Lettice Deane, returning home in the same omnibus, sat opposite. She raised her eyebrows, looking in the speaker's face, her nostrils quivered, and the corners of her mouth, and then she buried her face in her handkerchief and laughed silently; or, at least, so thought Mrs Denwiddie, who returned her look with one of blackest indignation, calling her, in her own mind, "A sassy brat, and that stuck-up as no self-respectin' woman would demean herself by taking account of."
And the modern illustrations of Adam and Eve walked cheerfully homeward along the sands. It was indeed Eden to one of them--an Eden such as she had never hoped to enter, so bright that she could not think what she had done to earn it. As for the other, it did not appear exactly what were his thoughts, but he was cheerful, and perfectly kind and attentive to his companion.
At dinner, Gilbert and Maida were early in their places. They had earned an appetite by their long walk, and were duly hungry. Gilbert's soup was before him, his spoon was lifted half-way to his mouth, when the voices of a party in high spirits entering the room reached his ear. The tone of a familiar voice among the others drew his attention, and he raised his eyes. Senator Deane and his wife headed their party, advancing up the room; behind came Lettice and Rose Hillyard. Gilbert started, and the spoon slipped from his fingers and fell back in the plate with a clatter which resounded through the room.
Rose's eye was drawn in the direction, and she saw him. She grew pale to the lips and faltered, with a stop and a half-turn, as though she would leave the room; then her colour flooded back and mounted to her brow, her lips grew hard and set, and with a flash of the eye she turned away her head and walked proudly forward to her place; taking care that her back should be turned to the object which had disturbed her.
Gilbert's blood had rushed into his face when their eyes met, but he grew pale when she turned away, and he did not very speedily recover himself. His soup was taken away untasted, and he refreshed himself with ice-water instead.
Maida was filled with tender solicitude, and he would have been overwhelmed with her inquiries and suggestions, if he had been attending to what she said; but it scarcely seemed as if he were. "Was it a qualm? Was he faint? Did he feel better now? Perhaps his heart was weak, and he had over-exerted himself in the sun. She would never forgive herself for taking him so long a walk. Would he not try some wine?" which last was an ill-advised question, seeing they were then in the State of Maine, where strong drink is not partaken of in public. Not that an innkeeper's guests must go without--far from it; but they must imbibe their stimulants sub rosâ, though the concealment is merely of a conventional kind.
Gilbert ate very little dinner, and poor Maida never taxed her skill to interest and enliven, with less success than during that meal. Her companion attempted to eat one thing and another, and he drank ice-water, but he had become deaf as the adder which refuses to hear the voice of the charmer. He parted from her at the dining-room door, saying he would go in search of brandy, as he really felt ill; and Maida ended the Sunday which had begun so brightly, in solicitude and wretchedness. She might have had as much sympathy as she pleased from her elderly friend, but the unending Denwiddie babble was more than she could endure. It was easier to be alone and nurse her anxiety. There was a foreboding on her spirit which she could not define, a clouding over of the future and its dawning hopes, which she felt but could not explain. Nothing had happened, so far as she knew, but she felt a frost in the air, which had been so warm and bland, and it was nipping the blossoms in her poor fool's paradise.
CHAPTER XXV.
[ROSE AND THE RING].
When Rose was left alone with Margaret in the fisherman's hut, she sat down upon a bench before the fire and gazed into the embers, falling into a reverie in which ideas not all pleasurable chased each other as fitfully as the leaping flames which licked the new-laid log, as if searching for a spot on which they might fasten and take hold. Her companion sat by and wondered at her silence. She had been so gay a little before, while the men were still with them, and now her lips were tightly closed, and there came an angry frown upon her brow. That changed into a look of triumph and disdain, which faded in its turn into one almost soft and pitiful; and that in time gave place to one of sadness, and she sighed, and her features fell into the desponding look of one who bids adieu to hope. She moved impatiently, as if to shake off brooding thoughts which were settling down to oppress and stifle her--as some stricken animal might struggle to beat back the greedy kites swooping down to tear their prey, ere death had prepared the feast. She roused herself with an effort, and turned to speak.