The short December day was drawing to its close; but, though the
month was December, the temperature was not that which is usually
associated with the season. Instead of gray skies, leaden waters,
and brown or snowy earth, there was a sky of glowing beauty, a
glittering sea, and a land covered with the evergreen foliage of
the South--for it was December in Florida. At noon the sun had
shone with uncomfortable power on the broad plaza and old Spanish
houses of St. Augustine; but now that his last rays were gilding
the ancient fort and the Moorish belfry of the cathedral, the air
was full of that delicious softness--a caressing warmth without
heat--which in such latitudes makes the mere fact of existence a
delight.
On the gray sea wall there were several loiterers; but, as the sun
finally sank, and the purple veil of twilight fell over land and
sea, most of these departed, leaving only two girls, who still
paced the narrow promenade, talking earnestly.
At least one was talking earnestly--the other only listened. But
the mere fact of listening can be eloquent sometimes, and this
girl’s face seemed made to express all things eloquently. It was a
delicately molded face, with a pale complexion and the most gentle
and lustrous eyes possible to imagine. As yet she was altogether
immature in appearance and manner, being not more than fifteen
years of age, but her slender figure gave indications of more than
ordinary grace when time should have transformed its angles into
curves, just as her face promised to prove even more than beautiful
when a woman’s soul should shine out of those eyes, now soft as a
fawn’s and innocent as a child’s.
Her companion was more ordinary in appearance, yet nine people
out of ten would have admired her most. She was an exceedingly
pretty girl, and, being four or five years the senior of the two,
possessed all the advantage of presence and of manner which such
a difference in age at this period of life bestows. Her face had
none of the delicate regularity of the face beside her, but her
features were charmingly piquant, her complexion brilliantly fair,
and her sunny, hazel eyes were full of mirth. At least they were
usually full of mirth, but this evening there was a shade in them
that looked like anxiety. It was she who had been talking for half
an hour, while the girl who clung to her arm listened with rapt
attention. As they still paced up and down in the twilight she went
on:
“You understand now, Aimée, how it is, and how I am almost at my
wit’s end to know what to do. I declare it is almost enough to make
one wish one were ugly, to be tormented as I am!”
“I would not wish that,” said Aimée. “It is like a novel--only
better--to be as pretty as you are, and to know that two men love
you to distraction; that you are almost engaged to one, but that
you love the other and are going to elope with him--”
“Hush!” cried the other, with a pressure of the arm she held almost
as sharp as the tone of her voice. “Think, if somebody were to hear
you! I am _not_ going to elope with him! That is just the point. I
have promised--but I can not, I can not! I like him--of course, I
like him--but I don’t like him well enough to ruin all my life for
him, to give up everything and break mamma’s heart. Aimée, I can’t
do it.”
“What are you going to do, then?” asked Aimée, while her eyes
seemed to grow momently larger and darker and more full of interest.
To an impressionable girl of fifteen, with her head full of
romances, all this was thrilling beyond expression. A beautiful
girl, a worldly mother, two ardent suitors, and an elopement
planned--what could any romance furnish better? Yet it was here in
her own every-day world, and _she_ was promoted to the dignity of
receiving the confidences of the heroine. What could life hold
more exciting, save the joy, of which she as yet hardly dreamed, of
being a heroine herself?
“What are you going to do?” she repeated in a voice as sweet and as
full of dramatic expression as her eyes. “If you have promised to
go to-night, how can you break your promise?”
“Breaking my promise does not matter at all,” said Fanny Berrien,
impatiently; “but getting rid of Lennox Kyrle without trouble does
matter. And how it is to be done I do not know, unless you will
help me.”
“I will do anything--anything in the world!” said Aimée, fervently.
“But how can you make up your mind to give him up?”
“It does not exactly mean giving him up,” said Fanny, “though I
suppose it will come to that at last,” she added with a sigh.
“But _just now_ I only want him to understand that it is quite
impossible for me to go with him. He is so impetuous and rash, he
will not understand at all how I am placed; and if I do not meet
him at the time when he expects me, he will be quite capable of
coming for me--as he has threatened to do--and then there _would_
be a fearful state of affairs!”
“He must be like young Lochinvar,” said Aimée. “I should think you
would adore such a lover as that.”
“He has given me more trouble than any other man in the world, so I
suppose I ought to adore--or else hate him,” said Miss Berrien. “Of
course, you don’t understand about these things, Aimée, and I ought
not to be talking of them to a child like you, only I have nobody
else to talk to; but Lennox Kyrle is one of the men to whom one
can’t say no. He has more power over me than any one else in the
world, and yet I am not at all sure that I want to marry him.”
“Why not?” asked Aimée, who was drinking in these new ideas as a
plant absorbs water.
“Oh, for a great many reasons,” replied the other. “For one thing,
I am not sure that I want to be domineered over for the rest of
my life; and then he has nothing in the way of fortune--at least
nothing to speak of. Now, Aimée, you know it is not at all
pleasant to want money and not have any.”
“No,” said Aimée decidedly--she evidently understood this--“it is
not at all pleasant.”
“And Mr. Meredith is rich, and will be richer; and he is devoted
to me, and mamma is anxious that I shall marry him, and I like him
very well--when I don’t see Lennox! So I have nearly made up my
mind not to see him any more.”
There was a pause. Aimée felt that this was a very unheroine-like
decision, a lame and impotent conclusion for a romance; but she did
not know what to say, being somewhat confused by the multiplicity
of new ideas presented to her consideration.
“At all events, I can not go to-night, though I was mad enough to
promise him that I would,” pursued the young lady desperately. “And
I can not see him; if I did, I _should_ go. I am ashamed to think
how little will of my own I have when I am with him--in fact, I
have none at all. He simply makes me do whatever he likes. So I
dare not go to meet him, and this brings me to the point I have
been trying to reach all this time--will you go for me?”
If she had asked Aimée to spring from the wall into the waves
washing softly against it, the girl could hardly have been more
surprised. Her face showed this plainly, but after an instant’s
hesitation she said:
“I will do anything that I can for you--where do you want me to go?”
“It will not be pleasant at all, and I feel as if it was very
selfish to ask it of you,” said Miss Berrien. “But then you are
only a child, and it can not compromise you as it would compromise
_me_; and you are as brave as a lion, so you won’t be afraid to
come here after dark, will you?”
“_Here?_” said Aimée, glancing around.
“Yes, here,” answered her companion. “A boat, with Lennox in it,
will be here at midnight. You must tell him that I can not come,
that I--But never mind, I will give the message at the time. Will
you do it for me?”
If Aimée’s courage failed at such a prospect, she felt that it
would never do to betray as much. She had pledged herself to do
“anything,” and she must not fail when something was demanded.
“Yes, I will do it,” she said, “if there is no other way; but why
can you not write and let him know?”
“Write!” repeated the other. “Why, you foolish child, have I not
told you where he is?”
“I don’t think you have,” said Aimée--conscious, however, that in
the multiplicity of statements which had been made to her, the
particular statement relative to Mr. Kyrle’s whereabouts might not
have received due attention.
“He is there,” said Fanny with a comprehensive wave of her hand
toward the Atlantic Ocean. “Did I not tell you that he is in a
yacht?”
“Oh! has he a yacht?” cried Aimée; “and can you refuse to go with
him?”
“I might not refuse if it was his own yacht--for a man must be
very rich to afford a yacht--but it is not his own. It is borrowed
from a friend ‘for this occasion only,’” said Fanny, with a slight
laugh. “His plan is certainly very well arranged. He borrows the
yacht, as I have said, runs down here, lies off the inlet and
brings a boat up to St. Augustine for me--I step into it, we return
to the yacht, run to Key West or Pensacola and are married, then
cruise for a month among the West Indies. How would you like such a
programme as that, Aimée?”
“How would I like it?” repeated Aimée. Words were evidently too
weak to express her sentiments; but she clasped her hands and her
eyes shone like stars. “It would be glorious!” she cried, with a
thrill in her voice. “I never read of anything more beautiful. I
don’t believe, I _can’t_ believe, but that you mean to go.”
“You may believe it, then,” said Miss Berrien, shortly. “It is
very well to be romantic when you don’t have to pay a price for
romance; but when you do, and it is such a heavy one as a life of
poverty--sailing and love-making can’t last forever, and what is to
come after? I asked myself that question, and the answer made me
stop.”
“I wonder if it was not Mr. Meredith who made you stop?” said
Aimée. “I saw the diamonds he brought you; but, though diamonds are
very pretty, they are not as good as a lover like young Lochinvar.”
“You will change your mind when you are a little older, my dear.
Lovers are plenty, but diamonds--However, it is not certain that
I will take them. It is only certain that I can not throw away
everything by going with Lennox to-night. He must wait.”
“But perhaps he won’t wait,” said Aimée. “If he is so impetuous,
perhaps he will say that it must be this night or never.”
“There is no danger that he will say anything of the kind,” replied
Fanny, with a comfortable assurance of her own power. “He will
never give me up until I am married to somebody else. He makes
love like an angel,” she added, with a stifled sigh. “I have had
a great many lovers, of course, but nobody that I ever liked half
as well as Lennox. But I must not think of him; and as for seeing
him--well, if I did that, I should be on board the Ariel before
day. I will give my chance of a cruise over to you, Aimée.”
“I only wish I could take it,” said Aimée, with the most evident
sincerity.
“Now we must go home,” said the other, glancing out at the
darkening water. “But first come and let me show you exactly where
the boat will be to-night.”