"I'm thirty-two now. When I was nineteen--a year older than you--I cared for a man, and he for me. We cared for each other--terribly. But he was poor; and not only that, he came from people whom mine looked down upon. We loved each other so much, though, that I would have married him in spite of all; but my relations thought it would ruin my life, and they advised, and persuaded, and implored and insisted, until I was weak enough to give the man up. They took me to Europe, and because I had some money an Italian prince we met in Rome wanted to marry me. They almost argued me into consenting, and though they didn't quite, the news went home to Kentucky that I was engaged. The man I really loved--loved dearly all the time, though I was trying to forget him--believed it. Why shouldn't he, since I'd given him up for the reasons I had? He was Catholic, and he went into a monastery we have in Kentucky, and became a monk. No one ever wrote to me about it. All my friends thought the less I heard of him the better. And two years later, when I went back home--not engaged, and thinking in my heart that there was, and always would be, only one man for me in the world--it was to learn that that man had taken the final vows which would separate him from earthly love for ever.
"Oh, Betty, you don't know what I suffered. I'd been saying to myself that when I saw him again--as I meant to--I would know by his eyes at the first glance whether he still cared as much as ever, and if he did, I would ask him to marry me. But I never saw him again, except with the eyes of my heart; and I always see him so. Not an hour passes that I don't see him so."
"You poor darling!" I exclaimed. And there was a note in her voice that made my eyelids sting. "How little I guessed. And you seem so cheerful and even merry."
"One isn't in the world to be a wet blanket," said Sally. "Besides, one isn't actively miserable every minute, for years, because one has thrown away one's chance of real happiness. One gets along contentedly enough, except in the bad hours, when, instead of being a mild grey, the world is ink-black. But I haven't told you this to get sympathy, dear. It hasn't been quite easy telling, for I don't talk much about the deep-down things in myself. I've told you in the hope that you'll remember me, and my wasted years, if your chance comes to be happy--even if it should be a chance which you think, in a worldly way, wouldn't be prudent, or what your people would like. People have no right to try and order our lives, no matter how near they may be to us. It's we who have to live our lives, not they."
For a minute we were both silent; and then Sally said quietly, as if she were glad to speak, "Here comes someone we've seen before. Do you recognise him? And shall you bow?"
Vivace gave such a leap that his leash, which I'd been holding carelessly, was jerked out of my hand. It was my brown man who was coming--Jim Brett.
My face did feel red! Vivace was making such a fuss over him, that Sally could hardly help guessing whose the dog had been before he was mine. But I made the best of it. "Of course I recognise him, and of course I shall bow," said I. "He was very kind to me on the dock, when I was at letter B."
Sally didn't make any remark about Vivace's capers, though by this time he was wagging all over with joy at his master's feet, and jumping up to his knees. I was grateful to her.
In another moment we three had met, in the shady path, far away from everybody else, and Vivace began running back and forth between his master and me, as if he wanted to make us good friends, and not hurt either of our feelings.
"How do you do?" said I, holding out my hand. "What a coincidence, meeting you here. And my dear little dog that somebody sent me, does seem to take an extraordinary fancy to you, doesn't he?"