“Dear Evelyn,” I said, while she started as one aroused from sleep; “shall we not soon go to the country? You look far from well—and Ella would cull fresh roses at the sea, or at Baden.”
“Ella is very well,” she answered listlessly, “and attends her classes daily. I, too, am well enough,” and she heaved a sigh so heartsore it was almost a sob.
“Indeed, dearest, you have been suffering for three weeks—ever since the last ball at the Tuilleries, when you looked like a sunset cloud, as Mr. D’Arcy said.” She gave a short, quick start, “all in golden colored tulle and hazy blonde. I never saw you look more lovely.”
“Not enough,” returned Evelyn gloomily, “would I were a thousand times more beautiful. Even then,” she whispered, as if to herself, “I should not match with the matchless.”
“Is it possible? and are you serious?” I said, painfully alive to her emotion; “is your happiness so entirely involved in—”
“In him. Yes, my kind—my too forbearing friend. Evelyn, the once idolized, petted, spoiled—the capricious, the heartless coquette—the once proud beauty—loves for the first time, with that love which is her doom. His presence is my light and life; his absence my soul’s despair. And yet, Mary, not one word of love has he ever spoken; and since that ball he has never been here—never written—he so exact, so chivalrous in his politeness. Oh, Mary, why—why this so sudden change?”
She fixed her sad eyes, round which were two dark circles—sign of many a sleepless night—imploringly on my face.
“I will find out for you,” I said; “you shall at least be spared the pangs of suspense.”
“Ah, me!” she murmured, “men little know the hours of patient watching and waiting we poor women suffer. ’Tis not to be wondered at we make the best Christians—‘the patience of hope.’ I understand it now.”
I took a coupé, and in less than an hour I had returned, for D’Arcy resided in the Rue Castiglione.