“It’s chilly here. Let’s go in.”
She slipped her arm from mine and led the way back. She said no word for the rest of the evening, while I exerted myself to talk to her father, and left as soon as I could make the opportunity. But I knew that she was not deceived, then or later, by my new, almost hostile attitude of aloofness.
* * * * *
The damage was done. From that day we never really talked to each other. And here a curious thing happened. Until then there had been no mistaking her preference for me. It was so open that every one saw it,—her father, my brothers, everybody. In fact, it was rather looked upon as a matter of course that eventually we should marry. I knew this. There are things which do not deceive us and in the attitude of Mr. Brinsmade there was even more than consent, though on the part of the mother I felt an increasing antagonism.
Now, over night, all was changed. We avoided the moments of intimacy which had come so naturally. Her attitude became the extreme of capriciousness. I knew I had blundered and believed that the blunder was irreparable, but when I would deliberately refrain from seeing her, she was certain to call me up and insist upon my coming to dinner. Yet the moment I was in her presence she was so silent and so moody that I always returned with a feeling of hopelessness and disillusionment. Hurt and miserable, my pride drove me to assume an attitude of raillery, which crystallized in a studious assumption of tolerant amusement and an apparent refusal to see in her anything but a wayward child. She resented this and never let pass an occasion to rouse my jealousy. I was, in turn, mortified, proud, and angry.
My old doubts returned and, forgetting how much my own attitude could excite irritation; forgetting how young she was in the knowledge of her own needs; forgetting all that we had built upon together, I saw her only as an inconscient child, disdaining the toy which she had finally acquired. As her mother was, so I felt she would inevitably become, and I ceased to believe that the memory of our talks and the natural, kindly impulses in her would ever be strong enough to counteract the craving for the baubles of vanities which to-morrow would be thrown into her lap.
What hurt me most was the seeming ungenerosity of her attitude,—that after the years of unswerving loyalty and protection I had given her she should now adopt towards me the methods of a coquette. It ended on a trifle. There was a scene of petty jealousy—I cannot recall it now without astonishment—a dance accorded and withdrawn,—nothing more. And yet for that, the course of two lives was irretrievably affected. Perhaps this was but the pretext. We were both high-spirited, both too young to understand life’s values or the emotions which swayed us, and both too proud to yield the first. For a moment’s pique, we parted in anger,—I have never seen her since. A month later I left for Paris, to take up the study of architecture. Milestone Number 2.
The memory quickly receded. I was, of course, too young myself to have been truly capable of love. Yet to-day, as I look back, but for that one instant’s wavering, I can see how my whole life would have run. From time to time I followed her career, saw her photograph in the public fashion show blazoned forth in newspaper and periodical; read occasional news of her reported engagements, and then, lost in the maelstrom of a malevolent infatuation, I put her finally from my mind, as at that time I put from me all memories of a life where quiet, order and simple ideals dominated.
I cabled home my decision to enlist. A month later, among the frantic letters from the family, I found one from her.