CHAPTER L.
The return of our Jason and Medea from the Argo was very different from their departure for that fateful craft, if their going had been operatic, their coming was elegiac. A salvo of salutations was preparing as they approached, and the Gallery watched the couple as they drew near, momentarily expecting some outburst of jollity on their part; but expectancy slowly faded as their nearer and nearer approach brought into ever clearer view the faces of the Argonaut and the Enchantress.
I have called the Don a man of surprises. What had he been saying to Alice? thought every one as she tripped up the piazza steps with an effort to appear jaunty and careless; but her cheeks showed splotches of burning red, while his features were pale and set. What had happened?
I cannot say what others thought, but I happen to have learned since what flashed across Mary’s mind. The Don had proposed to Alice and Alice had rejected him, had declined his first proposal merely, for of course she could not have meant to reject him for good and all. What passed her comprehension was how Alice had had the hardihood to propose a walk which she must have known was to have that result. She was amazed to think how blind she had been all along. How could she have failed to remark what was patent to all, that the Don hung upon every word that fell from Alice’s lips?
I happen to know, too, what Charley thought: “She tackled him! What a girl! what a girl! Bless her little heart!”
“Well, Alice,” said my grandfather, “you know the rule.” Alice looked up. “Whenever any of my girls have had a trip on the Argo—”
“Oh,” said Alice, “we kiss you on our return.” And she suited action to word.
“I accept the amendment, but that is not what I meant. Give an account of yourself. What luck?”
Alice’s face grew serene under the old-time courtesy of my grandfather’s manner, and she was herself again.
“You will have to excuse me, Uncle Tom. A girl who has been properly brought up cannot fail to feel that there are occasions when her mother is her only proper confidant.”
Even the Don laughed at this, and the hard lines passed out of his face. He looked at Alice with an expression of admiring amusement, seeing how easily she had laughed away the awkward pause that their return had caused.
When Mary, poor tempest-tossed soul, saw that admiring glance, she stamped her foot, though inaudibly,—stamped it with vexation, and inwardly begged Alice’s pardon; for it was not the glance of a lover, rejected or other.
“There they come down the lawn,” suddenly cried my grandfather. “Charley, where is the glass? Thank you. They are getting into the boat,—Mrs. Poythress is in,—now for Lucy,—she is in,—and now Mr. P. there! The first flash of the oars! They are off! Charley,” added he, handing the glass to Mrs. Carter, “did you think to send word to the Herr to come, as the Poythresses were to spend the day with us? Ah, I remember, he could not come. Well, Lucy and Mr. Smith will have to entertain us to-day.”
“Ah,” sighed Mary, “in that boat sits my real rival. How could I have thought such a thing of dear Alice?”
When the boat neared the shore, the gentlemen (there were only three at Elmington at this time,—my grandfather, Charley, and the Don) went to meet the guests. Mrs. Carter went also, to greet Mrs. Poythress; and Alice, too; saying, when she saw her mother leaning on Mr. Whacker’s arm, that she thought it prudent to look after her father’s interests, when her mother was carrying on so in his absence. I am afraid, however, that she did not keep a very strict watch on her mother; for she and Charley were soon considerably in the rear of the rest, and engaged, as was obvious to Mary (who remained on the piazza), in a very earnest conversation, the subject of which it hardly needed a woman’s instinct to divine. She felt sure that her friend was describing to Charley her interview with the Don; and as Alice grew more and more earnest in her manner and vehement in her gestures, her curiosity rose at last into a sickening intensity, for a voice whispered in her ear that she, somehow, was deeply concerned in what those two were saying. She forgot where she was, forgot the girls seated near her, saw only Charley and Alice; and leaning farther and farther forward, as they receded, strove to drink in with her soulful eyes the words that her ears could not hear.
“Gracious, Mary, what is the matter?”
She had seen Alice stop and turn towards Charley and gaze at him with an almost tragic earnestness. Then, suddenly springing towards him and seizing his wrist, she had given him a pull that shook his equilibrium. With nerves unstrung by the harassing doubts of the last few weeks, and wrought up to the highest pitch of painful curiosity as to the subject matter of the singular interview between Alice and the Don in the Argo that morning,—seeing Alice detailing that interview to Charley,—when she witnessed Alice’s violent illustration of what must have occurred between her and the Don, Mary had leaped, with a cry, from her seat.
“Gracious, Mary, what is the matter?”
At these words of her neighbor Mary sank back in her chair with a vivid blush and a confused smile, and was silent.
“You frightened me so! I thought some one had fallen out of the boat, perhaps. What was the matter?”
“I am sure I can’t tell; I suppose I must have been dreaming.”
The neighbor cast her eyes towards the boat, and seeing among the approaching guests Lucy leaning on the Don’s arm, thought her own thoughts.
The day was an unusually warm one for February, and, a vote being taken, it was decided not to enter the house; and our friends soon grouped themselves to their liking on the sunny piazza; the elders at one end, in the middle the young people, except Charley and Alice, who sat by themselves at the other end of the porch.
These twain often found themselves isolated now. Wherever they chose their seats every one seemed to think they needed room, and moved off,—treatment that Charley bore like the philosopher that he was. The fact is that, from being a man who seemed to have nothing to say, he became, about this time, one who could not find time to say all that he had on his mind. At this period of his life he used to lie awake in bed, for hours and hours, as he has since confessed to me [And to me. A.] [Wh-e-e-e-w! C. F.], running over in his mind the things that he had omitted to say to Alice the evening before, and resolving to say them all immediately after breakfast next morning. On this occasion a mountain torrent of words had risen in his soul during the hour’s absence of his charmer in the Argo. But he was not uttering them. Nor did it matter in the least, as they would have been as like thousands of others that he had been whispering and whispering into her rosy ear, as one drop of water of the supposed torrent was like another. The twain were rather silent, in fact. They were quietly watching the Don and Lucy.
One other pair of eyes took in every movement of the Don, another pair of ears lost never a word nor an inflection of his voice. (Mary was, it is true, engaged in an animated discussion with Mr. Poythress on the subject of Byron,—he denouncing the man, while she lauded the poet,—but then she was a woman.) “How changed he is!” sighed she. “A moment ago, pale as ashes; how bright and cheerful now! And Lucy! I think I should try not to look quite so happy, if I were you! Why not announce your engagement in words, as you are doing every moment by your manner?”
Alice, on the contrary, to Charley: “How well he is acting his part! He knows we are looking at him, and see the easy air of an old friend that he has assumed towards Lucy! Not assumed, either, for his bearing towards her has always been just that.”
“So I have always thought,” said Charley.
“Certainly; only that manner is rather more pronounced than usual. The merest glance would convince any one that he was no lover of Lucy’s.”
“‘He that hath bent him o’er the dead,
Ere the first day of death is fled,—
The first dark day,’” etc., etc.,
quoted Mary.
No voice that I have ever heard quite equalled Mary’s in sweetness, even in familiar talk. Soft and tender, it was yet singularly clear, though marked by a certain patrician absence of that exaggerated articulation so characteristic of other communities, where not the norma loquendi of gentle ancestors is the touchstone of speech, but the printed word, and the spelling-book, and the unlovely precision of the free school. But now that she was uttering a wail over her own crushed heart, and, in unison therewith, Byron’s passionate lament over the dead glories of the Greece of Thermopylæ and of Marathon, the tremulous fervor of her vibrating tones was touching beyond description. Two or three fair heads had clustered near hers to catch her low-breathed words; and when, turning to Mr. Poythress with a certain triumphant enthusiasm in her soulful eyes, she, with a slight but impassioned gesture, ended with the words, “’Tis Greece, but living Greece no more,” there was a sense of choking in more than one snowy throat.
As for Mrs. Carter,—sympathetic soul,—I am told that there were actually tears in her eyes.
“Upon my word,” began Mr. Poythress, ready to yield.
Perhaps Mary heard what he said as he re-defined his position; but his words can be of no interest to the reader.
“See,” mused she, “what an easy air he has assumed towards Lucy! And Lucy! how matter-of-fact! Any one could see at half a glance that they were acknowledged lovers. See with what an air of content he looks about him! There, he is exchanging glances with Alice; and she understands him, of course. She is telling Mr. Frobisher that they are engaged. Ah, he glanced at me, then, and so furtively! No wonder he averts his eyes when they meet mine! Yet even yesterday I thought I saw in his look—well, well; that is all over.”
Alice, on the contrary: “See, he can’t keep his eyes off her! He is just dying to say something to her; and it will be to the point. Ah, Uncle Tom has put himself just between us.” And she leaned forward so as to put Charley almost behind her back, but went on talking, all the same, in a low voice: “How could those girls have thought that he was in love with Lucy or Lucy in love with him!”
“Horrible!” ejaculated Charley, in a voice that startled Alice. She turned and looked at him. Had she turned more quickly, she might have caught a different expression on his face. As it was, he was gazing out upon the River with a stony calm upon his features.
“What did you say?” asked she, beginning to doubt her ears. “‘Horrible?’”
“Who? I?” And the gray eyes met the hazel without blinking.
“Did you not say that the idea of the Don and Lucy being lovers was horrible?”
“Very likely. Of late I have been capable of saying anything.”
“What did you mean?”
“If I said it,—which I don’t admit; and if I meant anything,—which, likely enough, I did not—”
“‘Horrible’ is so unlike you.”
“Now you flatter me.”
“Tell me, goose.”
“You say that the Don loves Mary. Then wouldn’t it be sad if Lucy loved him? And you tell me that Mary loves the Don. Now wouldn’t it be too bad if the Don loved Lucy? Ought not true love to run smooth if it can?”
Alice fixed her eyes upon Charley’s, and scanned his features long and intently. There was nothing to be seen there save a smile that was almost infantile in its sweetness and simplicity. “Do you think I am handsome?” asked he, languidly. “They tell me I am good.”
“Do you know, Mr. Frobisher, I sometimes think you know more about the— There she goes, and he after her!”
“Mr. Poythress,” Mary had said, laughing, “my defence of Byron has made my throat dry.”
“Nor did it lack much of making our eyes moist,” replied he, with a courtly inclination of his patrician head.
“Let me get you a glass of water,” interrupted the Don, moving towards the door.
“Ah, thank you, never mind.” And rising hastily, she made for the door with a precipitancy that vexed Alice; for she saw in it a pointed indication of unwillingness on Mary’s part to accept even this little service at the hands of the Don. She moved so rapidly that she had passed in at the door before the Don could reach it; but he, whether or not he interpreted her motives as Alice did, followed her within the house. Instantly the cloud that had passed over Alice’s face was gone, and a sudden smile shone forth. She sprang to her feet. “Why do we tarry here all the day? It is moved and seconded that we adjourn to the Hall. Fall in, company! Attention! Shoulder—I mean seize arms!” And skipping away from Charley, she laid hands upon Mr. Poythress (“You take Mrs. Poythress,” she had whispered to Charley; “that will make them all come”), and away they marched down the steps and across the lawn, towards the Hall, Alice leading with her rataplan, rataplan, and enacting a sort of combination of captain, drum-major, and vivandière.
Nothing so much delighted our slaves, in those days, as any jollity on the part of their masters. Happy and careless themselves, when they saw their betters unbend they realized more clearly, perhaps, that they were men and brothers.
“Lord ’a’ mussy!” cried Aunt Polly at the kitchen door, letting fall a dish-cloth.
“What dat, gal?” carelessly asked Uncle Dick, who sat breakfasting in his usual stately and leisurely fashion. Aunt Polly made no reply, being seized with a sudden paroxysm which caused her to collapse into half her normal stature. Straightening herself out again, and wiping her eyes with her apron, “Oh, Lord, how long!” she ejaculated, giving the door-sill two simultaneous flaps with slippers that were a world too wide. “What’s a-comin’ next? dat’s all I wants to know.” And she began to rock to and fro. Seeing her for the second time telescope into a three-foot cook:
“What de matter wid de gal?” said Uncle Dick, rising with dignity, and wiping his rather unctuous lips.
“’Fore Gaud,” cried his spouse, “I do b’lieve dat chile gwine to make everybody at Elmin’ton crazy befo’ she done. Mussiful heaven, jess look at ole mahrster, and he a-steppin’ high as a colt, and Miss Alice a-struttin’ jess like she had on a ridgimental unicorn, and a-backin’ and a-linin’ of ’em up wid her parasol! Forrard, march! Jess lissen at her sojer talk, and ain’t she a pretty little critter? No wonder Marse Charley ravin’ ’stracted ’bout her. Lor’, Dick, let de boy look!”
Zip, by a dextrous ducking of his head, had just evaded the sweeping palm of his chief. “What is dese young niggers a-comin’ to?” exclaimed this virtuous personage. “Boy, don’t you see dem flies.” And he pointed to the table he had just left. “And you a-gapin’ at de white folks, ’stid o’ mindin’ your business!”
One of the perquisites of Zip’s position as junior butler was waving a feather brush over the bald head of his senior when he sat at meat. Dick had elected him to this office on the plea of fotchin’ of him up in the way he should go; and, being a strict disciplinarian, had resented his abandoning the post of duty without orders.
Zip made a perfunctory dash, with his brush, at the flies,—whom, by the way, he somewhat resembled in disposition; for as you shall not ruffle the temper, or even hurt the feelings of one of these, during your afternoon nap, by a slap, be it ever so violent and contumelious, if it but miss him; so Zip-Moses accounted all blows that failed to reach that anvil-shaped head of his not as insults and injuries, but clear gain rather. Zip, therefore, was not long in finding his way back, on tiptoe, to where he could get a glimpse of what was going forward on the lawn; even as that reckless insect blanches not as he tickles the somnolent nose of a blacksmith; for hath he not his weather eye upon the doughty fist of his foe?
“Left face!” cried Alice; “forward, file right, march!” And her company went tumbling with bursts of laughter up the steps and into the Hall.
Lucy took her seat at the piano.
“Why, where is the Don?” asked my grandfather, looking round.
“Lucy has a new solo for us,” said Alice,—“perhaps,—” added she, conscience-stricken.
“Oho!” cried Mr. Whacker, settling himself.
“What new solo?” asked Lucy.
“That—what do you call it?” replied Alice, rather vaguely.
“The Sonata I have been learning?”
“Oh, yes; that’s what we want.”
Lucy struck the opening chords and began.
Charley leaned carelessly forward and whispered in Alice’s ear,—
“This is a solo; that?” And he nodded slightly in the direction of the house.
“A duet. What did you think of my manœuvre?”
“Immense!”
NOTICE TO THE PUBLIC.
BEING AN INTRODUCTION TO CHAPTER LI.
How and by how many cooks this broth has been brewed, our patrons have already been duly informed. Up to this point the firm, as a firm, has been responsible for everything that has been written; for though our Mr. Whacker, having the pen of a ready writer, has had the task of arranging our wares in show-cases, our silent partners have furnished the bulk of said wares. And we desire to say to the public that our joint labors have been, thus far, carried forward most joyously, and with perfect harmony.
Save only in one particular.
Our female associate has been grumbling, from the very first, at the treatment that Love has received at the hands of our Mr. Whacker. She has again and again protested against what she calls the mocking touches of his pencil, when he would portray that passion which is so tender, and yet hath power to move the world. He, on his side, has defended his handiwork, if not with success, at least with a certain manly vigor, having observed more than once that he could not for the life of him get it into his head how it could be High Art to make your heroes say in a book what a Christian would be hanged before he would say, or be overheard saying, at least, in real life; adding, with a tartness born of his wrangles at the Bar, that it passed his comprehension why authors should be at the pains of causing imaginary beings to make fools of themselves, when nature had served so many real ones that turn. In reply, our Alice said that, if that were so, they were but holding the mirror up to nature; a retort that seemed to dispose of our legal brother; and so our Alice was encouraged to go on and add (using the bluntness of a friend) that all this talk about love-making being an exhibition of an aggravated type of idiocy was, to use the mildest name, the merest affectation, and could have originated only in the brain of a sore-headed old bachelor, who is forever talking of marrying, but who has not the vaguest conception of what love really means. Our Charley, meanwhile, would only smoke and chuckle and chuckle and smoke, when we asked for his vote to end our controversy; and as his smoke-wreaths were perfectly symmetrical, inclining neither this way nor that, and as he chuckled on both sides of him, neither of us belligerents had the least pretext for claiming the victory. Yet, in the end, it was he who closed our debate.
“Jack-Whack,” said he (ever judicious), “turn about is fair play. Suppose we let Alice write this fifty-first chapter. Let it be hers entirely, and let her acknowledge it as such, while you may disown it.”
To this we are all agreed. In testimony whereof we have hereunto, etc., etc., etc.
| Charles Frobisher. | [Seal.] |
| Alice Ditto. | [Seal.] |
| John Bouche Whacker. | [Seal.✻] |
[✻Porpoise. Ha! ha! ha!]
When Charley came out with his Compromise Resolutions, Alice was at first much taken aback, turning red and white by turns; nor do I believe she would ever have consented, had I not permitted myself to smile a rather triumphant smile of defiance. It was then that, nettled by this, she brought down her plump little fist upon the table and cried, “I’ll do it.”
“Brava!” cried Charley, patting her on the back.
“And you, sir!” said she, turning upon him. “I don’t believe you think I can do it.”
“I believe you capable of anything.”
“Well, I will show you. Decamp forthwith, both of you!”
Charley and I decamped accordingly, and betook ourselves to a very pleasant beer-garden (for this colloquy chanced to be held in Richmond), where we spent a couple of hours. On our return we found Alice sitting with dishevelled hair and looking very disconsolate.
“Where is chapter fifty-one?”
Alice pointed rather snappishly to the waste-basket, in which lay several sheets of paper, torn into shreds.
“Ah!” said I, “let us put the pieces together, Charley, and see how she got on.” And Charley and I made for the basket. The result was a battle royal, at the end of which the shreds had become bits of the size of postage-stamps, mingled with which, all over the room, lay the ruins of the basket.
“You give it up, then?”
“Not for a moment,” replied she, panting.
A week passed before Alice summoned us to hear her chapter read. Not with a view to criticism, however; for it was agreed that neither Charley nor I should utter one word, either of praise or censure. Whatever she produced was to be printed just as she wrote it; and here it is, word for word, just as it came from her pen.
And if any reader, during its perusal, shall come to doubt whether it be, in truth, her production; if he shall fail to discover one solitary trait of our merry-sparkling, laugh-compelling enchantress, it will be but another proof that what people are has nothing to do with what they write. If, for example, the reader shall find this work dull—but enough.
Moving nearer the lamp, Alice read with a resolute spirit but faltering voice as follows:
CHAPTER LI.
BY ALICE FROBISHER, LOVE-EDITOR.
They stood face to face, these two; he with outstretched hand to receive the goblet which she held.
“I’d rather help myself.”
“Why? But of course, if you prefer it.” And he stood aside.
She glanced at his face. “Oh, I didn’t mean to be rude. Help me, then; thank you.” And barely moistening her lips (for somehow a choking sensation seized her), she handed him back the tumbler.
It is in our premonitions that we women have some compensation for our inferiority in strength to men. It was not an accident that the Pythia and the Sibyl were women. The delicate, responsive fibre of her nervous system makes every woman half a prophetess.
“You must have been parched with thirst,” said he, holding up the goblet, with a smile.
“I suppose it was only imagination.”
Trivial words; yet he knew and she felt that a crisis in their lives was at hand. It is thus, I am told, that soldiers will often joke and babble of nothings when crouched along the frowning edge of battle.
“Only imagination,” said he, catching at the words. (They were walking slowly, side by side, from the dining-room to the parlor.) “And is there anything else in life worth living for? The facts of life, what are they but dry crusts, the merest husks, which content the body, perhaps, while leaving the soul unsatisfied?”
It was to minor chords, as I have said somewhere above, that Mary’s nature gave readiest response; and these had been struck with no uncertain hand.
“You speak feelingly,” said she, without looking up.
“And no wonder; for of these husks of life—husks without a kernel—I have had my share; but of late—”
They had reached the parlor window and found the piazza deserted. How inconsistent is the human heart, more especially that of woman. Mary had longed to find herself alone, for one short quarter of an hour, with this man who had so troubled her peace. She had confidence in her woman’s tact,—felt sure that, if opportunity were given, she could pluck away the mask which concealed his heart, without revealing her own. Strangely enough, during all the time they had been under one roof, she had not had such an opportunity. This had, in fact, been one cause of her troubled curiosity. He had seemed studiously to avoid finding himself alone with her, and with her only of all the girls. It had come now,—come so suddenly,—and she trembled. She leaned out of the window.
“They are all gone,” said she, withdrawing her head and looking up at the Don with a scared look.
Was not that sinking of the heart a presage of sorrow? Would it not have been better for thee, poor child, to have hearkened to the voice of its Cassandra-throbs? Better to have hastened to the Hall, whence thou couldst even now hear issuing the sounds of merry music, and found safety in numbers? Something whispered this in her fluttering heart.
“But of late,” repeated the man of her destiny.
“Let us join our friends in the Hall,” said she, faintly.
Wise words, but spoken too late. Too late; for she felt herself compassed round about by a nameless spell that would not be broken; entwined in cords soft as silk but strong as fate.
“They seem to be getting on famously without us.”
“Yes, but I thought—”
“Thought what?”
“I thought you must be longing to hear Lucy play.” And she gave a hasty glance at his face.
There was a revelation in the look that met hers. The veil that had darkened her vision fell away. Through those glorious eyes of his, so full of tender flame, she saw into his heart of hearts; and no image of Lucy was imprinted thereon; nor had ever been. ’Twas her own, instead, sat enthroned there.
Wrung as she had been, for weeks, with conflicting emotions, the revulsion of feeling that now came over her was too great for her strength. Her knees tottered beneath her; the room swam before her eyes.
“Somehow I feel a little tired,” said she; and she sank down upon a sofa which stood near.
Where was all her tact gone? Was she not to unveil his heart while hiding her own?
All is fair in love and war; and in both the best-laid schemes are undone by a surprise. The enemy had found the citadel unguarded and rushed in.
“Will you allow me?” said he.
She made no reply beyond a faint smile, and he took his seat beside her.
“You spoke of music just now. Lucy has a charming touch; but I know a voice that is, to me at least, richer than all the harmonies of a symphony, softer than an Æolian harp, gentler than the cooing of a dove.”
She made a brave effort to look unconscious. “Oh, how beautiful it must be! How I should like to hear such a voice!”
“I hear it now! I am drinking it in!”
It was a draught which seemed to intoxicate him; and the circle of the spell which bound them grew narrower. She could feel his eager, frequent breath upon her cheek, whose burning glow lent a more liquid lustre to her dark eyes. They spoke little. What need of multiplying words? Did they not know all? Ah, supremest moment of our lives, and restfullest, when two souls rush together, at last, and are one!
Somehow, by chance, just then—if things which always manage to happen can be said to come by chance—somehow their hands met. Met somewhere along the back of the sofa, perhaps—but no matter.
Hardly their hands, either. It was the forefinger tip, merely, of his right hand that chanced to rest its weight across the little finger of her left.
A taper and a soft and a dainty little finger,—and a weak, withal. Why should it scamper off before it was hurt? After all, it was but an accident, perhaps, and a neighborly sort of accident, at the worst. Who could say that it was a bold, bad forefinger? Perhaps it did not know it was there!
And so that weak little digit lay there, still as a mouse, though blushing, blushing (ah me, how it did blush!), and all of a flutter.
After all, are not even strangers continually shaking hands? And if that be so, why should one run away, merely because—but the thing is not worth a discussion.
I have been much longer in telling it than it was in happening. The thrill had barely flashed through that rose-tipped little digit when he seized her hand, and taking it in both his, pressed it again and again to his heart; then the other; and drawing her towards him, bent over her and breathed into her ear words never to be forgotten. Not many, but strong,—vehement with long-suppressed passion.
As though a mountain-torrent had burst its bonds.
She had read of innumerable wooings and imagined many besides; but never one like this. She tried to speak, she knew not what, but her tongue refused to do its office.
“And have you no word for me? No little word of hope?”
She raised her eyes to his. It was but for a moment; for she could not longer withstand his impassioned gaze. But in that brief glance, half wondering, half shrinking, he read his answer, and in an instant she found herself enveloped in those mighty arms,—found herself lying across that broad chest, his right arm around her, his left supporting her head, that nestled with upturned face against his shoulder. With upturned face and closed eyes.
She had surrendered at discretion. When she felt herself, again and again, pressed to his heart, she made no protest;—gave no sign when he devoured her cheeks, her lips, with kisses, countless, vehement-tender,—lay upon that broad shoulder in a kind of swoon.
She had waited so long and it had come so suddenly, this cyclone of love!
Lay there upon that broad chest,—she so little,—with upturned face but closed lids, from beneath which forced their way drop after drop of happy tears. Happy tears? Did not they too tremble, tremble, as they lingered, waiting to be kissed away?
Lay there, nestled upon that strong arm, and drunk with the wine of young love; the past forgot, the future banished,—living in the present alone. A present, delicious, dreamy, and wrapped in rose-colored incense-breathing mist. Shutting out all the world save only him and her. From afar comes floating to her ear, from the Hall, the sound of muffled laughter,—comes floating the drowsy tinkling of the piano, meaningless and inane! All things else are shams. Love alone is real!
Yes, pillow thy head upon that arm, thy heart upon that hope, while yet thou mayest!
For dost not heed how within that deep chest, against which thy fair young bosom palpitates and flutters,—markest thou not how ’tis a lion-heart seems to beat therein? To beat thereunder with tempestuous thud, ominous of storm and wreck?
And those eyes, so wondrous tender now, and soft (for even if thou hast not stolen a look between thy dewy lids, thou hast felt their caressing glances), and those loving eyes? Hast forgotten how their changeful, bickering flashes once filled thy heart with dread, even before he was aught to thee?
If thou hast, dream on—dream on while thou mayest!