Lover or Friend

by Rosa Nouchette Carey

'But, Michael,' and here Audrey blushed again, most becomingly, 'indeed Cyril is not so ridiculous. I know what people generally think: that engaged couples like to be left to themselves—and I daresay it is pleasant sometimes—but I don't see why they are to be selfish. Cyril has plenty of opportunities for talking to me; but when he comes of an evening there is no need for you to turn hermit.'

'It is a character I prefer. All old bachelors develop this sort of tendency to isolate themselves at times from their fellow-creatures. To be sure, I am naturally gregarious; but, then, I hate to spoil sport. "Do as you would be done by"—that is the Burnett motto. So, by your favour, I intend Blake to have his own way.'

'Oh, how silly you must think us!' she returned impatiently. 'I wish you would not be so self-opinionative, Michael; for you are wrong—quite wrong. I should be far happier if you would make one of us, as you do on other evenings.'

'And this is the rôle you have selected for me,' replied Michael mournfully: 'to play gooseberry in my old age, and get myself hated for my pains. No, my dear child; listen to the words of wisdom: leave Mentor to enjoy a surreptitious nap in his arm-chair, and be content with your Blake audience.' And, in spite of all her coaxing and argument, she could not induce him to promise that he would mend his ways.

'You are incorrigible!' she said, as she bade him good-night. 'After all, Cyril gives me my own way far more than you do.'

But Michael seemed quite impervious to this reproach: the smile was still on his face as she left him; but as the door closed his elbow dropped heavily on the mantelpiece, and a sombre look came into the keen blue eyes.

'Shall I have to give it up and go away?' he said to himself. 'Life is not worth living at this price. Oh, my darling! my innocent darling! why do you not leave me in peace? why do you tempt me with your sweet looks and words to be false to my own sense of honour? But I will not yield—I dare not, for all our sakes. If she will not let me take my own way, I must just throw it all up and go abroad. God bless her! I know she means what she says, and Mike is Mike still.' And then he groaned, and his head dropped on his arms, and the tide of desolation swept over him. He was still young—in the prime of life—and yet what good was his life to him?

Audrey was a healthy-minded young person; she was not given to introspection. She never took herself to pieces, in a morbid way, to examine the inner workings of her own mind, after the manner of some folk, who regulate themselves in a bungling fashion, and wind themselves up afresh daily; and who would even time their own heart-beats if it were possible.

Audrey was not one of these scrupulous self-critics. She would have considered it waste of time to be always weighing herself and her feelings in a nicely-adjusted balance. 'Know thyself,' said an old thinker; but Audrey Ross would have altered the saying: 'Look out of yourself; self-forgetfulness is better than any amount of self-knowledge.'

Nevertheless, Audrey was a little thoughtful after this conversation with Michael, and during the next few weeks she was conscious of feeling vaguely dissatisfied with herself. Now and then she wondered if she were different from other girls, and if her absence of moods, and her constant serenity and gaiety, were not signs of a phlegmatic temperament.