of the lion second in degree--Prescott Avery, just returned from his
journey round the world, about which he had written a magazine article,
and was understood to be projecting a book. His thin but well-preserved
flaxen locks, whitey-brown moustache, and little piping voice were
unchanged by tropic heats or Alpine snows, but he had gained in
consequence and, though mild and unassuming, felt it. He had always been
in the habit of entertaining his fair friends with a number of pretty
tales drawn from his varied social experiences, and had acquired a fresh
stock of very exciting ones in his travels. But his present hearer's
attention was wandering, and her smiles unmeaning, and in the very midst
of a most interesting narrative about his encounter with an angry llama,
she put an aimless question that showed utter ignorance whether it took
place in China or Peru. Prescott, always amiable, gulped down his
mortification with the aid of a cough, and then followed the lady's gaze
to where the distant flash of a scarlet toque might be seen through the
thin, leafless bushes on a low spur of land.
"That is Lily Carey, is it not?" he asked. "How very handsome she is
looking to-day! She has grown even more beautiful than when I went away.
By-the-by, is that the gentleman she is engaged to?"
"Oh, dear, no! Why, that is Arend Van Voorst! Don't you know him? She is
engaged to a Mr. Ponsonby, an English settler in South Australia."
"I see now that it is Mr. Van Voorst, whom I met several times before I
left," said Prescott, with unfailing amiability even under a snubbing.
Then, cheered by the prospect of again taking the superior position, he
continued in an impressive tone: "But it is not astonishing that I
should have taken him for Mr. Ponsonby. I believe I had the pleasure of
meeting that gentleman in Melbourne when I was in Australia, and the
resemblance is striking, especially at a little distance."
"Did you, indeed?" asked Ada, inwardly burning with excitement, but
outwardly nonchalant. The remarkable extent of Miss Thorne's knowledge
of everyone's affairs was not gained by direct questioning, which she
had found defeated its own object. "It is rather odd you should have
happened to meet him in Melbourne, for he very seldom goes there, and
lives on a ranch in quite another part of Australia."
"But I did meet him," replied Prescott. "He had come to Melbourne on
business, and I met him at a club dinner--a tall, handsome, light-haired
man. He sat opposite to me and we did not happen to be introduced, but I
am certain the name was Ponsonby. He took every opportunity of paying me
attention, and said something very nice about American ladies, which
made me feel sure he must have been here. Of course I did not know of
Miss Carey's engagement, or I should certainly have made his
acquaintance."
"The engagement was not out then, and of course he could not speak of
it. Now I think of it, Mr. Van Voorst does really look a great deal like
Mr. Ponsonby's photograph."
"I will speak of it to Miss Carey when I get an opportunity," said
Prescott, delighted. "The experiences one has on a long journey are
singular, Miss Thorne. Now as I was telling you----"
Ten minutes later the whole crowd were gathering round Miss Morgan, who
made a kind of nucleus for those with homeward intentions, when Mr.
Avery and Miss Thorne came in the most accidental way right against Mr.
Van Voorst and Miss Carey. By what means half the crowd already knew
what was in the wind, and the other half knew that something was, we may
not inquire. It was not in human nature not to look and listen as the
four exchanged proper greetings.
"Mr. Avery, Lily, has been telling me that he had the pleasure of
meeting Mr. Ponsonby in Melbourne," said Ada, "and thought you would be
glad to hear about it."
"Oh, thank you," said Lily, quietly, "I have had letters written since,
of course. You were not in Melbourne very lately, Mr. Avery?"
"Last summer--winter, I should say. You know, Miss Carey, it is so
queer, it is winter there when it is summer here--it is very hard to
realise it. But it is always agreeable to meet those who have really
seen one's absent friends, don't you think so?"
"Oh, very!"
"Mr. Ponsonby was looking very well and in very good spirits. I fancied
he showed a great interest in American matters, which I could not
account for. I wish I had known why, that I might have congratulated
him. I hope you will tell him so."
"Thank you," said Lily again. She spoke with ease and readiness, but her
beautiful colour had faded, and there was a frightened look in her eyes,
as of someone who sees a ghost invisible to the rest of the company.
"Mr. Avery was struck with Mr. Ponsonby's resemblance to you, Mr. Van
Voorst," said Ada; "you cannot be related, can you?"
"Come," said Aunt Sophia, suddenly, "what is the use of standing here? I
am tired of it, for one, and I am going to the Ripley's to get a little
warmth into my bones, and all who are going to the Wilson's to-night had
better come too. Emmie, you and Bessie _must_, Lily, you and Susie and
Eleanor _had better_--you see, Mr. Van Voorst, how nice are the
gradations of my chaperonage."
"Let me help you up the bank, Miss Morgan," said Arend; "it is steep
here."
"Thank you--come, Mrs. Rhodes. Mrs. Ripley isn't at home, but we shall
find hot bouillon and bread and butter."
"I had better not, thank you. I don't know Mrs. Ripley," stammered, with
chattering teeth, poor Mrs. Rhodes, shivering in her tight jacket and
thin boots.
"You need not know her if you do come, as she is out," said Miss Morgan,
coolly; "and if you don't, you certainly won't, as you will most likely
die of pneumonia. Now Fanny may think you a fool for doing so, if you
like, but I'm not going to have her call me a brute for letting you. So
come before we freeze."
Mrs. Rhodes meekly followed her energetic companion, both gallantly
assisted up the bank by Arend Van Voorst, who was devoted in his
attentions till they reached the house. He never looked towards Lily,
who, pale and quiet, walked behind with Emmeline Freeman, and as soon as
she entered the Ripley drawing-room ensconced herself, as in a nook of
refuge, behind the table with the big silver bowl, and ladled out the
bouillon with a trembling hand. The young men bustled about with the
cups, but Arend only took two for the older ladies, and went near her no
more.
Not a Ripley was there, though it was reported that Tom had been seen on
the ice that morning and told them all to come in, of course. No one
seemed to heed their absence; Miss Morgan pulled Mrs. Ripley's own
blotting-book towards her and scribbled a letter to her friend; Eleanor
Carey threw open the piano, and college songs resounded. Mrs. Rhodes was
lost in wonder as she shyly sipped her soup, rather frightened at Mr.
Van Voorst's attentions. How could Mrs. Ripley ever manage to make her
cook send up hot soup at such an unheard-of hour? And could it be the
"thing" to have one's drawing-room in "such a clutter"? She tried to
take note of all the things lying about, unconscious that Miss Morgan
was noting _her_ down in her letter. Then came the rapid throwing on of
wraps, rushing to the station, and a laughing, pell-mell boarding of the
train. Mr. Van Voorst had disappeared, and Ada Thorne said he was going
to walk down to Brookline and take the next train from there--he was
going to New York on the night train and wanted a walk first. No one
else had anything to say in the matter, certainly not Lily, who
continued to keep near Miss Morgan and sat between her and the window,
silent all the while. As the train neared the first station, she jumped
up suddenly and hastened toward the door.
"Why, Lily, what are you about?" "Lily, come back!" "Lily, this is the
wrong station!" resounded after her; but as no one was quick enough to
follow her, she was seen as the train moved on, walking off alone, with
the same scared look on her face.
"There is something very odd about that girl," said Miss Morgan, as soon
as she was with her nieces on their homeward path.
"It is only that she feels a little overcome," said Lily's staunch
admirer. "You know what Prescott Avery said about Mr. Van Voorst looking
like Mr. Ponsonby, and I'm sure he does. Don't you think him very like
his photograph?"
"There is a kind of general likeness, but I must say of the two Arend
Van Voorst looks better fitted to fight his way in the bush, while Mr.
Ponsonby might spend his ten millions, if he had them, pleasantly
enough. Perhaps the idea is what has 'overcome' Lily, as you say."
"Now, auntie, I am sure the resemblance might make her feel badly. She
has not seen Mr. Ponsonby for so long, and that attracted her to Mr. Van
Voorst; and it was so unkind of people to say all the hateful things
they did at the ball."
"I must say myself, that she rather overdoes the part of Mrs. Gummidge.
It looks as if there was something more in it than thinking of the 'old
un.' If she really is so afraid of Mr. Ponsonby, he must look more like
Arend Van Voorst than his picture does. Well--we shall see."
Late that afternoon Arend Van Voorst walked up Walnut Street westward,
drawn, as so many have been, by the red sunset glow that struck across
the lake beyond, through the serried ranks of black tree trunks, down
the long vista under the arching elms. Straight toward the blazing gate
he walked, but when he came to where the road parted, leaving the
brightness high and inaccessible above high banks of pure new snow that
looked dark against it, and dipping down right and left into valleys
where the shade of trees, even in winter, was thick and dark, he paused
a moment and then struck into the right hand road, the one that did not
lead toward the Careys' house. It was not till two or three hours later
that he approached it from the other side, warm with walking, and having
apparently walked off his hesitation, for he did not even slacken his
pace as he passed up the drive, though he looked the house, the place,
and the whole surroundings over with attentive carefulness.
The Careys lived in a fascinating house, of no particular style, the
result of perpetual additions to the original and now very old nucleus.
As Mr. Carey's father had bought it fifty years ago, and as his
progenitors for some time further back had inhabited a much humbler
dwelling, now vanished, in the same town, it was called, as such things
go in America, their "ancestral home." It was the despair of architects
and decorators, who were always being adjured to "get an effect
something like the Carey house." The component elements were simple
enough, and the principal one was the habit of the Carey family always
to buy everything they wanted and never to buy anything they did not
want. If Mr. and Mrs. Carey took a fancy to a rug, or a chair, or a
picture, or a book, they bought it then and there, but they would go on
for years without new stair-carpets or drawing-room curtains--partly
because they never had time to go and choose them, partly because it was
such a stupid way to spend money; it was easier to keep the old ones, or
use something for a substitute that no one had ever thought of before,
and everybody was crazy to have afterwards.
How much of all this Arend Van Voorst took in I cannot tell, but he
looked about him with the same curiosity after the house door had opened
and he was in the hall, and then as the parlour door opened, and he saw
Lily rising from her low chair, before the fire afar off at the end of
the long low room, a tall white figure standing out in pure, cool
darkness against the blaze, like the snow-banks against the sunset. He
did not know whether he wanted or not to see her alone, but on one point
he was anxious--he wanted to know whether he was to be alone with her or
not. The room was crowded with objects of every kind; two or three dogs
and cats languidly raised their heads from the sofas and ottomans as he
passed, and for aught he knew two or three children might be in the
crowd. Lily had the advantage of him; she knew very well that her mother
had driven into town with the other girls to the Wilsons' "small and
early"; that the younger children had been out skating all the afternoon
and had gone to bed; that the boys were out skating now and would not be
home for hours yet; and that her father, shut into his study with the
New York stock list, was as safe out of the way as if he had been
studying hieroglyphics at the bottom of the Grand Pyramid. So she was
almost too unconcerned in manner as she held out her hand and said,
"Good evening."
He took the offered hand absently, still looking round the room, and as
he took in its empty condition, gave a sigh of relief. She sat down,
with a very slight motion toward a chair on the other side of the fire.
He obeyed mechanically, his eyes now fixed on her. If she was lovely in
her "old black," how much more was she in her "old white," put on for
the strictest home retirement. It was a much washed affair, very
yellowish and shrunken, and clinging to every line of her tall figure,
grand in its youthful promise. She had lost her colour, a rare thing for
her, and she had accentuated the effect of her pale cheeks and dark
eyelashes with a great spray of yellow roses in the bosom of her gown.
"I thought you had gone to New York," she said, trying to speak lightly.
"No," slowly; "I could not go without coming here first. I must see you
once at your own home." Then with an eager thrill in his voice, "He has
never been here, I believe?"
"No," said Lily; "he was never here."
"I have come the first, then; let him come when he wants to; I shall not
come again, to see him and you together."
Both sat silently looking into the fire for a few moments, which the
clock seemed to mark off with maddening rapidity. Then Lily said in a
low tone, but so clearly that it could have been heard all over the
room, "If you do not wish to see him, he need never come at all."
"For God's sake, Miss Carey!" burst out Arend, "show a little feeling in
this matter. I don't ask you to feel for me. I knew what I was about
from the first, and I took the risk. But show a little, feign a little,
if you must, for him. You know I love you. If your Mr. Ponsonby were
here to fight his own battles for himself, I would go in for a fair
fight with him, and give and ask no quarter. But--but--he is far away
and alone, keeping faith with you for years. If he has no claim on you,
he has one on me, and I'll not forget it."
He paused, but Lily was silent. She looked wistful, yet afraid to speak.
Something of the same strangely frightened look was in her eyes that had
been there that afternoon. Arend, whose emotion had reached the stage
when the sound of one's own voice is a sedative, went on more calmly:
"And don't think I make so much of a sacrifice. I am sure now you never
loved or could have loved me. If you had, there would have been some
struggle, some pleading of old remembrances. Your very feeling for me
would have roused some pity, at least, for him. He has your first
promise; I do not ask you to break it. You can give him all you have to
give to anyone, and perhaps he may be satisfied."
"You need not trouble yourself about Mr. Ponsonby," said Lily, now cold
and calm, "as no such person exists."
"What!" exclaimed her hearer, in bewildered astonishment. Wild visions
of the luckless Ponsonby, having heard by clairvoyance, or submarine
cable, of his own pretensions, and having forthwith taken himself out of
the way by pistol or poison, floated through his brain, and he went on
in an awe-struck tone, "Is he--is he dead?"
"He never lived; Mr. Ponsonby, from first to last, is a pure piece of
fiction. Oh, you need not look so amazed; I am not out of my senses, I
assure you. Ask my father, ask my mother--they will tell you the same.
And now, stop! Once for all, just once! You must hear what I have to
say. I shall never ask you to hear me again, and you probably will never
want to."
He looked blankly at her in a state of hopeless bewilderment.
"Oh," she broke out suddenly, "you do not know--how should you?--what it
is to be a girl! to sit and smile and look pleasant while your life is
being settled for you, and to see some man or other doing his best to
make an utter snarl of it, while you must wait ready with your 'If you
please,' when he chooses to ask you to dance with him or marry him. And
to be a pretty girl is ten times worse. Everyone had settled ever since
I was seventeen that I was to marry Jack Allston. Both his family and my
family took it as a matter of course, and liked it well enough, as one
likes matters of course. I liked it well enough myself. I cannot say now
that I was ever in love with Jack Allston, but he seemed bound up in me,
and I was very fond of him, and thought I should be still more so when
we were once engaged. All the girls in my set expected to marry or be
called social failures, and where was I ever to find a better match in
every way than Jack? If I had refused him everyone would have thought
that I was mad. I had not the least idea of doing so, but meanwhile I
was in no hurry to be married. I thought it would be nicer to wait and
have a little pleasure, and I did have a great deal, till I was
eighteen, then till I was nineteen, and so on----"
She stopped for a moment, for her voice was trembling, but with an
effort recovered herself and went on more firmly:
"Just as people began to look and talk, and wonder why we were so slow,
and why it did not come out, and just as I began to think that I had had
enough of society, and that perhaps I ought to be willing to settle
down, I began to feel, too, that my power over him was going, gone! The
strings I had always played upon so easily were broken, and though I ran
over them in the old way, I could not win a sound. I hardly had time to
feel more than puzzled and frightened, when his engagement came out, and
it was all over. But there! it was the kindest way he could have done
it. I hate to think of some of the things I did and said to try if he
had indeed ceased to care for me; but they were not _much_, and if I had
had time I might have done more and worse. I was struck dumb with
surprise like everybody else. My father and mother were hurt and
anxious, but it was easy to reassure them, and without deception. I
could tell them the truth, but not the whole truth. I did not suffer
from what they supposed. My heart was not broken, or even seriously
hurt, but oh! how much I wished at times that it had been! Had I really
loved and been forsaken, I could have sat down by the wayside and asked
the whole world for pity, without a thought of shame. But for what had I
to ask pity? I was like a rider who had been thrown and broken no bones,
in so ridiculous a way that he excites no sympathy. What if he is
battered and bruised? If he complains, people only laugh. I held my
tongue when my raw places were hit. I had the pleasure of hearing that
Julia Noble had been saying--" and here Lily put on Mrs. Allston's
manner to perfection--"'I hope poor Miss Carey was not disappointed.
Jack has, I fear, been paying her more attention than he ought; but it
was only to divert comment from me; dear Jack has so much delicacy of
feeling where I am concerned!'--No, don't say anything; let me have
done, I will not take long. I could not get away from it all, and what
was I to do? To go on in society and play the same game over with some
one else was unendurable; I was getting past the age for that. Susan was
out and Eleanor coming out, and I felt I ought to have taken myself out
of their way, in the proper fashion. To take up art or philanthropy was
not in my line. The girls I knew were not brought up with those ideas
and didn't take to them unless they started with being odd, or ugly, or
would own up to a disappointment. My place in the world had suited me to
perfection, and now it was hateful and no other was offered me.
"It was just at this time that the devil--to speak plainly, as I told
you I was going to--put the idea of poor Mr. Ponsonby into my head. An
engaged girl is always excused from everything else. My lover was not
here to take up my time, and as I could postpone my wedding indefinitely
whenever I pleased, my preparations need not be hurried. I dropped
society and all the hateful going out, and had delicious evenings at
home with papa when I was supposed to be writing my long letters to
Australia. I thought I could drop it whenever I liked. I did not know
what I was doing."
"You? Perhaps not!" exclaimed Arend, with an exasperating air of
superior age; "but your father and mother--what in the name of common
sense were they thinking about to allow all this?"
"Oh, you must not think they liked it; they didn't. To tell you all the
truth, I don't think they half-understood it at first. I did not tell
them until I had dropped a hint of it elsewhere, and I suppose they
thought I had only given a vague glimpse of a possible future lover
somewhere in the distance. Poor dears! things have changed since they
were young, and they don't realise that if a man speaks to a girl it is
in the newspapers the next day. I had not known what I was doing. I
really have not told as many lies as you might think. Full half that you
have heard about Mr. Ponsonby never came from me at all. You don't know
how reports can grow, especially when Ada Thorne has the lead in them.
Not that she exactly invents things, but a hint from me, and some I
never meant, would come back all clothed in circumstance. I could not
wear my old pink sash to save my others without hearing that that
tea-rose tint was Mr. Ponsonby's favourite colour. Ponsonby grew out of
my hands as this went on; and really the more he outgrew me the better
I liked him, and indeed I ended by being rather in love with him. He had
to have so many misfortunes, too, and that was a link between us."
"But," said her hearer, suddenly, "did not Prescott Avery meet him at
Melbourne?"
"Oh, if you knew Prescott, you would know that he meets everybody. If it
had been a Mr. Percival of Java, instead of Ponsonby of Australia, he
would have remembered him or something about him. Still, that was a
dreadful moment. I felt like Frankenstein when his creature stalks out
alive. Poor Mr. Ponsonby! I shall send him his _coup-de-grace_ by the
next Australian mail. People will say that I did it in the hope of
catching you, and have failed. Let them--I deserve it. And now, Mr. Van
Voorst, please to go. I have humiliated myself before you enough. I said
I would tell you the truth, and you have heard it all. If you must
despise me, have pity and don't show it."
Lily's voice, so clear at first, had grown hoarse, and her cheeks were
burning in a way that caused her physical pain. She rose to her feet and
stood leaning on the back of her chair and looking at the floor.
"Go! and without a word? Do you think I have nothing to say? Sit
down!"--as she made some little motion to go. "I have heard you, and
now you must hear me."
Lily sank unresistingly into her chair, while he went on, "You say girls
have a hard time; so they do--I have always been sorry for them. But
don't you suppose men have troubles of their own? You say a pretty girl
has the worst of it. How much better off is the man, who, according to
the common talk, has only to 'pick and choose'; who walks along the row
of pretty faces to find a partner for the dance or for life, as it
happens--it is much the same. The blue angel is the prettiest and the
pink the wittiest; very likely he takes the yellow one, who is neither,
while in the corner sits the white one, who would have suited him best,
and whom he hardly saw at all. If he thinks he is satisfied, it is just
as well. I was not unduly vain nor unduly humble. I knew my wealth was
the first thing about me in most people's minds, but I was not a
monster, and a girl might like me well enough without it. A woman is not
often forced into marriage in this country. I had no notions of
disguising myself, or educating a child to marry, as men have done, to
be loved for themselves alone. What is a man's self? My wealth, my place
in the world were part of me. I was born with them. I should probably
find some nice girl who appreciated them and liked me well enough, and
I felt that I ought to give some such one the chance--and yet--and
yet--I wanted something more.