"Very true. But she would show me his letters if I asked her to. I wonder how Jack likes a certain ease she has in other men's society? What claws are to a cat, what the sting is to the bee, what its poison is to the upas tree, coquetry is to Georgy Lenox. I wish him joy of her, but wash my hands of the engagement."
He spoke with some heat, which was his wont in every allusion to Jack's love-affair. But I knew that Harry had a dozen flirtations on hand, and the fatalest effect of the false is its power of destroying our delicate and just perception of the true.
CHAPTER IX.
My mother, on her return, had gone at once to her sister, Mrs. Woolsey of New York, and remained with her until she joined me for a Christmas visit at Mr. Raymond's. Three years had passed since I was there, and the three years had changed Helen from a mere child into a slim maiden of almost fourteen, tall and stately for her years. Mr. Raymond seemed no older and no feebler: his eyes held the old restless fire, the only reminiscence of youthful power about him; he was still anxiously served and tended, and in this cold season huddled before the fires covered with furs, a tiger-skin over his knees, his pale hands clasping his wrappings together at the throat. He was considerate for my mother's comfort, as a host should be, and he betrayed an eager curiosity and interest concerning my infirmity; which showed his care for me, but which I resented as an intrusion. For I had reached the point when it was easy for me to endure the fact that I was unlike other men in my physical strength, but was not yet sufficiently resigned to it to bear questioning or sympathy. Helen never alluded to it, and although at first she tried to save me footsteps, she had tact enough to give up even that evidence of any knowledge of my weakness. Indeed, she was shy of me now: she had a governess in these days, and had perhaps been taught one of the first lessons that young girls learn—to shrink from every man who is neither her father nor her brother nor her grandfather. Accordingly, during all that Christmas week I rarely heard the sound of her voice.
Mr. Floyd had joined us a few hours after we reached The Headlands. The three years had made more change in him than in any of the rest of us, if I except myself. He had grown older—was more quiet and languid, and more tender in his manner. I had often wondered of late, now that I was strong again and in a measure launched into life, whether he and my mother would marry. I saw many meanings in my mother's beautiful face of which she never spoke to me; the two had long talks together every day, and their manner to each other held all the sweetness of steadfast affection and true sympathy; yet there was a nameless something which was never in his tones now.
It was a lovely, quiet Christmas-time. Outside, the winter seas roared and great masses of ice covered the rocks and bound the shore: heavy snows fell and the winds whistled cold. But inside, everything went on in a still, blessed fashion that only comes when people love one another, and in a stately, comfortable fashion that is only at command in rich houses where all stores of state and comfort are opened with a golden key. The greenhouses were in their perfection now: there were many of them of various temperatures, but all opening from one into the other. Mr. Floyd and I were walking one day where the oranges, lemons and cedrats were ripening in different degrees of maturity: they seemed to blossom and yield as freely as if in their native climates, and our favorite walk was there these chilly winter afternoons; for Mr. Floyd, always a shiverer, of late found every place except the tropical atmosphere of a greenhouse too cold for him. My mother had been with us picking a few orange-blossoms. My guardian had taken one little spray and put it against her hair, sighing meanwhile, although he was smiling.
"No orange-blossoms for my white hair," said she, laughing and flushing. "They are for the dark curls of a young girl."
"Oh, youth! youth! youth!" he exclaimed half bitterly.
"Dear friend," said she very calmly and sweetly, "youth is only so beautiful when we have lost it. Middle life is stronger, pleasanter, nobler."
"I might cry for middle life too," Mr. Floyd said lightly, "for I have lost that as well as youth. I am an old man: I have no to-morrows. Carry your orange-blossoms away, Mary: their perfume is too strong for me."