“Oh, what a time you have been, Aimée!” cried Miss Berrien as she
opened the door. “I have been in an agony! What kept you so long?”
“Have I been long?” said Aimée. She was almost breathless, and as
she sank down on the first seat at hand, pale and trembling now
that the need for exertion was past, Fanny’s heart smote her for
her words of reproach.
“Of course it has seemed long to me,” she said, “but I do not
suppose it really has been long; and what does it matter about me
in comparison to you--you poor, brave child! What a selfish wretch
I was to send you! You look perfectly overcome, and I have not even
a glass of wine to give you.”
“I don’t want any wine,” said Aimée. “After a while--when my heart
stops beating so dreadfully--I will tell you--all about it.”
“Yes,” said Fanny, eagerly, “but at least you can tell me this
now--did you see him?”
Aimée nodded, being for the moment past speech; and Miss Berrien at
once locked the door, as if she feared Mr. Kyrle might be on the
other side. Then she watched Aimée anxiously, and when the latter
presently opened her lips as if to speak, interposed with a warning
whisper:
“No, no--not here. We must go upstairs. Are you able to walk?”
“Oh, yes--why not?” answered Aimée. “I was out of breath when I
came in; that was all.”
“You looked as if you were about to faint,” said Fanny, taking up
her lamp. “How thankful I am that it is over, and that you are
safely back!”
Aimée might have assured the speaker that her thankfulness on this
point was trifling compared to her own, but the action of her heart
not being yet sufficiently regulated to make speech easy, she
silently followed Miss Berrien’s stealthy footsteps upstairs.
Once safely in their own room, Fanny was full of eager questioning.
“You saw him!” she exclaimed. “Did you give him my message? How
did he take it? What did he say?”
“Yes, I saw him,” replied Aimée. “He was waiting, and at first
could scarcely believe that it was not you--”
“Poor fellow!” cried Fanny, in feeling parenthesis.
“But when he understood that it was not you, and that you meant to
throw him over,” proceeded Aimée, not without a sense of pleasure
in the recital, “he was very indignant, and he told me to tell you
that you would never have another opportunity to treat him in such
a manner, and that he came here meaning this to be the decisive
test: that if you cared for him you would come with him, and that
if you did not come he would never ask you again. It was to-night
or never.”
“‘To-night or never!’” repeated Miss Berrien. For a moment she
was too much amazed to say anything more. Then her customary easy
philosophy reasserted itself. “He must have been awfully angry,”
she observed, “and when a man is angry he will say anything. But
for his sake I am rather glad that he takes it in this way;
he will not feel the disappointment so much. I was afraid that
he would be desperate, and insist on seeing me. It is a great
deal better that he should be furious, and talk about ‘to-night
or never’--which, of course, is all nonsense. It may be never,
indeed”--with a slight sigh--“but, if so, it will not be _his_
fault.”
“You would not think so if you had heard him,” said Aimée. “Whether
you marry Mr. Meredith or not, I am sure that Mr. Kyrle will never
ask you to marry him again.”
“You do not know Mr. Kyrle as well as I do, my dear,” said Fanny,
complacently. “He will be quite certain to ask me whenever he has a
chance. I only hope he may not have a chance soon. I hope you told
him that he must go away at once?”
“No,” answered Aimée, “I did not tell him anything of the kind. In
the first place, you never told me to do so, and, in the second
place, I would not if you had. It was bad enough to bring him here
only to disappoint him. You have no right to order him to go away.”
“Upon my word, you seem to espouse Mr. Kyrle’s cause very warmly!”
said Fanny. “Right or no right, I wish I had sent him word to go
away at once. It would be terrible if he stopped here and met Mr.
Meredith.”
“It would not surprise him,” said Aimée. “As soon as I told him
that you said he must not attempt to see you, he exclaimed, ‘Then
there is another lover!’”
“Did he?” said Fanny, with a laugh. “How like him! He always had
that kind of penetration. One might try to deceive him, but he
would go straight to the root of the matter. But then, of course,
jealousy helped him in this case. He knows me well enough to be
sure that, if I had not somebody else, I would not want him to go
away.”
“So it is not _him_--it is just somebody--that you want,” said
Aimée, indignantly.
“Not exactly,” replied Fanny. “But you are a child--you don’t
understand.”
“I should be sorry to think that I would ever understand such
heartlessness,” said Aimée.
“Your sympathies must have been greatly wrought upon by Lennox,”
said Miss Berrien, composedly. “It is not surprising; I know how he
can influence one. Ah, I shall never have such another lover! You
may think me heartless, and, luckily for myself, I am not very much
troubled with my heart, but if I chose to let myself go, I could be
as desperate about Lennox Kyrle as--as he is about me. If his rich
uncle would only die and leave him a fortune--But there is no hope
of that.”
“If he has a rich uncle, why is there no hope of his dying and
leaving a fortune?” asked Aimée.
“Oh, he will die some day--no fear about _that_,” said Fanny,
vindictively, “and he will leave a fortune of a million or two. But
poor Lennox will not get it. That is all hopelessly settled. The
old wretch has made his will in the most elaborate form, and left
his money to found some kind of an institute that is to bear his
name and have his statue. It is all a miserable piece of vanity and
self-glorification; but he will be called a ‘public benefactor,’
and all that stuff, after ruining Lennox’s life--and mine.”
“I don’t think he will ruin yours,” said Aimée; “but poor Mr.
Kyrle, what will he do?”
Fanny shook her head in a way to intimate that this gentleman’s
prospects were dark indeed.
“He might have done very well,” she said, “but then, you see, he
is impracticable, and that is what would make it such madness to
marry him. His uncle told him frankly that he had not the faintest
intention of leaving him a fortune, but that he would give him an
opportunity to make one for himself. ‘I’ll give you a better start
in life than _I_ had,’ he said, ‘and if you don’t take advantage
of it, that will be your fault.’ So he offered him a place in
his business house, which, of course, meant the entire control
and reversion of the business; and would you believe that Lennox
declined the offer?”
“Why?” inquired Aimée, wisely refraining from any expression of
opinion.
“Because he has no liking for commercial life--as if that had
anything to do with it! He tried it for a while, then gave it up,
saying he could not waste the best years of his life in work that
he disliked. So he has gone into literature, and is connected with
a newspaper. Conceive the difference! And fancy _me_ dragging
through life as the wife of a ‘special correspondent’!”
“But he may be a famous author some day,” said Aimée, with
brightening eyes.
“He may--and again he may not,” responded Fanny, dryly. “And even
if he were a famous author, it does not follow that he would be
anything save a poor man. Now, I was not made to be the wife of a
poor man; any one can see that.”
“I--suppose not,” said Aimée, slowly. These were mercenary ideas
to be introduced into the world of her young dreams of romance;
but she took them in as she had already taken in the facts of
faithlessness and heartlessness, and no doubt assimilated them, by
some mental process, to such knowledge of human nature and human
life as she already possessed.
“But now I think we have talked enough,” said Fanny. “If you are
not ready to go to sleep, I am. I feel so light and comfortable to
think that I have safely disposed of the Lennox difficulty! It has
been a dreadful weight on my mind ever since I received his letter
saying that he was coming. I was at my wits’ end. I did not know
what to do until I thought of taking you into my confidence. You
have been a perfect jewel, Aimée. I shall never forget the service
you have done me, and if ever I have a chance to repay it in kind,
I will.”
Aimée laughed. She had not a keen sense of humor, but it occurred
to her that Fanny was about as likely to do for another what had
been done for her this night, as she--Aimée--was likely to elope.
“I am sure that you will never be called upon to repay it in kind,”
she said. “I can not imagine myself promising to elope; but if I
did promise, _I would go_!”
“I dare say,” replied Fanny. “You are romantic, and you would
enjoy--or you think you would enjoy--dangers and difficulties. But
as for me, I like the comforts of life.”
Ten minutes later Aimée was listening to the soft, regular
breathing which told how the speaker was enjoying one of the
comforts of life. It was incomprehensible to the girl who was
still tingling with excitement from head to foot, and felt as if
sleep would never visit her eyelids; but her thoughts did not long
dwell on Fanny. They went back to the lover, for whom her tender
heart ached as she pictured him returning alone to the yacht which
waited the coming bride in order to spread its wings for the South.
What a cruel thing it was to let him come--only to disappoint him!
Indignation and pity were mingled in her mind; and as hour after
hour of the silent night passed, she still lay wide awake, her
great, solemn eyes, as Fanny called them, fixed on darkness, but
her fancy seeing plainly the starlit deck of the Ariel, where a
figure paced alone.