“Many men have done what you are doing,” she went on, quietly. “Many have wanted what belonged to another, and have turned their backs upon the blessing that might have been theirs. It is the game of cross-purposes. Do you remember that picture, Archie,—the lovely print you longed to buy—the two girls and the two men? There was the pretty demure maiden in front, and at the back a girl with a far sweeter face to my mind, watching the gloomy-looking fellow who is regarding his divinity from afar. There was a face here to-night that brought that second girl strongly to my mind; and I caught an expression on it once––” Here Archie violently started.
“Hush! hush! what are you implying? Grace, you are romancing; you do not mean this?”
“As there is a heaven above us, I do mean it, Archie.”
“Then, for God’s sake, not another word!” And then he rose from his seat, and stood on the rug.
“You are not really angry with me?” she urged, frightened at his vehemence.
“No; I am not angry. I never am angry with you, Grace, as you know; but all the same there are some things that never should be said.” And, when he had thus gravely rebuked her speech, he kissed her forehead, and muttering some excuse about the lateness of the hour, left the room. 339
Grace crept away to her chamber a little discomfited by this rebuff, gently as it had been given; but if she had only guessed the commotion those few hinted words had raised in her brother’s mind!
He had understood her; in one moment he had understood her. As though by a lightning-flash of intelligence, the truth had dawned upon him; and if an electric shock had passed through his frame and set all his nerves tingling he could not have been more deeply shaken.
Was that what she thought, too, when she had turned away from him with that quiet look of scorn on her face! Did she know of any possible blessing that might have been his, only that he had turned his back upon it, crying out childishly for a shadowy happiness? Did she mutter to herself also, “Oh, the blindness of these men!”?
There is an old saying, greatly credited by the generality of people, that hearts are often caught at the rebound,—that in their painful tossings from uneven heights and depths, and that sad swinging over uncertain abysses, some are suddenly attracted and held fast; and there is sufficient proof to warrant the truth of this adage.