Society soon began to couple his name with Eva’s, predicting that it would certainly be a match, and a very suitable one.
As Eva stood in the window gazing out at the fast-falling snow and listening to the merry jingle of sleigh bells, she was thinking, somewhat ruefully, of this same Reginald Hamilton, saying to herself:
“Poor Reggie, I am afraid I cannot stave off a declaration from him much longer, and I wish I knew how I could refuse him without giving mortal offense to everybody. I can see that auntie has her heart quite set on the match, and that papa silently approves, while as for Reggie himself, it is plain to be seen, despite all the snubs he gets from me, that he thinks he has only to ask and have! He is spoiled by the adulation of all the girls, and I suppose he cannot conceive of any one refusing him.”
A long, long sigh quivered over her lips. Her bosom heaved beneath the rich lace fastened with violets, costly as jewels at that season. The diamonds on her rosy fingers flashed as she clasped them together and raised them almost appealingly to Heaven.
“Oh, if I could but forget that other!” she half sobbed; “if I could but forget that other, I would be willing to do what they wish! After all, Reggie is very nice, and very handsome, too, and he has been kind to me always—kind and patient; for he must see I am putting him off every way I can. Perhaps he believes me only coquetting and meaning to take him at the last. How disappointed he will be when I refuse him! I pity him, for I know all the pain of hopeless love!”
She walked up and down the length of the long drawing-room, her little hands interlocked, her dark eyes full of burning tears.
“Oh, my lost love!” she moaned. “How cruel it is that I cannot forget you! I ought to hate you for your deception, for the fraud by which you won my heart! I told you I would never forgive you, too, but can one love without forgiving? Ah, yes, yes, yes; for if he appeared before me at this moment I should send him away from me. I should look at him with cold, proud eyes in which he could read nothing but pride and indifference; I should speak to him scornfully, as to one I hated; I should tell him to leave my presence at once and forever!”
A bursting sob swelled her throat as she added:
“He would obey me and go, but as he went, the reproachful glance of his dear dark-blue eyes would pierce my heart like a sword. When he was gone I should sink on my knees and ask God to let me die because I could not have him I loved so madly for my own; because the barrier of senseless hate stood between us; because my cousin’s blood cried out against our union!”
She went back and looked out of the window as if she could see him going away from her fancied dismissal, with his heart as heavy as her own, but she could not even see the great snowflakes falling, she was so blinded by her hot tears.