Mildred lived in the most wonderful little cottage, so tiny, so neat,
like the cottage of the three bears, or the abode of the dwarfs. The old
woman who came to keep it so bright and spotless was exactly like a
witch, too, and Mildred herself might well have been an enchanted
princess--except that she worked rather hard, and kept accounts. A small
sign in the window read, “Miss Mildred Henaberry--piano lessons,” and
all through the day confirmation of this floated out across the garden
and into the road--stumbling scales, painful excursions in Czemy, and
then the masterly touch of the teacher herself, showing what might be
done.
Her pupils liked her, because she was patient, polite, and always clear
and definite. She liked them because they were young, and because they
had such stubby little fingers, such earnest scowls, and such jolly
laughs.
On this morning of pelting summer rain she had escorted one of them to
the front door--a rosy, moonfaced little girl in spectacles--and was
opening a minute umbrella that would shelter the little cropped head,
when she saw, coming down the lane, the young man who had been Mrs.
Terhune’s emissary. He saw Mildred, raised his hat, and came splashing
on through the mud, with his coat collar turned up and his cap pulled
down. He entered the gate and reached the veranda steps just as the
little girl was coming down.
He smiled down at the child; and, if you will believe it, this youthful
creature, not more than ten years old, hesitated, and then came up the
steps after him.
“What is it, dear?” asked Mildred.
“If he’s going away soon,” said the little girl, “shan’t I wait and let
him go under my umbrella?”
Dacier kissed her.
“I’m very much obliged,” he told her; “but I’ve come for a music lesson,
so you’d better not wait.”
They were both silent while the child went down the path.
“Really,” said Mildred, “I am--”
“Of course it’s a subterfuge,” said he; “but even at that, why shouldn’t
I have a music lesson? It would be such a good way for us to get
acquainted.”
“I see no reason for our becoming acquainted,” said Mildred.
Dacier looked into the distance.
“Even that little girl,” he said, “could read my face and see the sort
of fellow I am--honest as daylight, kind, simple--”
Not for the world would Mildred smile.
“I take only children as pupils,” she remarked.
“The sign doesn’t say so,” Dacier pointed out. “I noticed that sign when
I was here before. Legally, I’m not so sure that you’d be allowed to
discriminate against any person of good character who--”
“Did Mrs. Terhune send you?”
“No. She didn’t need to.”
“Then I’m sorry, but I’m very busy.”
“Miss Henaberry,” said Dacier firmly, “if I’m personally repulsive to
you, of course I’ll go at once; but otherwise, why can’t I talk to you
for a few minutes? I’m Mrs. Terhune’s nephew, Robert Dacier. I didn’t
bring a certificate in my pocket, but I hope you’ll believe me without
that.”
Now Dacier was not personally repulsive to Mildred--not in the least.
She considered him somewhat presumptuous and overconfident, yet there
was about him something that pleased her, something gallant and
high-spirited and endearing.
“And he’s Mrs. Terhune’s nephew,” she thought. “I _ought_ to be nice to
him.”
To tell you the truth, no matter whose nephew he had happened to be, I
don’t believe that Mildred could have helped being nice to him. Very few
people could. She let him into her neat little sitting room, and she
felt concerned, as any properly constituted woman would have felt,
because he was dripping wet. She made him a cup of tea, and, having an
hour to wait for the next pupil, sat down to talk to him. Dacier was
good at talking.
After he had gone, she was not sorry that he had said he would come
again. The smoke of his cigarette lingered in the room, and was not
disagreeable. The sound of his voice lingered, too, and perhaps the
memory of his audacious, blue-eyed, sunburned face. It was as if a fresh
breeze had blown through her neat, lonely little house.
Come again he did, the very next evening, and he made of it the single
happy, jolly evening in a long succession of solitary ones. They sat out
on the veranda, with the moon shining; and if he had not the respectful
humility she had found in other young men, he was none the less
interesting for that.
He had no poems to read, as Will Mallet had had. Indeed, he knew little
about poetry, or music, or any of the arts; but he said he would like to
learn, if she would teach him. When he was going, he asked what time he
should come the next day.
“I don’t think you had better come to-morrow,” she said, a little
regretfully.
He pointed out that his holiday wouldn’t last forever, and that it did
him good to come and hear her talk. He gave other unreasonable reasons,
and he did come the next day, and the day after, as well.
Before a week had passed, Mildred saw that this must be stopped. It made
her angry--so very angry that she nearly wept over it alone at night.
“I suppose he thinks, and Mrs. Terhune thinks, that he’s doing a
kindness to a poor, forlorn, jilted old maid,” she thought. “He’s
entirely too sure of himself. He takes it for granted that I’m glad to
see him all the time. He thinks--”
Her ideas of what he thought distressed her beyond measure. That
evening, when he appeared again, he found her very cool and aloof--even
on the moonlit veranda, and even while he made his best efforts to amuse
her.
“Mr. Dacier,” she said suddenly, “I’m very sorry, but I think you’d
better not come any more.”
His voice, when he answered had a curious gentleness.
“Why?” he asked.
She was silent for a few moments.
“Because--I’m afraid Mr. Mallet wouldn’t like it,” she said at length.
“While he’s away--”
Dacier got down from the railing and began to walk up and down.
“You know, I’m engaged to him,” she added.
“Yes, I know,” said Dacier; “but--”
Mildred felt her face grow hot in the darkness.
“I suppose you’ve heard all sorts of malicious gossip!” she said
vehemently.
“Yes--I did hear--something,” he answered slowly.
“You thought he wasn’t coming back?”
Dacier had taken his hat. He paused at the top of the steps, and looked
at her.
“I can’t imagine any man not coming back--to you!” he said.
V
As he was coming down the lane the next morning, he met the rosy,
moonfaced little girl in spectacles, and they stopped for a chat. She
told him all about her kitten at home, and talked of other interesting
topics. They shook hands at parting.
“Oh, my goodness, Mr. Dacier!” she called, as he was moving off. “I’ve
forgotten Miss Henaberry’s letter. I stop in at the post office for her,
you know, to ask if there are any letters, only there never are; but
there was one to-day.”
“I’ll take it,” said Dacier, not sorry for this pretext.
He was at a loss how to proceed. He couldn’t hurt the obstinate, proud
creature by so much as hinting that he knew Mallet would never come
back. He had decided to entreat her to give up this elusive lover; and
he understood Mildred well enough to know that she would make it hard
for him.
Not that Dacier shirked things that were hard. Whatever his faults, he
was not lacking in courage and persistence. It was the pretense, the
cruel comedy which her rebellious haughtiness made necessary, that he
dreaded. He wanted to be utterly candid and truthful with her, because
it was his nature to be so, and because he loved her.
He was notably less cheerful than usual as he entered her cottage.
“Here’s a letter,” he said casually.
When he saw her face, however, he was no longer casual. She had grown
very pale. She looked at the letter with the oddest expression.
“Oh!” she said, with a gasp.
“What’s the matter?” he asked anxiously. “Please tell me, Mildred!”
She recovered herself, and even managed a constrained smile.
“It’s from Will,” she said. “Excuse me, please, while I read it.”
In great agitation, Dacier walked up and down the room.
“Did she write it herself?” he thought. “It can’t be from him! Good
Lord, if he did come back, she’d marry him, whatever he was, just out of
sheer pig-headedness! Nothing would count with her, in comparison with
her infernal pride. All she wants is to show people--who don’t care a
straw--that she hasn’t been jilted. She deserves to be jilted! She’s
heartless! She’s inhuman! She doesn’t care--”
When she reëntered the room, every trace of anger and resentment left
him. In her face, still pale, but very composed now, he saw plain and
clear, her secret anguish and her terrible stubbornness. She was going
to send him away, at any cost to herself or to him. She was going to
drive away love and keep cold pride alone in her heart.
“Will’s coming back,” she said quietly.
Dacier looked at her. He thought that he had never seen so lovely a face
as this, with her dark, straight brows, her steady eyes, her mutinous
and defiant mouth. Even folly was dignified there.
“Are you glad, Mildred?” he asked.
What humiliation and loneliness and bitter disillusionment had never
been able to do, his question accomplished. Tears filled her eyes. She
struggled with them, and with rising sobs.
“Yes,” she said. “Of course I’m very glad!”