"Thine eyes I love, and they as pitying me,
Knowing thy heart, torment me with disdain."
--Shakespeare.
All round one side of Brooklyn, and edging on to the retired butcher's
country residence, or rather what he is pleased to term, with a knowing
jerk of the thumb over his right shoulder, his "little villar in the
south," stretches a belt of trees, named by courtesy "the wood." It is
a charming spot, widening and thickening toward one corner, which has
been well named the "Fairies' Glen," where crowd together all the
"living grasses" and wild flowers that thrive and bloom so bravely when
nursed on the earth's bosom.
On one side rise gray rocks, cold and dead, save for the little happy
life that, springing up above, flows over them, leaping, laughing from
crag to crag, bedewing leaf and blossom, and dashing its gem-like spray
over all the lichens and velvet mosses and feathery ferns that grow
luxuriantly to hide the rugged jags of stone.
Here, at night, the owls delight to hoot, the bats go whirring past,
the moonbeams surely cast their kindest rays; by day the pigeons coo
from the topmost boughs their tales of love, while squirrels sit
blinking merrily, or run their Silvios on their Derby days.
Just now it is neither night nor garish day, but a soft, early
twilight, and on the sward that glows as green as Erin's, sit Molly and
her attendant slave.
"The reason I like you," says Molly, reverting to something that has
gone before, and tilting back her hat so that all her pretty face is
laid bare to the envious sunshine, while the soft rippling locks on her
forehead make advances to each other through the breeze, "the reason I
like you,--no,"--seeing a tendency on his part to creep nearer, "no,
stay where you are. I only said I liked you. If I had mentioned the
word love, then indeed--but, as it is, it is far too warm to admit of
any endearments."
"You are right,--as you always are," says Luttrell, with suspicious
amiability, being piqued.
"You interrupted me," says Miss Massereene, leaning back comfortably
and raising her exquisite eyes in lazy admiration of the green and
leafy tangle far above her. "I was going to say that the reason I like
you so much is because you look so young, quite as young as I do,--more
so, indeed, I think."
"It is a poor case," says Luttrell, "when a girl of nineteen looks
older than a man of twenty-seven."
"That is not the way to put it. It is a charming and novel case when a
man of twenty-seven looks younger than a girl of nineteen."
"How much younger?" asks Luttrell, who is still sufficiently youthful
to have a hankering after mature age. "Am I fourteen or nine years old
in your estimation?"
"Don't let us dispute the point," says Molly, "and don't get cross. I
see you are on for a hot argument, and I never could follow even a mild
one. I think you young, and you should be glad of it, as it is the one
good thing I see about you. As a rule I prefer dark men,--but for their
unhappy knack of looking old from their cradles,--and have a perfect
passion for black eyes, black skin, black locks, and a general
appearance of fierceness! Indeed, I have always thought, up to this,
that there was something about a fair man almost ridiculous. Have not
you?"
Here she brings her eyes back to the earth again, and fastens them upon
him with the most engaging frankness.
"No. I confess it never occurred to me before," returns Luttrell,
coloring slightly through his Saxon skin.
Silence. If there is any silent moment in the throbbing summer. Above
them the faint music of the leaves, below the breathing of the flowers,
the hum of insects. All the air is full of the sweet warblings of
innumerable songsters. Mingling with these is the pleasant drip, drip
of the falling water.
A great lazy bee falls, as though no longer able to sustain its mighty
frame, right into Miss Massereene's lap, and lies there humming. With a
little start she shakes it off, almost fearing to touch it with her
dainty rose-white fingers.
Thus rudely roused, she speaks:
"Are you asleep?" she asks, not turning her head in her companion's
direction.
"No," coldly; "are you?"
"Yes, almost, and dreaming."
"Dreams are the children of an idle brain," quotes he, somewhat
maliciously.
"Yes?" sweetly. "And so you really have read your Shakespeare? And can
actually apply it every now and then with effect, to the utter
confusion of your friends? But I think you might have spared _me_.
Teddy!" bending forward and casting upon him a bewitching, tormenting,
adorable glance from under her dark lashes, "if you bite your moustache
any harder it will come off, and then what will become of me?"
With a laugh Luttrell flings away the fern he has been reducing to
ruin, and rising, throws himself upon the grass at her feet.
"Why don't I hate you?" he says, vehemently. "Why cannot I feel even
decently angry with you? You torment and charm in the same breath. At
times I say to myself, 'She is cold, heartless, unfeeling,' and then a
word, a look--Molly," seizing her cool, slim little hand as it lies
passive in her lap, "tell me, do you think you will ever--I do not mean
to-morrow, or in a week, or a month, but in all the long years to come,
do you think you will ever love me?" As he finishes speaking, he
presses his lips with passionate tenderness to her hand.
"Now, who gave you leave to do that?" asks Molly, _a propos_ of
the kissing.
"Never mind: answer me."
"But I do mind very much indeed. I mind dreadfully."
"Well, then, I apologize, and I am very sorry, and I won't do it again:
is that enough?"
"No, the fact still remains," gazing at her hand with a little pout, as
though the offending kiss were distinctly visible; "and I don't want
it."
"But what can be done?"
"I think--you had better--take it back again," says she, the pretended
pout dissolving into an irresistible smile, as she slips her fingers
with a sudden unexpected movement into his; after which she breaks into
a merry laugh."
"And now tell me," he persists, holding them close prisoners, and
bestowing a loving caress upon each separately.
"Whether I love you? How can I, when I don't know myself? Perhaps at
the end I may be sure. When I lie a-dying you must come to me, and bend
over me, and say, 'Molly Bawn, do you love me?' And I shall whisper
back with my last breath, 'yes' or 'no,' as the case may be."
"Don't talk of dying," he says, with a shudder, tightening his clasp.
"Why not? as we must die."
"But not now, not while we are young and happy. Afterward, when old age
creeps on us and we look on love as weariness, it will not matter."
"To me, that is the horror of it," with a quick distasteful shiver,
leaning forward in her earnestness, "to feel that sooner or later there
will be no hope; that we _must_ go, whether with or without our
own will,--and it is never with it, is it?"
"Never, I suppose."
"It does not frighten me so much to think that in a month, or perhaps
next year, or at any moment, I may die,--there is a blessed uncertainty
about that,--but to know that, no matter how long I linger, the time
will surely come when no prayers, no entreaties, will avail. They say
of one who has cheated death for seventy years, that he has had a good
long life: taking that, then, as an average, I have just fifty-one
years to live, only half that to enjoy. Next year it will be fifty,
then forty-nine, and so on until it comes down to one. What shall I do
then?"
"My own darling, how fanciful you are! your hands have grown cold as
ice. Probably when you are seventy you will consider yourself a still
fascinating person of middle age, and look upon these thoughts of
to-day as the sickly fancies of an infant. Do not let us talk about it
any more. Your face is white."
"Yes," says Molly, recovering herself with a sigh, "it is the one thing
that horrifies me. John is religious, so is Letty, while I--oh, that I
could find pleasure in it! You see," speaking after a slight pause,
with a smile, "I am at heart a rebel, and hate to obey. Mind you never
give me an order! How good it would be to be young, and gay, and full
of easy laughter, always,--to have lovers at command, to have some one
at my feet forever!"
"'Some one,'" sadly. "Would any one do? Oh, Molly, can you not be
satisfied with me?"
"How can I be sure? At present--yes," running her fingers lightly down
the earnest, handsome face upraised to hers, apparently quite forgetful
of her late emotion.
"Well, at all events," says the young man, with the air of one who is
determined to make the best of a bad bargain, "there is no man you like
better than me."
"At present,--no," says the incorrigible Molly.
"You are the greatest flirt I ever met in my life," exclaims he, with
sudden anger.
"Who? I?"
"Yes,--you," vehemently.
A pause. They are much farther apart by this time, and are looking
anywhere but at each other. Molly has her lap full of daisies, and is
stringing them into a chain in rather an absent fashion; while
Luttrell, who is too angry to pretend indifference, is sitting with
gloom on his brow and a straw in his mouth, which latter he is biting
vindictively.
"I don't believe I quite understand you," says Molly at length.
"Do you not? I cannot remember saying anything very difficult of
comprehension."
"I must be growing stupid, then. You have accused me of flirting; and
how am I to understand that, I who never flirted? How should I? I would
not know how."
"You must allow me to differ with you; or, at all events, let me say
your imitation of it is highly successful."
"But," with anxious hesitation, "what is flirting?"
"Pshaw!" wrathfully, "have you been waiting for me to tell you? It is
trying to make a fool of a fellow, neither more nor less. You are
pretending to love me, when you know in your heart you don't care
_that_ for me." The "that" is both forcible and expressive, and
has reference to an indignant sound made by his thumb and his second
finger.
"I was not aware that I ever 'pretended to love' you," replies Molly,
in a tone that makes him wince.
"Well, let us say no more about it," cries he, springing to his feet,
as though unable longer to endure his enforced quietude. "If you don't
care for me, you don't, you know, and that is all about it. I dare say
I shall get over it; and if not, why, I shall not be the only man in
the world made miserable for a woman's amusement."
Molly has also risen, and, with her long daisy chain hanging from both
her hands, is looking a perfect picture of injured innocence; although
in truth she is honestly sorry for her cruel speech.
"I don't believe you know how unkind you are," she says, with a
suspicion of tears in her voice, whether feigned or real he hardly
dares conjecture. Feeling herself in the wrong, she seeks meanly to
free herself from the false position by placing him there in her stead.
"Do not let us speak about unkindness, or anything else," says the
young man, impatiently. "Of what use is it? It is the same thing
always: I am obnoxious to you; we cannot put together two sentences
without coming to open war."
"But whose fault was it this time? Think of what you accuse me! I did
not believe you could be so rude to me!" with reproachful emphasis.
Here she directs a slow lingering glance at him from her violet eyes.
There are visible signs of relenting about her companion. He colors,
and persistently refuses, after the first involuntary glance, to allow
his gaze to meet hers again; which is, of all others, the surest
symptom of a coming rout. There are some eyes that can do almost
anything with a man. Molly's eyes are of this order. They are her
strongest point; and were they her sole charm, were she deaf and dumb,
I believe it would be possible to her, by the power of their expressive
beauty alone, to draw most hearts into her keeping.
"Did you mean what you said just now, that you had no love for me?" he
asks, with a last vain effort to be stern and unforgiving. "Am I to
believe that I am no more to you than any other man?"
"Believe nothing," murmurs she, coming nearer to lay a timid hand upon
his arm, and raising her face to his, "except this, that I am your own
Molly."
"Are you?" cries he, in a subdued tone, straining her to his heart, and
speaking with an emotional indrawing of the breath that betrays more
than his words how deeply he is feeling, "my very own? Nay, more than
that, Molly, you are my all, my world, my life: if ever you forget me,
or give me up for another, you will kill me: remember that."
"I will remember it. I will never do it," replies she, soothingly, the
touch of motherhood that is in all good women coming to the front as
she sees his agitation. "Why should I, when you are such a dear old
boy? Now come and sit down again, and be reasonable. See, I will tie
you up with my flowery chain as punishment for your behavior,
and"--with a demure smile--"the kiss you stole in the _melee_
without my permission."
"This is the chain by which I hold you," he says, rather sadly,
surveying his wrists, round which the daisies cling. "The links that
bind _me_ to _you_ are made of sterner stuff. Sweetheart,"
turning his handsome, singularly youthful face to hers, and speaking
with an entreaty that savors strongly of despair, "do not let your
beauty be my curse!"
"Why, who is fanciful now?" says Molly, making a little grimace at him.
"And truly, to hear you speak, one must believe love is blind. Is it
Venus," saucily, "or Helen of Troy, I most closely resemble? or am I
'something more exquisite still'? It puzzles me why you should think so
very highly of my personal charms. Ted," leaning forward to look into
her lover's eyes, "tell me this. Have you been much away? Abroad, I
mean, on the Continent and that?"
"Well, yes, pretty much so."
"Have you been to Paris?"
"Oh, yes, several times."
"Brussels?"
"Yes."
"Vienna?"
"No. I wait to go there with you."
"Rome?"
"Yes, twice. The governor was fond of sending us abroad between the
ages of seventeen and twenty-five,--to enlarge our minds, he said; to
get rid of us, he meant."
"Are there many of you?"
"An awful lot. I would be ashamed to say how many. Ours was indeed a
'numerous father.'"
"He isn't dead?" asks Molly, in a low tone befitting the occasion in
case he should be.
"Oh no: he is alive and kicking," replies Mr. Luttrell, with more force
than elegance. "And I hope he will keep on so for years to come. He is
about the best friend I have, or am likely to have."
"I hope he won't keep up the kicking part of it," says Molly, with a
delicious laugh that ripples through the air and shows her utter
enjoyment of her own wit. Not to laugh when Molly laughs, is
impossible; so Luttrell joins her, and they both make merry over his
vulgarity. In all the world, what is there sweeter than the happy,
penetrating, satisfying laughter of unhurt youth?
"Lucky you, to have seen so much already," says Molly, presently, with
an envious sigh; "and yet," with a view to self-support, "what good has
it done you? Not one atom. After all your traveling you can do nothing
greater than fall absurdly in love with a village maiden. Will your
father call that enlarging your mind?"
"I hope so," concealing his misgivings on the point. "But why put it so
badly? Instead of village maiden, say the loveliest girl I ever met."
"What!" cries Molly, the most naive delight and satisfaction animating
her tone; "after going through France, Germany, Italy, and India, you
can honestly say I am the loveliest woman you ever met?"
"You put it too mildly," says Luttrell, raising himself on his elbow to
gaze with admiration at the charming face above him, "I can say more.
You are ten thousand times the loveliest woman I ever met."
Molly smiles, nay, more, she fairly dimples. Try as she will and does,
she cannot conceal the pleasure it gives her to hear her praises sung.
"Why, then I am a 'belle,' a 'toast,'" she says, endeavoring
unsuccessfully to see her image in the little basin of water that has
gathered at the foot of the rocks; "while you," turning to run five
white fingers over his hair caressingly, and then all down his face,
"you are the most delightful person I ever met. It is so easy to
believe what you tell one, and so pleasant. I have half a mind to--kiss
you!"
"Don't stop there: have a whole mind," says Luttrell, eagerly. "Kiss me
at once, before the fancy evaporates."
"No," holding him back with one lazy finger (he is easy to be
repulsed), "on second thought I will reserve my caress. Some other
time, when you are good,--perhaps. By the bye, Ted, did you really mean
you would take me to Vienna?"
"Yes, if you would care to go there."
"Care? that is not the question. It will cost a great deal of money to
get there, won't it? Shall we be able to afford it?"
"No doubt the governor will stand to me, and give a check for the
occasion," says Luttrell, warming to the subject. "Anyhow, you shall
go, if you wish it."
"Wait until your father hears you have wedded a pauper, and then you
will see what a check you will get," says Miss Massereene, with a
contemptible attempt at a joke.
"A pun!" says Luttrell, springing to his feet with a groan; "that means
a pinch. So prepare."
"I forbid you," cries she, inwardly quaking, and, rising hurriedly,
stands well away from him, with her petticoats caught together in one
hand ready for flight. "I won't allow you. Don't attempt to touch me."
"It is the law of the land," declares he, advancing on her, while she
as steadily retreats.
"Dear Teddy, good Teddy," cries she, "spare me this time, and I will
never do it again--no, not though it should tremble forever on the tip
of my tongue. As you are strong, be merciful. Do forgive me this once."
"Impossible."
"Then I defy you," retorts Miss Massereene, who, having manoeuvred until
she has placed a good distance between herself and the foe, now turns,
and flies through the trees, making very successful running for the open
beyond. Not until they are within full view of the house does he manage
to come up with her. And then the presence of John sunning himself on
the hall-door step, surrounded by his family, effectually prevents her
ever obtaining that richly-deserved punishment.