'For exile hath more terror in his look,
Much more, than death; do not say banishment!'"
He paused, but did not remove his passionate looks from the young girl's face,—looks which, though cast down, for he was much the taller of the two, had the effect of most lowly and deprecating entreaty;—and then there happened an event,—a very slight, common, natural event,—the result more of girlish embarrassment than of any conscious emotion or purpose, yet of incalculable importance at that moment, and, perhaps, decisive of the fate of two human hearts,—Zelma smiled. It was a quick, involuntary smile, which seemed to escape from the firm lips and half-averted eyes, flashed over the face, touched the cold features with strange radiance, and then was gone,—and, in its place, the old shadow of reserve and distrust, for the moment, darker than ever.
But to the adventurous lover that brief light had revealed his doubtful way clear before him. He saw, with a thrill of exultation, that henceforth he had really nothing to fear from such womanly defences as he had counted on,—coldness, prejudice, disdain,—that all he had taken for these were but unsubstantial shadows. Still he showed no premature triumph in word or look, but remained silent and humble, waiting the reply to his passionate appeal, as though life or death, in very truth, were depending upon it. And Zelma spoke at last,—briefly and coldly, but in a manner neither suspicious nor unfriendly. She herself, she said, was unconventional, in her instincts, at least,—so could afford to pardon somewhat of lawlessness in another,—especially, she added, with a shy smile, in one whom Melpomene, rather than Cupid, had made mad. Still she was not a Juliet, though he, for all she knew, might be a Romeo; and only in lands verging on the tropics, or in the soul of a poet, could a passion like that of the gentle Veronese spring up, bud, and blossom, in a single night. As for her, the fogs of England, the heavy chill of its social atmosphere, had obstructed the ripening sunshine of romance and repressed the flowering of the heart—
"And kept your beautiful nature all the more pure and fresh!" exclaimed Mr. Lawrence Bury, with real or well-assumed enthusiasm; but Zelma, replying to his interruption only by a slight blush, went on to say, that she had been taught that poetry, art, and romances were all idle pastimes and perilous lures, unbecoming and unwholesome to a young English gentlewoman, whose manifest destiny it was to tread the dull, beaten track of domestic duty, with spirit chastened and conformed. She had had, she would acknowledge, some aspirations and rebellious repinings, some wild day-dreams of life of another sort; but it was best that she should put these down,—yes, doubtless, best that she should fall into her place in the ranks of duty and staid respectability, and be a mere gentlewoman, like the rest.—Here a slight shrug of the shoulders and curl of the lip contradicted her words,—yet, with a tone of rigid determination, she added, that it was also best she should cherish no tastes and form no associations which might distract her imagination and further turn her heart from this virtuous resolution; and therefore must she say farewell, firmly and finally, to the, she doubted not, most worthy gentleman who had done her the honor to entertain for her sentiments of such high consideration and romantic devotion. She would not deny that his intrusion on her privacy had, at first, startled and displeased her,—but she already accepted it as an eccentricity of dramatic genius, a thoughtless offence, and, being, as she trusted, at once the first and the last, pardonable. She wished him happiness, fame, fortune,—and a very good morning! Then, with a wave of the hand which would have done honor to Oldfield herself, she turned and walked proudly up the lane.
Mr. Bury saw her depart silently, standing in a submissive, dejected attitude, but with a quiet, supercilious smile lightly curling his finely-cut lips; for did he not know that she would return to her haunt the next day, and that he would be there to see?
And Zelma did return the next day,—persuading herself that she was only acting naturally, and with proper dignity and independence. She argued with herself that to abandon her favorite walk or avoid her usual resting-place would be to confess, if not a fear of the stranger's presuming and persistent suit, at least, a disturbing consciousness of his proximity, and of the possibility of his braving her displeasure by a second and unpardonable intrusion. No, she would live as she had lived, freely, carelessly; she would go and come, ride and walk, just as though nothing had happened,—for, indeed, nothing had happened that a woman of sense and pride should take cognizance of. So, after a half-hour's strange hesitation, she took her book and went to the old place. Longer than usual she sat there, idly and abstractedly turning over the leaves of her Shakspeare, starting and flushing with every chance sound that broke on the still, sweet air; yet no presumptuous intruder disturbed her maiden meditations, and she rose wearily at last, and walked slowly homeward, saying to herself, "It is well. I have conquered," but feeling that nothing was well in life, or her own heart, and that she was miserably defeated. Ah, little did she suspect that her clouded, dissatisfied face had been keenly scanned by the very eyes she dreaded, yet secretly longed to meet,—that her most unconscious sigh of disappointment had been heard by her Romeo of the previous day, now lying just behind the hedge, buried in the long brook-side grass, and laughing to himself a very pleasant laugh of gratulation and triumph.
That night, the good Squire of Burleigh Grange relented from his virtuous resolve, and took his wife, daughter, and niece to the play.
The piece was Howe's tragedy of "Tamerlane." Mr. Bury personated the imperial Tartar, a noble rôle, which so well became him, costumes and all, and brought him so much applause, that Zelma's heart was effectually softened, and she even felt a regretful pride in having received and rejected the homage of a man of such parts.
The next day, as the hour for her stroll arrived, she said to herself, "I can surely take my walks in safety now,—he will never come near me more." So she went,—but, to her unspeakable confusion, she found him, quietly seated in her little rustic bower, his head bared to the sunshine, and his "Hyperion curls" tossed and tumbled about by a frolicsome wind. He rose when the lady appeared, stammered out an apology, bowed respectfully, and would have retired, but that Zelma, feeling that she was the intruder this time, begged him to remain. She thought herself, simple child! merely courteous and duly hospitable, in giving this invitation; but the quick, eager ear of the actor and lover heard, quivering through the assumed indifference and cold politeness of her tones, the genuine impulse and ardent wish of her heart. So he yielded and lingered, proffering apologies and exchanging polite commonplaces.
After a little time, Zelma, to prove her freedom from embarrassment or suspicion, quietly seated herself on the rustic bench, giving, as she did so, a regal spread to her ample skirts, that there might be no vacant place beside her. The actor stood for a while before her, just going, but never gone, talking gayly, but respectfully, on indifferent topics,—till, at last, touching on some theme of deeper interest, and apparently forgetting everything but it and the fair lady, who neither expressed nor looked a desire to shorten the interview, he flung himself, with what seemed a boy's natural impulse, upon the soft, inviting turf, under the shade of the willow. There, reclining in the attitude of Hamlet at the feet of Ophelia, he rambled on from subject to subject, in a careless, graceful way, plucking up grass and picking daisies to pieces, as he talked, giving every now and then, from beneath the languid sweep of his heavy eyelashes, quick flashes of tender meaning, as fitful and beautiful as the "heat-lightnings" of summer twilights, and apparently as harmless.