Towards evening Ida slowly and languidly dressed for supper, and then sauntered down to the main piazza for a little fresh air.
The poor girl did not exaggerate the shadow that had fallen upon her association with Sibley, and her supposed grief and resentment at his treatment. Two or three whom she met bowed coldly and distantly, and one passed without recognition. Even Jennie Burton had been indignant all day that one of her sex could be infatuated with such a fellow; and in her charitable thoughts she would be glad to explain such perversity as the result of a disordered and uncurbed fancy, rather than of a depraved heart.
It was not strange, however, that she should suppose Ida's manner and indisposition were caused by Sibley's ignominious ejectment from the house, when her own mother and cousin shared the same view.
What an unknown mystery each life is, even to the lives nearest to it!
As with slow, heavy steps, Ida approached the main entrance, she noted the distant manner of those she met, and divined the cause; but her apathy was so great that neither anger nor shame brought the faintest color to her cheeks.
She stood in the doorway and looked out a few moments; but the lovely summer landscape, with the cool shadows lengthening across it, was a weariness, and she turned from it as the miserable do from sights that only mock by their pleasant contrast.
The piazza was nearly empty, but before she stepped out upon it she saw not far away a gentleman reading, who at last did cause the blood to rush tumultuously into her face.
At another time she would have turned hastily from him; but in her present morbid mood she acted from a different impulse. The artist had not observed her approach, and standing a little back in the shadow of the hall-way she found a cruel fascination in comparing the man she loved with the low fellow whose shadow now fell so darkly across her own character. She looked steadily at his downcast face until every line and curve in his strong profile was impressed on her memory. In the healthful color of his finely-chiseled features there were no indications of that excess which already marred Sibley's countenance. The decided contour corresponded with the positive nature. The unhappy girl felt instinctively that if he were on her side, he would be a faithful ally; but if against her, she would find his inflexible will a granite wall against all the allurements of her beauty. The face before her indicated a man controlled by his higher, not lower nature; and in her deep humiliation she now felt that even if he knew all that was passing in her heart, he would bestow only transient pity, mingled with contempt.
She believed she could hope for nothing from him; and yet, did not that belief leave her hopeless? To what else, to whom else could she turn? Nothing else, no one else then seemed to promise any help, any happiness. Her wretched experience had come as unexpectedly as one of those mysterious waves that sweep the sunny shore of Peru. Whither it would carry her she did not know, but every moment separated her more hopelessly from him who appeared like an immovable rock in his quiet strength.
She was turning despondently away when she heard Jennie Burton's voice, and a moment later that young lady mounted the adjacent steps and said to Van Berg: