"And the third wish," he said, musingly, "follows naturally on the other. You never, in this whirl of gaiety—never, I suppose, get a chance to think?"
"Not a moment," she returned, triumphantly. "All my time is occupied, I'm glad to say, in being amused. That's hard work, too, sometimes, but then—the game is worth the candle."
"Well," he said "you are, I admit, a very fortunate young woman, and you have my congratulations. There are not many people whose wishes are fulfilled, as quickly and absolutely as yours have been."
"No," she said, with sudden thoughtfulness "that is very true." She sat for a moment staring straight before her, with the look in her eyes which had puzzled and haunted him in the pictured eyes at which he had looked awhile before. "Do you know," she said at last, speaking very low and hesitatingly, "it's very absurd, but it—sometimes it frightens me a little. Do you remember in Greek history—or was it mythology?—there was a king who had every wish fulfilled, till he grew at last to feel that it—was dangerous; he offered up sacrifices to the gods, he tried to escape but it was all of no use. Everything went well with him, till at last—his fate overtook him. And so I think, sometimes—mine will."
"Your fate?" Gerard repeated, utterly taken aback and puzzled.
"Yes, the penalty," she said, quickly "of having too much. I have an odd idea sometimes that there is—there must be some misfortune in store for me; that I shall pay for all this yet in some terrible way which no one expects. Oh, it's perfectly absurd, I know, but still I—I can't help it." She had turned of a sudden very white, and she stared up at Gerard with a frightened, mute appeal in her eyes, like that of some dumb animal or a child.
To him she seemed all at once very young and helpless, a being to be soothed and protected; very different from the gay, self-possessed young woman of a few minutes before. "My dear child," he said, very gently, yet with a note of authority, and laying his hand ever so lightly on the delicately gloved hand that rested on her muff "you're nervous and over-wrought. You couldn't otherwise have such a morbid idea. This eternal going-out has got on your nerves. I wish you would promise me to stay at home for a day or two. You will, won't you?" he asked, persuasively.
"Yes, I—I will," she said, mechanically, and still looking very white. "I'm over-tired, as you say."
"And now don't talk," he went on, peremptorily. "I'll get you a glass of water, and then I want you to sit quietly here, and not say a word, till you are better."
She shook her head. "I'm quite well, and I don't want anything," she protested, but he brought the glass of water and made her drink it, and then watched her anxiously, while the color slowly came back to her face, and her eyes lost their strained, appealing look. They sat in silence; he would not let her speak, and as time passed, a great calm insensibly stole over her, a feeling of peace, of security, such as she had not known in all those weeks of fevered gaiety. She was conscious vaguely of a wish that she might sit thus always, saying nothing, alone with him—all the more alone as it seemed for the crowd that was beginning to surge into the room, with a murmur that broke faintly upon her ear, like the sound of the sea a long way off.