He stayed for dinner; he talked to Mr. Brookes about painters in the billiard-room; he strayed through the shadows and the perfumes of leaves and flowers through the gentle moonlight with his arms about the girls. And as they walked it seemed to Frank that his life was so mingled with theirs that he could not think of one sister apart from the other. The dusk gathered; the sky became a decoration in blue and gold; the scent of the sea came over the embankment, filling the garden. Day followed day, without anything happening to stay or check the gentle tide of their mutual affections; neither was jealous of her sister, for their desires were set upon others. Frank was but an ideal, a repose, a pious aspiration which joined their hands and hearts leaving them free of any stress of passion, Maggie claiming him a little more than Sally, and Sally yielding her claim to her without knowing that she was yielding it.
It is only natures that are never gross—calm and tepid livers—that are really incapable of ideality, of real and adequate aspiration; nature works by flux and reflux; and if we waive the rough temper and the coarse edge of passion due to youth, it will not be impossible to conceive another picture of these girls. Sally, good-hearted and true, full of sturdy, homely sense, willing to take care of a man's money, and make him a straightforward wife; Maggie, gentle and sinuating—always a little false, but always attractive, the enchantment of a man's home. Frank, notwithstanding his genuine admiration of all that was young and sweet and pure, was of poor and separating fibre, and it is clear that it will take all the strength of society to support him and save him from sinking of his own weight.
One day, as he was coming through the station from the post-office, he met Maggie with a young man. He was introduced, and they returned to the Manor House to play tennis. Instead of playing they talked, and the set fell through, and after tea they disappeared, and Sally proposed not to disturb them, for they had gone, she said, to sit in the shade at the end of the garden. The marked mystery of the new flirtation piqued Frank's curiosity, and, striving to veil his question, he asked Sally who the young man was, and if her father knew he was coming to the Manor House.
“He! Don't you know? That's the fellow we often speak of—the only fellow Maggie ever really cared for. He has just come back from America. He is going to begin business in London.”
A sickening pain rose from his heart to his eyes, and he longed to place his hand on his heart.
“So that is the man she is engaged to,” he said, after a pause. “I remember, now, you have spoken to me of him.”
“She is not exactly engaged to him. Father would never hear of it; he hasn't a cent, and I believe he lost the little he had in America—now mind you must take care not to let out to father that he has been here; there would be the deuce of a row, and I promised Maggie not to tell any one; she has been nice to me lately, and I want to play fair with her if she will play fair with me.”
“Oh, I won't tell any one; I won't even let Maggie know that I know it was he.”
“It doesn't matter about Maggie, she will tell you herself, no doubt; she doesn't mind your knowing. What do you think of him? Isn't he nice-looking?”
“I confess I should never have thought of calling him handsome—would you? And do you think he is quite a gentleman?”