“Poor girl! I have always told you not to put your trust in a broken reed—alias man. You did so, and you have got a wound for your pains. But, Yanna, my dear, what is now the good of crying for the moon; that is, for a man who is not a broken reed? I advise you to see Harry.”
“I cannot. See him for me. Please.”
“What am I to say? You know how apt I am to speak the uppermost thought.”
“You will say nothing wrong. Do not tell father anything.”
“There I think you are wrong. Cousin Peter has intuitive wisdom—woman’s wisdom, as well as man’s craft.”
“However, say nothing to-night. Make some excuse for me; for I must be alone.”
So Miss Alida left the sorrowful girl; but as she disrobed herself, she muttered: “What a miracle of ill-luck! I thought something unpleasant would come of Yanna’s high spirits—the girl was what the Scotch call 177 fey. Harry Filmer is a born fool, and a cultivated fool, and a reckless fool, and every other kind of a fool! Indeed, he is not a fool, he is the fool of the universe. Everything in his hand, and he could not hold it! I will give him a lecture to-night—if he comes to-night, which I doubt. That siren has him in a net, he will go to the opera to see her dance; he will forget Yanna, and then, to-morrow, he will talk of a headache—or an important engagement—and Yanna will despise him far more than if he told the whole truth. To-morrow, of course, for I am sure he will not come to-night; and it is Yanna’s last night in the city, too. Men take the heart out of you if you mind their goings-on.”
Miss Alida was right. Harry did not call, and Peter sat and talked with Miss Alida, worrying a little all the time about his daughter’s sickness. And he was glad when Yanna sent to ask him if he could be ready for the early train; for Peter felt that the end of the visit had come, and that no pleasure could be obtained by drawing out what was already finished. So, while it was yet very early in the morning, Peter and Yanna went away; and Yanna was unavoidably sad, and yet, in the midst of her sadness, she was conscious of that strange gratification which we may call a sense of completeness. Even to the painful events of her visit, it gave her that bitter-sweetness that all experience when they watch a lover out of sight or the last red spark die out of the gray ashes that were once love letters. One chapter of life was finished. Yes, she told herself, quite finished in some respects. She had watched Harry leave her in a way that she felt must be final. And Antony and Rose had gone to their own life. When they returned, Antony would be 178 changed, and Rose would be changed, and she also would be changed. Nothing could ever again be just as it had been.
A few hours after Peter and his daughter had left the city, Miss Alida was sitting with an open book in her hand. Her life had not been without love and lovers, and she was remembering rather than reading when she saw Harry coming up the steps to the door. She knew that he expected to take lunch with Adriana and then go with her to the Railway Station; and she smiled faintly at the disappointment in store for him. As he came near the parlor door, she let her eyes fall upon the book, and she did not lift them until Harry said:
“Reading, Cousin Alida! Pray, what interests you so early in the day?”