LED ON BY FATE.
Lady Hermione did not utter one word. She was not angry; he knew that,
for the beautiful face flushed warm as he touched it.
“He has a right to kiss me,” she thought to herself, “for he loves me.
No one has ever kissed me before, and never shall.”
Then he would have told her the story of his love, the story that rose
from his heart to his lips in a burning torrent of words; but at that
moment, over the roses came the sound of light laughter, and there was
no more solitude; he was obliged to leave the story untold.
It was Captain Gordon and Miss Monteith, seeking the cool air of the
grounds. Simple accident led them to that path among the roses, but the
accident, simple as it was, altered the course of three lives.
Not again that evening did Sir Ronald find even three minutes’ leisure
to devote to Lady Hermione. She was the belle of the ball, the queen of
the _fête_, always surrounded by a little court of admirers, the center
of all homage. Yet he was content.
“She cares for me,” he said to himself, over and over again; “she was
not angry when I kissed her face. She is so dainty, so pure, so sweet,
that if she had not meant that I should love her she would have rebuked
me with proud words. She loves me, and when I ask her to be my wife,
she will not say me nay.”
And the very thought caused his heart to beat high with triumph, made
his whole soul overflow with happiness, and while he stood there he saw
Miss Severn looking at him with wistful eyes. It struck him at once how
entirely he had forgotten her, and he hurried across the ballroom.
The beautiful, passionate face seemed to glow with new life as he bowed
to her.
“I thought your majesty had forgotten Queen Jane,” she said, with all
the music of reproach and love in her voice.
“I must plead guilty to the charge of losing my interests in one,” he
replied, “and yet I cannot accuse myself of forgetting you.”
He meant nothing but the most idle of words, such as no one could
refrain from speaking to a beautiful woman, who flattered him with her
preference.
“I must not be hard upon you, remembering you had six queens to love,”
she said.
“Complete the pardon by giving me the next dance,” said Sir Ronald, and
she gladly consented.
They stood together before a rich cluster of white hyacinths, a flower
of which she was especially fond. Suddenly she looked in Sir Ronald’s
face.
“Speaking seriously,” she said, “and remembering history, do you
believe that King Harry ever loved Jane Seymour as much as he did Anne
Boleyn?”
“Speaking seriously, as you say, Miss Severn, I am inclined to
think--yes; he did. She never displeased him; she died before she had
time to offend him; she increased his importance by leaving him a son
and heir.”
“But,” interrupted Clarice, “how passionately he loved that beautiful
Anne; how he wooed her, how he pursued her--what thousands of tender
words he must have lavished on her!”
“Words are but empty sounds,” he interrupted.
“And you believe, after all, that passion of devotion--after defying
all Europe for her sake--that he loved Queen Jane the best?”
“I have not thought much about the matter, but from rapidly thinking
over all I remember of the subject, I should say, yes, he cared most
for Jane.”
It pleased her to read a hidden meaning in his words of which he was
most entirely unconscious. He had for the moment even forgotten how the
historical characters were distributed; but Clarice Severn gathered up
all these words, and placed them in her heart; she pondered over them,
and they made for a few short days the music of her life.
The brilliant evening came to an end, and left three people more happy
than words of mine could tell. Lady Hermione, with her lover’s first
kiss warm on her lips, his passionate words lingering in her ears, her
heart warm with the remembrance of all he had said to her, and how
dearly he loved her; Sir Ronald, happy because he believed the bonnie
bright bird he had wooed so long would flutter into his hand; Clarice,
happy under a false impression, and because she loved Sir Ronald so
well that she believed that which she should only have hoped.
“I will lose no time,” said Sir Ronald to himself. “To-morrow I will
ask her that most honest of all questions: ‘Will you be my wife?’”
But Sir Ronald found that to propose and to accomplish a deed was very
different. Although he was remaining at Leeholme until evening he
found no opportunity of saying one word to Lady Hermione; there were
so many guests and her attention was so incessantly occupied. There
were always young girls eagerly talking to her, or gentlemen paying
her compliments, and, as the daughter of the house, she was engaged in
entertaining visitors. In vain Sir Ronald watched and waited. He only
asked five minutes, but even that short space of time was quite out of
his reach.
He sat by her side during lunch, but even the most ardent of lovers
could not possibly make an offer of marriage over cold chicken and
lobster salad. There was a little assertion of independence, too, on
her part. She knew what was coming just as a wild, bright forest bird
knows its fate when the net is drawn around it. In vain Sir Ronald
spoke to her. The lovely eyes, so frankly raised to other faces,
drooped shyly from his. The sweet, proud lips that smiled so freely
were mute and closed for him.
Maiden modesty and maiden pride rendered her shy, timid and silent with
the lover for whom she would have laid down her sweet, young life. Sir
Ronald only loved her the better for it; his heart beat with impatience.
“Let me have only one minute with her,” he said, “and I would soon
change all that.”
But Sir Ronald was obliged to leave Leeholme without accomplishing his
wish. He rode home through the fragrant gloaming with a heart full of
love that was both happiness and pain.
“She will be mine,” he said to himself, when any cold or cruel doubts
came to him; “she will be mine because she let me kiss her lips, and
that kiss was a solemn betrothal.” There came to his mind the words of
a beautiful, quaint old German ballad, “Schön Rothant,” wherein a lover
says: “Every leaf in the forest knows that I have kissed her lips.”
“She will be mine,” he cried aloud. “I would work for her twice seven
years, as Jacob did. I would be content to love her my whole life
through, satisfied if in death she rewarded me with but one smile.
I love her so that if I lay dead with green grass and forest leaves
heaped over me and she came to my grave and whispered my name, I should
hear her.”
The Aldens were a quick, passionate race. They did nothing by halves.
They knew no limit, no bound, no measure to their loves or hates. With
many men love is a pastime, a pleasing, light occupation, a relief
from the severity of daily toil. With others it is deeper and more
serious--yet one life holds many; but with men of Sir Ronald’s stamp it
is life or death, rapture or despair, highest happiness or deepest woe.
For one whole week his suspense lasted. He rode over every day to
Leeholme, and every evening returned with the one question still
unasked, for the park was full of visitors and Lady Hermione always
engaged.
At length he resolved to write. He said to himself that he could not
bear another week such as this past had been; that even despair itself
would be easier to bear than suspense. He smiled as he said the words,
feeling sure there would be neither suspense nor sorrow for him.