Chaste as Ice, Pure as Snow: A Novel

by C. Despard

He shrugged his shoulders: "That, I fancy, is your affair, my little cousin; you seem to take a delight in snapping me up, now-a-days; which being the case, what can I do but submit and give your woman's wit material to work upon?"

Adèle pouted: "Of course it is anybody's fault but your own, Arthur; but that's always the way with boys—they can't possibly be in fault."

Arthur rose from his seat: "This may be, and no doubt is, highly interesting to you, Adèle. I can't say that I feel the charm of sparring; but then, as you politely observe, I am only a boy, and boys are often unappreciative of women's fine sallies, therefore I think the boy must beg to be excused."

He held out his hand. Adèle was on the point of taking him at his word and allowing him to leave her, but when she looked up at him her mood changed suddenly, for, after all, only her affection had made her peevish. It was a difficult task Adèle had set herself on that day when Arthur first let her into the secret of his love. She had begun grandly. In her, as in many of her sisters, the spirit of self-sacrifice was strong. On the altar of her great love for her cousin, her enthusiastic admiration for the woman of his choice, she had been ready to immolate everything; she would throw her own wishes, her hopes, her future joy to the winds, so that they might be happy; and if in that first moment she could have consummated her sacrifice, could have given them one to the other, she would have done it freely, whatever it might have cost herself. But the daily annoyance her sacrifice entailed; the obligation of listening to her cousin's rhapsodies; the knowledge that though with her in body his mind was far away; even the light way in which he treated her unselfish exertions in his interest,—all these were somewhat hard to bear.

In the conflict Adèle's health was giving way; she grew peevish and irritable. Her gayety and lightheartedness departed, she was not the amusing companion she had once been, and her cousin's visits were in consequence fewer. When he did come, it was only to pour out his heart on the subject which engrossed him—Margaret Grey. Generally she listened patiently, with an appearance of interest and sympathy; and this was all he desired. Arthur did not mean to be unkind—he was one of the most good-natured of his sex—but he had been so much accustomed to consider that what interested him would of necessity interest Adèle that he could not have thought he was giving her pain, and with his every visit planting pin-pricks in her poor little heart.

When, therefore, as sometimes happened in these days—for Adèle's weakness was beginning to prey upon her nerves—she showed herself impatient, was unsympathetic or irritable, Arthur was, as on this occasion, surprised and offended, and deprived her for some days of the pleasure of his society.

But this time Adèle would not let him go off in ill-temper. She looked up, and her woman's heart was moved to self-forgetfulness. "Don't go yet, dear," she said, her voice trembling in spite of strenuous efforts to be calm; "you must forgive my pettishness. I think what mamma says is true. I can't be very well just now. And you look pale and ill, my poor old fellow; you shut yourself up too much with your books. You should leave London and go to some seaside place for a time."

"I scarcely think the books are to blame, Adèle." Arthur gave a little sigh and glanced furtively at the mirror. Through all his new earnestness he had preserved the boyish weakness of a certain pleasure in interesting delicacy. "One must do something," he continued, pacing the room restlessly, "and I've been too long an idle good-for-nothing. I think I have literary tastes. I have been looking up the classics with a view to a novel—something in Bulwer's style, you know, the scene laid in Athens during her palmy days; or perhaps Palmyra, with all the details in the true antique. My heroine must be Greek, fine classic features, and that kind of thing. I have a grand description in my head. Shall I give it to you?"

Adèle smiled: "I think I could give it myself. Certainly I know the model. Am I right?"

Arthur had taken a seat again; he buried his head in his hands: "I have had such a mad idea, Adèle. But no; to do her justice in any description would be impossible, absolutely impossible. It's easy enough to write about dark eyes and fine features and golden hair, but that would not be Margaret. It is the wonderful look in her face, that kind of spiritual beauty belonging neither to form nor coloring, which gives it its chief charm."