“Oh, come, my dear,” said the captain, “you know I would not offend any of your friends intentionally under any circumstances. You also know, I believe, that my greatest happiness is to see you happy.”
“Why, Captain,” laughed his wife, “this new rtle is quite becoming to you; it is, indeed. How charmed I am to hear you say such nice things, and, as a test of your sincerity, I shall ask you to be more careful of your remarks in the future.”
She then turned away indifferently, and told Hugh that Doctor Avondale would probably remain three or four weeks at Meade.
As Hugh walked down the street toward the hotel, after leaving the Osborns, he wondered what the next year would bring forth. He was conscious of an interest in Ethel Horton that he could not quite understand. He believed that he could far more easily analyze his feelings toward little Marie Hampton, with her rich contralto voice, than he could his friendship for the queenly Ethel. “My life,” mused Hugh, “is like a vast, leafy forest, tormented by strange winds. It abounds with sighs and laughter, songs and murmurings and half-spoken whisperings, while all is a labyrinth of mystery.”
In the meantime, Dr. Lenox Avondale had dined with the Hortons, and had succeeded in making himself quite agreeable. Ethel felt his searching eyes upon her, and they filled her with a certain dread—an uneasiness. She did not interpret his look as one of impudence—no, but, rather, the critical scrutiny in which a buyer of fine stock might indulge at a horse fair, especially if the proposed buyer were looking for blooded fillies with which to replenish his stables.
The coming of Lenox Avondale, his reception at their home, her mother’s special efforts to entertain him, a half-overheard conversation of Lucy Osborn with her mother, had all conspired to awaken Ethel to the seriousness of the situation. Her secret resentment was all the more keen because there was no open warfare, neither would there be. She was expected, simply, to drift into a net, from which escape would be impossible. Her troubles would have changed to the merest schoolgirl sport, if she were only fortified with even one word from Jack Redfield, but her letter was unanswered.
She was indeed glad when Avondale pleaded weariness, and started on his return to Meade soon after dinner. When he had gone, Ethel strolled down toward the lake, and paused at the little summer-house. She was no longer the freehearted and happy girl who once gamboled over the prairie, but had become as a bird that is caged, and its wild spirit broken. Her heart beat a dirge of regret. She was, indeed, an object of pity.
The intrigues of Lucy Osborn, seconded by the negative assistance of a well-meaning and yet a weak and influenced mother, had subjected her to grief and humiliation.
“Oh, Jack,” she sighed, half aloud, “Jack, why have you broken my heart? Why have you not come to me, and loved me? You taught me the lesson of life—how to love—and now it must be you have forgotten me; but the love—my love—is still as fragrant as a full-blown rose, and, like the rose stem, it has many thorns, but I cannot give up the rose because of the thorns on the stem; neither can I give up this great love, nor forget it, nor put it away from me. Yes, I will hold it close to my aching breast, and let the cruel thorns pierce my sorrowing heart.”
A brown thrush flew from the summer-house and alighted in front of her. It was the mate of the constant mother bird, who, during the summer, had warmed the little speckled eggs of anticipation into winged life; and Ethel knew it well. She had brought it crumbs for many a day. She loved it. Taking from a pocket of her apron a handful of crumbs, she motioned as if to toss them, and the thrush hopped nearer to her, down the path, for it was not afraid. “Now, look out,” she said: