"I HAVE HURT YOU."
From the day of his arrival a new life began for Louisiana. She was no
longer an obscure and unconsidered young person. Suddenly, and for the
first time in her life, she found herself vested with a marvellous
power. It was a power girls of a different class from her own are
vested with from the beginning of their lives. They are used to it and
regard it as their birthright. Louisiana was not used to it. There
had been nothing like it attending her position as "that purty gal o'
Rogerses." She was accustomed to the admiration of men she was
indifferent to--men who wore short-waisted blue-jean coats, and turned
upon their elbows to stare at her as she sat in the little white frame
church. After making an effort to cultivate her acquaintance, they
generally went away disconcerted. "She's mighty still," they said.
"She haint got nothin' to say. Seems like thar aint much to her--but
she's powerful purty though."
This was nothing like her present experience. She began slowly to
realize that she was a little like a young queen now. Here was a man
such as she had never spoken to before, who was always ready to
endeavor to his utmost to please her: who, without any tendency toward
sentimental nonsense, was plainly the happier for her presence and
favor. What could be more assiduous and gallant than the every-day
behavior of the well-bred, thoroughly experienced young man of the
period toward the young beauty who for the moment reigns over his
fancy! It need only be over his fancy; there is no necessity that the
impression should be any deeper. His suavity, his chivalric air, his
ready wit in her service, are all that could be desired.
When Louisiana awakened to the fact that all this homage was rendered
to her as being only the natural result of her girlish beauty--as if it
was the simplest thing in the world, and a state of affairs which must
have existed from the first--she experienced a sense of terror. Just
at the very first she would have been glad to escape from it and sink
into her old obscurity.
"It does not belong to me," she said to herself. "It belongs to some
one else--to the girl he thinks I am. I am not that girl, though; I
will remember that."
But in a few days she calmed down. She told herself that she always
did remember, but she ceased to feel frightened and was more at ease.
She never talked very much, but she became more familiar with the
subjects she heard discussed. One morning she went to Olivia's room
and asked her for the address of a bookseller.
"I want to send for some books and--and magazines," she said,
confusedly. "I wish you--if you would tell me what to send for.
Father will give me the money if I ask him for it."
Olivia sat down and made a list. It was along list, comprising the
best periodicals of the day and several standard books.
When she handed it to her she regarded her with curiosity.
"You mean to read them all?" she asked.
"Isn't it time that I should?" replied her pupil.
"Well--it is a good plan," returned Olivia, rather absently.
Truth to tell, she was more puzzled every day. She had begun to be
quite sure that something had happened. It seemed as if a slight
coldness existed between herself and her whilom adorer. The simplicity
of her enthusiasm was gone. Her affection had changed as her outward
bearing. It was a better regulated and less noticeable emotion. Once
or twice Olivia fancied she had seen the girl looking at her even
sadly, as if she felt, for the moment, a sense of some loss.
"Perhaps it was very clumsy in me," she used to say to herself.
"Perhaps I don't understand her, after all."
But she could not help looking on with interest. She had never before
seen Laurence enjoy himself so thoroughly. He had been working very
hard during the past year, and was ready for his holiday. He found the
utter idleness, which was the chief feature of the place, a good thing.
There was no town or village within twenty miles, newspapers were a day
or two old when they arrived, there were very few books to be found,
and there was absolutely no excitement. At night the band brayed in
the empty-looking ball-room, and a few very young couples danced, in a
desultory fashion and without any ceremony. The primitive,
domesticated slowness of the place was charming. Most of the guests
had come from the far South at the beginning of the season and would
remain until the close of it; so they had had time to become familiar
with each other and to throw aside restraint.
"There is nothing to distract one," Ferrol said, "nothing to rouse one,
nothing to inspire one--nothing! It is delicious! Why didn't I know
of it before?"
He had plenty of time to study his sister's friend. She rode and
walked with him and Olivia when they made their excursions, she
listened while he read aloud to them as he lay on the grass in a quiet
corner of the grounds. He thought her natural reserve held her from
expressing her opinion on what he read very freely; it certainly did
not occur to him that she was beginning her literary education under
his guidance. He could see that the things which pleased him most were
not lost upon her. Her face told him that. One moonlight night, as
they sat on an upper gallery, he began to speak of the novelty of the
aspect of the country as it presented itself to an outsider who saw it
for the first time.
"It is a new life, and a new people," he said. "And, by the way,
Olivia, where is the new species of young woman I was to see--the
daughter of the people who does not belong to her sphere?"
He turned to Louisiana.
"Have you ever seen her?" he asked. "I must confess to a dubiousness
on the subject."
Before he could add another word Louisiana turned upon him. He could
see her face clearly in the moonlight. It was white, and her eyes were
dilated and full of fire.
"Why do you speak in that way?" she cried. "As if--as if such people
were so far beneath you. What right have you----"
She stopped suddenly. Laurence Ferrol was gazing at her in amazement.
She rose from her seat, trembling.
"I will go away a little," she said. "I beg your pardon--and Miss
Ferrol's."
She turned her back upon them and went away. Ferrol sat holding her
little round, white-feather fan helplessly, and staring after her until
she disappeared.
It was several seconds before the silence was broken. It was he who
broke it.
"I don't know what it means," he said, in a low voice. "I don't know
what I have done!"
In a little while he got up and began to roam aimlessly about the
gallery. He strolled from one end to the other with his hands thrust
in his coat pockets. Olivia, who had remained seated, knew that he was
waiting in hopes that Louisiana would return. He had been walking to
and fro, looking as miserable as possible, for about half an hour, when
at last she saw him pause and turn half round before the open door of
an upper corridor leading out upon the verandah. A black figure stood
revealed against the inside light. It was Louisiana, and, after
hesitating a moment, she moved slowly forward.
She had not recovered her color, but her manner was perfectly quiet.
"I am glad you did not go away," she said.
Ferrol had only stood still at first, waiting her pleasure, but the
instant she spoke he made a quick step toward her.
"I should have felt it a very hard thing not to have seen you again
before I slept," he said.
She made no reply, and they walked together in silence until they
reached the opposite end of the gallery.
"Miss Ferrol has gone in," she said then.
He turned to look and saw that such was the case. Suddenly, for some
reason best known to herself, Olivia had disappeared from the scene.
Louisiana leaned against one of the slender, supporting pillars of the
gallery. She did not look at Ferrol, but at the blackness of the
mountains rising before them. Ferrol could not look away from her.
"If you had not come out again," he said, after a pause, "I think I
should have remained here, baying at the moon, all night."
Then, as she made no reply, he began to pour himself forth quite
recklessly.
"I cannot quite understand how I hurt you," he said. "It seemed to me
that I must have hurt you, but even while I don't understand, there are
no words abject enough to express what I feel now and have felt during
the last half hour. If I only dared ask you to tell me----"
She stopped him.
"I can't tell you," she said. "But it is not your fault--it is nothing
you could have understood--it is my fault--all my fault, and--I deserve
it."
He was terribly discouraged.
"I am bewildered," he said. "I am very unhappy."
She turned her pretty, pale face round to him swiftly.
"It is not you who need be unhappy," she exclaimed. "It is I!"
The next instant she had checked herself again, just as she had done
before.
"Let us talk of something else," she said, coldly.
"It will not be easy for me to do so," he answered, "but I will try."
Before Olivia went to bed she had a visit from her.
She received her with some embarrassment, it must be confessed. Day by
day she felt less at ease with her and more deeply self-convicted of
some blundering,--which, to a young woman of her temperament, was a
sharp penalty.
Louisiana would not sit down. She revealed her purpose in coming at
once.
"I want to ask you to make me a promise," she said, "and I want to ask
your pardon."
"Don't do that," said Olivia.
"I want you to promise that you will not tell your brother the truth
until you have left here and are at home. I shall go away very soon.
I am tired of what I have been doing. It is different from what you
meant it to be. But you must promise that if you stay after I have
gone--as of course you will--you will not tell him. My home is only a
few miles away. You might be tempted, after thinking it over, to come
and see me--and I should not like it. I want it all to stop here--I
mean my part of it. I don't want to know the rest."
Olivia had never felt so helpless in her life. She had neither
self-poise, nor tact, nor any other daring quality left.
"I wish," she faltered, gazing at the girl quite pathetically, "I wish
we had never begun it."
"So do I," said Louisiana. "Do you promise?"
"Y-yes. I would promise anything. I--I have hurt your feelings," she
confessed, in an outbreak.
She was destined to receive a fresh shock. All at once the girl was
metamorphosed again. It was her old ignorant, sweet, simple self who
stood there, with trembling lips and dilated eyes.
"Yes, you have!" she cried. "Yes, you have!"
And she burst into tears and turned about and ran out of the room.