It was quite late when the group that was gathered in the drawing-room
dispersed that evening; but when the girls found themselves alone in
their own room, which they were to share together, they sat down for a
comfortable chat ere they retired.
"Do you think you will like Gray Gables?" asked Dorothy.
"It seems pleasant enough," returned Iris, with a yawn; "but it's not
the house so much, it's the people in the neighborhood. Are there many
young folks hereabouts?"
"Quite a number."
"Are they very jolly, or are they terribly dull?"
"Well, about as jolly as Mr. Kendal," laughed Dorothy. "He's not so very
jolly, and yet he is wonderfully good company."
"Yes, he is indeed," assented Miss Vincent. "Is he rich?" she asked,
point-blank, in the very next breath.
"No," returned Dorothy; "but he may be well off some day, I hope."
"Handsome and poor! That's too bad--that's a poor combination!" sighed
Miss Vincent, her countenance falling. "But tell me about him, Dorothy,
and--and how he ever happened to take a fancy to a quiet little mouse
like yourself. I have heard that it was your guardian's wish, as he was
dying, and that the idea was quite a surprise to him--to Mr. Kendal, I
mean. Is that true?"
"Yes," assented Dorothy, thoughtlessly enough.
She would not have answered the question in that way could she have seen
the eager anxiety on the face of the girl who asked it.
"Does he make love to you very much?" whispered Iris, laying her soft
cheek close against the blind girl's. "Forgive the question, but, do you
know, I have always had a longing to know just what engaged people said
to each other and how they acted--whether they grew more affectionate,
or, after the grand climax of an engagement had been entered into,
if--if somehow they did not act a little constrained toward each other."
Dorothy laughed long and merrily at the quaint ideas of her new friend.
But, then, no doubt all girls wished to know that. She had done so
herself once.
"You do not answer me," murmured Miss Vincent. "Now, please don't be
unkind, Dorothy, when I'm just dying to know."
"Well," said Dorothy, waxing very confidential, after the fashion of
girls, "I'll tell you _my_ experience; but mind, I don't say that it is
like every other girl's. Harry has been just a trifle bashful ever since
the afternoon that he asked me to--to be his wife, and just a little
constrained; but I always account for it in this way: that he does not
want me to think him silly and spoony. He has grown, oh! ever so
dignified. Why, he hardly ever says anything more about love--he thinks
he has said all there is to say. And his caresses are the same way--just
a little bit constrained, you know."
Iris Vincent had learned all she cared to know.
"Thank you, dear, ever so much, for gratifying my curiosity," she said
aloud; but in her own heart she said:
"I knew it--I knew it! Handsome Harry Kendal does not love this girl
with whom they have forced him into a betrothal. No wonder he looks sad
and melancholy, with a prospect before him of marrying a blind wife! Ah,
me! it is too dreadful a fate to even contemplate."
She looked complacently in the mirror at her own face. Well might Harry
Kendal have remarked that it was as beautiful as a poet's dream.
Nothing could have been more exquisitely lovely than the deep, velvety,
violet eyes, almost purple in their glorious depths, and the bronze-gold
hair, such as Titian loved to paint, that fell in heavy curls to her
slender waist.
One would scarcely meet in a life-time a girl of such wondrous
loveliness. Iris was only twenty, but already she had broken hearts by
the score.
She had only to smile at a man with those ripe, red, perfect lips, and
give him one glance from those mesmeric eyes, and he was straightway her
slave. And she gloried in her power.
Thrice she had broken up betrothals, and three young girls were
heart-broken in consequence, and had lifted up their anguished voices
and cursed her for her fatal beauty. But Iris only laughed her mellow,
wicked little laugh when she heard of it, and said:
"Poor little simpletons! Before they engage themselves they ought to
have been sure that they held their lovers' hearts completely. It were
better for them to realize before than after marriage that the men they
meant to stake their all upon could prove fickle at the first
opportunity when a pretty girl crossed their paths."
And who could say that there was not some little truth in this?
The two girls whose paths were to cross so bitterly slept peacefully
side by side that night; but long after Iris' eyes had closed in
slumber, Dorothy lay awake with oh! such a heavy load on her heart.
She wished she was gay and bright, like Iris, and oh! what would she not
have given only to see--only to see once again! And she turned her face
to where she knew the moonlight lay in great yellow bars on the floor,
and sobbed as she had never sobbed since she had become blind, and fell
asleep with the tear-drops staining her pale face, a long, deep sigh
trembling over her lips.
Both girls awoke early the next morning.
"When do you have breakfast?" asked Iris, with a yawn.
"At eight o'clock," said Dorothy; "so we need not be in a hurry about
getting up. It can not be more than six now."
"Oh, dear! then I shall have to get up at once," cried Iris; "for it
takes me fully that long to dress."
"Two hours!" cried Dorothy, amazed, adding: "Why, just put on a wrapper.
Nobody here ever thinks of making a toilet to appear at the
breakfast-table. There is no one but Mrs. Kemp, Harry, you and I."
She could not catch Iris' unintelligible reply, but she noticed that the
girl was not to be persuaded.
She commenced dressing at once.
Soon Dorothy detected a strange odor of burning paper in the room.
"What is that?" she cried, in alarm. "Oh, Miss Vincent, the house must
be on fire!"
Iris laughed long and loud.
"You delightful, innocent little goose!" she cried. "I am only curling
my bangs with an iron heated over the gas, and I'm trying the tongs on
paper to see that they are not too hot. I put my curls up in paper last
night, but the horrid old things wouldn't curl because of the damp
atmosphere, and--" She did not finish the sentence for Dorothy supplied
it in her own mind--"her new friend was desirous of looking her best."
Harry was pacing impatiently up and down the breakfast-room when they
entered.
"Good-morning, Miss Vincent; good-morning, Dorothy!" he exclaimed,
eagerly; and Dorothy's heart gave a quick start, noting that he called
her name last.
And another thing struck Dorothy quite forcibly. To her great surprise,
she noticed that Iris spoke in quite a different tone from what she did
when they were alone together in their own room.
There her accents were drawling, but now they were so wonderfully sweet
and musical that Dorothy was struck with wonder. She never knew that a
person could speak in two different tones of voice like this.
At the breakfast-table the conversation was bright and merry, though
outside the rain had commenced to patter against the window-pane.
Dorothy felt strangely diffident, for only a small portion of the
conversation was directed now and then to her, and Harry and Miss
Vincent kept up such a lively chatter that there was scarcely an
opportunity to get in a word edgewise.
The conversation turned upon horseback riding, and it brought a strange
pang to Dorothy's heart, for that had been the most pleasurable
accomplishment she had learned during the first few weeks she had been
at Gray Gables, and she loved it passionately.
In the very hour when they told her that she would for evermore be
blind--stone-blind--the cry that had sprung to her lips was, "And can I
never again ride Black Beauty?" and she bowed her head in a storm of
wild and tempestuous grief.
For many a day after Harry would not even have the name of Black Beauty
mentioned in her hearing. And now how strange that he should bring up
the subject in her presence!
"I am sorry it is raining, Miss Vincent," he said, "for I had promised
myself such a pleasure for this morning. I had intended asking you to
join me in a canter over the country. This is just the season of the
year to enjoy the bracing air. We have a little horse in the stable that
would delight you, if you are a judge of equine flesh. Its very name
indicates what it is--Black Beauty. You ride, of course?"--this
interrogatively.
"Oh, yes!" declared Iris; "and I always thought it would be the height
of my ambition if I could own a horse."
"That would be a very slight ambition to gratify," returned Harry
Kendal. "You may have--"
He was about to add, "Black Beauty," but at that instant his eyes fell
upon Dorothy. She was leaning forward, her sightless eyes turned in his
direction, with a world of anguish in them that would have melted a
heart of stone.
Mrs. Kemp saw the storm approaching, and said, hastily:
"I have always been thinking of buying a pony for my niece, and if she
is a very good girl, she may get one for Christmas."
Harry looked his thanks to Mrs. Kemp for coming to his rescue so timely.
Dorothy lingered after the others had left the breakfast-room, and
called to Harry to wait a minute, as she wished to speak with him.
He had a guilty conscience; he knew what was coming. She meant to ask
him if he intended offering Black Beauty to Miss Vincent, and, of
course, he made up his mind to deny it.