CHAPTER V.
The next morning Psyche slept too heavily. She did not wake till Edward was out of bed. Then she started like a guilty thing. But she did not dare go into his dressing-room.
And he brought in the "Four Sons of Aymon," and read to her. Oh, she was as long as ever she could be about her dressing; but, alas! the breakfast-bell rang, and Edward ran into his room.
One minute,—it seemed forever,—then he came in with his coat, and with a look which tried to be comical, but was, oh, so sad! he pointed at the long swirl of spermaceti which ran from one end of it to the other.
Then he bent over the poor crying girl and kissed her, and kissed her again.
"How can you, Edward? I am so wicked—and such a fool!"
"Darling, you are not wicked at all, and it is I who am the fool."
"Dear Edward, hear me. I was perfectly happy till they came—"
"Sweetheart, you need not say so."
"Edward, hear me; read what they write to me. Read this. Read where they say you are a forger and a counterfeiter, a detective and a gambler."
"Really," said Edward, as he read, "they compliment me. The New York 'Observer' could not treat a man worse."
Psyche was amazed, and she saw that Edward was more amused than angry.
"Dear Edward, I am a fool. But I could not bear that Bloody Mary should know more of my own boy than I did."
"No, my darling," said he stoutly; "and there is no reason why you should. But hear that bell! Ellen is crazy that we shall come to breakfast. Finish your hair. I will find another coat; and at breakfast, as Miss Braddon says, I will tell you all."
And at breakfast he told her all. It was so little to tell that I am ashamed to have wasted ten thousand words without relieving the reader's anxiety.
As soon as Ellen had attended to the table and left the room, Edward said, "Dearest, all is that I am a greater fool than Clarence Hervey himself. I am the leading editor of the 'Daily Argus.' That is all."
Psyche fairly laid down her fork. "What a fool I am! I have read things I told you myself in the paper, yet I never dreamed that you put them there. But why keep such a secret from your poor little butterfly?"
"Why, my darling," said he more seriously,—"why, but that I wanted to have my butterfly to myself? You will see, dearest. God grant it may not be as I fear. But if—I am afraid—if one person knows where you live, he will know where I live. If one person knows, two will know. If two know, two hundred thousand will know. If they know, there is an end to breakfasts without door-bells, an end to German together, an end to water-colors and to music, an end to the pony-wagon and the drives. That was my only reason for trying to protect you from the necessity of keeping a secret. I thought, in that new part of Boston, if we called on nobody, nobody would call on us. So far I was not wrong. Then I took care at the office to have it understood that no messenger was to be sent to my house. I bit off old Folger's head one day when he offered to send me a proof-sheet. Then I thought if we sent out 'No cards,' if I could only make you happy without 'receiving,' my friends would not know where to find me, and so my enemies would never know, nor the intermediate mass who are neither friends nor enemies. A little skill in May was enough to keep my name out of the Directory, excepting with the office address. Indeed, I thought if I did my six hours' work there between nine and three every night, it was all the world had a right to ask of me. But all this has made you wretched, so it has been all wrong, and it shall come to an end. You shall have a state dinner-party next Saturday."
Psyche cried and cried and cried, as if her heart would break. And Edward cried a little too.
"But why not go on so now?" said she. "I can keep a secret." This she said proudly, though she blushed as she said it. "Wild horses shall not draw it from me."
"No," said Edward sadly, "I know wild horses will not drag it from my darling; but I know they will try, and I do not choose to have her torn by wild horses: she has suffered enough from the pulling and hauling of three wild asses."
And so it was all settled that they should begin to see people. All was as clear as light between them now, and the new dynasty began.
And for a month or two there was no great change. At first it was only that Ross brought out one or two gentlemen with him to spend Sunday. They made the house very pleasant, and dear little Psyche did the honors beautifully. Then they whispered round what a charming home it was. And the Beverly people, some of whom are very nice persons, found out what a pretty neighbor they had, and that it was Ross of the "Argus," and they called, and asked to tea, and then Psyche and Edward returned the calls, and asked to tea.
It was not till they went back to Roxbury that the real change came. Then was it that before breakfast the door-bell began to ring; and women with causes, and men out of employment, and inventors with inventions, began to wait in the ante-room till Mr. E. Ross came downstairs. Then was it that he poured down his hasty cup of coffee, and ran to be rid of them. Then was it that councilmen came out as soon as breakfast was over to arrange private schemes for thwarting the aldermen; and that while the councilmen arranged, aldermen called and waited for Mr. E. Ross to be at leisure, because they wanted to make plans for thwarting the council. Then was it that, from morning to night, candidates for the House and candidates for the Senate came for private conferences, and had to be let out from different doors lest they should meet each other. Then was it that men who had letters of introduction from Japan and Formosa and Siberia and Aboukuta sat in Psyche's parlor six or seven hours at a time, illustrating the customs of those countries, and what Mr. Lowell calls "a certain air of condescension observable in foreigners." Then was it that Psyche received calls from wives of senators and daughters of congressmen, to say in asides to her that if Mr. E. Ross could find it in his way to say this, he would so much oblige thus and so. Then was it that, trying to screen him from bores, she received all the women who sold Lives of Christ, and all the agents who exhibited copies of maps or heliotypes. Then was it that, when the ponies came to the door, railroad presidents drew up, who just wanted a minute to talk about their new bonds. Then was it that, after the ponies had been sent back to the stable, grand ladies drew up to send in cards to Psyche, and to persuade her to take tables at fairs and to be vice-president of almshouses. Then was it that every Saturday Psyche gave a charming literary dinner, not bad in its way; and the counterpart of this was that Psyche and Edward dined at other people's houses four days out of the remaining six. The sixth day Edward was kept down town for some of the engagements these wretches had forced him into. Thus was it in the end that moths ate up the camel's-hair pencils, and no one ever found it out; that the upper G string in the piano rusted off, and no one discovered it; that Bridget Flynn put ten volumes of Grillparzer into the furnace-fire, and nobody missed them; and that all the ferns in the fern-house died, and nobody wept for them.
From early morning round to early morning Psyche never saw her lover-husband, except as he and she gorged a hurried and broken breakfast, or as he took in to dinner some lady he did not care for, and as she, at her end of the table, talked French or Cochin Chinese to some man who had brought letters of introduction.
She knew what her husband's business was and who his friends were. But, for all intents and purposes, she had lost him forever.
As for the three step-sisters at Painted Post, they went to a Sunday-School picnic one day, and fell off a precipice and were killed.