TWO GLANCES.
After all it was not Molly Wilton who first came into the room where
Adrian waited for the duet, but her elder sister, Amy. Each sister had
her recognised province, in which she reigned supreme. Amy was the
beauty of the family, and had a taste for poetry; Molly was musical and
lively. This arrangement worked perfectly, and Molly admired her
sister's charms, and her poetical sympathies, without a trace of
jealousy, feeling quite sure that justice would be done to her if there
were any question of music or repartee.
Adrian was not looking at his proofs when Miss Wilton came in. He was
sitting on the sofa, with his legs stretched out before him, gazing into
space, and thinking of Sandmoor, near Ilfracombe. It was absolutely
necessary that he should put himself into communication with that place,
but how was it to be done? Should he write that day, or should he go the
next?
"Oh, I have interrupted you!" Miss Wilton ejaculated, and stopped just
inside the door.
"Interrupted me! Not a bit of it! I was only----"
"You were thinking of that sonnet--I know you were!"
"No, really," said Adrian, almost wishing he _had_ been thinking of that
sonnet. "No, I wasn't. In fact I think the sonnet is pretty well
finished."
"Is it? You must read it to me, won't you?" and she came forward
eagerly, took a chair, and dropped into a graceful attitude of
attention. She had a real taste for poetry, and the poet was also to her
liking. This was not the first time that she had listened, with shining
eyes and quickened breath, and had brought the colour to the young man's
cheek by saying with soft earnestness, "I like that--O, I like that!"
Adrian found it very pleasant to read his poems to Miss Wilton.
"If you like," he said. "If you are sure it won't bore you."
"Of course I like," she answered.
"It's the first sonnet of all, you know," he explained, "a sort of
dedication. I didn't like the one I had, so I shall make them put this
in instead." He pulled his papers out of his pocket, and took a leaf of
manuscript from among the printed pages. "You must tell me what you
think of it," he said, and cleared his throat.
At that moment Molly opened the door. She saw the state of affairs at a
glance, and slipped into her place, as quietly as if she had come into
church late, and spied a convenient free seat.
Adrian read--
"_Have not all songs been sung, all loves been told?_
What shall I say when nought is left unsaid?
The world is full of memories of the dead,
Echoes, and relics. Here's no virgin gold,
But all assayed, none left for me to mould
Into new coin, and at your feet to shed,
Each piece is mint-marked with some poet's head,
Tested and rung in tributes manifold._
"_O for a single word should be mine own--
And not the homage of long-studied art,
Common to all, for you who stand apart!
O weariness of measures tried and known!
Yet in their rhythm, you_--_if you alone--
Should hear the passionate pulses of my heart!_"
As he finished he lifted his eyes and looked at Amy. Where else should a
young man look, to emphasise the meaning of his love-poem, except into a
woman's sympathising eyes? But the look, mere matter of course as it
was, startled and silenced her. "You--if you alone!" The words, spoken
with the soft fulness of Adrian's pleasant voice, rang in her ears. A
young woman whose attractions were recognised by all the family might
very well be pardoned for not at once perceiving that the emphasis was
purely artistic.
But the silence which would have been full of meaning for the lover,
frightened the poet.
"You don't like it!" he exclaimed, anxiously.
"Oh yes, I do--I like it very much."
"But there is something wrong," Adrian persisted. "I am sure you don't
like it."
"Indeed--indeed I do," the girl declared fervently, and Molly chimed in
with an enthusiastic--
"Oh, Mr. Scarlett, it's charming!"
"It's very kind of you to say so," he replied, pocketing his sonnet and
going towards the piano, still with a slightly troubled expression.
"Shall we try that duet now?"
Molly's thoughts were very easily diverted from poetry. She set up the
music; but just as she was about to strike the first note, an idea
occurred to her, and spinning half round on the stool--
"Amy," she said, "do _you_ call that Mr. Harding so very good-looking?"
Amy was taken by surprise.
"I? oh no!" she answered.
"There!" Molly exclaimed, looking up at Scarlett.
"Why, what do you mean?" Miss Wilton asked. "Somehow I can't fancy he'll
live. Whenever I look at that man's face I think of death."
"What a queer idea!" said the younger sister reflectively. "Well, he
certainly doesn't look strong, and I should think that Robinson boy
would be enough to worry anybody into an early grave."
Adrian, standing by the piano, raised his eyes to the old mirror, as if
he half expected to see the pale face with its watchful eyes below the
gleaming surface of the glass. But it reflected only a vague confusion
of curtain and wall-paper, and the feathery foliage of a palm.
"I say," said Molly, "had you met him before this morning, or did you
introduce yourselves?"
"We introduced ourselves. I found he knew a place where I stayed last
summer. Don't you remember," he said, looking across at Amy, "the old
house I told you about?"
"I remember. Where you wrote that bit, '_Waiting by the Sundial_'?"
Scarlett nodded.
"Yes. Well, I found he knew it well--in fact it turned out that he was a
connection----"
"What, of your friends there?"
"No, not of my friends, of the old family who used to have the place."
"Oh, your friends aren't the old family then?" said Molly.
"No, they are not. I ought to say they _were_ not--there were only two
of them," he added in an explanatory fashion, "old Mr. Hayes, and his
niece Miss Strange, and Mr. Harding told me to-day that the old man was
dead. I didn't know it."
Molly looked up sympathetically, but, as he did not seem to be
over-powered with grief, she went on, after a moment--
"Isn't it funny how, when one has never heard a name, and then one
_does_ hear it, one is sure to hear it again in three or four different
ways directly? Did you ever notice that?"
Mr. Scarlett wasn't sure that he had, but he agreed that it was a very
remarkable law.
"Well it always _is_ so--you notice," she said. "Now I don't remember
that I ever knew of anybody of the name of Strange in all my life, and
now the Ashfords have got a Miss Strange staying with them, and here
your friend is a Miss Strange."
His glance quickened a little at this illustration of the rule in
question.
"Curious!" he said. "And who is this Miss Strange who is staying with
the Ashfords?"
"Oh, she is a clergyman's daughter from Devonshire. She is very pretty.
Amy, don't you think that Miss Strange is pretty?"
"Very pretty," said Amy, taking a book from the table.
"Yes, very pretty, for that style," Molly repeated.
"And what is her particular style?" Adrian asked, keeping his eyes,
which were growing eager, fixed upon the keyboard.
"Oh, I don't know--she's rather small," said Molly lamely (Barbara was
not as tall as Amy Wilton), "and she is dark--too dark, I think." (Amy
was decidedly fair.) "She has a quantity of black hair. Do you like
black hair?" (Amy's was wound in shining golden coils,) "and rather a
colour, and fine eyes. Oh, dear, how _difficult_ it is to describe
people!"
It might be so, and yet young Scarlett, as he listened, could actually
see a pair of soft eyes shining under darkly pencilled brows, a cloud of
shadowy hair, and lips of deep carnation. It would rather have seemed
that Miss Molly Wilton excelled in the art of description.
"Do you know what her name is?" he asked in an indifferent voice,
stooping a little to look at a speck on one of the keys, and touching it
with a neat finger-nail.
"What, do you think it may be your Miss Strange?"
"It's possible," he said. "Her people were somewhere in that part of the
world."
"I did hear her name--no, don't say it! Amy, do you remember Miss
Strange's name?"
Amy looked up absently.
"Something old-fashioned--wasn't it Barbara?"
Adrian had lifted his head, and their eyes met. In that moment the girl
saw what a glance could mean. It was just a flash of light, and then his
ordinary look.
"Yes," he said, "that's the name; it must be the Miss Strange I know."
"Dear me!" said Molly, "I hope I didn't say any harm of her just now!
You'd better go and call. You remember the Ashfords, you went with us to
a garden party at their place when you were staying here two years ago."
Adrian smiled, and moved towards the window, forgetting his engagement
at the piano.
"Oh!" said the disappointed musician, "aren't we to have the duet then?"
"I beg your pardon," he answered, coming back with bright promptitude,
"I'm quite ready."
But Amy, as their voices rose and filled the room, sat gazing at the
page which she did not read. She had seen how Adrian Scarlett could
look, when he heard the name of Barbara. And she had thought, because he
turned towards her when he read a sonnet--she had thought--what? A pink
flush dyed her delicate skin. Our pardonable mistakes are precisely what
we ourselves can never pardon.
The song being ended young Scarlett made his escape. He was half amused,
half indignant.
"Sandmoor near Ilfracombe! Confound the fellow, he knew where she was
all the time, and I thought he was rather unwilling to give me her
Devonshire address! Sandmoor near Ilfracombe indeed!"