“Gerald, what are you thinking of?”
“I was wondering how soon you would let us have
the lamp.”
“I’ll get it immediately,
if you like, but it’s so pleasant talking in
the twilight. I could spend hours contentedly
sitting here so with you.”
“How reprehensibly idle!”
“No, I should be learning something
all the time. You have always something to teach
me. Or if you didn’t feel like talking,
I could just sit still and hold your hand and not
need any thing more.”
Gerald put her hand instinctively
out of reach. “I beg you won’t try
it. I hate having my hand held.”
“Yes, I know you do. You
hate being kissed, too. You hate being admired
and made a fuss over. I don’t suppose any
thing would induce you to let me call you a pet name.
O Gerald, I do wish you liked being loved!”
“But I do like it well enough.
Of course every one likes being cared for and all
that sort of thing. It’s only the gushing
and spooning and sentimentalizing that I can’t
endure. I never could, even as a child.”
Phebe sat suddenly upright, away from
Gerald. Perhaps even the mute caress of her attitude
jarred upon her friend. “To me the half
of being loved would be the being told so,”
she said. “I should never weary of hearing
it said over and over again.”
“Bah!” ejaculated Gerald,
“it would make me sick!” She got up as
if the very thought were too much for her, and going
to the window stood still there looking out.
Phebe followed her with her eyes.
“I am afraid you are fated to
be deadly sick all your life through, Gerald.
What will you do with your lovers?”
“Dismiss them.”
“All?”
“All but one.”
“What will you do with him?”
“Marry him, of course.
That is what he will be there for, won’t it?
I expect to marry some one some time. Marriage
makes a woman’s life fuller and freer, though
not necessarily happier. I want to get all into
my life that I can.”
“I wonder whom you will marry,”
mused Phebe, where she sat curled up on the sofa.
“I wonder what he could be like. Gerald,
how I should like to see you in love!”
“You won’t see it,”
replied Gerald. “No one will ever see it.
It wouldn’t be my way to make a display of the
insanity, supposing, that is, that I have it.”
“I hope at least you will show it to him.”
“Not overmuch even to him.
He’ll have to take it on faith. I haven’t
the faintest intention of informing any one of the
state of my affections a dozen times a day. Once
for all ought to be sufficient with the declaration,
as it is with the marriage vow.”
Phebe puckered up her forehead.
“Ah, how different we are! If I am ever
engaged to any one I shall want to keep telling him
all the time how much I love him, for fear he wouldn’t
guess it.”
“You will bore him to death then.”
“I suppose I shall,” replied
Phebe, dejectedly. “I don’t suppose
any one living wants to be loved so much as I would
want to love him. I couldn’t be cool and
deliberate and wise at loving as you would be.
I should have to do it with my whole heart and just
give myself up to it for good and all.”
“That’s the story-book
way of loving,” said Gerald. “I don’t
believe in it for real life. Blind adoration
doesn’t do either the lover or the loved any
good. There should be sense in one’s emotions
as well as in one’s opinions.”
Phebe was silent a moment or two.
“You are so self-possessed, and so self-controlled,
Gerald,” she said at last. “It must
be very nice to have one’s self so perfectly
in command as you have. And yet I don’t
know. I think it would be rather nice too to
find one’s self suddenly under the power of
some one a great deal better and stronger and wiser
than one’s self, who compelled one to love him,
not because one would, but just because one could
not help it.”
The girls were alone in the sitting-room,
Mrs. Lane having gone out to a neighbor’s, taking
Olly with her, and Miss Lydia not having yet appeared
for her usual hour downstairs. It was a few days
after the picnic, and was one of those suddenly cool
August evenings that sometimes drop down so unexpectedly
upon the summer heat, and a wood-fire lay upon the
hearth ready to light at the invalid’s coming.
Phebe too sprang from the sofa as she spoke, as if
her words had evoked too vivid a picture, and kneeling
down by the hearth, applied a match. The bright
flame leaped swiftly up and filled all the room with
a flickering golden glow. Gerald turned in the
window to watch it. How quickly it had flushed
Phebe’s cheeks, and how soft her eyes looked
in its light!
“It’s downright cruelty
to spoil our first cool evening with a fire, Phebe,
but I’ll forgive you, it makes you look so pretty,”
she said, quite unconscious of her beauty as she stood
against the dark background of the curtain in picturesque
stateliness, her dress of soft cream-white cloth falling
in clinging folds about her, and her clear pale face
turned dreamily toward the light, which gleamed out
in fitful reflection from the heavy gold ornaments
at her throat and wrists.
“Ah, you do not see yourself!”
murmured Phebe, looking adoringly back at her.
“No one else could look pretty to you if you
did.”
“How foolish!” said Gerald,
scornfully. “Pray don’t let us begin
bandying compliments back and forth. That’s
next worse to eternally discussing love. Why
it is that two girls seem never able to talk together
half an hour without lugging in that threadbare subject
as if it were the one most important thing in the
world, I don’t understand.”
“Well, isn’t love the
most important thing, to women?” asked
Phebe, sitting down on the floor to nurse the fire,
her thin muslin making a little ripple of pretty lightness
around her.
“No, it isn’t,”
replied Gerald. “It may be to some few perhaps,
but certainly not to all women. It isn’t
to me. It’s one thing; not every thing;
and not even the best thing. Knowledge is better,
and goodness is better, and to come down to purely
personal blessings, health is better, and so is common-sense
better, and in the long run there are dozens of things
infinitely better worth having and better worth aiming
for. It’s a good enough thing to have in
addition, but as to its being the sum and substance,
the Alpha and Omega, of any sensible woman’s
life, that’s all foolishness. Let’s
have done with it and order in the lights. I want
to get at Euclid again. It will never do for
that conceited Yale brother of mine to get ahead of
me. Shall I call to Nancy?”
“No use. The servants are
out. Wait a moment till the fire is well started,
and I’ll bring in the lamp.”
“The servants are out?”
repeated Gerald. “Both? At the same
time? Is that the way you keep house in Joppa?”
“Oh, they like running out together,
and we never want any thing in the evenings, you know.
The front door always stands ajar, and visitors let
themselves in.”
“And you make your own fires
and bring in your own oily lamps; or do your evening
guests assist you perhaps in lieu of the servants?”
“But we don’t generally
have fires,” laughed Phebe, greatly amused at
Gerald’s disgust. “Only to-night it
would be too chilly for Aunt Lydia here without one.
I feel cool too. I was not so sensible as you,
and put on too thin a dress. Isn’t it a
pretty blaze? Wait just till I throw on another
log. How it snaps and crackles!”
“Take your time,” said
Gerald, turning back to the window. “But
what a way to manage! Why should you hire servants,
if you do their work for them?”
Phebe only laughed, and a little shower
of sparks flew over her from the hearth as if the
fire laughed too.
“It’s being needlessly
indulgent,” pursued Gerald. “One can
give servants proper liberties without making one’s
self a slave to their caprices. If you yield
to them in one instance because it chances to be convenient,
they’ll certainly exact it of you another time
when it is not convenient. Gracious heavens!
Phebe, what is it?”
There was a sudden outburst of light
behind her, and a sharp scream of mingled terror and
pain, and she turned to find Phebe standing the centre
of a pillar of fire. Her light dress had ignited
from the flying sparks, and the devouring flames seemed
to burst forth in a hundred places at once and rush
exultantly together. Phebe gave another wild cry
and started for the door in that blind agony of despair
which seems to hasten people at such times to their
doom, as if by aimless flight they could escape the
awful demon who possesses them. Too horror-stricken
to utter a sound, Gerald sprang at her, and seizing
her with fearless hands, forced the poor struggling
girl by main strength down on to the floor. No
one near to help! No water at hand! Not
so much as a rug or a shawl to throw over her and
stifle the flames! Yes! there was the table-cover,
heavy and thick, as if created for this very life-service.
Gerald tore it off, books, boxes, china
cups, and glass vases crashing to the ground together, and
flinging it over Phebe, threw herself on top of it,
pressing it close in every direction with hands and
limbs, and smothering the flames resolutely beneath
it. It was but a moment, though a moment of lifetime
horror, and all was over. There was only the fire
on the hearth hissing and leaping as if in anger at
its defeated design.
“Phebe!” whispered Gerald, hoarsely; “Phebe!”
Phebe had ceased to struggle, and
lay perfectly motionless, apparently scarcely breathing,
but she opened her eyes and smiled faintly as Gerald
called her. The fright and the pain had taken
her speech away. She could not find it at once.
But the smile gave new hope and energy to Gerald.
“Never mind talking,”
she exclaimed, springing briskly to her feet.
“If you are only alive it’s all right.
Don’t attempt to stir. I’ll get some
one.”
“Aunt Lydia don’t let her know,”
Phebe managed to gasp.
“No, no, of all people!”
cried Gerald. She paused an instant. Not
a servant in the house! whom was she to summon?
A vague idea seized her of running into the street
and catching hold of the first passer, when at the
moment the door opened, and Mr. Halloway appeared on
the threshold.
“Is there any one at home?
Shall I come in, please?” called the bright,
cheery voice.
“Mr. Halloway! oh, thank Heaven!”
And seizing him by the arm, Gerald dragged him over
to where Phebe lay. “Help me to take her
up-stairs to her room.”
Denham staggered back unutterably
shocked and horrified as he recognized the prostrate
form at his feet, the fire-light playing mockingly
over it and revealing the white face and loosened
hair. For the instant he thought her dead.
He caught his breath and put his hand up over his eyes.
“My God! what has happened?”
“Her dress took fire she
is burned, no, not badly I am sure, but let us get
her up-stairs without losing time. Quick!”
Denham put Gerald aside almost roughly,
and stooping down lifted Phebe tenderly in his arms.
She moaned as he touched her, but smiled up at him
as she had done at Gerald.
“Do I hurt you, dear?”
he asked, with infinite pity and tenderness in his
voice. “I will be as gentle as I can.
Poor child! poor child!”
“Let me help you,” said
Gerald. “The stairs are steep and I am
very strong.”
She came nearer, but he shook his head. “I
need no help.”
“This way, then,” said
Gerald, shortly. “And don’t speak.
Miss Lydia mustn’t know.”
She led the way to Phebe’s room,
and he followed slowly, laying his burden carefully
down on the bed and arranging the pillows under her
head with all of a woman’s gentleness of touch.
“Now go for the doctor,”
ordered Gerald, turning to the bureau to light the
candles. “Dr. Dennis. If he is out,
Dr. Harrison. Only find some one immediately.”
Denham lingered an instant, bending down over the
bed.
“I thought we had lost you to-night,
Phebe,” he said, so low the words were but just
audible. “God be thanked if only that you
are still here!” And stooping nearer yet he
added: “We could not let you go, dear child.”
Gerald came anxiously back to the
bedside as he left the room. “Are you in
much pain now?” she asked, lifting off the heavy
braid that lay across Phebe’s bosom like a great
rope of loosely twisted silk. “You do not
think you are badly hurt, do you, dear?”
Phebe looked up at her, smiling strangely.
“Oh, Gerald,” she whispered,
while two big tears rolled slowly down on to the pillow,
“I wish I might die to-night! I don’t
think I can ever be so happy again!”
“Nonsense!” said Gerald,
with utmost sternness. “Don’t talk
about dying. I won’t allow it.”
And then she suddenly put down her head beside Phebe’s,
and burst into tears.