“The quarrel is a very
pretty quarrel as it stands.”
THE
RIVALS.
IT is two days later. Everyone
you know is in the drawing-room at the Court that
is, everyone except Dulce. But presently the door
opens, and that stormy young person enters, with her
sleeves tucked up and a huge apron over her pretty
cashmere gown, that simply envelops her in its folds.
“I am going to make jam”
she says, unmistakable pride in her tone. She
is looking hopelessly conceited, and is plainly bent
on posing as one of the most remarkable housekeepers
on record as really, perhaps, she is.
“Jam?” says Mr. Browne,
growing animated. “What kind of jam?”
“Plum jam.”
“You don’t say so?”
says Mr. Browne, with unaffected interest. “Where
are you going to make it?”
“In the kitchen, of course.
Did you think I was going to make it here,
you silly boy?” She is giving herself airs now,
and is treating Dicky to some gentle badinage.
“Are the plums in the kitchen?”
asked he, regardless of her new-born dignity, which
is very superior, indeed.
“I hope so,” she says, calmly.
“Then I’ll go and make the jam with you,”
declares Mr. Browne, genially.
“Are you really going to make
it?” asks Julia, opening her eyes to their widest.
“Really? Who told you how to do it?”
“Oh, I have known all about it for years,”
said Dulce, airily.
Every one is getting interested now even
Roger looks up from his book. His quarrel with
Dulce on the night of her ball has been tacitly put
aside by both, and though it still smoulders and is
likely at any moment to burst again into a flame,
is carefully pushed out of sight for the present.
“Does it take long to
make jam?” asks Sir Mark, putting in his query
before Stephen Gower, who is also present, can say
anything.
“Well it quite depends,”
says Dulce, vaguely. She conveys to the astonished
listeners the idea that though it might take some
unfortunately ignorant people many days to produce
a decent pot of jam, she experienced
as she is in all culinary matters can manage
it in such a short time as it is not worth talking
about.
Everybody at this is plainly impressed.
“Cook is such a bad hand
at plum jam,” goes on Miss Blount, with increasing
affectation, that sits funnily on her, “and Uncle
Christopher does so love mine. Don’t you,
Uncle Christopher?”
“It is the best jam in the world,”
says Uncle Christopher, promptly, and without a blush.
“But I hope you won’t spoil your pretty
white fingers making it for me.”
“Oh, no, I shan’t,”
says Dulce, shaking her head sweetly. “Cook
does all the nasty part of it; she is good enough
at that.”
“I wonder what the nice part
of it is?” says Roger, thoughtfully.
There is no nice part; it is all work hard work, from beginning
to end,” returns his fiancee, severely.
“I shan’t eat any more
of it if it gives you such awful trouble,” says
Dicky Browne, gallantly but insincerely; whereupon
Roger turns upon him a glance warm with disgust.
“Dulce,” says the Boodie,
who is also in the room, going up to Miss Blount,
whom she adores, and clasping her arms round her waist;
“let me go and see you make it; do,”
coaxingly. “I want to get some when it
is hot. Mamma’s jam is always cold.
Darling love of a Dulce, take me with you and I’ll
help you to peel them.”
“Let us all go in a body and
see how it is done,” says Sir Mark, brilliantly.
A proposal received with acclamations by the others,
and accepted by Dulce as a special compliment to herself.
They all rise (except Sir Christopher)
and move towards the hall. Here they meet Fabian
coming towards them from the library. Seeing the
cavalcade, he stops short to regard them with very
pardonable astonishment.
“Where on earth are you all
going?” he asks; “and why are Dulce’s
arms bare at this ungodly hour? Are you going
in for housepainting, Dulce, or for murder?”
“Jam,” says Miss Blount proudly.
“You give me relief. I breathe again,”
says Fabian.
“Come with us,” says Dulce, fondly.
He hesitates. Involuntarily his
eyes seek Portia’s. Hers are on the ground.
But even as he looks (as though compelled to meet his
earnest gaze) she raises her head, and turns a sad,
little glance upon him.
“Lead, and I follow,”
he says to Dulce, and once more they all sweep on
towards the lower regions.
“After all, you know,”
says Dulce, suddenly stopping short on the last step
of the kitchen stairs to harangue the politely dressed
mob that follows at her heels, “it might, perhaps,
be as well if I went on first and prepared cook for
your coming. She is not exactly impossible you
see, but to confess the truth she can be at times difficult.”
“What would she do to us?” asks Dicky,
curiously.
“Oh! nothing, of course; but,”
with an apologetic gesture, “she might object
to so many people taking possession of her kingdom
without warning. Wait one moment while I go and
tell her about you. You can follow me in a minute
or two.”
They wait. They wait a long time.
Stephen Gower, with watch in hand, at last declares
that not one or two, but quite five minutes have dragged
out their weary length.
“Don’t be impatient; we’ll
see her again some time or other,” says Roger,
sardonically, whereupon Mr. Gower does his best to
wither him with a scornful stare.
“Let us look up the cook,”
says Sir Mark, at which they all brighten up again
and stream triumphantly towards the kitchen. As
they reach the door a sensation akin to nervousness
makes them all move more slowly, and consequently
with so little noise that Dulce does not hear their
approach. She is so standing, too, that she cannot
see them, and as she is talking with much spirit and
condescension they all stop again to hear what she
is saying.
She has evidently made it straight
with cook, as that formidable old party is standing
at her right hand with her arms akimbo, and on her
face a fat and genial smile. She has, furthermore,
been so amiable as to envelop Dulce in a second
apron; one out of her own wardrobe, an article of
the very hugest dimensions, in which Dulce’s
slender figure is utterly and completely lost.
It comes up in a little square upon her bosom and
makes her look like a delicious over-grown baby, with
her sleeves tucked up and her bare arms gleaming like
snow-flakes.
Opposite to her is the footman, and
very near her the upper housemaid. Dulce being
in her most moral mood, has seized this opportunity
to reform the manners of the household.
“You are most satisfactory,
you know, Jennings,” she is saying in her soft
voice that is trying so hard to be mistress-like, but
is only sweet. “Most so! Sir Christopher
and I both think that, but I do wish you would try
to quarrel just a little less with Jane.”
At this Jane looks meekly delighted
while the footman turns purple and slips his weight
uneasily from one leg to the other.
“It isn’t all my fault,
ma’am,” he says at length, in an aggrieved
tone.
“No, I can quite believe that,”
says his mistress, kindly. “I regret to
say I have noticed several signs of ill temper about
Jane of late.”
Here Jane looks crestfallen, and the footman triumphant.
“I wish you would both
try to improve,” goes on Dulce, in a tone meant
to be still dignified, but which might almost be termed
entreating. “Do try. You will find
it so much pleasanter in the long run.”
Both culprits, though silent, show
unmistakable signs of giving in.
“If you only knew how unhappy
these endless dissensions make me, I am sure you would
try,” says Miss Blount, earnestly, which, of
course, ends all things. The maid begins to weep
copiously behind the daintiest of aprons; while the
footman mutters, huskily:
“Then I will try, ma’am,”
with unlooked-for force.
“Oh, thank you,”
says Dulce, with pretty gratitude, under cover of
which the two belligerents make their escape.
“Well done,” says Sir
Mark at this moment; “really, Dulce, I didn’t
believe it was in you. Such dignity, such fervor,
such tact, such pathos! We are all very nearly
in tears. I would almost promise not to blow
up Jane myself, if you asked me like that.”
“What a shame!” exclaims
Dulce, starting and growing crimson, as she becomes
aware they have all been listening to her little lecture.
“I call it right down mean to go listening
to people behind their backs. It is horrid!
And you, too, Portia! So shabby!”
“Now who is scolding,”
says Portia; “and after your charming sermon,
too, to Jennings, all about the evil effects of losing
one’s temper.”
“If you only knew how unhappy
it makes us,” says Dicky Browne, mimicking Dulce’s
own manner of a moment since so exactly that they all
laugh aloud; and Dulce, forgetting her chagrin, laughs,
too, even more heartily than they do.
“You shan’t have one bit
of my jam,” she says, threatening Dicky with
a huge silver spoon; “see if you do! After
all, cook,” turning to that portly matron, “I
think I’m tired to-day. Suppose you make
this jam; and I can make some more some other time.”
As she says this, she unfastens both
the aprons and flings them far from her, and pulls
down her sleeves over her pretty white arms, to Gower’s
everlasting regret, who cannot take his eyes off them,
and to whom they are a “joy forever.”
“Come, let us go up-stairs again,”
says Dulce to her assembled friends, who have all
suddenly grown very grave.
In silence they follow her, until
once more the hall is gained and the kitchen forgotten.
Then Dicky Browne gives way to speech.
“I am now quite convinced,”
he says, slowly, “that to watch the making of
plum jam is the most enthralling sport in the world.
It was so kind of you, dear Dulce, to ask us to go
down to see it. I don’t know when
I have enjoyed myself so much.”
“We have been disgracefully
taken in,” says Julia, warmly.
“And she didn’t even offer
us a single plum!” says Mr. Browne, tearfully.
“You shall have some presently,
with your tea,” says Dulce, remorsefully.
“Let us go and sit upon the verandah, and say
what we thought of our dance. No one has said
anything about it yet.”
Though late in September, it is still
“one of those heavenly days that cannot die.”
The sun is warm in the heavens, though gradually sinking,
poor tired god, toward his hard-earned rest. There
are many softly-colored clouds on the sky.
Tea is brought to them presently,
and plums for Dicky; and then they are all, for the
most part, happy.
“Well, I think it was a deadly-lively
sort of an evening,” says Mr. Browne, candidly,
apropos of the ball. “Every one seemed
cross, I think, and out of sorts. For my own
part, there were moments when I suffered great mental
anguish.”
“Well, I don’t know,”
says Sir Mark, “for my part, I enjoyed myself
rather above the average. Good music, good supper the
champagne I must congratulate you about, Dulce and
very pretty women. What more could even a Sybarite
like Dicky desire? Mrs. George Mainwaring was
there, and I got on capitally with her. I like
a woman who prefers sitting it out, some times.”
“I don’t think I even
saw Mrs. George,” says Dulce. “Was
she here?”
“You couldn’t see her,”
says Roger; “she spent her entire evening in
the rose-colored ante-room with Gore.”
“What a shameless tarradiddle,” says Sir
Mark.
“What did she wear?” asks Julia.
“I can’t remember. I think, however,
she was all black and blue.”
“Good gracious!” says
Dicky Browne, “has George Mainwaring been at
it again? Poor soul, it is hard on her.
I thought the last kicking he had from her brother
would have lasted him longer than a month.”
“Nonsense, Dicky,” says
Dulce; “I hear they are getting on wonderfully
well together now.”
“I’m glad to hear it,”
says Dicky, in a tone totally unconvinced.
“I don’t think she is
at all respectable,” says Mrs. Beaufort, severely;
“she she her dress was
very odd, I thought
“There might, perhaps, have
been a little more of it,” says Dicky Browne.
“I mean, it was such a pretty gown, that we should
have been glad to be able to admire another yard or
two of it. But perhaps that terrible George won’t
give it to her; and perhaps she liked herself as she
was. ‘Nuda veritas.’ After
all, there is nothing like it. ’Honesty
is the best policy,’ and all that sort of thing eh?”
“Dicky,” says Sir Mark,
austerely, “go away! We have had quite enough
of you.”
“How did you all like the McPhersons?”
Dulce asks, hurriedly.
“Now, there was one thing,”
says Dicky, who is not to be repressed, “how
could any fellow enjoy himself in the room with the
McPhersons? That eldest girl clings on to one
like ivy and precious tough old ivy too.
She clung to me until I was fain to sit down upon the
ground and shed salt and bitter tears. I wish
she had stayed amongst her gillies, and her Highland
flings, and those nasty men who only wear breeks, instead
of coming down here to inflict herself upon a quiet,
easy-going county.”
“Why didn’t you get her
another partner, if you were tired of her?”
“I couldn’t. I appealed
to many friends, but they all deserted me in my hour
of need. They wouldn’t look at her.
She was ’single in the field, yon solitary Highland
lass.’ She wasn’t in the swim at all;
she would have been as well I mean, much
better at home.”
“Poor girl,” says Portia.
“She isn’t poor, she’s
awfully rich,” says Roger. “They are
all rich. They positively look at the world through
a golden veil.”
“They’d want it,”
says Dicky, with unrelenting acrimony; “I christened
’em the Heirs and Graces the boys
are so rich, and the girls think themselves so heavenly
sweet. It is quite my own joke, I assure you.
Nobody helped me.” Here he laughs gaily,
with a charming appreciation of his own wit.
“Did she dance well?”
asks Stephen, waking up suddenly from a lengthened
examination of the unconscious Dulce’s fair
features. An examination, however, overseen by
Roger, and bitterly resented by him.
“She didn’t dance at all,
she only galumphed,” says Dicky, wrathfully.
“She regularly took the curl out of me; I was
never so fatigued in my life. And she is so keen
about it, too; she will dance, and keeps on saying,
’Isn’t it a pity to lose this lovely music?’ and
so on. I wished myself in the silent grave many
times.”
“Well, as bad as she is, I’d
make an even bet she will be married before her sister,”
says Stephen.
“I don’t think either
of them will be married before the other,” says
Mr. Browne, gloomily; “one might go much farther
than them without faring worse. I laughed aloud
when at last I got rid of the elder one; I gave way
to appropriate quotation; I fell back on my Wordsworth;
I said:
’Nor am I loth, but
pleased at heart,
Sweet (?) Highland girl, from thee to part.’”
The query represents the expression
of Mr. Browne’s face as he mentions the word
that goes before it.
“Well done, Dicky!” says Sir Mark.
“What has Dicky been saying
now?” asks Fabian, who has been wandering in
a very sad dreamland, and just come back to a sadder
earth at this moment. “Has he been excelling
himself?”
“I’ll say it all over
again for you, if you like,” says Dicky, kindly;
“but for nobody else.”
“Thanks, but later on,” says Fabian, smiling.
He is sitting near Portia, but not
very near. Now Dicky, filled with a desire to
converse with Miss Vibart, gets off his seat and flings
himself on a rug at her feet. Sir Mark, who is
always kindly, though a trifle cynical at times, and
thoughtful towards those he likes, is displeased at
this change that Dicky has made. Fabian he likes nay,
if there be one friend in the world he loves,
it is Fabian Blount. Portia, too, is a favorite
of his, so great a favorite that he would gladly see
her throw some sunshine into Fabian’s life.
To make these two come together, and by Portia’s
influence to induce Fabian to fling away from him
and to conquer the terrible depression that has desolated
his life ever since the fatal affair of the forged
check, has become one of Sir Mark’s dearest
dreams.
Now it seems to him that when Fabian
has so far overcome his settled determination to avoid
society as to find a seat beside Portia, and to keep
it for at least an hour, it is a vile thing in the
thoughtless Dicky to intrude his person where so plainly
it is not wanted.
Making some idle excuse, he brings
the reluctant Dicky to his side.
“Can’t you keep away from
them?” says Sir Mark, in an angry whisper.
“Away from whom?” asks Dicky, resentfully.
“From them,” with a gentle
motion of the hand in the direction of Portia and
Fabian.
“What on earth for?” says
Dicky Browne, still more resentfully.
“Don’t you see he likes her?”
says Sir Mark, meaningly.
“I suppose he does,” says
Dicky Browne, obtusely. “I like her too.
We all like her.”
“Of course, my dear fellow,
one can quite understand that she is about as likeable
a person as I know; but er don’t
you see he wants to be alone with
her.”
“I don’t doubt him,”
says Dicky Browne. “So should I, if I got
the chance.”
Sir Mark shrugs his shoulders; there
isn’t much to be got out of Dicky.
“That goes without telling,”
he says; “you are always prowling around after
her, for no reason that I can see. But you haven’t
grasped my idea, he he’s in love
with her, and you aren’t, I suppose?”
“I don’t see why you should
suppose anything of the kind,” says Dicky, bitterly
aggrieved because of the word “prowling.”
“I can be as much in love with her as another,
can’t I, if I like? In fact,” valiantly,
“I think I am in love with her.”
“Oh, you be hanged!” says
Sir Mark, forcibly, if vulgarly, turning away from
him in high disgust.
“Well, you needn’t cut
up so rough about nothing,” says Dicky, following
him. “He has had his chance of being alone
with her, now, hasn’t he? and see the result.”
And when Sir Mark turns his eyes in
the direction where Portia sits, lo! he finds Fabian
gone, and Miss Vibart sitting silent and motionless
as a statue, and as pale and cold as one, with a look
of fixed determination in her beautiful eyes, that
yet hardly hides the touch of anguish that lies beneath.
Meantime Dulce and Roger are sparring
covertly, but decidedly, while Julia, who never sees
anything, is fostering the dispute by unmeant, but
most ill judging remarks. Stephen Gower has gone
away from them to have a cigarette in the shrubberies.
Sir Mark and Dicky Browne are carrying
on an argument, that in all human probability will
last their time.
“I can’t bear Mrs. Mildmay,”
says Dulce, apropos of nothing. Mrs. Mildmay
is the Rector’s wife, and a great friend of Roger’s.
“But why?” says Julia,
“she is a nice little woman enough, isn’t
she?”
“Is she? I don’t
know. To me she is utterly distasteful; such a
voice, and such
“She is at least gentle and
well-mannered,” interrupts Roger, unpleasantly.
“Well, yes, there is a great
deal in that,” says Julia, which innocent remark
incenses Dulce to the last degree, as it gives her
the impression that Julia is taking Roger’s
part against her.
“I daresay she is an angel,”
she says, fractiously; “but I am not sufficiently
heavenly-minded myself to admire her inanitiés.
Do you know,” looking broadly at Roger, “there
are some people one hates without exactly knowing
why? It is, I suppose, a Doctor Fell sort of
dislike, ‘the reason why I cannot tell,’
and all that sort of thing.”
“I don’t believe you can,
indeed,” says Roger, indignantly.
“Don’t you?” says Dulce.
“My dear Roger, if you eat any
more sugar, you will ruin your teeth,” says
Julia. Roger, who has the sugar bowl near him,
and is helping himself from it generously, laughs
a little. Julia is a person who, if you wore
a smoking cap even once in your life, would tell you
it would make you bald; or if you went out without
a veil, you would have freckles for the rest of your
life and so on.
“Don’t eat any
more,” says Julia, imploringly; “you can’t
like that nasty white stuff.”
“Oh! doesn’t he?”
says Dulce, sarcastically. “He’d eat
anything sweet. It isn’t three days ago
since he stole all my chocolate creams, and ate them
every one.”
“I did not,” says Roger.
“Yes, he did,” declares
Dulce, ignoring Roger, and addressing herself solely
to Julia. “He did, indeed, and denied
it afterwards, which just shows what he is capable
of.”
“I repeat that I did not,”
says Roger, indignantly. “I found them
certainly in your room up-stairs your sitting-room but
I gave them to the Boodie.”
“Oh! say so,” says Miss Blount,
ironically.
“Chocolate creams!” says
the small Boodie, emerging from an obscure and unexpected
corner. “What about them? Where are
they? Have you any, mamma?”
“You ought to know where
they are,” says Dare, flushing; “you ate
them.”
“When?” asks the Boodie, in a searching
tone.
“Yes, indeed, when?” repeats Dulce,
unpleasantly.
“You remember the day Roger
gave you some, don’t you, darling?” says
the darling’s mamma, with the kindly intention
of soothing matters.
“No, I don’t,” says
the uncompromising Boodie, her blue eyes wide, and
her red lips apart.
“Do you mean to tell me I didn’t
give you a whole box full the day before yesterday?”
exclaims Mr. Dare, wrathfully, going up to the stolid
child, and looking as if he would like to shake her.
“Day before yesterday?”
murmurs the Boodie, with a glance so far from the
present moment that it might be in Kamtschatka.
“Yes, exactly, the day before
yesterday!” says Roger, furiously.
“How could I remember about
that?” says the Boodie, most nonchalantly.
“Oh, don’t scold the poor
child,” says Dulce, mildly, “she won’t
like it; and I am sure she is not in fault. Go
away, Boodie, Roger doesn’t like being shown
up.”
“Shown up! Upon my life
I gave her those vile bon-bons,” says Mr. Dare,
distractedly, “If I wanted them couldn’t
I buy them? Do you suppose I go round the world
stealing chocolate creams?”
At this, poor Julia getting frightened,
and considering the case hopeless, rises from her
seat and beats a most undignified retreat. This
leaves the combatants virtually alone.
“There is hardly anything you
wouldn’t do in my opinion,” says Dulce,
scornfully.
A pause. Then:
“What a temper you have!” exclaims Roger,
with the most open contempt.
“Not so bad as yours, at all
events. Your face is as white as death from badly
suppressed rage.”
“It is a pity you can’t see your own,”
says Roger slowly.
“Don’t speak to me like
that, Roger,” says Dulce, quickly, her eyes
flashing; “and and say at once,”
imperiously, “that you know perfectly well I
have the temper of an angel, in comparison with yours.”
“Would you have me tell a deliberate lie?”
says Roger, coldly.
This brings matters to a climax.
Silence follows, that lasts for a full minute (a long
time in such a case), and then Dulce speaks again.
Her voice is quite changed; out of it all passion
and excitement have been carefully withdrawn.
“I think it is time this most
mistaken engagement of ours should come to an end,”
she says, quite quietly.
“That is as you wish, of course,”
replies he. “But fully understand me; if
you break with me now, it shall be at once and forever.”
“Your manner is almost a threat,”
she says. “It will be difficult to you,
no doubt, but please do try to believe it will
be a very great joy to me to part from you ‘at
once and forever.’”
“Then nothing more remains to
be said; only this: it will be better for you
that Uncle Christopher should be told I was the one
to end this engagement, not
“Why?” impatiently.
“On account of the will, of
course. If you will say I have refused to marry
you, the property will go to you.”
“That you have refused
me!” says Miss Blount, with extreme indignation.
“Certainly, I shall never say that never!
You can say with truth I have refused to marry you,
but nothing else.”
“It is utter insanity,”
says Roger, gravely. “For the sake of a
ridiculous whim, you are voluntarily resigning a great
deal of money.”
“I would resign the mines of
Golconda rather than do that. I would far rather
starve than give you the satisfaction of saying you
had given me up!”
As she has a very considerable fortune
of her own that nothing can interfere with, she finds
it naturally the very simplest thing in the world
to talk lightly about starvation.
“What should I say that for?”
asks Roger, rather haughtily.
“How can I tell? I only
know you are longing to say it,” returns she,
wilfully.
“You are too silly to argue
with,” protests he, turning away with a shrug.
Running down the steps of the balcony,
Dulce, with her wrath still burning hotly within her,
goes along the garden path and so past the small bridge,
and the river, and the mighty beeches that are swaying
to and fro.
Turning a corner she comes suddenly
upon Gower, who is still smoking cigarettes, and no
doubt day-dreaming about her.
“You have escaped from everybody,”
he says to her, in some surprise, Dulce being a person
very little given to solitude or her own society undiluted.
“It appears I have not,” returns she,
bitterly.
“Well, I shan’t trouble
you long; I can take myself off in no time,”
he says, good-humoredly, drawing to one side to let
her pass.
“No no; you can stay
with me if you care to,” she says, wearily,
ashamed of her petulance.
“Care!” he says,
reproachfully; and then, coming nearer to her, “you
are unhappy! Something has happened!” he
says, quickly, “what is it?”
“Nothing unhappy,” says
Dulce, in a dear, soft voice; “certainly not
that. Something very different; something, indeed,
I have been longing and hoping for, for weeks, for
months, nay, all my life, I think.”
“And ” says Stephen.
“I have broken off my engagement with Roger.”
A great, happy gleam awakes within
his dark eyes. Instinctively he takes a step
nearer to her, then checks himself, and draws his breath
quickly.
“Are you sure?” he says,
in a carefully calm tone, “are you sure
you have done wisely? I mean, will this
be for your own good?”
“Yes, yes, of course,”
with fretful impatience. “It was my own
doing, I wished it.”
“How did it all come about?” asks he,
gently.
“I don’t know. He
has an abominable temper, as you know; and I well,
I have an abominable temper, too,” she says,
with a very wintry little smile, that seems made up
of angry, but remorseful tears. “And
“If you are going to say hard
things of yourself I shall not listen,” interrupts
Gower, tenderly; “you and Roger have quarreled,
but perhaps, when time makes you see things in a new
light, you will forgive, and
“No, never! I am sure of
that. This quarrel is for now
and forever!’”
She repeats these last four words
mechanically words that bear but the commonest
meaning to him, but are linked in her mind with associations
full of bitterness.
“And you have no regrets?” regarding her
keenly.
“None.”
“And does no faintest spark
of love for him rest in your heart? Oh, Dulce,
take care!”
“Love! I never loved,”
she says, turning her large eyes full on his.
“I have seen people who loved, and so I know.
They seem to live, think, breathe for each
other alone; the very air seemed full of ecstasy to
them; every hour of their day was a divine joy; but
I what have I known of all that?”
She pauses and lays her hand upon her heart.
“And he?” asks Gower, unwisely.
She laughs ironically.
“You have seen him,” she
says. “Not only that, but you have surely
seen us together often enough to be able to answer
your question for yourself. A very rude question,
by-the-by.”
“I beg your pardon,” says Gower, heartily
ashamed of himself.
“Oh, it doesn’t matter,”
says Dulce, throwing out one hand in a quick, nervous
fashion. “Nothing matters much, does it?
And now that we are on it, I will answer your question.
I believe if I were the only woman in the world, Roger
would never have even liked me! He seemed glad,
thankful, when I gave him a release; almost,”
steadily, “as glad as I was to give it!”
“Were you glad!”
asks Gower, eagerly. Going up to her, he takes
her hand and holds it with unconscious force in both
his own.
“Am I to think that you doubt me?” she
says with a frown.
“Shall I ever have occasion
to doubt you?” says Gower, with sudden passion.
“Dulce! now that you are free, will you listen
to me? I have only one thought in the world,
and that is you, always you! Have I any chance
with you? My darling, my own, be kind to me and
try to take me to your heart.”
The tears well into her eyes.
She does not turn from him, but there is no joy in
her face at this honest outburst, only trouble and
perplexity, and a memory that stings. There is,
too, some very keen gratitude.
“You at least do not hate me, she says, with a
faint, sobbing cadence in her voice, that desolates, but sweetens it. Her
lips quiver. In very truth she is thankful to him in a measure. Her
heart warms to him. There is to her a comfort in the thought (a comfort
she would have shrunk from acknowledging even to herself) in the certainty that
he would be only too proud, too pleased, to be to her what another might have
tried to be but would not. Here is this man before her, willing at a word
from her to prostrate himself at her feet, while Roger
“Hate you!” says Gower,
with intense feeling. “Whatever joy or sorrow
comes of this hour, I shall always know that I really
lived in the days when I knew you. My
heart, and soul and life, are all yours to do with
as you will. I am completely at your mercy.”
“Do not talk to me like that,” says Dulce,
faintly.
“Darling, let me speak now,
once for all. I am not perhaps just what you
would wish me, but try to like me, will you?”
He is so humble in his wooing that
he would have touched the hearts of most women.
Dulce grows very pale, and moves a step away from him.
A half-frightened expression comes into her eyes,
and shrinking still farther away, she releases her
hand from his grasp.
“You are angry with me,”
says Stephen, anxiously, trying bravely not to betray
the grief and pain her manner has caused him; “but
hear me. I will be your true lover till my life’s
end; your will shall be my law. It will be my
dearest privilege to be at your feet forever.
Let me be your slave, your servant, anything,
but at least yours. I love you! Say you
will marry me some time.”
Oh, no no NO!”
cries she, softly, but vehemently, covering her eyes
with her hands.
“You shall not say that,”
exclaims he passionately; “why should I not
win my way with you as well as another, now that you
say that you are heart whole. Let me plead my
cause?” Here he hesitates, and then plays his
last card. “You tell me you have discarded
Roger,” he says, slowly; “when you did
so (forgive me), did he appeal against your decision?”
“No,” says Dulce, in a
tone so low that he can scarcely hear her.
“Forgive me once more,”
he says, “if I say that he never appreciated
you. And you where is your pride?
Will you not show him now that what he treated with
coldness another is only too glad to give all he has
for in exchange? Think of this, Dulce. If
you wished it I would die for you.”
“I almost think I do wish it,”
says Dulce, with a faint little laugh; but there is
a kindness in her voice new to it, and just once she
lifts her eyes and looks at him shyly, but sweetly.
Profiting by this gleam of sunshine,
Gower takes possession of her hand again and draws
her gently towards him.
“You will marry me,”
he says, “when you think of everything.”
There is a meaning in his tone she cannot fail to
understand.
“Would you,” she says
tremulously, “marry a woman who does not care
for you?”
“When you are once my wife I
will teach you to care for me. Such love as mine
must create a return.”
“You think that now; you feel
sure of it. But suppose you failed! No drawing
back. It is too dangerous an experiment.”
“I defy the danger. I will
not believe that it exists; and even if it did still
I should have you.”
“Yes, that is just it,”
she says, wearily. “But how would it be
with me? I should have you, too, but ”
Her pause is full of eloquence.
“Try to trust me,” he
says, in a rather disheartened tone. He is feeling
suddenly cast down and dispirited, in spite of his
determination to be cool and brave, and to win her
against all odds.
To this she says nothing, and silence
falls upon them. Her eyes are on the ground;
her face is grave and thoughtful. Watching her
with deepest anxiety, he tells himself that perhaps
after all he may still be victor that his
fears a moment since were groundless. Is she not
content to be with him? Her face how sweet, how calm it is! She is
thinking, it may be, of him, of what he has said, of his great and lasting love
for her, of
“I wonder whom Roger will marry
now,” she says, dreamily, breaking in cruelly
upon his fond reverie, and dashing to pieces by this
speech all the pretty Spanish castles he has been
building in mid-air.
“Can you think of nothing but
him?” he says, bitterly, with a quick frown.
“Why should I not think of him?”
says Dulce, quite as bitterly. “Is it not
natural? An hour ago I looked upon him as my future
husband; now he is less to me than nothing! A
sudden transition, is it not, from one character to
another? Then a possible husband, now
a stranger! It is surely something to let one’s
mind dwell upon.”
“Well, let us discuss him, then,”
exclaims he, savagely. “You speak of his
marrying. Perhaps he will bestow his priceless
charms on Portia.”
“Oh, no!” hastily; “Portia is quite
unsuited to him.”
“Julia, then?”
“Certainly not Julia,” disdainfully.
“Miss Vernon, then? She has position and
money and so-called beauty.”
“Maud Vernon! what an absurd idea; he would
be wretched with her.”
“Then,” with a last remnant of patience,
“let us say Lilian Langdale.”
“A fast, horsey, unladylike
girl like that! How could you imagine Roger would
even look at her! Nonsense!”
“It seems to me,” says
Stephen, with extreme acrimony, “that no one
in this county is good enough for Roger; even you,
it appears, fell short.”
“I did not,” indignantly.
“It was I, of my own free will, who gave him
up.”
“Prove that to him by accepting me.”
“You think he wants proof?”
She is facing him now, and her eyes are flashing in
the growing twilight.
“I do,” says Stephen,
defiantly. “For months he has treated you
with all the airs of a proprietor, and you have submitted
to it. All the world could see it. He will
believe you sorry by-and-by for what has now
happened; and if he should marry before you, what will
they all say what will you feel? What
She is now as pale as death.
She lifts her hand and lays it impulsively against
his lips, as though to prevent his further speech.
She is trembling a little (from anger, she tells herself),
and her breath is coming quickly and unevenly, so
she stands for a moment collecting herself, with her
fingers pressed against his lips, and then the agitation
dies, and a strange coldness takes its place.
“You are sure you love me?”
she asks, at length, in a hard, clear voice, so unlike
her usual soft tones, that it startles even herself.
“My beloved, can’t you
see it?” he says, with deep emotion.
“Very well, then, I will marry
you some day. And and to-morrow it
must be to-morrow you will let Roger
know I am engaged to you? You quite understand?”
He does, though he will not acknowledge
it even to himself.
“Dulce, my own soul!”
he says, brokenly; and, kneeling on the grass at her
feet, he lifts both her hands and presses them passionately
to his lips.
They are so cold and lifeless that
they chill him to his very heart.