"Dear Alice," she said, "white grapes are only water sweetened by a little sunshine, and flowers she is too ill to enjoy. Let me make up a basket. Come down with me, Sandy, to the pantry."
Mechanically I followed her down, watched her moving busily about, and heard her talk, yet could not find a word to utter in reply.
"White grapes are excellent for people who sit down to a luxurious dinner every day, but pale, feeble bodies like little Annie Bray's must recuperate on richer fare,—a bottle of wine, some rich, juicy beef; and the sight of this old working world from the window is worth all the flowers in creation."
She filled her basket, called a servant, and sent him off. Still pale and silent, I neither moved nor spoke.
"What is the matter with you, Sandy?" Miss Darry asked, a half-smothered fear in her voice. "You are not strong enough for such excitement. Come to the drawing-room, and I will play you to sleep with some of those grand old German airs. You shall have Mendelssohn or Von Weber, if you are not in the mood for Beethoven or Chopin," she added, compromising to my nervous weakness.
She led the way, I followed, to the parlor,—only, however, once there, and finding it unoccupied, I led, and she listened.
"No music this evening, Frank, for heaven's sake!" I cried, my voice thick with emotion, as she seated herself at the piano. "I must be truthful with you. I have been a weak fool; and to you, whom I respect and admire so thoroughly, I will confess it. Bear with me awhile longer, then you shall speak," I added, as she rose and came toward me.
"In the first place, since I am a genius," I continued, bitterly, "I ought to have had a clearer vision. I ought to have seen, that, because you were the most fascinating, brilliant woman I had ever dreamed of, the most highly cultured, and planned on the noblest scale,—because you disinterestedly devoted yourself to my improvement, kindled a spark of what you were pleased to call genius, and then gave your own life to fan it into a flame,—I ought to have seen that all this did not necessarily imply that subtile bond and affinity between us which alone should end in marriage. But I did not see. I was touched to the heart by your kindness. I thrilled with pride, when you turned from men of refinement and intellect, to smile cordially, tenderly, upon me. I longed to be a suitable companion for one so superior; and I have worked—honestly, faithfully, have I worked—to become so. But what you grew upon made me languid. I was satiated with study, weary even of my brush. Metaphysics and mystical speculation bewilder a mind too weak to trust itself in their mazes, without the old established guides, the helps to a childlike faith. I was worn out and sick. Then your presence revived me; all the doubts which have since become certainties were thrust aside. I came here; I met Annie Bray; I said some foolish words one day, when we were walking up here, about being worn out and staying where we were forever. They were dishonorable words, for they were due first of all to you; and they have haunted me since like a nightmare. It was Annie herself who reproved and repelled them. To-day I went there with the thought of saying good-bye. I was sure that my feeling for you was firm as a rock; it is only periodically and indefinably, Frank, that it has seemed otherwise; and now I would lay down my life to restrain these words, to be worthy of the love I renounce. Some other and better man must win what I have been too weak to keep. This afternoon has proved to me that I do not belong exclusively to you."
Was I base and unfeeling, or only weak, as I had said? Frank Darry turned away, and walked to the long French window, looking out in the moonlight upon the very spot, perhaps, where I had so passionately declared my love. I could see her tremble with emotion. Yet I dared not speak or go to her. Perhaps five minutes passed,—it might have been an hour,—when, pale, but composed, she came to the sofa, upon which I had thrown myself.
"You love Annie Bray, then, Sandy?" she asked, calmly.