REGINALD’S PROPOSAL.
Eva sank into a low chair and hid her face in her hands. The sound of
her low, distressful sobbing filled the long drawing-room. It was a
complete breakdown--one that her aunt had never witnessed in her before.
She was so young and childish when her father brought her home, she had
never suspected a lover in her past, much less the tragedy of woe that
had sent her into a madhouse and left its fatal impress on her life.
She stood beside the window, pained and doubtful how to offer further
comfort, and wondering if it might not be a good time to speak a word
in her stepson’s favor.
Fortune favored her, for just then she saw him in front of the house
in his splendid new sleigh, with his pair of Kentucky thoroughbreds in
their glittering, gold-mounted harness. She cried out eagerly:
“Oh, Eva, dear, the sun has come out, and here is Reggie with his new
Kentucky grays to take you for a sleigh ride! Dry your eyes quickly,
before he comes in!”
Eva dabbed her eyes with her tiny lace handkerchief, but they were
still dim with the tears she had shed when the young man entered
through the heavy portières, tall, elegant, handsome, in his long
fur-lined overcoat.
He greeted them with effusion, for he was radiant with good spirits,
having decided to put his fate to the test to-day, scarcely dreaming of
a refusal.
“You will come with me for a spin through the park, will you not, Eva?
It is the finest day I ever saw--crisp underfoot and bright overhead!
It will put new life in you. Come, we must not lose a minute of this
glorious opportunity!”
“Go, dear, and get ready. It will brighten your spirits,” added her
aunt, so eagerly that she did not know how to refuse.
She went slowly to her room, but while she was changing her silken gown
for a cloth one, and wrapping herself warmly in a sealskin cloak, she
was thinking ruefully:
“If I go I cannot keep him from proposing to me! He will be sure to
seize upon the opportunity. I have evaded him so long! And I grieve to
wound his heart by a refusal, but I had as well have it over and done
with, since it is inevitable, sooner or later.”
With a sigh of resignation she went down to her handsome suitor,
wondering at her own indifference to him, and wishing she could like
him well enough to marry him and please everybody.
It did not occur to her, as it might have done to many a society girl,
to accept him without love for the sake of all the advantages he had to
offer.
In the primitive society in which she had been raised, no young girl
ever thought of marrying for any other reason but love. And Eva was
true to the pure instincts of her nature. Her heart must go with her
hand.
But she dreaded Reggie’s pain and auntie’s and papa’s disappointment
when she had refused her suitor. She hoped they would not scold her, or
sulk, as auntie sometimes did when things did not go to her liking.
With these rueful thoughts in her mind Eva was helped into the sleigh
that went flying over the smooth crust of snow to Central Park, that
was already filled with a joyful throng.
“See how enviously the fellows all nod at me! What wouldn’t they give
to be in my place by your side, Eva?” chuckled Reggie, in high good
humor with himself and the world.
“Oh, no, it is just your fancy,” she answered, blushing at his open
praise.
“Not a bit of it! They are all in love with you, Eva. Do you know what
the fellows say at my club? That you are the prettiest girl that ever
came to New York.”
“They are very kind, I’m sure, but it cannot be true!” she answered
shyly.
The handsome grays were just spinning along, the young pair in the
sleigh were bowing and smiling every other minute to some of their
acquaintances, the sky was blue and clear, the air was full of
exhilarating ozone and the music of sleigh bells. Somehow it all got
into Eva’s blood like wine, and she did not feel so miserable as she
did an hour before. It was pleasant, sleigh riding with such fine
horses and such a handsome young man, and, like most any other young
girl, she enjoyed being told that she was fair to look upon.
A little pensive smile curved her sweet, red lips and encouraged her
admirer to proceed:
“It’s true, every word of it! You are really the prettiest girl in New
York, Eva. I said so the first time I saw you, and I say so still. The
prettiest and the sweetest.”
“It’s coming! I’m so sorry!” she thought with secret dismay, having
grown in a year of belleship quite familiar with the signs.
“Oh, no,” she answered deprecatingly.
“But I say yes,” he insisted, trying to look down ardently into the
dark eyes that were persistently turned away from him, while he
continued:
“You know well enough all I think of you, Eva! The first time we met
you wiled my heart away with one look of your big, innocent dark eyes,
like a wondering child’s, and I have been in your toils ever since! But
I tried to be patient. I waited till you had seen the world and had
had your pick and choice of lovers, and refused one after another till
I thought: ‘I will speak now, for there may be a chance for me.’ Is
there, little Eva? Do you love me? Will you be my wife?”
She knew it all before, as he said; all his love and his hopes. How
could she help it when his devotion was so plain?
And the pain of refusing him, the sorrow of dashing his hopes to earth,
shook her heart with such pity that she did not know how to answer him;
her tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of her mouth.
“You do not speak, my darling!” he added anxiously. “Why do you turn
your eyes away? Are you coquetting with me? Does silence give consent?”
“Oh, no, no!” she managed to blurt out, in her alarm lest he consider
himself accepted.
Reginald Hamilton’s face paled to the hue of ashes at those words
from Eva’s lips, and, gripping the lines more tightly to restrain the
spirited prancing of the grays that hindered hearing, he muttered
eagerly:
“I don’t think I understood you rightly, Eva! Did you say yes?”
She gathered all her reluctant strength for the answer and said gently:
“No, no; I cannot marry you, because I do not love you!”
He had no more looked to be refused than he had expected the blue
heavens to fall and blot him out of existence.
His brain went dizzy with the shock, his senses seemed to reel, a fury
of indignation shook him so that he was obliged to wreak vengeance
instantly on something or other.
Eva, shrinking by his side, heard a stifled imprecation from his
blanched lips as he caught the horse-whip in a shaking hand and struck
the grays sharply over the back.
The spirited animals had never brooked the lash. They bolted instantly,
tearing the sleigh along like mad, to the horror of every beholder.