Una went with the girls to ransack the trunks, but she steadily
declined to accept any of the finery they spread out on the bed and
chairs.
"Eliot offered to give me a new dress this morning, and I told him I
had plenty," she said, "so if I took any of these, he would think I had
deceived him."
"You dear little conscientious thing, you are well named Una,"
cried Edith, gayly. "But Eliot would never know, and, my dear, this
rose-colored satin with lace flounces would make up lovely for you, and
be so becoming."
"It is too fine for me," Una answered, shrinkingly.
"Not a bit. A gold dress would not be too fine for Eliot's wife,"
vivaciously. "And you know, dear, at a theater-party one dresses as if
for a ball. We shall have private boxes, you know, and every one will
want to look nice. Now, you really have nothing fit to wear."
Una flushed sensitively, but she knew that it was true. She had
nothing fine but the blue silk dinner-dress, except--and her heart
throbbed painfully--the sweet, white dress with its filmy laces that
she had worn for her strange marriage that starlit night in New Orleans
beneath the green trees in the quaint semi-tropical garden. The dress,
with the necklace of pearls, lay folded away in the bottom of her trunk.
"I have the white dress I wore when I was--married," she said,
dubiously. "Perhaps it will do."
They went with her to look at it, and they were charmed with the
quaint, pretty robe and the moon-white pearls.
"You will look lovely in this. Why did you not show it to us before?
And you never told us you had such splendid jewels."
"Are they splendid? I did not know it. Monsieur Carmontelle gave them
to me for a wedding-gift. I have more of them in a box given me by the
Jockey Club."
They exclaimed with delight when they saw the lovely things in the
jewel-casket. There were diamonds, rubies, emeralds, all in the most
tasteful and elegant settings. Una gave them _carte blanche_ to wear
what they pleased, and accepting the offer in sisterly sincerity, the
girls selected each a set appropriate to the costume selected for the
occasion.
"You will wear the pearls with the white dress, Una, I will take the
diamonds to suit the rose-colored satin, and Maud can wear the rubies
with the gold brocade!" exclaimed Edith, gayly. "Oh, how surprised
Sylvie and Ida will be! They will expect us to look like dowdies,
knowing we can not afford new dresses. But we will keep all a secret,
and burst upon them Thursday evening in a blaze of glory!"
"Agreed!" cried Maud, merrily, and Una's gentle, pensive smile added
assent, although to herself she sighed apprehensively:
"Perhaps Eliot will not like for me to appear in my wedding-dress. It
will remind him of his sacrifice. But I have nothing else to wear."
And when Eliot asked her that evening what kind of a dress she would
wear, so that he might select her flowers in keeping, she answered, in
a half-frightened tone.
"White!"
"It will suit you," he answered, kindly, but Una thought, sadly:
"He would not say so if he knew it was my wedding-dress!"
He lingered by her side, thrilled with the memory of the morning's
kiss, and waiting to see if she would show him any more kindness.
Una was very glad to keep him near her, but she was full of a blushing
consciousness that made her even more shy than usual. Oh, that kiss
this morning!--how had she dared to be so bold?--and yet she had a
passionate longing to repeat the caress.
Ida Hayes saw him lingering by his wife, and called him away to sing
with her.
"That duet we used to sing, you know," she said; and her familiar tone
and coquettish smile half maddened Una with pain. She drew back without
a word, and let Eliot pass her, and between Sylvie and her sister he
had no more chance to speak to her in the drawing-room that evening.
When the music was done he was drawn into a game of chess, and as Una
was ignorant of the game she was perforce left out. She sat apart and
talked to some callers who had dropped in, and when they left she was
only too glad to find that the evening was over and the family were
separated for the night.
She went upstairs very slowly, and along the carpeted hall to her
room, with a bitter sense of loneliness and disappointment, vaguely
comprehending the malice of the two women who had so cleverly kept
Eliot from her side all the evening.
"They hate me for my unconscious fault," she thought, miserably.
"Good-night, Una," a voice said, suddenly, almost at her side.
It was Eliot who had followed her upstairs. As she turned round her
white, startled face, he drew her hand in his arm and walked with her
toward her door.
"You forgot to tell me good-night," he said, smiling. "Or--did you
deliberately snub me again because of--a fit of ill-temper?"
Too truthful to deny the imputation, she said, bashfully:
"I'm afraid so. I thought Miss Hayes wasn't going to let you off long
enough to say good-night, so I came away."
Pressing her little hand very close against his side, he replied,
ardently:
"I should like to see the Miss Hayes that could keep me from saying
good-night to my darling little wife."
They had reached her door. She paused, trembling with delight, but in
the dim light he could not see the gladness in the beautiful dark eyes.
He only felt the trembling of the form beside him, and thought that she
was nervous and frightened.
"Do not be afraid of me, Una," he said, hurriedly, and with sharp
disappointment. Then he drew the little figure close to his heart, and
held her there a moment, while he pressed on her warm lips the ardent
kiss of a lover. A moment more he turned away and left her to enter her
room alone, with some sweet, passionate words ringing in her ears:
"Good-night, my darling, my little wife! Sleep well, and dream of your
own Eliot."
"Did he mean it? Is he learning to love me at last?" she whispered to
herself, sobbing wildly with hysterical delight, and trembling with
bashful pleasure. She unrobed and lay down on her dainty white bed, not
to sleep, but to live over and over again, in fancy, his tender looks
and words and his warm caress.
But Eliot, in whom a passionate hope and longing had been stirring all
day, went to his solitary room vaguely disappointed.
"Poor darling! I frightened her by my vehemence," he said,
remorsefully, to himself. "Her beauty and her gentleness tempted me
almost beyond my strength. Ah, she little dreamed what a struggle it
cost to leave her there and to wait, still wait, although half maddened
with love and longing."
For him, too, the drowsy god tarried to-night, and he tossed
sleeplessly on his pillow, dreaming of Una just as Una was dreaming of
him, with infinite love and yearning.
Weary with the night's restlessness, Una slept too soundly next morning
for the breakfast-bell to rouse her from her slumbers. Eliot, who had
to be at the office by a certain hour, fidgeted uneasily, and at last
sent Edith to see if she was awake.
In a minute she came out on tiptoe.
"She is sleeping so sweetly, I had not the heart to wake her," she
said. "But, Eliot, you might just slip in and kiss her good-bye in her
sleep."
Her keen young eyes saw the sensitive color mount to his temples.
"Una would not like it," he replied, gravely.
Candid Edith shut the door softly behind her, and gave her brother a
playful little shake as she went with him along the hall.
"Eliot, you are a great goose, that's what you are!" she cried. "Una is
your wife. You have a right to go in her room and kiss her if you like,
and I don't believe she would object, either!"
With a sigh, he replied:
"You must remember how sudden our marriage was, Edith. My little girl
had no time to learn to love me, or get used to me. Is it not right
that I should leave her in peace until I shall have won her heart as
well as her hand?"
Edith stared at him in wonder.
"Eliot Van Zandt, you are as blind as a bat!" she exclaimed, and darted
away without another word.
But although she would not say another word to Eliot, she made up her
mind to lecture Una.
So the first thing when Una opened her heavy eyes, she saw Edith
sitting demurely in the big willow rocker by the bedside.
She burst out unceremoniously:
"You lazy girl, you have slept until breakfast was over, and your
husband gone down-town. Poor boy! he waited and waited outside your
door for you to wake, but you just dreamed on until he had to go. I
told him to slip in and kiss you good-bye in your sleep, but he was
afraid you would be angry. I do say, Una Van Zandt, you ought to be
ashamed of yourself."
Una was sitting up in bed very wide awake indeed now, a lovely picture
of amazement and distress, with her loose, golden hair falling on her
half-bare, white shoulders, her eyes dilated with wonder, her cheeks
flushed from sleep.
"Oh, Edith, what have I done now? I don't know what you're talking
about," she faltered.
"Don't you, Mistress Van Zandt? Listen, then: I'm talking about what a
tyrant you are to my brother. Here you have been married to him almost
a year and I don't believe you've ever given the poor boy as much as a
kiss or one fond word. Do you think he is a stick or a stone, without
any feeling, that you behave so heartlessly? I tell you it made me
angry to see him this morning afraid to come inside this room to tell
you good-bye. Don't you know he has a right to be in this room with you
if he choose, only he is too afraid of you to assert himself? There
is no other man on earth half so good and chivalrous as Eliot. Fancy
Bryant being afraid to put his foot inside Sylvie's door. Why, they
both would tell you it was all nonsense. You treat Eliot--"
Una held out her hands entreatingly.
"Hush, Edith, don't scold me so," she begged, with quivering lips; but
she did not utter a word in her own defense. She was too wretched and
heart-sick, feeling that Eliot's fault, his persistent avoidance of his
wife, need not be held up to his sister's condemnation.
"Far rather would I shield him by letting the blame rest wholly upon
myself," she resolved, firmly.