Edith Lyle

by Mary Jane Holmes

He held both his arms toward her, and Gertie, unmindful of everything and seeing nothing but the look in Godfrey’s eyes and the arms held to her, went straight into them, thinking to herself, “For just this once,—I may be happy with him.”

And she was happy, and Godfrey, too,—and people looked admiringly at the handsome pair, and strangers asked who the beautiful girl with the bright hair and simple dress was, and where she came from.

I was at the party that night, and stood very near to Alice, when Gertie came in and was snatched up so quickly by Godfrey. I had heard him announce his intention not to dance, and ask Alice to go with him where it was cooler, and Alice had taken a step toward the door when Gertie came and changed the entire aspect of affairs.

“Godfrey,” I heard Alice say, as her lover moved away from her, but Godfrey was deaf and blind to everything but the girl on his arm, and Alice called in vain.

Godfrey had teased her for her red face, but it was pale enough now, and her small eyes had in them a greenish light as they followed Godfrey’s tall form and caught occasional glimpses of Gertie’s long, bright curls which came below her waist and were the wonder of the room. Alice was very indignant, and when the question was put to her, “Who is that beautiful girl dancing with Mr. Schuyler?” she stood on tiptoe, and pretending to be looking toward the dancers, answered with suppressed bitterness:

“Oh, that is Gertie Westbrooke, a girl who lives with Mrs. Schuyler, and sees a little to Arthur,—a kind of nursery governess, I believe.”

“Ah, yes, thank you,” and Mrs. Jamieson, from Philadelphia, put up her glass to look again at the girl “who lived with Mrs. Schuyler and was a kind of nursery governess.”

Meanwhile Godfrey and Gertie were unmindful of everything but the fact that for a brief space they were together, hand touching hand in a clasp of love rather than form, and eye meeting eye with a sad, remorseful kind of pitying tenderness, as if each knew they were tasting forbidden fruit and for the last time, too. This, at least, was Godfrey’s thought. To-morrow it would all be over, and he would be Alice’s again, but to-night he was Gertie’s and she was his, and he abandoned himself to the delight until he seemed intoxicated with happiness. He had never danced with her since the memorable church sociable years ago, when she was a little, airy, restless humming-bird, who had infused something of her own life and elasticity into his rather languid movements and made him try to be worthy of his partner. Gertie was very young then, and no thought of calling her his had entered Godfrey’s heart, where now the sad refrain was repeating itself over and over again, “It might have been, It might have been.”

There was another dance, and another, and then Godfrey led Gertie out upon the west balcony where he had proposed taking Alice, and where he now sat down with Gertie at his side, and looking into her eyes of blue forgot the eyes of gray which had followed his every movement, and in which were little gleams of fire when they saw him going out, and the care he took to wrap Gertie’s cloak around her arms and shoulders. It certainly was not chance which led Alice that way; she went on purpose with a group of heated girls eager for a breath of air, and her garments swept against Gertie’s as she went by, and the green eyes looked at Godfrey with a look he understood and did not resent, for he knew that he deserved it, but he was not penitent and he did not give Gertie up until his father, who had been talking politics in a distant room, and did not know of his son’s misdemeanor, came to find her and take her out to supper. Then Godfrey went in quest of Alice, but she was already appropriated by a young Bostonian, who waxed his mustache and wore a quizzing glass on his nose, and her only answer was a little defiant snort when Godfrey said: “I see I am too late.” So Godfrey took me out and was restless and excited and full of life and fun. But I saw that his spirits were forced, and that his eyes went often to the part of the room where Gertie stood, surrounded by a group of gentlemen who were ostensibly talking to Colonel Schuyler, but really admiring her as the most beautiful lady there. Alice was standing near us, and once Godfrey offered her some lobster salad with a comical look on his face, but Alice did not take it or respond to him in any way, and I knew there was a quarrel in store for him, and pitied him because he was answerable for his actions to that little pug-nosed lady whose only attraction, beside a certain grace and piquancy of manner, was thirty thousand a year.

I do not think she spoke to him again that night, and I know she did not ride home with him, for I saw the four girls from the Hill stowed away with Colonel Schuyler, and heard Godfrey tell his father not to send the carriage back, as he and Robert preferred to walk. And so the party was over and one heart at least was sadder for it, and one was in a wild tumult of joy and regret as it recalled glances and tones which meant so much and which had come too late to be of any avail.