AT THE PIANO.
Spring had gone, and summer was almost over. Yet the season at Lakeview
was at its height still, and down among the hotels and boarding houses
the tragic death of Allen Chesterbrook was well-nigh forgotten. It was
one continual round of outing trips, dances, and what not, and in the
midst of this gayety few had time to think of anything else, especially
anything dark, mysterious, and disagreeable.
General business, aside from that which came from summer visitors, was
booming, too. The great litigation had come to an end, and Colonel
Willowby and Bixby were victorious. Hardly was the verdict rendered
than the improvements contemplated by the company were started, giving
employment to a small army of laborers and artisans.
Having gained their point, the company was able to meet its notes
promptly, and once more Henry Cross was able to use his cash as he
saw fit. For his assistance the colonel offered him a block of the
company’s stock below actual value, but this the young man declined.
“I’ve got the new railroad in my head,” he said, with a light laugh.
“I’m going into that, heart and soul.”
“Well, I imagine the railroad will be a big thing,” returned Colonel
Willowby. “And you can rest assured that you will have no trouble over
a right of way through the Land Company’s property.”
During the early summer Henry Cross had met Maud Willowby but seldom.
When first they came face to face it was on one of the numerous country
roads about Lakeview, and he started back in amazement at the change in
her appearance. She looked older; she was no longer the girlish being
of former days. And her hair, the beautiful golden hair, was duller,
and here and there was a faint streak of gray! He could hardly believe
this, yet it was true, and she was not yet twenty-three.
She had greeted him with more warmth than he had expected, for during
her engagement to Chesterbrook a coldness had sprung up between them.
He did not know that she had discovered how he had saved them from ruin.
Their conversation had opened in a commonplace way, with not the
slightest allusion to the past. He had often wondered if her father had
told her the truth of that horrible affair, but nothing in her face or
manner betrayed what she knew or of what she was ignorant. Before both
realized it, he was walking home with her. They parted, however, at the
gate.
After that he called on her several times, and on each occasion the
talk grew more personal, and one by one formalities were cast aside,
until, when the bright days of August were drawing to a close, he
occupied almost the same position in her regard as before Chesterbrook
had appeared on the scene.
But was her warmth toward him genuine? This was the question he found
himself unconsciously answering himself. Perhaps she was deceiving
herself, he reasoned; perhaps she didn’t know her own heart.
There was a good deal in her manner upon which to base such a
supposition. There were times that she was not herself; he saw that
so plainly there was no use in attempting to disguise the fact. She
would grow suddenly cold, absent-minded, as if thinking of something
far away, and then she would start up, as if from a dream, and force
herself to pay attention to the present, to what he was saying and
doing.
What if her mind was slightly unbalanced? Once he asked himself that
question when they were reading together, and she had suddenly sprung
up without apparent cause, and begun to walk the floor. But she had
afterward laughed it off.
“I have a tooth that worries me. I must drive down to Doctor Califf and
have him attend to it,” she had said. Yet, so far as he could learn,
she had never gone near the dentist.
But the young man was in love with her, and true love is certainly
blind to many shortcomings. He excused all in her--that is, he was
willing to excuse all, if he could make her his own. He had loved her
for years, and such a love is not easily daunted or thrust aside.
The colonel saw the drift of affairs, and he encouraged the attentions
of Cross, so far as lay in his power, for several reasons. He liked
Henry Cross, and, so far as he knew, thought he would make a most
excellent husband for Maud--a better, steadier fellow than Chesterbrook
would have made. Then, again, it would be a good thing for Maud. She
needed a decided change, for even the revelation that Chesterbrook had
committed suicide had not kept her from brooding over the past.
One day Henry Cross drove up with a spanking new roadster. “I am going
to drive out Oakdale way to look up the route of the new railroad,” he
said. “Wouldn’t you like to go along? The leaves are beginning to turn,
and it will be a beautiful ride. We can be back by sunset.”
But she shook her head. “I don’t like to go out Oakdale way,” Maud
replied. “And, besides, I guess you will have enough to do without me.
I’ll go some other time,” and she smiled.
He was disappointed, but he remembered her promise, and a week or ten
days later asked her to go out again, and they would motor anywhere she
wished.
There was no refusing, and she accepted. They went off to a beautiful
spot along a small mountain torrent that flowed into a beautiful stream
below Lakeview. The run was full of natural interest, for the autumn
leaves were now out in all their gorgeous glory of red and scarlet and
gold, and their course brought them to many picturesque cascades, where
the sparkling water dashed and splashed over the moss-hung rocks.
“How bright and happy it all looks,” she sighed. “See how merrily the
stream runs on, not knowing or caring whither. Why cannot we be just as
careless--and free?”
“It was not meant so, I suppose,” he returned. He had a mind to say
more, but he remained silent.
When they were driving home, she asked him about his new railroad;
she called it his railroad, although he was but one of a dozen who
were interested in it; and he told her many things concerning what had
been done, and what was hoped for, growing enthusiastic, and quite
forgetting himself.
“I am tiring you,” he said at last, and his face fell. “What does a
woman care for these things?”
“I care for the things you are interested in,” she returned hastily,
and then their eyes met, and hers fell before him. He wished to go on,
but something restrained him, and an awkward pause followed. When it
was broken, the entire subject was changed. But long after he had left
her, that one look haunted him. It had been full of kindness, nay,
love; but before that love was something else--doubt, fear, he could
not tell what.
“Strange,” he murmured to himself, “strange, indeed.” But he could get
no further.
A few days later he called again--he found himself thinking of her
constantly now. She met him in the library, where she was finishing a
letter.
“I am soon to have a visitor,” she said. “An old schoolmate whom I have
not seen for several years.”
“Indeed!” he returned. “Do I know her?”
“Hardly, for she has never been in Lakeview before. We were chums at
the seminary in Pennsylvania. Her name is Alice Devigney.”
“No, I do not know her, but it seems to me I have heard you mention her
name.”
“Most likely. When I came home I used to speak of Alice constantly. She
was going to call on me right after, but her folks went on a tour to
Europe, and took her along, and when they returned they settled down in
Chicago, and she has never been East since.”
He smiled. “I presume you look forward to the visit with much pleasure.
You can talk over old times, and all that.”
Her face paled just a trifle. “Oh, yes, we will do a lot of gossiping,
as you may call it. Alice has seen many more of the former scholars
than I have, for while I was there not one in the seminary was from
this neighborhood.”
“Is your friend married?”
“Yes. But her husband has gone to Canada. She informs me that he is in
the lumber business, and goes there on a business trip once a year; so
she is going to spend the time while he is away in visiting me.”
“I see. I am glad you are going to have a companion here. It will make
it less lonely. Is she a jolly sort of woman? I like that kind.”
“Oh, Alice used to be full of fun. But she’s married now. Marriage
subdues most women, doesn’t it?”
“Having never been a woman, and married, I can’t say,” he laughed. “But
really, I don’t see why marriage ought to make women gloomy--I mean,
take the lightness of heart from them.”
“In the marriage state women have far more responsibilities than when
they were single.”
“They ought to have less, if their husbands are the right sort of
fellows, willing to bear most of the troubles themselves.”
“Perhaps they mean to when they get married. But they soon grow
tired----”
“Not if they love the woman--if there has been no mistake----”
He stopped short, for he saw that her color was leaving her. She turned
and bent over a drawer of the old secretary, looking for a postage
stamp, but could not find any.
“Oh, dear! I thought there were a number of stamps here!”
“I will post it for you. It is my intention to go down to the post
office from here,” he said, as he took the letter and placed it in his
pocket.
“Now don’t forget it,” she said roguishly. “I have heard of men
carrying letters about for weeks before they thought of them again.”
“Of married men; but we----” he laughed and she blushed. “You are
anxious for your friend to come, I see. When she is here, I suppose I
will be forgotten.”
“Oh, you must come and see her, by all means!” she broke in. “You will
like her--if she is anything like the Alice of schoolgirl days.”
“When do you expect her?”
“It is likely she will come on very soon after she receives my letter.”
They passed out of the library into the parlor. The piano stood open
for the first time since that fateful wedding day. He noted it with
pleasure, and asked her if she had been playing.
“Only a few exercises,” she returned. “Papa wished it. He said I would
get out of practice.”
“Here are a number of the old favorites,” he went on, glancing over a
pile of music which rested in a rack near by. “Won’t you play something
for me? You know how I love music.”
She knew he spoke the truth. In the days long gone by she had played
while he sang, and she had enjoyed that as much as anything in which he
had a hand.
“I had not intended to play----” she began, and then smiled sadly. “I
will accompany a song for you, if you wish.”
“Very well; although I would have preferred to have you play alone.
What shall it be?”
They began to look over the music together, her head bent close to
his own. The impulse was strong in him to throw his arms about her
and clasp her to his breast; but he restrained himself. His very love
told him that a too hasty declaration would spoil all. To command his
feelings he drew back.
In the meanwhile, a sudden thought came into her mind. Her cheeks
flushed, and she began to turn over the music rapidly.
“Here is that solo you used to sing--‘The Homeless Child,’” she said.
“Can you sing it still?”
“I can try it. But would you not prefer something else--something
brighter? ‘Poor Butterfly,’ or something like that?”
“This will do,” she returned, placing the music on the piano. Her hands
ran lightly over the keys and drifted softly into the introduction to
the song.
It was an old piece, and the words were somewhat commonplace. But he
sang them with all the ability at his command and with a fervor that
brought tears to her eyes. He was singing for her, and as he reached
the pathetic lines:
“For the homeless child must live somewhere,
In this world so harsh and cold,”
his voice grew husky and nearly broke before the conclusion was reached.
“You sing the song very feelingly,” she murmured, “as if the sentiment
touched a sensitive chord in your heart.”
“The words are very pathetic, I think,” he rejoined. “There are
hundreds of homeless children in our great cities for whom no one seems
to care.”
“Then humanity should prompt people to extend the hand of charity to
the little waifs--especially the people that have no children of their
own.”
He was turning over the music left in the rack.
“I agree with you. I know if a homeless child came under my notice I
think I would try to do something for it.”
“Would you take it in your home? It would need a home, most likely,
poor thing!”
“I might. It would depend on circumstances. But, then, I love children;
but some people don’t.”
“That is true. If every one loved children, there wouldn’t be so many
deserted ones.” Her face took on a brighter look. “Now you can sing
‘Poor Butterfly,’ if you will.”
She struck the keys vigorously this time, and ran over them with a
swiftness that aroused him as a touch of electricity might have done.
Her grave mood was gone, and a demeanor almost gay had taken its place.
He did not object, and sang the piece with a dash and spirit that made
them both laugh. Half a dozen other songs followed, and when he found
an old duet hidden away under some music books, and brought it forth,
she agreed to sing it with him, and her voice thrilled him as it never
had before.
How that meeting might have ended, there is no telling. But the colonel
came in at the end of the duet, and the musical tête-à-tête was
interrupted. But when Henry Cross returned to his bachelor apartments
he felt as if he were walking on air, so happy was he.