Volume 22 — CHAPTER XII.

"You need not tell Jack," Georgy had said to me when we made the appointment, with a sudden smile and half blush; but I resisted the suggestion, and told Jack at breakfast that I should call upon Miss Lenox at noon.

"I am so glad!" said he, "for, on my word, I am too busy to go near her in the daytime. Tell her I should like to have gone with you, but must dig, dig, dig, or I shall never pass those examinations."

I have always been glad I was true to Jack in the letter of my actions. As for the spirit, it is hard for any young fellow of twenty, with ardent impulses just awakening, to keep it cribbed within prudent limitations. Georgy's smiles had thrown a sudden illumination into my soul, and I understood myself better than I had done yesterday. I had hitherto thought myself a quiet fellow, but nothing to-day could cheat me out of the knowledge of my youth.

I found Georgy in a little back parlor, the third room of Mrs. Dwight's gorgeous suite, curled up on a blue sofa in a white morning dress of the simplest make, and her hair on her shoulders in the old fashion, quite transforming her from the brilliant young lady she had seemed the night before. She did not move as I came in, but lay still, pale and heavy-eyed, and stretched out a little lifeless hand. "I am too tired to lift my head," she said plaintively; and I, feeling myself an intruder, proposed to go away at once.

"Oh, nonsense, you foolish boy!" she cried, laughing. "That is the very reason I wanted you to come. I am always dreary after excitement, and I knew you would put me in good spirits. Sit down."

I took a chair at the other side of the fireplace.

"Why do you go away so far?" she asked pettishly. "Are you afraid I shall eat you? Come here;" and she indicated a chair close by her sofa at which I had looked longingly while fearing to venture so near.

"There!" she said with an air of comfort, and looked into my face with the open-eyed simplicity of a child. "Oh, Floyd," she exclaimed, but under her breath, "I am so glad to see you again! Are you glad to be here with me?"

"Very glad: it is not worth while saying how glad."

"Why not? I never enjoyed anything half so much as I enjoyed last evening, and half of it was because you were looking on. Tell me honestly now, was I a success?"

"So great a success that I wondered so superb a belle cared to speak to a boy like me. I often used to think of your future, Georgy, and had many brilliant dreams for you: I have no doubt that you will fulfil them all."

She had quite lost her air of weariness, and flashed into life and brilliance, and, starting up, was so close to me that I could feel the warmth and fragrance of her cheek and hair. I should have drawn away my chair, but that she had herself placed it; and now she fastened her little slippered feet on the rounds and looked into my eyes thus closely with the enchanting freedom of a child.

"It is so nice to hear you say such things!" she ran on, cooing into my ear. "I am so glad you meet me kindly! I have cried sometimes to think that my naughtiness at The Headlands had quite estranged you."

"Oh no. Why should you blame yourself?"

"Because I was to blame. But, Floyd, if you only knew what I have suffered you would forgive me. Say that you forgive me."

She slid a slim satin hand into mine. I was not at all certain to what she was alluding, but I took pleasure in assuring her that if I had anything to forgive, I forgave it from my heart.

She withdrew her hand after a time with a sudden hauteur and caprice of prudery, which was perhaps one of those delightful little ways to which Thorpe had alluded.

"I missed you so after you left Belfield," she went on, her color deepening as she spoke. "Everything seemed dull. No matter what we tried to do, it seemed duller than what had gone before."

We were all of us strong in quotations in those days; accordingly I quoted—

"Oh, how clever!" she exclaimed. "Did you write it?"

"Well, no: I think not."

"But you can do such things. You are so clever, everything is easy to you. That is why I always liked you better than any one else. You have sympathy, wit, imagination. You understand things up to the heights and down to the depths. Harry Dart is a little like you: he has wit and imagination, but he is flippant, he has no sympathy. Poor old Jack has plenty of sympathy, but neither wit nor imagination."

"Nevertheless," said I, trying to control my voice, "it is Jack who has won you: the rest of us are nowhere. He is the lucky one of us three."

"Do you think him lucky?" she asked with a trembling, uncertain little laugh. "I am very grateful to him for trying to win me: not many would have done it, knowing all the circumstances of my family—all our faults and humiliations. I am not like other girls, Floyd. They may fall in love, and strive and hope and wait, with poetic dreams and trembling desires, to end in rapturous fulfilment. Not so with me. I must marry early, and marry a man who has wealth, to help those who expect everything from me. My destiny came to me ready-made: I accepted it. The poetry and the romance and the wild wish to love and be loved, as I might be if I could afford to wait, were all put by for hard, practical common sense."

I could see only the sweet pathetic droop of the lips, for her face was turned away and downward. There was a moment's silence between us, but she broke it with another of those uncertain little laughs and a glance at me. "I don't know why I have told you this," she said softly. "Don't think I under-value Jack. He has all the best qualities a man can possess for success in life, but none of those essential for winning a woman's heart. Why, Floyd—But tell me, could you do your stupid old lessons with me looking over you?"

Our eyes met, and we both laughed: I shook my head.

"Oh, but Jack can," she cried triumphantly. "He amuses me that way sometimes, and my fascinations never disturb the even tenor of his thoughts: he will plod on with his foolish old mathematics with my head on his shoulder. There! I oughtn't to have said that," she added with a little grimace. "Don't tell Jack."

I certainly had no thought of telling Jack.

"As for you, Floyd," she went on more softly, "you will never grow so hard-hearted. To the end of your life all the beautiful faces in the world will set you dreaming. Do you think I have forgotten the old days when you told me about Mignon and Rosalind, Mary Queen of Scots, Helen, Cleopatra, and Gretchen in that tiresome German poem you used to be so fond of reading. Even the thought of those fair women—some of them mere poetic creations, others mortal women long since gone to dust—used to cause you more heart-throbs than Jack will ever feel for all the rosy cheeks and bright eyes that are close beside him."

"Upon my word," said I abruptly, "you don't begin to know Jack's feeling for you."

"Pshaw! That is what he is always telling me. I know he wants to marry me: he has a talent for the domestic. His most romantic dream is of a fireside, an easy-chair and me." She looked up at me and laughed. "I suppose," she went on with a resigned air, "that I shall have to wear aprons and make puddings. But enough of our prosaic ménage: I shall not be married for a year yet. Talk to me about something else—about your mother, Mr. Floyd and Helen—about everybody except that odious Mr. Raymond."

"My mother is in New York with my aunt, Mrs. Woolsey," I returned. "We were all—my mother, Helen and Mr. Raymond, and I—at Mr. Floyd's house in Washington through the holidays. I have seen none of them since."

Georgy looked at me with peculiar intentness. "Tell me about that," she said eagerly.

"About our visit? Oh, it was pleasant. Mr. Floyd had planned it several times, but something had always happened hitherto to prevent it. Of course we saw constantly all the foremost people. Mr. Floyd had a dinner-party every night, and my mother and Helen were no end of belles."

"Helen! little Helen a belle?"

"You would have thought so. She presided at the table, and the old men were in ecstasies over her beauty, grace and grand manners. Mr. Floyd was so happy and proud he could not keep his eyes from her."

"She is only fifteen," observed Georgy, a little dissatisfaction clouding her lovely face. "She is too young to be in society. But she has everything, can do everything: it has always been so. Oh, if I were that girl!—I suppose you are in love with her, Floyd."

"I in love with Helen?" I did not say any more. Helen was a tall, slim girl now, but with a frigid air about her which indisposed me to admiration. How different from Georgy, whose smile and glance thawed reserve and drew me close to her! I did not define the meaning of the warm lovelight in her eyes, nor ask whether it was a perpetual fire, a lure to all men, or merely a sign for me. Sitting beside her, I was conscious of an atmosphere emanating as it were from the warmth and kindness of her smile and glance—an atmosphere which in itself was delicious and complete, predisposing me to dreamy, happy silence. To be near her was to feel in a high degree the beauty and power of woman: full of loveliness as were the arch, mobile face, the glorious hair, the eyes with their life and tenderness, the perfect lips, they were but a small part of her charm, which seemed to breathe from the statuesque pose of bust and neck and head, and the supple grace of her every movement.

She questioned me minutely concerning Mr. Floyd. He was no longer in office now, but was spending his time at The Headlands with Mr. Raymond and Helen until I should be ready in July to sail with him for Europe. It was quite easy to perceive that the moment we touched upon this new subject Georgy's composure and gayety were alike banished, and as I knew that reasons existed which made The Headlands and Helen's society forbidden ground for her, I would have changed to other topics; but she kept on pertinaciously in her questionings until, with all my wish to please her, I grew weary.

It was quite as well, however, that my first enchantment should be a little abated before I left her, and I went away thinking for a time more about her curiosity concerning Helen and Mr. Floyd than about the rose on her cheeks and the light in her eyes. I had no intention of bidding her a final good-bye when I shook hands with her, but it fell out that more than two years were to pass before I looked upon her face again.

I think my mental equilibrium was perhaps a little disturbed by this interview with her. She had—perhaps carelessly, perhaps with some faint suggestion of truth—said some things which I could not forget. Had she not told me she liked me better than anybody else? What did she mean? how much did she mean? I knew that she spoke heedlessly at times—that she possessed no intellectual discipline, no mental accuracy to measure the force of her words. I knew, too, that coquetry and feminine instinct impelled her to use her strongest weapons against any masculine adversary. Yet, subtracting all these influences from her speech, it was still left fraught with delicious meaning. I had no wish to wrong Jack, but my vanity was tickled by the suggestion that I had something which was my own hidden treasure. I found a line which suited the sentimental nature of my thoughts. "The children of Alice call Bertram father." I used to repeat it to myself with exquisite pain, and think of the time when I should see Jack with his wife beside him, their children at their feet. "The children of Alice call Bertram father." I was impressed with the deep romance of common life, and wrote more bad verses at that period than I would have confessed to my dearest friend.

Harry Dart, who was the closest observer of our coterie, was not long in making the discovery that I was despondent about something, and presently taxed me with being in love with Georgy Lenox. I found myself terribly vexed with him, and also with myself, but not on my own account. I could not reply to his raillery. It seemed to me horribly unfair for him to steal my shadow of a secret and then proclaim it aloud; but I was not so badly off but that I could stand what he said about myself. In fact, I was glad to be held up to ridicule, and, thus disillusionized, see my fault in its true colors. It seemed to me unworthy of Harry to attack a defenceless girl in this way, engaged, too, as she was to his cousin. Had I not known him all my life as well as I knew myself, I should have suspected that something underlay his malice—that she had injured him in some way, and that he was ungenerous enough thus to gratify an unreasonable spite.

Jack and I were out one evening, and returning entered our sitting-room together, and found Harry there with two or three men not belonging to the college, and among them Thorpe. It was evident to me that they changed their subject as we entered, but the talk at once flowed again, and Harry excelled as usual in quaint fancies, happy repartees and sharp flings at all of us while he lay stretched out in my reclining-chair smoking before the fire. Jack had evidently been to see Georgy, and looked dreamy and content, and joined the circle instead of going at once to his books. Thorpe made allusion once or twice to his pleasant abstraction, but Jack was indifferent, and even after the visitors were gone he sat looking at the fire with a sort of smile on his face.

"Well, old fellow," said I after a time, "don't waste all that pleasant material for dreams on yourself."

He rose, stretched himself, and laughed in his soft, pleasant way. "I've got three hours' hard work before me," he remarked, "and I had better go at it at once."

"Where have you been?" asked Harry dryly.

"With Georgy," Jack answered unsuspiciously.—"Boys, I warn you against being engaged while you have a demand for brains. I should like to dawdle here before the fire until morning thinking of her."

"Spare me!" exclaimed Harry cynically. "I have heard enough praise of Miss Georgy for one evening. Ted Hutchinson was talking about her." And with a burst of wrath he went on, retailing the gossip of the night: Ted knew nothing of her engagement, and was wild about her—had sent her a bracelet anonymously, and been thrilled with delight when she showed it to him on her white arm, wondering who could have been so kind. Thorpe too had collected various items of news about her. There was old Blake, a widower—who ought to have known better, for he had three grown-up children—sending her bouquets, driving her about the country and getting boxes at the theatre. There was Bob Anderson, who had laid a wager that he would—

"Stop, Harry," said Jack, his kind face very sober. "I do not think you remember that you are talking to the man who has the honor to be engaged to Miss Lenox."

"I think the man who does her that honor ought to know the talk prevalent among the fellows who meet her night after night and visit her day after day."

"It is a woman's misfortune that the men who are most at leisure to seek her society are apt to be those who are least worthy to meet her on intimate terms. The men who will use a woman's name freely in public are men who will not hesitate to slander her."

"I am not slandering her," cried Harry, starting up and facing Jack with a white face and blazing eyes. "She has accepted a bracelet from Ted Hutchinson. I know the very price he paid for it. Thorpe helped him to choose it, and told Miss Lenox so next day."

Jack's face puckered. "The bracelet will go back," he said in a low voice.

Harry burst out laughing: "You will find that if she is to return her gages d'amour, a good many fellows will be richer than they are to-day. She will accept anything a man offers her; and a wise man does not give jewels for nothing, Jack."

I went out quietly. I had feared it would come to this, and since Harry was determined to ease his mind to his cousin, it was better that none but Holt's ears should burn with what he had to hear. I was not ignorant of the talk that was going on; and perhaps it was better that Jack should know a little of the weakness that lessened his darling in the eyes of men. But I had not left them ten minutes before Jack opened the door of my room and called me back. The sound of his voice startled me, and the sight of his stern, cold face awed me somewhat, as it had awed Harry, who looked at me uneasily as I came in. We all three stood regarding each other a moment in silence, then Dart withdrew to the window and leaned against it, his arms folded and his eyes downcast.

"You heard the first of Harry's allegations against Miss Lenox," said Holt, breaking the pause: "he has followed them up with accusations more definite.—Harry, repeat what you just told me."

Harry seemed quite crestfallen, "D——the business!" he muttered doggedly: "it's none of my affair."

"But you seem to have made it your affair," pursued Holt with calmness. "I request you to repeat to Floyd what you said to me concerning him."

"I said," exclaimed Harry recklessly, "that I knew Miss Lenox to be very generous with certain favors which as a rule are reserved by discriminating young ladies for their engaged lovers."

"Go on: I do not call that a definite accusation."

"I said," pursued Harry with a peculiar glance at me, "that I knew fellows who had kissed her. Jack is bent on knowing the name of one of these fellows, and I mentioned yours."

I felt my face flame, and in spite of myself my eyes fell.

"Tell me the truth, Floyd," said Jack gently. "Have you come between Georgy and me as a lover of hers, winning away her regard for me?"

"Good Heavens!" I exclaimed, "no, no, no! I never kissed Georgy but once, and then I lay an almost hopeless cripple in my chair at Belfield, and she kissed me as she would have kissed any other sick, miserable boy."

Jack laughed, and his face cleared. "Oh, Harry," said he, "you foolish fellow! to talk such nonsense!—I beg your pardon, Floyd, for seeming to believe for a moment that you were not an honest friend of mine." We shook hands.—"Come here, Harry," he went on with perfect good-nature: "I promise to forgive and forget this talk of yours on condition that you do not meddle in future between Georgy and me. You never liked her—you never did her justice. Come, now, are you prepared to hold your tongue in future?"

Harry shrugged his broad shoulders. "Done!" said he, holding out his hand. "I had no business to listen to Thorpe—less still to gossip to you—less still to tell lies about Floyd here. I'm awfully ashamed of myself. Don't lay it up against me."

"I am a quiet fellow," said Jack, eying us both keenly—"I don't parade my feelings—but there is no child's play in the regard I have for the girl I love. I know her faults—I pity them: I hope, please God, to root them out, for they are the fruit of an imperfect education and a false example. She does not yet have the protection of my name, yet I should have hoped that my friends would have respected me enough not to listen to any light mention of the woman sacred to me above all others. I have no jealousy in me, but if a man, friend or no friend, dared to come between me and the girl I loved—" He broke off abruptly, and his clenched right hand opened and shut. "Mark me," he added, controlling himself, "I have perfect faith in Georgina. The one who tries to make me distrust her wastes his breath.—Remember this, Harry. I have heard you once, and forgive you and love you all the same, but my forbearance has its limits." He went into his room and shut the door.

The moment we were alone I turned on Harry. "What on earth did you mean?" I demanded, half in anger, half in a stupefaction of surprise, at his daring to calumniate me.

"Lay on," said he, sinking into the nearest chair: "I richly deserve it. But the truth was, I had already said too much. I knew that you were behaving respectably, and could deny what I alleged; whereas in some other cases we might have got shipwrecked upon grim facts."

I stared at him: "Do you mean to say that you knew what you were talking about?"

He bowed his head. There was a dejected look about him: he glanced at his watch, yawned and went to bed.

Throughout the remainder of the term Georgy's name was not once spoken among us, and Harry's affection and devotion to his cousin were touchingly displayed. Men as they were, I have seen Harry on the arm of Jack's chair talking to him with his hand over his shoulder. Dart was to sail for Europe before commencement, and the cloud of separation seemed to lie upon him heavily.

Ellen W. Olney.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]