him to rival even Ralph Gowan.
“And yet,” commented Aimée, “she likes Ralph Gowan better. She never can help blushing and looking conscious when he comes or when he talks to her, and she is as cool as Dolly when she finds herself with Chandos. It is very odd.”
It was not so easy to manage her as it used to be, Ralph Gowan discovered. She was growing capricious and fanciful, and ready to take offence. If they were left alone together, she would change her mood every two minutes. Sometimes she would submit to his old jesting, gallant speeches quite humbly and shyly for a while, and then she would flame out all at once in anger, half a woman's and half a child's. He was inclined to fancy now and then that she had never forgiven him for his first interference on the subject of Gerald Chandos, for at the early part of the acquaintance he did interfere, as he had promised Dolly he would.
“I am not glad to see that fellow here, Mollie,” he had said, the first night he met him at the house.
She stood erect before him, with her white throat straight, and a spark in her eyes.
“What fellow?” she asked.
“Chandos,” he answered, coolly and briefly.
“Oh!” she returned. “How is it that when one man dislikes another he always speaks of him as 'that fellow'? I know some one who always refers to you as 'that fellow.'”
“Do you?” dryly, as before. He knew very well whom she meant.
“Iam glad to see 'that fellow' here,” she went on. “He is a gentleman, and he is n't stupid. No one else comes here who is so amusing. I am tired of Brown & Company.”
“Ah!” he answered, biting his lip. He felt the rebuff, if it was only Mollie who gave it. “Very well then, if you are tired of Brown & Company, and would prefer to enter into partnership with Chandos, it is none of my business, I suppose. I will give you one warning, however, because I promised your sister to take care of you.” Her skin flamed scarlet at that. “That fellow is not a gentleman exactly, and he is a very dangerous acquaintance for any woman to make.”
“He is a friend of yours,” she interrupted.
“That is a natural mistake on your part,” he replied,—"natural, but still a mistake. He isnota friend of mine. As I before observed, he is not exactly a gentleman—not to put too fine a point upon it—from a moral point of view. We won't discuss the matter further.”
They had parted bad friends that night. Mollie was restive under his cool decisiveness for various reasons; he was irritated because he felt he had failed, and had lost ground instead of gaining it. So sometimes since, he had fancied that she had not wholly forgiven him, and yet there were times when she was so softly submissive that he felt himself in some slight danger of being as much touched and as fairly bewitched as he was when Dolly turned her attention to him. Still she was frequently far from amiable, and upon more than one occasion he found her not precisely as polite as she might have been.
“You are not as amiable, Mollie,” he said to her once, “as you used to be. We were very good friends in the old days. I suppose you are outgrowing me. I should be afraid to offer you a bunch of camellias now as a token of my affection.”
He smiled down at her indolently as he said it, and before he had finished he began to feel uncomfortable. Her eyelids drooped and her head drooped, and she looked sweetly troubled.
“I know I am not as good as I used to be,” she admitted. “I know it without being told. Sometimes,” very suddenly, “I think I must be growing awfully wicked.”
“Well,” he commented, “at least one must admit that is a promising state of mind, and augurs well for future repentance.”
She shook her head.
“No, it doesn't,” she answered him, “and that is the bad side of it. I am getting worse every day of my life.”
“Is it safe,” he suggested, cynically,—"is it safe for an innocent individual to cultivate your acquaintance? Would it not be a good plan to isolate yourself from society until you feel that the guileless ones may approach you without fear of contamination? You alarm me.”
She lifted up her head, her eyes flashing.
“Youare safe,” she said; “so it is rather premature to cry 'wolf' so soon.”
“It is very plain that you are outgrowing me,” he returned. “Dolly herself could not have made a more scathing remark.”
But, fond as he was of tormenting her, he did not want to try her too far, and so he endeavored to make friends. But his efforts at reconciliation were not a success. She was not to be coaxed into her sweet mood again; indeed she almost led him to fear that he had wounded her irreparably by his jests. And yet, when he at last consulted his watch, and went to the side-table for his hat and gloves, he turned round to find her large eyes following him in a wistful sort of way.
“Are you going?” she asked him at length, a half-reluctant appeal in her voice.
“I am due at Brabazon Lodge now,” he answered.
She said no more after that, but relapsed into silence, and let him go without making an effort to detain him, receiving his adieus in her most indifferent style.
But she was cross and low-spirited when he was gone, and Aimée, coming into the room with her work, found her somewhat hard to deal with, and indeed was moved to tell her so.
“You are a most inexplicable girl, Mollie,” she said. “What crotchet is troubling you now?”
“No crotchet at all,” she answered, and then all at once she got up and stood before the mantel-glass, looking at herself fixedly. “Aimée,” she said, “if you were a man, would you admire me?”
Aimée gave her a glance, and then answered her with sharp frankness. “Yes, I should,” she said.
She remained standing for a few minutes, taking a survey of herself, front view, side view, and even craning her pretty throat to get a glimpse of her back; and then a pettish sigh burst from her, and she sat down again at her sister's feet, clasping her hands about her knees in a most unorthodox position.
“I should like to have a great deal of money,” she said after a while, and she frowned as she said it.
“That is a startling observation,” commented Aimée, “and shows great singularity of taste.”
Mollie frowned again, and shrugged one shoulder, but otherwise gave the remark small notice.
“I should like,” she proceeded, “to have a carriage, and to live in a grand house, and go to places. I should like to marry somebody rich.” And having blurted out this last confession, she looked half ashamed of herself.
“Mollie,” said Aimée, solemnly dropping her hands and her work upon her lap, “I am beginning to feel as Dolly does; I am beginning to be afraid you are going to get yourself into serious trouble.”
Then this overgrown baby of theirs, who had so suddenly astonished them all by dropping her babyhood and asserting herself a woman, said something so startling that the wise one fairly lost her breath.
“If I cannot get what I want,” she said, deliberately, “I will take what I can get.”
“You are going out of your mind,” ejaculated Aimée.
“It does n't matter if I am,” cried the romantic little goose, positively crushing the oracle by breaking down all at once, and flinging herself upon the hearthrug in a burst of tears,—"it does n't matter if I am. Who cares forme?”
THEEE weeks waited the wise one, keeping her eyes on the alert and her small brain busy, but preserving an owl-like silence upon the subject revolving in her mind. But at the end of that time she marched into the parlor one day, attired for a walk, and astonished them all by gravely announcing her intention of going to see Dolly.
“What are you going for?” said Mrs. Phil.
“Rather sudden, is n't it?” commented Mollie.
“I 'm going on business,” returned Aimée, and she buttoned her gloves and took her departure, without enlightening them further.
Arriving at Brabazon Lodge, she found Miss MacDowlas out and Dolly sitting alone in the parlor, with a letter from Griffith in her hand and tears in her eyes.
Her visitor walked to the hearth, her face wrinkling portentously, and kissed her with an air of affectionate severity.
“I don't know,” she began, comprehending matters at a glance, “I am sure I don't know what I am to do with you all.Youare in trouble now.”
“Take off your things,” said Dolly, with a helpless little sob, “and—and then I will tell you all about it. You must stay and have tea with me. Miss MacDowlas is away, and I—am all alone, and—and, O Aimée!”
The hat and jacket were laid aside in two minutes, and Aimée came back to her and knelt down.
“Is there anything in your letter you do not want me to see?” she asked.
“No,” answered Dolly, in despair, and tossed it into her lap.
It was no new story, but this time the Fates seemed to have conspired against her more maliciously than usual. A few days before Grif had found himself terribly dashed in spirit, and under the influence of impulse had written to her. Two or three times in one day he had heard accidental comments upon Gowan's attentions to her, and on his return to his lodgings at night he had appealed to her in a passionate epistle.
He was not going to doubt her again, he said, and he was struggling to face the matter coolly, but he wanted to see her. It would be worse than useless to call upon her at the Lodge, and have an interview under the disapproving eyes of Miss MacDowlas, and so he had thought they might meet again by appointment, as they had done before by chance. And Dolly had acquiesced at once. But Fortune was against her. Just as she had been ready to leave the house, Ralph Gowan had made his appearance, and Miss MacDowlas had called her down-stairs to entertain him.
“I would not have cared about telling,” cried Dolly, in tears, “but I could not tell her, and so I had to stay, and—actually—sing—Aimée. Yes, sing detestable love-sick songs, while my own darling, whom I wasdyingto go to, was waiting outside in the cold. And that was not the worst, either. He was just outside in the road, and when the servants lighted the gas he saw me through the window. And I was at the piano"—in a burst—"and Ralph Gowan was standing by me. And so he went home and wrotethat,” signifying with a gesture the letter Aimée held. “And everything is wrong again.”
It was very plain that everythingwaswrong again. The epistle in question was an impetuous, impassioned effusion enough. He was furious against Gowan, and bitter against everybody else. She had cheated and slighted and trifled with him when he most needed her love and pity; but he would not blame her, he could only blame himself for being such an insane, presumptuous fool as to fancy that anything he had to offer could be worthy of any woman.
What had he to offer, etc., for half a dozen almost illegible pages, dashed and crossed, and all on fire with his bitterness and pain.
Having taken it from Aimée, and read it for the twentieth time, Dolly fairly wrung her hands over it.
“If we were only justtogether!” she cried. “If we only just had the tiniest, shabbiest house in the world, and could be married and help each other! He does n't mean to be unjust or unkind, you know, Aimée; he would be more wretched than I am if he knew how unhappy he has made me.”
“Ah!” sighed Aimée. “He should think of that before he begins.”
Then she regained possession of the letter, and smoothed out its creases on her knee, finishing by folding it carefully and returning it to its envelope, looking very grave all the time.
“Will you lend me this?” she said at last, holding the epistle up.
“What are you going to do with it?” asked Dolly, disconsolately.
“I am going to ask Griffith to read it again. I shall be sure to see him to-morrow night.”
“Very well,” answered Dolly; “but don't be too hard upon him, Aimée. He has a great deal to bear.”
“I know that,” said Aimée. “And sometimes he bears it very well; but just now he needs a little advice.”
Troubled as she was, Dolly laughed at the staid expression on her small, discreet face; but even as she laughed she caught the child in her arms and kissed her.
“What should we do without you!” she exclaimed. “We need some one to keep us all straight, we Vagabonds; but it seems queer that such a small wiseacre as you should be our controlling power.”
The mere sight of the small wiseacre had a comforting effect upon her. Her spirits began to rise, and she so far recovered herself as to be able to look matters in the face more cheerfully. There was so much to talk about, and so many questions to ask, that it would have been impossible to remain dejected and uninterested. It was not until after tea, however, that Aimée brought her “business” upon the carpet. She had thought it best not to introduce the subject during the earlier part of the evening; but when the tea-tray was removed, and they found themselves alone again, she settled down, and applied herself at once to the work before her.
“I have not told you yet what I came here for this afternoon,” she said.
“You don't mean to intimate that you did not come to see me!” said Dolly.
“I came to see you, of course,” decidedly; “but I came to see you for a purpose. I came to talk to you about Mollie.”
Dolly almost turned pale.
“Mollie!” she exclaimed. “What is the trouble about Mollie?”
“Something that puzzles me,” was the answer. “Dolly, do you know anything about Gerald Chandos?”
“What!” said Dolly. “It is Gerald Chandos, is it? He is not a fit companion for her, I know that much.”
And then she repeated, word for word, the conversation she had had with Ralph Gowan.
Having listened to the end, Aimée shook her head.
“I like Mr. Gowan well enough,” she said, “but he has been the cause of a great deal of trouble among us, without meaning to be, and I am afraid it is not at an end yet.”
They were both silent for a few moments after this, and then Dolly, looking up, spoke with a touch of reluctance.
“I dare say you can answer me a question I should like to ask you?” she said.
“If it is about Mollie, I think I can,” Aimée returned.
“You have been with her so long,” Dolly went on, two tiny lines showing themselves uponherforehead this time, “and you are so quick at seeing things, that you must know what there is to know. And yet it hardly seems fair to ask. Ralph Gowan goes to Bloomsbury Place often, does he not?”
“He goes very often, and he seems to care more for Mollie than for any of the rest of us.”
“Aimée,” Dolly said next, “does—this is my question—does Mollie care for him?”
“Yes, she does,” answered Aimée. “She cares for him so much that she is making herself miserable about him.”
“Oh, dear!” cried Dolly. “What—”
Aimée interrupted her.
“And that is not the worst. The fact is, Dolly, I don't know what to make of her. If it was any one but Mollie, or if Mollie was a bit less innocent and impetuous, I should not be so much afraid; but sometimes she is angry with herself, and sometimes she is angry with him, and sometimes she is both, and then I should not be surprised at her doing anything innocent and frantic. Poor child! It is my impression she has about half made up her mind to the desperate resolve of making a grand marriage. She said as much the other night, and I think that is why she encourages Mr. Chandos.”
“Oh, dear,” cried Dolly, again. “And does she think he wants to marry her?”
“She knows he makes violent love to her, and she is not worldly-wise enough to know that Lord Burleighs are out of date.”
“Out of date!” said Dolly; “I doubt if they ever were in date. Men like Mr. Gerald Chandos would hesitate at marrying Venus from Bloomsbury Place.”
“If it was Ralph Gowan,” suggested Aimée.
“But Ralph Gowan is n't like Chandos,” Dolly returned, astutely. “He is worth ten thousand of him. I wish he would fall in love with Mollie and marry her. Poor Mollie! Poor, pretty, headlong little goose! What are we to do with her?”
“Mr. Gowan is very fond of her, in a way,” said Aimée. “If he did not care a little for you—”
“I wish he did not!” sighed Dolly. “But it serves me right,” with candor. “He would never have thought of me again if I—well, if I had n't found things so dreadfully dull at that Bilberry clan gathering.”
“'If,'” moralized Aimée, significantly. “'If' is n't a wise word, and it often gets you into trouble, Dolly. If you hadn't, it would have been better for Grif, as well; but what cannot be cured must be endured.”
Their long talk ended, however, in Dolly's great encouragement. It was agreed that the family oracle was to bring Griffith to his senses by means of some slight sisterly reproof, and that she was to take Mollie in hand discreetly at once and persuade her to enter the confessional.
“She has altered a great deal, and has grown much older and more self-willed lately,” said Aimée; “but if I am very straightforward and take her by surprise, I scarcely think she will be able to conceal much from me, and, at least, I shall be able to show her that her fancies are romantic and unpractical.”
She did not waste any time before applying herself to her work, when she went home. Instead of going to Bloomsbury Place at once, she stopped at Griffith's lodgings on her way, and rather scandalized his landlady by requesting to be shown into his parlor. Only the grave simplicity of the small, slight figure in its gray cloak, and the steadfast seriousness in the pretty face reconciled the worthy matron to the idea of admitting her without investigation. But Aimée bore her scrutiny very calmly. The whole family of them had taken tea in the little sitting-room with Griffith, upon one or two occasions, so she was not at all at a loss, although she did not find herself recognized.
“I am one of Mr. Crewe's sisters,” she said; and that, of course, was quite enough. Mrs. Cripps knew Mr. Crewe as well as she knew Grif himself, so she stepped back into the narrow passage at once, and even opened the parlor door, and announced the visitor in a way that made poor Grif s heart beat.
“One of Mr. Crewe's sisters,” she said.
He had been sitting glowering over the fire, with his head on his hands and his elbows on his knees, and when he started up he looked quite haggard and dishevelled. Was it—couldit be Dolly? He knew it could not be, but he turned pale at the thought. It would have been such rapture, in his present frame of mind, to have poured out his misery and distrust, and then to have clasped her to his heart before she had time to explain. He was just in that wretched, passionate, relenting, remorseful stage.
But it was only Aimée, in her gray cloak; and as the door closed behind her, that small person advanced toward him, crumpling her white forehead and looking quite disturbed at the mere sight of him. She held up a reproachful finger at him warningly.
“I knew it would be just this way,” she said. “And you are paler and more miserable than ever. If you and Dolly would just be more practical and reason more for each other, instead of falling headlong into quarrels and making everything up headlong every ten minutes, how much better it would be for you! If I was not so fond of you both, you would be the greatest trials I have.”
He was so glad to see the thoughtful, womanly little creature, that he could have caught her up in his arms, gray cloak and all, and have kissed her only a tithe less impetuously than he would have kissed Dolly. He was one of the most faithful worshippers at her shrine, and her pretty wisdom and unselfishness had won her many. He drew the easiest chair up to the fire for her, and made her sit down and warm her feet on the fender, while she talked to him, and he listened to her every word, as he always did.
“I have been to see Dolly,” she said, “and I found her crying,—all by herself and crying.” And she paused to note the effect of her words.
His heart gave a great thump. It always did give a hard thump when he thought of Dolly as she looked when she cried,—a soft, limp little bundle of pathetic prettiness, covering her dear little face in her hands, shedding such piteous, impassioned tears, and refusing to be kissed or comforted. Dolly sobbing on his shoulder was so different from the coquettish, shrewd, mock-worldly Dolly other people saw.
Aimée put her hand into her dress-pocket under the gray cloak and produced her letter,—took it out of its envelope, laid it on her knee, and smoothed out its creases again.
“She was crying over this letter,” she proceeded,—"your letter; the one you wrote to her when I think you cannot have been quite calm enough to write anything. I think you cannot have read it over before sending it away. It is always best to read a lettertwicebefore posting it. So I have brought it to you to read again, and there it is,” giving it to him.
He burst forth with the story of his wrongs, of course, then. He could not keep it in any longer. Things had gone wrong with him in every way before this had happened, he said, and he had longed so for just one hour in which Dolly could comfort him and try to help him to pluck up spirits again, and she had written to him a tender little letter, and promised to give him that hour, and he had been so full of impatience and love, and he had gone to the very gates and waited like a beggar outside, lest he should miss her by any chance, and the end of his waiting had been that he had caught a glimpse of the bright, warm room, and the piano, and Dolly with Gowan bending over her as if she had no other lover in the world. He told it all in a burst, clenching his hand and scarcely stopping for breath; but when he ended he dashed the letter down, pushed his chair round, and dropped his head on his folded arms on the table, with a wild, tearing sob.
“It is no fault of hers,” he cried, “and it was only the first sting that made me reproach her. I shall never do it again. She is only in the right, and that fellow is in the right when he tells himself that he can take better care of her and make her happier than I can. I will be a coward no longer,—not an hour longer. I will give her up to-night. She will learn to love him—he is a gentleman at least—if I were in his place I should never fear that she would not learn in time, and forget—and forget the poor, selfish beggar who would have died for her, and yet was not man enough to control the jealous rage that tortured her. I 'll give her up. I'll give it all up—but, oh! my God! Dolly, the—the little house, and—and the dreams I have had about it!”
Aimée was almost in despair. This was not one of his ordinary moods; this was the culminating point,—the culmination of all his old sufferings and pangs. He had been working slowly toward this through all the old unhappiness and self-reproach. The constant droppings of the bygone years had worn away the stone at last, and he could not bear much more. Aimée was frightened now. Her habit of forethought showed her all this in a very few seconds. His nervous, highly strung, impassioned temperament had broken down at last. Another blow would be too much for him. If she could not manage to set him right now and calm him, and if things went wrong again, she was secretly conscious of feeling that the consequences could not be foreseen. There was nothing wild and rash and wretched he might not do.
She got up and went to him, and leaned upon the table, clasping her cool, firm little hand upon his hot, desperate one. A woman of fifty could not have had the power over him that this slight, inexperienced little creature had. Her childish face caught color and life and strength in her determination to do her best for these two whom she loved so well. Her small-boned, fragile figure deceived people into undervaluing her reserve forces; but there was mature feeling and purpose enough in her to have put many a woman three times her age to shame. The light, cool touch of her hand soothed and controlled Griffith from the first, and when she put forth all her powers of reasoning, and set his trouble before him in a more practical and less headlong way, not a word was lost upon him. She pictured Dolly to him just as she had found her holding his letter in her hand, and she pictured her too as she had really been the night he watched her through the window,—not staying because she cared for Gowan, but because circumstances had forced her to remain when she was longing in her own impetuous pretty way to fly to him, and give him the comfort he needed. And she gave Dolly's story in Dolly's own words, with the little sobs between, and the usual plentiful sprinkling of sweet, foolish, loving epithets, and—with innocent artfulness—made her seem so charming and affectionate, a little centre-figure in the picture she drew, that no man with a heart in his breast could have resisted her, and by the time Aimée had finished, Grif was so far moved that it seemed a sheer impossibility to speak again of relinquishing his claims.
But he could not regain his spirits sufficiently to feel able to say very much. He quieted down, but he was still down at heart and crushed in feeling, and could do little else but listen in a hopeless sort of way.
“I will tell you what you shall do,” Aimée said at last. “You shall see Dolly yourself,—not on the street, but just as you used to see her when she was at home. She shall come home some afternoon. I know Miss MacDowlas will let her,—and you shall sit in the parlor together, Grif, and make everything straight, and begin afresh.”
He could not help being roused somewhat by such a prospect. The cloud was lifted for one instant, even if it fell upon him again the next.
“I shall have to wait a week,” he said. “Old Flynn has asked me to go to Dartmouth, to attend to some business for him, and I leave here to-morrow morning.”
“Very well!” she answered. “If we must wait a week, we must; but you can write to Dolly in the interval, and settle upon the day, and then she can speak to Miss MacDowlas.”
He agreed to the plan at once, and promised to write to Dolly that very night. So the young peacemaker's mind was set at rest upon this subject, at least, and after giving him a trifle more advice, and favoring him with a few more sage axioms, she prepared to take her departure.
“You may put on your hat and take me to the door; but you had better not come in if you are going to finish your letter before the post closes,” she said; “but the short walk will do you good, and the night-air will cool you.”
She bade him good-night at the gate when they reached Bloomsbury Place, and she entered the house with her thoughts turning to Mollie. Mollie had been out, too, it seemed. When she went up-stairs to their bedroom, she found her there, standing before the dressing-table, still with her hat on, and looking in evident preoccupation at something she held in her hand. Hearing Aimée, she started and turned round, dropping her hand at her side, but not in time to hide a suspicious glitter which caught her sister's eye. Here was a worse state of affairs than ever. She had something to hide, and she had made up her mind to hide it. She stood up as Aimée approached, looking excited and guilty, but still half-defiant, her lovely head tossed back a little and an obstinate curve on her red lips. But the oracle was not to be daunted. She confronted her with quite a stern little air.
“Mollie,” she began at once, without the least hesitation,—"Mollie, you have just this minute hidden something from me, and I should n't have thought you could do it.”
Mollie put her closed hand behind her.
“IfI am hiding something,” she answered, “I am not hiding it without reason.”
“No,” returned Dame Prudence, severely, “you are not. You have a very good reason, I am afraid. You are ashamed of yourself, and you know you are doing wrong. You have got a secret, which you are keeping fromme, Mollie,” bridling a little in the prettiest way. “I didn't think you would keep a secret fromme.”
Mollie, very naturally, was overpowered. She looked a trifle ashamed of herself, and the tears came into her eyes. She drew her hand from behind her back, and held it out with a half-pettish, half-timid gesture.
“There!” she said; “if you must see it.”
And there, on her pink palm, lay a shining opal ring.
“And,” said Aimée, looking at it without offering to touch it, and then looking at her,—"and Mr. Gerald Chandos gave it to you?”
“Yes, Mr. Gerald Chandos did,” trying to brave it out, but still appearing the reverse of comfortable. “And you think it proper,” proceeded her inquisitor, “to accept such presents from a gentleman who cares nothing for you?”
Care nothing for her! Mollie drew herself upright, with the air of a Zenobia. She had had too few real love affairs not to take arms at once at such an imputation cast upon her prowess.
“He cares enough for me to want me to marry him,” she said, and then stopped and looked as if she could have bitten her tongue off for betraying her.
Aimée sat down in the nearest chair and stared at her, as if she doubted the evidence of her senses.
“To do what?” she demanded.
There was no use in trying to conceal the truth any longer. Mollie saw that much; and besides this, her feelings were becoming too strong for her from various causes. The afternoon had been an exciting one to her, too. So, all at once, so suddenly that Aimée was altogether unprepared for the outbreak, she gave way. The ring fell unheeded on to the carpet, slipped from her hand and rolled away, and the next instant she went down upon her knees, hiding her face on her arms on Aimée's lap, and began to cry hysterically.
“It—it is to be quite a secret,” she sobbed. “I would not tell anybody but you, and I dare not tell you quite all, but hehasasked me to marry him, Aimée, and I have—I have said yes.” And then she cried more than ever, and caught Aimée's hand, and clung to it with a desperate, childish grasp, as if she was frightened.
It was very evident that she was frightened, too. All the newly assumed womanliness was gone. It was the handsome, inexperienced, ignorant child Mollie she had known all her life who was clinging to her, Aimée felt,—the pretty, simple, thoughtless Mollie they had all admired and laughed at, and teased and been fond of. She seemed to have become a child again all at once, and she was in trouble and desperate, it was plain.
“But the very idea!” exclaimed Aimée, inwardly; “the bare idea of her having the courage to engage herself to him!”
“I never heard such a thing in my life,” she said, aloud. “Oh, Mollie! Mollie! what induced you to give him such a mad answer? You don't care for him.”
“He—he would not take any other answer, and he is as nice as any one else,” shamefacedly. “He is nicer than Brown and the others, and—I do like him—a little,” but a tiny shudder crept over her, and she held her listener's hand more tightly.
“As nice as any one else!” echoed Aimée, indignantly. “Nicer than Brown! You ought to be in leading-strings!” with pathetic hopelessness. “That was n't your only reason, Mollie.”
The hat with the short crimson feather had been unceremoniously pushed off, and hung by its elastic upon Mollie's neck; the pretty curly hair was all crushed into a heap, and the flushed, tear-wet face was hidden in the folds of Aimée's dress. There was a charming, foolish, fanciful side to Mollie's desperation, as there was to all her moods.
“That was not your only reason,” repeated Aimée.
One impetuous, unhappy little sob, and the poor simple child confessed against her will.
“Nobody—nobody else cared for me!” she cried.
“Nobody?” said Aimée; and then, making up her mind to go to the point at once, she said, “Does 'nobody' mean that Ralph Gowan did not, Mollie?”
The clinging hand was snatched away, and the child quite writhed.
“I hate Ralph Gowan!” she cried. “I detest him! I wish—I wish—IwishI had never seen him! Why could n't he stay away among his own people? Nobody wanted him. Dolly doesn't care for him, and Grif hates him. Why could n't he stay where he was?”
There was no need to doubt after this, of course. Her love for Ralph Gowan had rendered her restless and despairing, and so she had worked out this innocent romance, intending to defend herself against him. The heroines of her favorite novels married for money when they could not marry for love, and why should not she? Remember, she was only seventeen, and had been brought up in Vagabondia among people who did not often regard consequences. Mr. Gerald Chandos was rich, made violent love to her, and was ready to promise anything, it appeared,—not that she demanded much; the Lord Burleighs of her experience invariably showered jewels and equipages and fine raiment upon their brides without being asked. She would have thought it positive bliss to be tied to Ralph Gowan for six or seven years without any earthly prospect of ever being married; to have belonged to him as Dolly belonged to Grif, to sit in the parlor and listen to him while he made love to her as Grif made love to Dolly, would have been quite enough steady-going rapture for her; but since that was out of the question, Mr. Gerald Chandos and diamonds and a carriage would have to fill up the blank.
But, of course, she did not say this to Aimée. In fact, after her first burst of excitement subsided, Aimée could not gain much from her. She cried a little more, and then seemed vexed with herself, and tried to cool down, and at last so far succeeded that she sat up and pushed her tangled hair from her wet, hot face, and began to search for the ring.
“It has got a diamond in the centre,” she said, trying to speak indifferently. “I don't believe you looked at it. The opals are splendid, too.”
“Are you going to wear it?” asked Aimée.
She colored up to her forehead. “No, I am not,” she answered. “I should have worn it before if I had intended to let people see it. I told you it was a secret. I have had this ring three or four days.”
“Why is it a secret?” demanded Dame Prudence. “I don't believe in secrets,—particularly in secret engagements. Is n't Phil to know?”
She turned away to put the ring into its case.
“Not yet,” she replied, pettishly. “Time enough when it can't be helped. It is a secret, I tell you, and I don't care about everybody's talking it over.”
And she would say no more.