"And I never shall love; I know it, I feel it--here!" She pressed her
side with a languid sigh that nigh set me into fits o' laughter, yet I
swallowed my mirth till it choked me, and looked at the stars.
"Perhaps," said I, "the gentle passion might be awakened with
patience ... and practice."
"Ah, no," she said.
"May I touch your hand?"
Indolently fanning, she extended her fingers. I took them in my hands.
"I am about to begin," I said.
"Begin," she said.
So, her hand resting in mine, I told her that she had robbed the skies
and set two stars in violets for her eyes; that nature's one miracle was
wrought when in her cheeks roses bloomed beneath the snow; that the
frosted gold she called her hair had been spun from December sunbeams,
and that her voice was but the melodies stolen from breeze and brook and
golden-throated birds.
"For all those pretty words," she said, "love still lies sleeping."
"Perhaps my arm around your waist--"
"Perhaps."
"So?"
"Yes."
And, after a silence:
"Has love stirred?"
"Love sleeps the sounder."
"And if I touched your lips?"
"Best not."
"Why?"
"I'm sure that love would yawn."
Chilled, for unconsciously I had begun to find in this child-play an
interest unexpected, I dropped her unresisting fingers.
"Upon my word," I said, almost irritably, "I can believe you when you
say you never mean to wed."
"But I don't say it," she protested.
"What? You have a mind to wed?"
"Nor did I say that, either," she said, laughing.
"Then what the deuce do you say?"
"Nothing, unless I'm entreated politely."
"I entreat you, cousin, most politely," I said.
"Then I may tell you that, though I trouble my head nothing as to
wedlock, I am betrothed."
"Betrothed!" I repeated, angrily disappointed, yet I could not think
why.
"Yes--pledged."
"To whom?"
"To a man, silly."
"A man!"
"With two legs, two arms, and a head, cousin."
"You ... love him?"
"No," she said, serenely. "It's only to wed and settle down some day."
"You don't love him?"
"No," she repeated, a trifle impatiently.
"And you mean to wed him?"
"Listen to the boy!" she exclaimed. "I've told him ten times that I am
betrothed, which means a wedding. I am not one of those who
break paroles."
"Oh ... you are now free on parole."
"Prisoner on parole," she said, lightly. "I'm to name the day o'
punishment, and I promise you it will not be soon."
"Dorothy," I said, "suppose in the mean time you fell in love?"
"I'd like to," she said, sincerely.
"But--but what would you do then?"
"Love, silly!"
"And ... marry?"
"Marry him whom I have promised."
"But you would be wretched!"
"Why? I can't fancy wedding one I love. I should be ashamed, I think.
I--if I loved I should not want the man I loved to touch me--not
with gloves."
"You little fool!" I said. "You don't know what you say."
"Yes, I do!" she cried, hotly. "Once there was a captain from Boston; I
adored him. And once he kissed my hand and I hated him!"
"I wish I'd been there," I muttered.
She, waving her fan to and fro, continued: "I often think of splendid
men, and, dreaming in the sunshine, sometimes I adore them. But always
these day-dream heroes keep their distance; and we talk and talk, and
plan to do great good in the world, until I fall a-napping.... Heigho!
I'm yawning now." She covered her face with her fan and leaned back
against a pillar, crossing her feet. "Tell me about London," she said.
But I knew no more than she.
"I'd be a belle there," she observed. "I'd have a train o' beaux and
macaronis at my heels, I warrant you! The foppier, the more it would
please me. Think, cousin--ranks of them all a-simper, ogling me through
a hundred quizzing-glasses! Heigho! There's doubtless some deviltry in
me, as Sir Lupus says."
She yawned again, looked up at the stars, then fell to twisting her fan
with idle fingers.
"I suppose," she said, more to herself than to me, "that Sir John is now
close to the table's edge, and Colonel Claus is under it.... Hark to
their song, all off the key! But who cares?... so that they quarrel
not.... Like those twin brawlers of Glencoe, ... brooding on feuds nigh
a hundred years old.... I have no patience with a brooder, one who
treasures wrongs, ... like Walter Butler." She looked up at me.
"I warned you," she said.
"It is not easy to avoid insulting him," I replied.
"I warned you of that, too. Now you've a quarrel, and a reckoning in
prospect."
"The reckoning is far off," I retorted, ill-humoredly.
"Far off--yes. Further away than you know. You will never cross swords
with Walter Butler."
"And why not?"
"He means to use the Iroquois."