It seemed to me as if I had never lived before. Unlike the untutored passion of my extreme youth, my happiness was calm and reflective, but none the less satisfying. Under its sway I found it a comparatively easy task to overcome the querulousness and revive the hopes of Aunt Helen on my return home. It was my desire, of course, to avoid any further deception, and I sought refuge in silence, beyond the statement that the future Duke of Clyde had gone to the West without making any definite proposal. But I assured her that he was certain to visit us within a few months.
I took up the round of my avocations as if nothing had happened. We had hired a cottage at Newport for the summer, and there I ensconced myself, and strove by means of books and friends to keep the alternate exuberance and depression of my spirits within bounds. But though I was at times melancholy for a sight of my lover, joy was chiefly predominant in my heart,—so much so that people commented on my cheerfulness, and Aunt Helen dropped occasional hints which led me to believe she cherished secretly the opinion that I was enamoured of her idol.
My visits to Mr. Chelm's office were of course renewed. I told him that I had visited the street where the office of Francis Prime and Company was situated, and had been pleased at getting a glimpse of it. In answer to my questions as to what he thought of the progress of the firm he said very little, except that all business was in an unsettled state, owing to the speculative spirit that had followed the long period of stagnation. As yet, my protégé seemed to have been generally prudent, but it needed the experience of a tried business man to resist the temptations to make money by short cuts presented at the present time. He judged from the last report sent him, that he had been lately making one or two successful ventures in a doubtful class of securities, and he should take it upon himself, with my permission, to give him advice to avoid them for the future.
I felt an eager desire to say he had already promised that the speculation in which he was now engaged should be the last; but that of course was impossible, without disclosing my secret. How should I ever have the face to make confession to Mr. Chelm when the time came, if it ever did come?
As the months slipped away, I began to be haunted occasionally by the thought that a year was a longer time than I had supposed, and it might be that Francis Prime would take me at my word, and try to forget me. At such moments my heart seemed to stand still, and a weary vista of monotonous and never-ceasing maidenhood arose before me. It would be preferable to die than to be deceived now. I would not doubt; and indeed I did not doubt. But who can control the changing moods of the imagination?
I think the consciousness that such a thing as his proving false was a possibility affected my treatment of my maiden aunts, and made me more gentle and considerate in regard to their foibles. The early lives of both of them were sealed books to me, excepting the glimpse Aunt Helen had given me of hers at the time of my own first sorrow. Who could tell that there was not in their hearts some bit of cruel treachery or misunderstanding still remembered though unmentioned, which had seared and withered existence for them? It was this feeling among others, that urged me to write to Aunt Agnes and ask permission to spend a day or two with her before we finally returned to town. She never left the city, preferring, as she declared, the stability of the bricks and mortar, to being drowned at the sea-side or mangled by cattle in the country. Rather to my surprise, she said in her answer that she had been on the point of writing to me herself, but would now defer mentioning the matter she had in mind until we met.
As I had divined, the subject that was engrossing her as regards me was the coming visit of the Honorable Ernest Ferroll. She had heard from him at San Francisco to the effect that he was on the point of starting for the East, and that he took the liberty of forwarding to her his letters of introduction as preliminary to paying his respects to her in person. But on the particular evening of my arrival I found Aunt Agnes oblivious to everything except a piece of information which, though far from incredible to me, had evidently been to her like lightning from a clear sky. The forbidding manner in which she received me led me to fancy that I had displeased her; and remembering her previous discovery, the awful suspicion that she had ferreted out my secret seized me for an instant. But I was speedily reassured.
"I am glad you are here, Virginia, if only to read this. You were right, child, after all; and I am an old fool, over whose eyes any one seems to be able to pull the wool."
She spoke in her sternest tones, and held out to me a newspaper in which was the announcement of the nuptials of Mr. Charles Liversage Spence and Miss Lucretia Kingsley,—"no cards."
"Did you not know they were engaged?" I inquired.