“While I was lying in my room,
shocked by the day I had spent, Mrs. Eaton came in,
sun-burned, excited, and panting for breath. ’Wasn’t
it a terrible thing! Such an imposition.
To pass himself off for a duke! I declare I could
kill him.’
“‘But did he deceive you?’ I asked.
“’Did he, why of course,
the scamp! And poor Lucy liking him so much.
She wont believe it now, hardly. He looked so
splendid taking up that key and swinging his sword
about like a Saracen, Lucy says, just to tantalize
me, when I know exactly what he is. But I come
to ask a great favor, Miss Crawford. You’re
the only person that I breathed a word to about it.
Supposing you just keep quiet, now, especially to James
Harrington. It might do mischief there if you
said a word, and I’m sure you wouldn’t
want to do that. Only think of a daughter of mine
almost falling in love with one of them matadore fellows.
I tell you it makes my blood boil but you
wont say a word. Poor Lucy would die of shame
if you did.’
“‘I certainly shall not
mention the man to any one,’ I answered.
“’That’s a good
soul. I was sure we might depend on you.
Now I’ll go and tell Lucy. She’s
been crying like a baby ever since we come home.
I wonder if the fellow will have the impudence to
follow us again. The Duke! The impostor,
I say, to look like a nobleman and not be
one.’
“How fussy and disagreeable
the woman is. But I am too weary for much thought
of her or any thing else indeed, yet I cannot sleep.
“Mrs. Harrington lay on the
low couch which was her favorite resting place during
the day, and I sat beside her reading aloud a new English
novel that Miss Eaton had lent me. Presently James
came in, and making me a sign not to stop, sat down
near one of the windows, as if to listen to the story;
but when I glanced at him, I saw by his face that his
thoughts were leagues away from any consciousness of
the words my voice pronounced.
“I suppose I had no right to
wonder whither his fancies had strayed, but I could
not help it; and when I looked at him again, I knew
that it was no idle reverie which had possession of
him, but stern, absorbing thought, for his face looked
hard and cold as it so often had done of late.
“I almost lost the consciousness
of what I was reading, in the rush of odd fancies
that came over my mind. My voice must have grown
careless and indistinct, for I heard Mrs. Harrington
say:
“‘Don’t read any more, Mabel; I
am sure you are tired.’
“I felt myself start and color;
I colored all the more from annoyance at feeling my
cheeks begin to glow, and I could hear that I answered
constrainedly:
“‘No; I am not tired.’
“‘I know by your voice,
my dear,’ Mrs. Harrington said with her usual
thoughtfulness for others. ’It was selfish
in me, I should not have allowed you to read so long,
but I was so interested in the story that I forgot.’
“I closed the book; it was always
very difficult for me to read aloud with any listener
besides herself, but she seemed so troubled at what
she considered her selfishness, that I said truthfully
enough:
“’I did not know that
I was tired, it is such a beautiful book that one
forgets everything in the interest of the story.’
“‘Yes, indeed,’
Mrs. Harrington said, smelling at a little bouquet
of roses she held in her hand, ‘James,’
she called in a louder voice, ’have you read
it?’
“He started and exclaimed quickly
“’Did you speak, mother?
I beg your pardon, I did not know you were talking
to me.’
“’I only asked if you
had read this new novel of Bulwer’s, that Mabel
and I are so delighted with.’
“‘Not yet,’ he replied, settling
back in his chair.
“I could see his face in the
mirror; and the effort he made to collect his thoughts
and appear to listen while his mother went on talking
about the book, was perfectly plain to me.
“‘You like it,’ he said, absently.
“‘My dear James,’
she exclaimed, laughing in her pleasant, genial way,
’where are your thoughts this morning? I
don’t believe you have heard one word I was
saying.’
“‘Oh yes,’ he replied,
’you were saying how much you and Miss Crawford
were interested in the book.’
“‘I had done with that,’
said she, shaking her bouquet at him playfully, ‘I
was asking you the name of his last work.’
“‘Whose? Ah!
Bulwer’s I am stupid this morning,
I must acknowledge.’
“I was sorry for the sort of
embarrassment he displayed something unusual
with him, so strong and self-centered, and I mentioned
the name of the romance that had preceded the one
we were reading.
“‘Of course,’ said
Mrs. Harrington, ’Mabel’s memory never
fails! Do you know, James, the faculty she has
of retaining names and dates is something marvellous,
especially to poor me, who sometimes can scarcely
recollect my own age and rightful appellation.
“’One has the opportunity
of admiring so many splendid qualities in Miss Crawford,’
he answered, in the distant, ceremonious way which
he so often employed toward me of late.
“I felt absolutely hurt, silly
and childish as it was to care for so slight a thing.
I suppose my tell-tale face showed it, for Mrs. Harrington
said, teasingly
“’Really, James, you are
very stately and magnificent, this morning! that speech
sounded grand and stilted enough to have suited Sir
Charles Grandison.’
“He laughed a little, but it
sounded so forced that I wondered Mrs. Harrington
did not observe it.
“‘I told you that I was
stupid,’ he said, ’so you need not be severe
on my poor attempt at a compliment.’
“‘I assure your lordship
that Mabel does not care for compliments,’ continued
his mother. ‘Do you, my pretty Queen Mab?’
“’I think they are a very
poor substitute for real kindness between friends,’
I said.
“I could hear that my voice
sounded somewhat irritable, but I could not resist
speaking, though the instant after, I could have bitten
my tongue off for showing so plainly any annoyance
at his manner and words. Mrs. Harrington did
not notice my little ebullition was it wounded
selfishness and pride, I wonder? She took my remark
quite as a matter of course.
“‘You are perfectly right,’
she said. ’Please to remember that, master
James.’
“I saw that he was looking earnestly
at me perhaps he thought that he had hurt
me, but I was determined to make no more silly self
betrayals. I forced my face to look indifferent,
and sat playing carelessly with the bronze paper cutter
in my hand.
“’I am sure Miss Crawford
knows that I should be only too proud to be acknowledged
as her friend, and that I value her intellect too highly
for an attempt at empty compliments,’ James observed,
gravely.
“’Ah, viola l’amende
honorable!” laughed Mrs. Harrington.
’Mabel is appeased, and I am content with your
explanation.’
“There was a brief silence;
I could feel that James was still looking at me, and
did not raise my eyes. Mrs. Harrington was playing
with her flowers, and when she spoke again had forgotten
the whole matter the merest trifle to her,
indeed to anybody possessed of a grain of common sense,
but of so much importance to ridiculous, fanciful me.
“‘This is so perfect a
day,’ she said, ’that I think we must go
out to drive. Will you go with us, James?’
“‘I fear that I shall
be unable,’ he replied, ’I have several
letters to write, and the American mail goes out to-day.’
“‘Then we will ask Miss
Eaton, Mabel,’ said Mrs. Harrington, ’she
always likes to go with us.’
“I could have dispensed with
this young lady’s society, but of course I did
not say so, and I had the decency to be ashamed of
my unaccountable feeling toward her. She was
so very beautiful that to anybody less captious than
I had grown, even nonsense from such lips as hers would
have been more graceful and acceptable than the wisest
remark from almost any other woman.
“‘I am sorry you can’t
go, James,’ Mrs. Harrington was saying, when
I had finished my little mental self-flagellation
for all my misdemeanors and evil thoughts, and could
listen to what they were saying.
“’Are you particularly
anxious to have me go with you, this morning, petite
mia?’ James asked, with more animation than
he had before displayed.
“’Indeed I am! I
feel babyish to-day, and want to be petted! If
you don’t go, I shall think you are beginning
to tire of this poor invalid woman who is so great
a trouble to you all.’
“‘My mother could never
think that,’ he said hastily, rising, and moving
close to her sofa, where he stood gently smoothing
her beautiful hair with his hand.
“‘Besides,’ she
went on, ’these women are just no party at all.
Mabel’s head is full of the book, and between
us, poor little Miss Eaton will have a wearisome drive
of it.’
“‘I shall go with you,’
James answered, ’my letters can wait till the
next mail.’
“‘We have conquered, Mabel!’
cried Mrs. Harrington, with that air of triumph so
many women show on such occasions, a feeling
which, I confess, has always been a mystery to me.
“But just now Mrs. Harrington
made a sad mistake when she said that we had conquered as
if either of us had anything to do with Mr. James’
change of determination! The moment she had announced
her intention of inviting our beautiful neighbor,
he had discovered that it was easy for him to let
his correspondence lie over. Either Mrs. Harrington
was very blind, or she chose to ignore a fact that
was as palpable as if he had given utterance to it.
“I felt tired and moody, and
half inclined to make that ordinary feminine fib,
a headache, a plea for not making one of the party.
I do not know what I might have said; I dare say something
I should have been sorry for, because I felt strangely
perverse and irritable.”