THE CUP AND THE LIP.
Her real name was Jane Green. But Jane Green would never do for the
play-bill; so the manager, exercising his peculiar and traditional
prerogative, had rechristened the young lady for the histrionic world,
and she appeared as "Aurora Tinsel." A poor, almost friendless girl, she
had left the Atlantic States with an aunt who had been the wife of the
"property man" in the theatre. Soon after the aunt died, and Jane had
gladly accepted the offer of Miss De Montague to live with her, and, by
helping that lady with her dresses, to render an equivalent for her
society and protection.
Harding was a wise man in his generation, foolish as in some respects he
may appear. We offer no explanation of his swift and unreasoning
infatuation, because it is just such men who do just such rash and
impulsive things. But he was sagacious enough to know that a man who
really wants a woman is less likely to get her by being too quick than
even by being too slow. Women who are interested always maintain the
contrary; but this is because they want to bag their game instantly,
whether they mean to throw it away afterward or not. The sex are not
apt, however, to err by over-rating the value of what they get too
easily, and this Harding was philosopher enough to know.
Hence, while he again sought Miss Tinsel twice before his departure, and
while his admiration, although respectful, was not concealed, he did not
go so far as to ask the girl to become his wife. It appeared that after
the run of the current spectacle at the theatre a "great tragedian" was
to play an engagement there, and the opportunity was to be taken for the
ballet and pantomime troupe to make a tour of the mines. Miss De
Montague was to go as a chief attraction, and Miss Tinsel was to go
also, and among the places they were to visit was Bullion Flat.
These plans left open a space of three months, during which Harding
could think of what he was at, and Miss Tinsel could think of what he
meant, and several other persons who were interested could make up their
minds what to do.
The first step taken by Harding on his return was highly confirmatory,
in the judgment of the Flat, of the opinion expressed by Jack Storm some
time before. A contract was made with a builder, and close by the tent
on the knoll there speedily arose a cottage of fair proportions, which
was evidently meant to supersede the humbler structure which for a year
had formed Harding's home. No one doubted his ability prudently to incur
such an outlay. He had been saving to parsimony, and he had been
prosperous. But why, when a tent had so long sufficed to him, and when
he so disliked to part with money, he should go to so needless an
expense, was so obscure that to accept Jack Storm's solution impugning
Harding's sanity was the easiest and consequently the most popular way
of solving the enigma.
The cottage was built notwithstanding, and it was soon the subject of
general remark that Harding was becoming more genial and "sociable" than
before. He astonished Judge Carboy and Jim Blair by asking them to drink
one night at the "Bella Union." He smiled affably and passed the time of
day with Jack Storm and his other companions when they met to begin work
on the claim for the day. He ordered champagne for the crowd on the
evening when a green tree was lashed to the rooftree of his cottage on
the knoll; and at last he raised wonder and surprise to their perihelion
by actually giving a housewarming.
"I know'd it all along," affirmed Judge Carboy that night to his
familiars. They were taking a cocktail at the "Bella Union" by way of
preface to "bucking" against Mr. Copperas's bank--"I know'd it all
along. He's got a wife out East, and she's a comin' out to jine him in
the new house."
"Is that the 'suthin' you talked of that he was ashamed of, Judge?"
laughed Jim Blair. "It looks like it, for sartin he never said nothin'
about her."
"A man may git married," retorted the Judge with judicial acumen, "and
yit do suthin' else to be ashamed of, mayn't he? There's been murderers
and horse thieves stretched afore now who had wives, hain't there? And
the last chap the boys hung to a flume up to Redwood, he had three
wives, didn't he? And they all come to the funeral." And with this
triumphant vindication of his position the Judge sternly deposited half
a paper of fine-cut in his mouth and started for the luxurious apartment
of Mr. Copperas.
Next morning Bullion Flat was in a flurry of excitement and pleasurable
anticipation. The "Grand Cosmopolitan Burlesque, Ballet, and Spectacle
Troupe" had arrived, and were to play in the theatre attached to the
"Bella Union." It was not, however, until the succeeding afternoon that
Chester Harding called upon Miss Tinsel at the same hotel.
It was a good sign that that young lady crimsoned at the first sight of
him; what she first said was another:
"You have not been in a hurry," she pouted, "to come and see me."
"I supposed you would be very busy," said he smiling, and devouring her
with his eyes. "Were you so anxious to have me come?"
"Anxious?" she repeated; and then added, illogically, "I supposed you
would please yourself."
He nodded. "And how do you like Bullion Flat?"
"I think it ever so pretty--only I don't like the earth all torn up, and
such ugly holes and scars."
"We have to get at the gold, you know," he explained, "even at such a
cost. But the hilltops, anyhow, are spared."
She looked through a window and pointed at the most picturesque eminence
in the neighborhood--the knoll. "That is your house?" she observed
shyly.
"Yes. Do you like it?"
"I think it lovely--situation and all."
"And how did you know it was mine?"
"Oh," she said, laughing, "we show-folks see a great many
people--besides being seen by them--and I've heard a lot about you."
Harding's face darkened a little. "Then you've heard that I'm not much
liked?"
"I've heard that some say so. But what of that? Miss De Montague says
she wouldn't give a fig for a man everybody speaks well of--and she
quoted something from a comedy--the 'School for Scandal.'"
"Will you tell me what people say?" he inquired curiously.
"Oh, that you are gloomy, reserved, and live all alone, and that you
are--are not extravagant, and that you haven't had a very happy life."
"That last at least, if true, is a misfortune rather than a fault."
"It's all misfortune, ain't it?" said the girl sagely. "People don't
make themselves. There's Mr. Bellario now. He thinks nature really meant
him for a great warrior--somebody like Napoleon, you know. And instead
of that he's--well, he calls himself a professional gentleman, but the
boys call him a tumbler. I suppose it would be much grander to kill
people than to jump through 'vampire traps'; but you see he didn't get
his choice--any more than I did."
"Then you didn't want to go on the stage?"
"No, indeed. It was just for bread. Aunty was a 'second old woman'--and
they got me in for 'utility,' as they call it. There was no one to care
for me, and I was glad to earn an honest living; but like it! Never!"
"You say there was no one to care for you?" said Harding gently. "Had
you no friends--no parents?"
Jane reddened painfully, and the sad look came quickly into her face.
"My mother is dead, you see," she replied, with hesitancy,
"and--and--I'd rather not speak of this any more, please."
"Surely," he exclaimed hastily, "I've no right to catechize you. Pray
forgive my asking at all. I ought to have been more careful. I know what
trouble is, and how to feel for those who suffer."
She looked at him earnestly. "You have suffered yourself, then--they
were right when they said yours had not been a happy life?"
"I have no right to whine--but happy--no, far from it."
Jane's lovely face took on its softest and tenderest expression.
"They said that lately you have been happier--gayer than ever
before--and that people liked you--oh, ever so much better than they
used to. Why is it that people like those the best who seem to need help
and sympathy the least?"
Jane leaned from the window as she spoke and toyed with some running
vine that clambered to the casement. The grace and beauty of her figure
were made conspicuous by the movement, and Harding paused a moment
before he replied:
"People like to be cheerful, I suppose, and people like others to be
like themselves, I know. It is true that I have been unhappy--that my
life has been morose and solitary. How much this has been my own fault
and how much that of others, need not be said. But it is also true that
of late I have been far happier. Shall I tell you why?"
His voice was deep and earnest, and something in his eyes made the girl
crimson again, and turn her own to the distant hills.
"If you please," she faltered, in her low, musical contralto.
"Shall I tell you too why I have built that cottage you are looking at?"
he went on with increasing earnestness. "It is because it has been my
hope, my prayer, that this sad, lonely life of mine was nearly over. It
is because I have believed that after much pain, and doubt, and
bitterness my trust in men might be brought back through my love for a
woman. The cottage--it is for you, Jane. I love you, Jane. Do you hear
me? From the moment I saw you, I loved you. I resolved to ask you to
marry me. Jane, will you do so?"
While he spoke the color had been fading steadily from her face, and
when he stopped the girl was ashy pale. He looked at her anxiously and
impatiently.
"I--I--am--so sorry," she muttered at last, as if each word were a
separate pain.
"Sorry? God! Why?" Then with swift suspicion, "Jane, do you care
for--are you engaged to some one?"
She shook her head mournfully.
"Do you see that sun going down over the hills?" She turned her
beautiful eyes full upon Harding as she spoke, with a look of ineffable
tenderness and sorrow. "Well, you must let what you have said go down
with that sun, and never think of it--never speak of it again."
It was Harding's turn to blanch now, and the blood retreated from his
swarthy cheeks until they looked almost ghastly.
"Why?" and his voice came involuntarily, almost in a whisper.
"Do not ask me--have pity--do not ask me."
"I must ask you," he cried impetuously, "but yet I need not perhaps. You
care for no one else? Then it must be that you do not, you cannot, care
for me. Is that it, Jane?"
"That is not it."
"Not it!" he cried joyfully. "Then you _do_ care for me a little--just a
little, Jane?--a little which is to grow into a great deal by and by!
Oh, child, child, think how wretched I have been all these years! Think
how I have waited and waited. I lived for twelve long months, Jane,
alone, without a soul, without even a dog, in a tent on that knoll; and
so hungry, Jane--so hungry for sympathy, for love. It comes to me at
last, dear Jane, what I have longed for and begged for so long. Don't,
don't--as you hope for mercy, don't take it away again!"
"You are good," she said softly, "whatever they may say. It is good and
noble of you. Why should I tell you lies? I do like you very much, for
all," looking down with a faint blush, "we have met and known each other
so little. But all the same, it cannot be."
"Cannot again," he cried impatiently. "Once more, I ask you, will you
tell me why not?"
She looked at him half frightened, for there was something of mastery in
his tone; then, standing erect, and with a positiveness as strong as his
own, she answered, "Because I should disgrace you."
"Because you are on the stage!" he exclaimed disdainfully. "Is that it?"
"That is something," returned Jane humbly, "but perhaps not much. I am
hardly important enough to be worth even that sort of reproach. And
besides the people of California are too liberal to apply it. I know I
am only a ballet dancer"--and the poor girl tried to smile here--"and a
pretty bad one at that. But I work hard for an honest living, and no one
can say I have ever disgraced myself."
"Then how can you disgrace me?"
"I have begged you not to ask me."
"I must!" cried Harding passionately; "and I have the right to do so.
Would you have me take your cool 'no' when you care for no one else and
do care for me, and to go my way satisfied? I can't--I won't!"
"You will be sorry," said Jane pitifully.
"Let me be. Anything rather than the doubt. Give me the truth."
"Well then." She turned her back now: and looked from the window with
her grave, sad face, and spoke in a dull, measured way, like the
swinging of a pendulum. "I am a convict's daughter. My father is in the
State prison of New York at Auburn."
"For what crime?"
"Murder. It was in the first degree. The Governor commuted it to
imprisonment for life. There were extenuating circumstances. I went down
on my knees and prayed that he might be saved from the gallows."
"And his victim?"
"Was his wife--my mother."