The night was warm, and he saw Miss Wildmere and Arnault going out for a stroll. Following a half-defined inclination, he bent his steps toward the lake. The moon was mirrored in its glassy surface, the place silent and deserted. With slight effort of fancy he called up the scene again. He saw in the moonlight the fairy form of the child, and what even others had regarded as the embodiment of human loveliness and truth bending over it.
"And she was the little ghost that once haunted me," he thought, "and seemed all eyes and affection. How those eyes used to welcome and turn to me, as if in some subtle way she drew from me the power to exist at all. I wish I could follow the processes of her change from the hour of our parting, and see how I passed from what I was to her to what I am now. She does not seem to forget or ignore the past. She is not conventional, and never was; hence, friendship may not mean what it does to so many of her sex and age—a little moony sentiment blended with calculation as to a fellow's usefulness. If we could enjoy something of the good-comradeship that obtains between man and man, she is the one woman of the world with whom I should covet the relation. Stella, in herself, is all that I could ask for a wife, but I don't like her family much better than Henry does. Confound the father! Why should he so mix his daughter up in his speculation that she dare not dismiss Arnault at once and follow her heart? If I were not a good-natured man I wouldn't submit to it. As it is, since I am sure of the girl, I suppose I should give paterfamilias a chance to turn himself. She has appealed to me as delicately, yet as openly, as she can, and has given me to understand by everything except plain words that she is mine. Probably that is all she can do without bringing black ruin upon them all. Well, I suppose I should imitate her self-sacrificing spirit; but I hate this jumbling of Wall Street with affairs of the heart. It angers me that she must play with that fellow for financial reasons, and that he, conscious of power, may use language which she would not dare to resent. I can't imagine Madge in such a position. Yet, who knows? As the French say, 'It is the unexpected that happens,' and this has proved true enough in my experience. I'll go and see how Madge is now, and be as penitent as she requires. I don't mind being tyrannized over a little by such a girl;" and he returned.
As he approached Mrs. Muir's door he heard the sound of voices and laughter, and plainly those of his brother and Madge. In response to his knock Mrs. Muir opened the door a little way, and he caught a glimpse of Henry.
"Well?" said Mrs. Muir.
"It's not well at all," he began, in an aggrieved tone. "Here's a family party, and I'm shut out in outer darkness. What have I done to be banished from Rome?"
"'What's banished but set free?'" trilled out Madge. "Oh, Graydon, I'm not fit to be seen!"
"How can I know that unless I see you?"
"Nonsense, Madge!" expostulated her sister, "you look charming. Why put on airs? As he says, it's a family party. Let him join in our fun;" and, without waiting for further objections, she brought him in and gave him a chair.
"Now this warms an exile's heart," he began. "If you had shut the door on me I should have asked Henry to send me back to Europe. Mary's right, Madge; you do look charming."
And so she did, blushing and laughing in her dainty wrapper, with her long hair falling over her shoulders and fastened by a ribbon.