AFTER "THE BALL."
She was conscious of what she had said an instant afterwards and
blushed to the brow. If any one at that moment had asked her what's in
a name, and she had been compelled to reveal her inmost convictions,
the fair Rose, who by any other name would be as sweet, would have
answered "impropriety, embarrassment, a host of unpleasant emotions."
It was impossible to explain to him that she had been helping him to
make hay that evening in Lady Sarah Maitland's parlours, and that that
was why the name that she had heard so frequently in the meadow had
left her lips so easily and naturally that night. Better try and seem
unconscious. But unconsciousness, like happiness, comes unsought or
not at all. As for Allan, his own name had never made such music in
his ears and surely to no lone watcher waiting for the dawn could the
first blush of morn be more welcome than was to him this lovely
mantling bloom on the face of the girl he loved.
"Charming!" "Exquisite!" "Do sing something else!" were the
exclamations rained upon her as she ceased to sing, but she looked
only to him.
"How is it I have never heard you sing before?" he inquired, with the
applause that the others had uttered shining unspoken in his eyes.
"You have too many professional singers about your home. I am afraid
to sing before them. Did you ever hear birds called 'the angels of
earth?'"
"Never."
"Well, if nobody else originated the phrase I am willing to do
so--rather than that it shouldn't be originated at all."
"It may be a pretty idea," said Allan, "and yet it fails to suit my
critical taste." They withdrew a little from the crowd, and found a
quiet place in which to sit and chat, for now a pianist of note had
been led a willing sacrifice to the place Rose vacated.
"You must be hard to please," said Rose. "What can be more like an
angel than a bird? It has wings, and it sings, and it is rejoicingly
happy. It seems to be particularly blest every moment of its blessed
little life."
"Very likely. Nevertheless I think a flower much more closely
resembles an angel."
"A flower? Why, there is scarcely a point of resemblance."
The young man laughed, but the slight whimsical frown between his
brows deepened.
"Now that isn't at all what I expected you to say. I thought you might
be kind enough to inquire, 'What flower?' and then I could reply, 'The
queen of flowers.'"
Rose looked down a moment at the warm pink hands restlessly twining
and intertwining in her lap. "I am glad I did not make the inquiry,"
she said.
"You don't like clumsy compliments?"
"I believe I don't like any kind from you."
"Why, please?"
"I don't know exactly, unless because it seems natural to expect
something better."
Allan Dunlop was dimly aware that a compliment of a very high order
had been paid to himself. "Our best friends are those who compel us to
do our best," he said. "I hope you will always expect something better
of me than anything I have done."
It was the speech of an ambitious young man. They both recognized the
note of earnestness that seemed to place them for a moment above the
frivolous crowd about them. Only for a moment; then they lapsed easily
into the light talk so natural to the occasion.
"Have you had a pleasant evening?" he asked.
"Very pleasant." Her mind reverted once more to her delightful
reverie, and the scent of new-mown hay was again about her. Then, as
though he could read her thoughts, she brought them back to the
present with a quick little blush, and mentioned the name of the
gentleman who had absorbed so large a part of her time, if not of her
attention, through the evening.
"Now, why should she blush when she mentions his name?" thought poor
Allan, with a sharp jealous pang at his heart, for the man she alluded
to was an eligible bachelor, who had successfully resisted the charms
of one generation of maidens. "If you find Mr. Gallon's conversation
so interesting," he said, rather forlornly, "mine will seem dull by
contrast. What was he expatiating upon?"
"Politics, mostly."
"Are you interested in that subject? I think of going into politics
more deeply myself some time."
"Do you, indeed? More than you have?" If he had spoken of going into a
decline Rose could not have looked more foreboding. Allan glanced
across half-enviously at the personage who had the power to invest
that topic with interest. "He seems to be more than usually roused
to-night."
Rose suppressed a yawn. "Does he talk better when he is roused than he
does when he's asleep?" she asked.
"Surely he displayed no signs of sleepiness when talking with you."
"No; but I cannot answer for myself."
That senseless pang of jealousy died a very easy death after all, and
the only sufferer from it would have been entirely happy were it not
for the advancing form of Commodore Macleod, who came in search of his
daughter, and bore her off with a speed that left her lover a little
chilled and daunted.
The Canadian winter with its bright, fierce days and sparkling nights
was upon them, but it held no terrors for the young hearts who met it
in a mood as defiantly merry as its own. Only a suffering or morbid
nature sees in winter the synonym of death and decay; fancies that
mourning and desolation is the burden of the gaily whistling winds;
and regards the bare trees, rid of their dusty garments, and quietly
resting, as shivering skeletons, and the dancing snow-flakes as the
colourless pall that hides from sight all there is of life and
loveliness. Nature, when the labours of the year are over, sinks to
rest beneath her fleecy coverings, lulled to sleep in the kindly, yet
frosty, arms of the Northern tempest. What wild weird lullabies are
sung to her unheeding ears, dulled by the lethargy of sleep. How early
falls the darkness, and how late the long night lingers, the better to
ensure repose to the sweet mistress of the earth! How bright the
starry eyes of heaven keeping watch above her rest!
The Macleods had settled in a furnished house, through which Rose had
already diffused the charm of her dainty personality. She was kneeling
before the hearth, like a young fire-worshipper, one snowy afternoon,
and thinking a little drearily that the close environment of a
snow-storm in town rendered it almost as lonely as the country, when a
visitor was announced, the sound of whose name seemed to make the
solitude populous. It was Allan Dunlop, whom she instantly forgave for
so soon availing himself of her permission to call, when she realized
how welcome a break his coming made in the cheerless monotony of the
day. He caught a glimpse of bright hair against a background of
blazing logs, and then she came forward to meet him, not eagerly, not
shyly, but with a charming manner in which both eagerness and shyness
were suggested. At that moment all the warmth and brightness of the
bleak colourless world shone for him in the eyes and hair of this
sweet girl, and in the glowing fire-place before which she drew his
chair.
"It is exactly the sort of day on which one expects to be free from
the annoyance of callers," he said. "Ought I to apologize?"
"By all means--instantly--and in the most profuse and elaborate
terms." She assumed her grand air, mounted a footstool, and stood
looking over his head with her saucy chin elevated, waiting for the
abject petition that did not come. The young man's heart rendered the
tribute of an unmistakable throb to its "little queen;" but emotional
declarations are out of place after a short acquaintance, especially
when there exists a decided belief that they will be listened to in an
unfriendly spirit, or, what is infinitely worse, in a friendly spirit.
It was the fear of making Rose his friend that steeled Allan's
determination to bide his time, and that rendered his present reply
rather more stiff than sensational.
"I beg a thousand pardons," he began, when she interrupted him with--
"Oh, that is too many. Do try and be a little more moderate in your
demands. Would it please you to have me spend the whole afternoon in
forgiving you?"
Allan laughed--a blithe contented little laugh. "Any way that you like
to spend the afternoon will please me," he said, "so long as I am not
deprived of your presence. Oh, not _that_ way," he added, as a little
frown crept between her golden-brown eyebrows, "that way excepted."
"Very well. I'll not frown at you, but you must promise not to come so
near again to the verge of a compliment."
"I promise. Anything to keep a frown from marring the--I mean from
your face. But the difficulty is to think of anything that is as easy
to say."
"You might better remind me of my faults."
"Oh, you could scarcely expect me to be eloquent on that subject. I
didn't know that they exist--that is to say, I am incapable of
speaking upon a subject so wide reaching and profound. Are they like
unto the snow-flakes for multitude?"
"No, not quite so numerous, but far worse in quality. For instance,
the other day I never smiled at papa the least bit when I said, good
morning!"
"Horrible! what an unnatural daughter!"
"It was because he wouldn't let me dance as often as I wanted to the
night before. He said he must draw the line somewhere. It is strange
that the word _somewhere_ in that sentence invariably means the
precise point where it is most painful to have it drawn."
Allan Dunlop, who had already had some experience of the Commodore's
ability to draw the line at the sensitive point designated by his
daughter, murmured only, "very strange."
"Not that he was in the least unkind about it," continued Rose. "Papa
is always lovely to me, no matter how I behave."
"Very lovely?"
"_Very_ lovely."
"I never before was so struck with the truths of heredity," mused the
young man. "You are exactly like him."
"_Oh_!" the girl dropped her face in her hands a moment, and then
thrust them out with the palms toward her guest. "You have need to beg
a thousand pardons and a thousand more to cover the offences you have
committed. And you have broken your promise!"
"What a harsh accusation! I promised not to come to the verge of a
compliment. Do you think that was on the verge?"
"No! It was too blunt--too dreadfully--"
"It is a pleasure to hear you so emphatically contradict an assertion
made by yourself."
"That is a mere quibble--a legal quibble. Well, there is no doubt that
you would make a very successful lawyer."
"Is that a compliment, or does it approach the verge of one?"
Before this problem could be solved Herbert, who was deeply engaged in
a game of checkers with his younger sister, at the other end of the
apartment, suddenly announced: "Rose, here is Mr. Galton coming across
the street, making directly for our house."
"Oh, dear!" was the very inhospitable exclamation of its pretty
mistress. Then as she caught an amused glance from Allan's eyes, she
added demurely, "I am so glad."
"Perhaps it would be better for me to go." The words escaped with
obvious reluctance.
"Better for which of us?"
"For both, I think."
"Your charities are conducted on too large a scale. Now, if you could
only content yourself with benefiting _one_ of us you would remain. I
have a dread of that man."
"So have I, but from a different motive. As your dread increases, mine
grows less."
Close analysis and consideration of this fact gave a very becoming
tint to her cheeks as she welcomed the entering guest. "Ah, Miss
Rose," he exclaimed, "blooming as ever, in spite of wintry days. Do
you know I came very near going past your door?" He allowed the
announcement of this providentially averted calamity to sink deep into
her heart, while he bowed to Allan.
"This is an unexpected pleasure," murmured the young lady, with
sufficient formality to prevent her words from being dangerously
insincere.
"Unexpected to you and a pleasure to me?" queried the gentleman, with
a keen glance at the pair, whose _tete-a-tete_ he had evidently
disturbed, "or do your words bear reference to the idea of seeing me
going past your door?"
The amount of truth in these very good guesses startled the girl to
whom they were addressed into an uncomfortable sense of guilt. "How
can you accuse me of anything so horrid?" she said, drawing her chair
not far from him, and looking into his face with the appreciative air
and attitude that are not to be resisted.
"Mr. Galton," said Herbert, who, having completed the game, and
vanquished his sister, could afford to turn his attention to the
frivolous conversation of his elders, "do you know what Rose said
when she saw you coming? She said, 'Oh, dear, I am so glad!'"
"Herbert," implored Rose, crimsoning under these carefully reported
words, and fearing that Mr. Galton, not being aware of the motive
which prompted them, would not know whether to be ecstatic or
sarcastic, "you are a terrible boy!"
"Herbert has done me a great kindness," exclaimed the flattered
gentleman, who considered Rose's embarrassment quite natural, and very
pleasing under the circumstances. "All my doubts of a welcome he has
happily removed."
In the fear that these doubts might unhappily return if he were
allowed to continue conversation with a too-confiding younger brother,
Rose devoted herself with nervous intentness to his entertainment, and
succeeded brilliantly. Fragments of laughter and chat drifted across
to where Eva was trying to persuade Allan into playing checkers.
"Just one game, please, Mr. Dunlop," pleaded the little damsel, in
resistless accents.
"If you but knew what a wretched player I am," said the young man
gloomily.
"Oh, _are_ you a wretched player?" she exclaimed brightly, "I am so
glad. Then there is some chance for me." She added confidentially, "I
am even more wretched."
"I hope you may never have the same reason to be," said Allan, with a
half-suppressed glance at the lively pair near the window.
A lover, from his very nature, must be decidedly unhappy or supremely
blest, and it is scarcely to be expected that perfect felicity can
reign in a heart whose pretty mistress is spending her smiles on
another man. Allan did not believe that Rose really cared for Mr.
Galton--he had seen too many proofs to the contrary--but he did
believe that she was giving that objectionable gentleman every reason
to think that she did care. With how many men did she pursue this
course of action, and was he to believe her guilty of careless
coquetry? Upon how many admirers may a rose breathe perfume and still
keep its innocent heart sweet for its lover? These were the questions
that rankled in his mind, while Eva set the checkers in place.
"Perhaps I can keep you from getting a king," she said exultantly.
"If I can only keep my queen," observed the young man absently.
"Why, Mr. Dunlop, there are no queens in this game; it isn't like
chess."
"There! you see how little I know about it," was the regretful reply.
Despite this painful manifestation of ignorance the two combatants
appeared for a while to be very equally matched. Then the advantage
was clearly on Allan's side. His king committed frightful havoc among
the scattered ranks of the enemy, till suddenly, as he observed the
painful stress of attention and warm colour in the face of his fair
little foe, a strange and unaccountable languor fell upon his troops.
They seemed to care not whether they lived or died, while their
shameless commander, surveying them with anxious countenance, gave
vent to his emotion in such ejaculations as, "Dear me!" "Why didn't I
see that move?" or, "The idea of your taking two men at one jump!" At
last the announcement that he was completely vanquished was joyfully
made by Eva, and incredulously listened to by Herbert, who viewed his
sister's opponent with amazement, not unmingled with pity.
"The battle is indeed lost!" Herbert said, quoting the historic words
in a consolatory way; "but there is time to win another."
"I'm afraid not," said Allan, rising and preparing to depart.
"I wish that you could have won the game, too," said Eva, suddenly
stricken with remorse in the midst of her good-fortune.
"You are a very kind little girl. I can depend on you to consider my
feelings."
The accent, ever so slight, upon the "you" aroused Rose's attention.
"Why, you are not going?" she exclaimed, coming towards him.
"Such is my charitable intention," he replied, smiling with sad eyes.
"I was only waiting for you to finish your game before bringing Mr.
Galton to the fire to talk politics with you."
"That is a warm topic, and a warm place."
"Perhaps Mr. Dunlop fears that we shall quarrel on the subject. You
know we are on different sides, Miss Macleod."
"We shall hardly come to blows, I think," returned Allan, with the
look of bright good-fellowship which made him a favourite with both
political parties.
"The idea of your quarrelling with anybody!" said Rose, as she
accompanied him to the door.
"I may have a very serious disagreement with him some time," replied
her jealous though unacknowledged lover, "but it will not be about
politics."
He ran hastily down the steps, unconsciously brushing against
Commodore Macleod, who favoured him with a bow of about the same
temperature as the weather. Muttering a hurried excuse, he went on
into the cold gloom of the early winter twilight, shivering slightly,
not from the chill without, but from the deadlier chill within. 'What
a pompous unbearable old fellow the elder Macleod was. How could he
endure to have him for a father-in-law? Ah! how could he endure not
to have him?' The fear that he might never stand in a closer
relationship to a man for whom he had so little liking lay heavily
upon him.
That same evening the object of these mingled emotions laid a
detaining hand upon the shoulder of his pretty daughter as she bent to
bestow a bed-time kiss upon his grizzled moustache. "I wish to have a
little conversation with you, my dear, on a serious subject."
"Oh, but Papa," replied the spoiled girl, "I am not at all in a
serious frame of mind."
"It is highly probable that you will find yourself so at the end of
our talk."
"Charming prospect! After such an inducement as that I can't resist
any longer." She sank back into a low chair near a great case of
books, for they were sitting in the cosy library.
"I met young Dunlop coming out of the house as I was coming in," began
the Commodore. "I was sorry to see that."
"I was sorry to see it, too, Papa, but he couldn't be persuaded to
stay longer."
"That is not a very respectful answer to give to your old father;
nevertheless, I am glad to hear it, as it assures me that you have not
reached the point when his absence will leave you sad."
"Oh, no! But I am willing to admit that over Mr. Galton's departure I
did come very near shedding tears--of joy."
"I hope my little girl will have no cause to shed any other kind."
"His little girl" endeavoured to look oracular as she replied: "That
will largely depend upon the nature of the information you are about
to communicate to me."
"It is only a request, my dear! I wish for your own sake that you
would have as little as possible to do with that young Dunlop."
There was an appreciable interval of silence. Rose stared hard at the
fire. Her father added, "Of course, I do not wish you to do anything
unreasonable."
"I am sure of that," said the girl softly, "nor anything unkind."
The gentleman stirred a little uneasily in his chair. "You must
remember," he said, "that the greatest unkindness one can do another
is to encourage false hopes in him."
"How would you like me to treat him?"
"Oh, my dear child, I can't tell. You know perfectly well yourself. Be
preoccupied, absent-minded, indifferent, when he comes. Make him
repeat what he says, and then answer him at random. Look as though you
had a thousand things to distract your attention, and treat him as
though he were the chair on which he is sitting."
"And you think that would be an ample and delicate return for the
countless kindnesses shown me by himself, and his people last summer?"
"Oh, hang himself and his people!" was the Commodore's mental comment.
Aloud he said, "Well, the young fellow could hardly leave you to
perish under the horse's heels. What he did was only common decency."
"Then, perhaps, it would be as well to treat him with common decency.
Don't you think that desirable quality is omitted from your course of
treatment?" Her tones were those of caressing gentleness, but the
flame of the firelight was not more red than the cheek on which it
gleamed.
"Why, bless me, Rose, I don't want you to give him the cut direct.
There is no need to put him either in paradise or the inferno. Better
adopt a happy medium."
"Yes; but purgatory is rather an unhappy medium."
"Well, my dear, I have nothing more to say. I suppose it is natural
that you should set aside the counsel of a man who has loved you for
nineteen years in favour of the attention of one who has known you
about the same number of weeks."
"Papa, you are unjust!" The repressed tears came at last, but they
were dried as quickly as they dropped.
"Can't you understand," he continued in a softened tone, "that I would
willingly give him anything in return for his kindness--except my
eldest daughter?"
"That is a gift he would never value. A society man might do so, but
the idea of a young fellow of talent and energy and ambition and
brains looking at a little goose like me!"
The Commodore laughed. "No doubt it would be a great hardship for him
to look at you; but young men of talent, ambition and that sort of
thing are not afraid of hardship. In fact they grow to love it. So you
think he would not value the gift?" He laughed again very heartily.
"I am perfectly certain," declared the young girl, with impressive
earnestness, "that he will never stoop to ask you for it."
"Then there is nothing more to be said," replied the Commodore, with
an air of great relief. "The whole question could not be more
satisfactorily settled. You are my own loyal little girl and--and you
don't think me a dreadfully cross old bear, do you?"
She went straight to his arms. "How can I help it," she asked, with
her customary bright smile, "when you give me such a bearish hug?"
But alone in her room, the smile vanished in a tempest of fast-coming
tears. There was a reason for them, but she was unconscious of it
then. Later she discovered it to lie in the fact that in her heart of
hearts she was not a "loyal little girl" at all, but an "out and out
little traitor and rebel."