The following Monday, as I sit reading in the small parlor we
dare to call our own, I am startled by Dora's abrupt entrance.
Her outdoor garments are on her; her whole appearance is full of
woe; suspicious circles surround her eyes. I rise fearfully and
hasten towards her. Surely if anything worthy of condemnation has
occurred it is impossible but I must have a prominent part in it.
Has the irreproachable Dora committed a crime? Is she in disgrace
with our domestic tyrant.
"Dora, what has happened?" I ask, breathlessly.
"Oh, nothing," returns Dora, reckless misery in her tone;
"nothing to signify; only--Billy was right--I am quite positive
he never cared for me--has not the slightest intention of
proposing to me."
"What? who?" I demand, in my charming definite way.
"Who?" with impatient reproach. "Who is there in this miserable
forgotten spot to propose to any one, except--Mr. Carrington?"
"What have you heard, Dora?" I ask, light breaking in upon my
obscurity.
"Heard? Nothing. I would not have believed it, if I had heard it.
I saw it with my own eyes. An hour ago I put on my things and
went out for a walk, intending to go down by the river; but just
as I came to the shrubberies, and while I was yet hidden from
view, I saw Mr. Carrington and that horrid dog of his standing on
the bank just below me. I hesitated for a moment about going
forward. I didn't quite like," says Dora, modestly, "to force
myself upon him for what would look so like a _tete-a-tete_; and
while I waited, unable to make up my mind, he"--a sob--"took out
of his waistcoat a large gold locket and opened it, and"--a
second heavy sob--"and after gazing at it for a long time, as
though he were going to eat it"--a final sob, and an inclination
towards choking--"he stooped and kissed it. And, oh! of course it
was some odious woman's hair or picture or something," cries
Dora, breaking down altogether, and sinking with rather less than
her usual grace into the withered arm-chair that adorns that
corner of our room.
A terrible suspicion, followed by as awful a sense of conviction,
springs to life within me. The word "picture" has struck an icy
chill to my heart. Can it by any possibility be my photograph he
has been so idiotically and publicly embracing? Am I the fell
betrayer of my sister's happiness?
A moment later I almost smile at my own fears. Is it likely any
man, more especially one who has seen so much of the world as Mr.
Carrington, would find anything worth kissing in my insignificant
countenance? I find unlimited consolation in this reflection,
that at another time would have caused me serious uneasiness.
Meantime Dora is still giving signs of poignant anguish, and I
look at her apprehensively, while pondering on what will be the
most sympathetic thing to say or do under the circumstances.
Her nose is growing faintly pink, large tears are standing in her
eyes, her head inclines a little--a very little--to one side.
Now when I cry I do it with all my heart. The tears fall like
rain; for the time being I abandon myself altogether to my grief,
and a perfect deluge is the consequence. Once I have wept my
fill, however, I recover almost instantaneously, feeling as fresh
as young grass after a shower.
Not so with Dora. When she is afflicted the tears come one by
one, slowly, decorously sailing down her face; each drop waits
politely until the previous one has cleared off the premises
before presuming to follow in its channel. She never sniffs or
gurgles or makes unpleasant noises in her throat; indeed, the
entire performance--though perhaps monotonous after the first--is
fascinating and ladylike in the extreme. In spite of the qualms
of conscience that are still faintly pricking me, as I sit mutely
opposite my suffering sister, I find myself reckoning each salt
drop as it rolls slowly down her cheek. Just as I get to the
forty-ninth, Dora speaks again,---
"If he really is in love with somebody else--and I can hardly
doubt it after what I have seen--I think he has behaved very
dishonorably to me," she says in a quavering tone.
"How so?" I stammer, hardly knowing what to say.
"How so?" with mild reproof. "Why, what has he meant by coming
here day after day, and sitting for hours in the drawing-room,
and bringing flowers and game, unless he had some intentions with
regard to me? Only that you are so dull, Phyllis, you would not
require me to say all this."
"It certainly looks very strange," I acknowledge. "But perhaps,
after all, Dora, you are misjudging him. Perhaps it was his
sister's--Lady Handcock's--hair he was kissing."
"Nonsense!" says Dora, sharply; "don't be absurd. Did you ever
hear of any brother wasting so much affection upon a sister? Do
you suppose Billy or Roland would keep _your_ face or hair in a
locket to kiss and embrace in private?"
I certainly cannot flatter myself that they would, so give up
this line of argument.
"Perhaps the person, whoever she is, is dead," I suggest more
brilliantly.
"No. He smiled at it quite brightly, as one would never smile at
a dead face. He smiled at it as if he _adored_ it," murmurs Dora,
hopelessly, and the fiftieth drop splashes into her lap. "I shall
tell papa," she goes on presently. "I have no idea of letting him
be imagining things when there is no truth in them. I wish we had
never seen Mr. Carrington! I wish with all my heart something
would occur to take him out of this place! I feel as though I
hated him," says Dora with unusual vehemence and a rather vicious
compression of the lips; "and, at all events, I hope he will
never marry that woman in the locket."
And I answer, "so do I" with rather suspicious haste as in duty
bound.