A Knight of the Nineteenth Century

by Edward Payson Roe

This was Mrs. Arnot's return for the small jealousy of her girlhood's friend.

He bowed his head, and after a moment replied: "Mrs. Arnot, I feel, I know, you are right. I thank you."

"Now you are my knight again," she said, her face suddenly lighting up. "But come; let us join the others, for they seem to have hit upon a very mirthful and animated discussion."

Laura's eye and sympathies took them in at once as they approached, and enveloped them in the genial and magnetic influences which she seemed to have the power of exerting. Although naturally and deeply interested in his interview with Mrs. Arnot, Haldane's eyes and thoughts had been drawn frequently and irresistibly to the object of his old-time passion. She was, indeed, very different from what he had expected. The diffident maiden, so slight in form and shy in manner, had not developed into a drooping lily of a woman, suggesting that she must always have a manly support of some kind near at hand. Still less had she become a typical belle, and the aggressive society girl who captures and amuses herself with her male admirers with the grace and sang froid of a sportive kitten that carefully keeps a hapless mouse within reach of her velvet paw. The pale and saint-like image which he had so long enshrined within his heart, and which had been created by her devotion to her mother, also faded utterly away in the presence of the reality before him. She was a veritable flesh-and-blood woman, with the hue of health upon her cheek, and the charm of artistic beauty in her rounded form and graceful manner. She was a revelation to him, transcending not only all that he had seen, but all that he had imagined.

Thus far he had not attained a moral and intellectual culture which enabled him even to idealize so beautiful and perfect a creature. She was not a saint in the mystical or imaginative sense of the word, but, as a queen reigning by the divine right of her surpassing loveliness and grace in even Hillaton's exclusive society, she was practically as far removed from him as if she were an ideal saint existing only in a painter's haunted imagination.

Nature had dowered Laura Romeyn very richly in the graces of both person and mind; but many others are equally favored. Her indescribable charm arose from the fact that she was very receptive in her disposition. She had been wax to receive, but marble to retain. Therefore, since she had always lived and breathed in an atmosphere of culture, refinement, and Christian faith, her character had the exquisite beauty and fragrance which belongs to a rare flower to which all the conditions of perfect development have been supplied. Although the light of her eye was serene, and her laugh as clear and natural as the fall of water, there was a nameless something which indicated that her happy, healthful nature rested against a dark background of sorrow and trial, and was made the richer and more perfect thereby.

Her self-forgetfulness was contagious. The beautiful girl did not look from one to another of the admiring circle for the sake of picking up a small revenue of flattery. From a native generosity she wished to give pleasure to her guests; from a holy principle instilled into her nature so long ago that she was no longer conscious of it, she wished to do them good by suggesting only such thoughts as men associate with pure, good women; and from an earnest, yet sprightly mind, she took a genuine interest herself in the subjects on which they were conversing.

By her tact, and with Mrs. Arnot's efficient aid, she drew all into the current of their talk. The three other young men who were Mrs. Arnot's guests that evening were manly fellows, and had come to treat Haldane with cordial respect. Thus for a time he was made to forget all that had occurred to cloud his life. He found that the presence of Laura kindled his intellect with a fire of which he had never been conscious before. His eyes flashed sympathy with every word she said, and before he was aware he, too, was speaking his mind with freedom, for he saw no chilling repugnance toward him in the kindly light of her deep blue eyes. She led him to forget himself and his past so completely that he, in the excitement of argument, inadvertently pronounced his own doom. In answer to the remark of another, he said:

"Society is right in being conservative and exclusive, and its favor should be the highest earthly reward of a stainless life. The coarse and the vulgar should be taught that they cannot purchase it nor elbow their way into it, and those who have it should be made to feel that losing it is like losing life, for it can never be regained. Thus society not only protects itself, but prevents weak souls from dallying with temptation."

So well-bred was Laura that, while her color deepened at his words, she betrayed no other consciousness that they surprised her. But he suddenly remembered all, and the blood rushed tumultuously to his face, then left it very pale.