Through One Administration

by Frances Hodgson Burnett

"It will be generous of you to allow me a few additional privileges," Arbuthnot said; "an extra dance or so, for instance, on occasion; a few more calls that I am entitled to. Will you kindly, if you please, regard me in the light of a condemned criminal, and be lenient with me in my last moments?"

She did not refuse to be lenient with him. Much as he had been in the habit of enjoying the evenings spent in her parlor, he had never spent evenings such as fell to him in these last days. Somehow it happened that he found her alone more frequently. Mrs. Merriam had letters to write, or was otherwise occupied; so it chanced that he saw her as it had not been his fortune to see her very often.

But it was decided that he was to spend no more winters in Washington, for some time, at least; and, though he spent his evenings thus agreeably, he was making daily preparation for his departure, and it cannot be said that he enjoyed the task. There had been a time, it is true, when he would have greeted with pleasure the prospect of the change before him; but that time was past.

"I am having my bad quarter of an hour," he said, "and it serves me right."

But as the days slipped by he found it even a worse quarter of an hour than he had fancied it would be. It cost him an effort to bear himself as it was only discretion that he should. His one resource lay in allowing himself no leisure. When he was not otherwise occupied, he spent his time with his friends. He was oftenest with the professor and Bertha. He had some quiet hours in the professor's study, and in the parlor, where Bertha sat or lay upon the sofa before the fire. She did not allow herself to lie upon the sofa often, and refused to be regarded as an invalid; but Arbuthnot never found himself alone with her without an overpowering realization of the change which had taken place in her. But she rarely spoke of herself.

"There is nothing more," she said, once, "to say about me."

She was willing enough to speak of him, however, and of his future, and her gentleness often moved him deeply.

"We have been such good friends," she would say,—"such good friends. It is not often that a man is as true a friend to a woman as you have been to me. I wish—oh, I wish you might be happy!"

"It is too late," he would reply, "but I shall not waste time in complaining. I will even try not to waste it in regretting."

But he knew that he did waste it so, and that each passing day left a sharper pang behind it, and marked a greater struggle.