"Too early seen unknown, and known too late!"
--ROMEO AND JULIET.
"There's neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in thee."
--HENRY IV.
IT is next day. There has been rain in the night--_heavy_ rain--and the
earth looks soaked and brown and desolate. Great storms, too, had
arisen, and scattered the unoffending leaves far and wide, until all the
paths are strewn with rustling types of death. Just now the drops are
falling, too--not so angrily as at the midnight past, but persistently,
and with a miserable obstinacy that defies all hope of sunshine. "The
windy night" has made "a rainy morrow," and sorrowful, indeed, is the
face of Nature.
Sorrowful, too, is the household. A lack of geniality pervades it from
garret to basement; no one seems quite to know what is the matter, but
"_suspect_" that "crow that flies in Heaven's sweetest air" stalks
rampant up stairs and down, and damps the ardor of everyone.
Dulce had waked early, had risen from her bed, and--with the curious
feeling full upon her of one who breaks her slumber _knowingly_ that
some grief had happened to her over night, the remembrance of which
eludes her in a tantalizing fashion--had thrown wide her window, and
gazed with troubled eyes upon the dawning world.
Then knowledge came to her, and the thought that she had made a new
contract that must influence all her life, and with this knowledge a
sinking of the heart, but no drawing back and no repentance. She dressed
herself; she knelt down and said her prayers, but peace did not come to
her, or rest or comfort of any sort, only an unholy feeling of revenge,
and an angry satisfaction that should not have found a home in her
gentle breast.
She dressed herself with great care. Her prettiest morning gown she
donned, and going into the garden plucked a last Marechal Niel rose and
placed it against her soft cheek, that was tinted as delicate as
itself.
And then came breakfast. And with a defiant air, but with some inward
shrinking she took her place behind the urn, and prepared to pour out
tea for the man who yesterday was her affianced husband, but who for the
future must be less than nothing to her.
But as fate ordains it she is not called upon to administer bohea to
Roger this morning. Mr. Dare does not put in appearance, and breakfast
is got through--without, indeed, an outbreak of any sort, but in a
dismal fashion that bespeaks breakers ahead, and suggests hidden but
terrible possibilities in the future.
Dulce is decidedly cross; a sense of depression is weighing her down, a
miserable state of melancholy that renders her unjust in her estimate of
all those around her. She tells herself she hates Roger; and then again
that she hates Stephen, too; and then the poor child's eyes fill with
tears born of a heartache and difficult of repression; to analyze them
she knows instinctively would be madness, so she blinks them bravely
back again to their native land, and having so got rid of them, gives
herself up to impotent and foolish rage, and rails inwardly against the
world and things generally.
Even to Portia she is impatient, and Julia she has annihilated twice.
The latter has been lamenting all the morning over a milliner's bill
that in length and heaviness has far exceeded her anticipations.
But this is nothing; Julia is always so lamenting, and indeed, I never
yet saw the milliner's bill, however honest, that wasn't considered a
downright swindle, and three times as exorbitant as it ought to be!
"Now look at this, my dear Dulce," says the unobservant Julia, holding
out a strip of paper about half a yard in length to Miss Blount, who has
been ominously silent for the past hour. "I assure you the trimmings on
that dress _never_ came to that. They were meagre to the last degree;
just a little _suspicion_ of lace, and a touch of velvet here and there.
It is absurd--it is a fraud. Did _your_ trimmings ever come to that?"
"Don't know, I'm sure," says Dulce, impatiently; "I never keep any
accounts of my own money. I make a _point_ of not doing that. If it's
spent, it's spent, you know, and one gains nothing by thinking of it. It
only shows one how extravagant one has been, and I do so _hate_ scolding
myself!"
"But, my dear child, Madame Grande _must_ have made a mistake. It is all
nonsense; if you would just look it over, if only to convince yourself.
I am not unreasonable."
"I won't look it over," says Miss Blount, promptly. "I _hate_ looking
over things, and I hate bills, and I hate Madame Grande, and I
hate--everything."
After this outburst she makes for the door, and the morning-room knows
her no more for a considerable time. Portia looks up from her painting
in some surprise, and Julia tries to smother the thought that the final
expression of hatred should have ended in the word "_you_."
In the hall outside, Dulce almost runs into Stephen's arms, who has come
up to see her very early, being in a restless and most unsatisfactory
mood. His eyes brighten and he flushes warmly as he meets her, but she,
drawing back from him, gives him to understand by the very faintest of
imperative gestures that he is to come no nearer.
"You!" she says, ungraciously.
"Yes--you expected me?" This question suggests the possibility that he
fears he is not altogether welcome. She waives it, and goes on as though
she had not heard him.
"Have you done what you promised?" she asks, coldly.
"No, you mean--?" he hesitates.
"You _must_ remember. You were to tell Roger next day; _this_ (though it
hardly sounds right) is next day; _have_ you told him that I have
promised to marry you some time?"
There is not the faintest nervousness or girlish confusion in her tone.
Stephen, watching her closely, feels a terrible despair that threatens
to overwhelm him. If only one little blush would mantle her cheek, if
for one second her beautiful, feverishly bright eyes would droop before
his! He battles with the growing misery, and for the time being, allays
it.
"Not yet;" he says. Then he colors hotly, and his eyes leaving her face
seek the ground. A sense of shame betrays itself in every feature. "It
is early yet," he says, in a strange reluctant tone; "and if--if you
think it better to put it off for a day or two, or even to let him find
out for himself by degrees--or--"
"No!"--remorselessly--"he shall be told _now--at once_! Remember all you
said about him last evening. _I_ have not forgotten. What!" cries she,
with sudden passion, "do you think I will live another day believing he
imagines me regretful of my decision--cut to the heart, perhaps, that I
am no longer anything to him? I tell you no! The very thought is
intolerable."
"But--"
"There must be no hesitation," she says, interrupting him with a quick
gesture. "It was in our agreement that he should be told to-day. If one
part of that agreement is to be broken, why then, let us break it all;
it is not too late yet. _I_ shall not care, and perhaps it will be
better if--"
Her cruelty stings him into vehement declaration.
"It will _not_ be better," he says, wrathfully. "I will do anything,
everything, you wish, except"--bitterly--"give you up."
To him it seems a wretched certainty that it _is_ her wish _already_ to
break the bond formed between them but a few short hours ago. Has she so
soon repented?
"Where is Roger?" he asks, turning from her, all the lover's gladness
gone from his eyes. He is looking stern and pale, and as a man might who
is determined to do that against which his soul revolts.
How shall he tell this man, who was once his dearest friend, that he has
behaved as a very traitor to him.
"In the stables, no doubt," replies she, scornfully. The change in his
manner has not touched her; nay, he tells himself it has not so much as
been noticed by her.
Moving abruptly away, he goes down the hall and out of the open door,
and down the stone steps across the gleaming sunshine, and so is lost to
sight.
Dulce watches him until the portico outside hides him from view, and
then, walking very slowly and with bent head, she goes in the direction
of Fabian's room. She is so absorbed in her own reflections that she
hardly hears approaching footsteps, until they are quite close to her.
Looking up, with a quick start, she finds herself face to face with
Roger.
The surprise is so sudden that she has not time to change color until
she has passed him. Involuntarily she moves more quickly, as though to
escape him, but he follows her, and standing right before her, compels
her to stop and confront him.
"One moment," he says. His tone is haughty, but his eyes are more
searching than unkind. "You meant what you said last evening?" he asks,
quickly, and there is a ring in his voice that tells her he will be glad
if she can answer him in the negative. Hearing it, she grows even paler,
and shrinks back from him.
"Have I given you any reason to doubt it?" she says, coldly.
"No--certainly not." His tone has grown even haughtier. "I wish,
however, to let you know I regret anything uncivil I may have said to
you on--that is--at our last interview."
"It is too late for regrets." She says this so low that he can scarcely
hear her.
"You are bent, then, upon putting an end to everything between us?"
"Yes." At this moment it seems impossible to her to answer him in
anything but a monosyllable. Her obstinacy angers him.
"Perhaps you are equally bent," he says, sneeringly, "upon marrying
Gower?"
I suppose he has expected an indignant denial to this question, because,
when silence follows it, he starts, and placing both his hands upon her
shoulders, draws her deliberately over to a side window, and stares into
her downcast face.
"Speak," he says roughly. "_Are_ you going to marry him?"
"Yes."
The word comes with difficulty from between her pale, dry lips.
"He has asked you?"
"He has."
"You were engaged to him even _before_ you broke off your engagement
with me?"
"Oh, _no_, NO!"
"Since when, then? Was it last evening he spoke to you?"
"Yes."
"After you had parted from me? Sharp work, upon my life."
He laughs--a short, unmirthful laugh--and taking his hands from her
shoulders, moves back from her, yet always with his eyes on her face.
"You should be glad," she says, slowly.
"No doubt. So he was your confidant--your father-confessor, was he? All
my misdemeanors were laid bare to him. And then came pity for one linked
to such an unsympathetic soul as mine, and then naturally came what pity
is akin to! It is a pretty story. And for its hero 'mine own familiar
friend.'" He laughs again.
She makes a movement as though to leave him, but he stops her.
"No, do not go yet," he says. "Let me congratulate you. _Le roi est
mort, vive le roi._ My successor, it seems, was not difficult to find;
and--By-the-by, why are you alone now? Why is not your _new_ lover by
your side?"
"My _first_ lover--_not_ my new lover," she says, bitterly, speaking now
with some spirit.
"I didn't count, I suppose."
"_You--!_" She draws her breath quickly, and, then, having subdued the
indignation that had almost overcome her, goes on quietly: "you never
loved me. There was never a moment in all my knowledge of you when I
could have flattered myself with the thought that I was more to you than
a cousin."
"He is very different, I suppose?" He flushes a dark crimson as he puts
this question.
"Altogether--_utterly_! At least, I can tell myself, I am to him
something more than a necessary evil, a thing forced upon him by
circumstances. To _you_ I was only that, and _worse_. There were moments
when I believe you _hated_ me."
"We need not discuss that now," says Dare coldly. "Where is Gower?"
"I don't know; at least, I am not sure. What do you want with him? There
is no use in quarreling with him," she says, nervously.
"Why should I quarrel with any man because a woman chooses to prefer him
to me? That is her affair altogether."
He walks away from her, and she, moving into the deep embrasure of the
large bow window, stands staring blankly upon the sunlit landscape
without.
But presently he returns and, standing beside her, gazes out, too, upon
the flowers that are bowing and simpering as the light wind dances over
them.
"I am going away this evening," he says, at length, very gently. "It is
uncertain when I shall return. Good-by."
He holds out his hand, awkwardly enough, and even when, after a
momentary hesitation, she lays hers in it, hardly presses it. Yet still,
though he has paid his adieux, he lingers there, and loiters aimlessly,
as if he finds a difficulty in putting an end to the miserable
_tete-a-tete_.
"You were wrong just now," he says, somewhat abruptly, not looking at
her; "there was never one second in my life when I _hated_ you; you need
not have said _that_."
"Where are you going?" asks she, brokenly.
"I don't know. It doesn't matter. But before I go, I want to say to
you--that--that--if ever you _want_ me, even if I should be at the end
of the world, _send_ for me, and I will come to you."
_Are_ there tears in his eyes? He drops her hand, and turning hastily
away, goes down the corridor, and is beyond recall before she can muster
courage to say anything to him kind or forgiving.
Going into the yard to order the dog-cart to take him to the station to
catch the up-train, he encounters Stephen Gower (who, by-the-by, had
gone to encounter him), on his knees before a kennel, fondling a
two-months old setter pup.
This pup is a baby belonging to one of Roger's favorite setters, and is,
therefore, a special pet of his.
"Put that dog down," he says, insolently.
"Why?" says Stephen, just as insolently.
"Because petting is bad for young things, and because _I_ wish it."
"Oh, nonsense!" says Stephen, rather cavalierly, continuing his
attention to the dog.
"Look here," says Dare, furiously, "it has nothing to do with the dog,
you will understand--_nothing_--but I want to tell you now what I think
of you, you low, mean, contemptible--"
Gower literally gasps for breath. Letting go the dog, he rises to his
feet, and coming close to Roger, says, passionately,
"What do you mean by that?"
"Have you not been making love to my cousin behind my back? Deny that if
you can!"
"I won't deny that I love her, certainly."
"Will you deny anything else? That you have acted as few men would have
done. Without honor--without--"
This of course puts an end to even enforced civility; Mr. Gower
instantly and most naturally strikes out with the most exemplary vigor,
and presently these two most mistaken young men are clasped in an
embrace, warm indeed, but hardly so loving as one might desire.
How things might have ended, whether with death or only with bloody
noses, no one now can tell, because Sir Mark Gore, coming on the scene
just at this awful moment, seizes Roger by the shoulder and by sheer
force of arm and will, forces him back from his adversary.
"What do you two boys mean by this burst of insanity?" he says, angrily.
"Such an example to the young fellows in the yard; you ought to be
ashamed of yourself, Roger." This is plainly meant for two stable boys
in the distance, who, with open mouths, are staring at the combatants,
and have been plainly enjoying themselves to the utmost.
"Well, I'm not," says Roger, doggedly, who is still thirsting for blood.
"If shame should attach itself to any one, it should be to that fellow
there," pointing contemptuously to Gower.
"Well, I forbid any more of this," says Sir Mark. "Stop it at once. It
is all about that child indoors, I suppose; I never heard of--"
"At all events, I have told him what I think of him," says Roger,
panting. "Low, underhand sneak."
"What?" says Stephen, fiercely, making a step forward.
"I insist on knowing what it is all about," says Sir Mark,
authoritatively. "Of course, one understands a disgraceful scene like
this _always_ means a woman, but _is_ it Dulce?"
"To come here under the guise of friendship and deliberately make love
to the girl to whom he _knew_ I was engaged; was there ever such
treachery since the world began?" says Roger. "Would any fellow, with
any claim to the word gentleman, do that? Now, I leave it to you, Gore?"
"My dear fellow, you must remember it is apparent to everybody that
_you_ don't want her," says Sir Mark, taking Stephen's part, though in
his soul he is on Roger's side. "Would you act the part of the dog in
the manger? You don't affect her yourself, yet nobody else must look at
her. She has found out, I _suppose_, that she prefers some one else to
you. Women, as a rule, will choose for themselves, and who shall blame
them! When, later on, you choose for yourself too, you will be very
grateful to her and Stephen for this hour. Just now self-love is
disagreeing with you. If I were you I should clear out of this for a
bit."
"Oh? as for _that_, I'm going," says Roger; "but I'm glad I have had a
chance of speaking to him before I go; he undermined me, and poisoned
her mind with regard to me from first to last. I wasn't _quite_ blind,
though I said nothing. He spoke evilly of me behind my back, I have no
doubt, and maligned me most falsely when there was a chance; a more
blackguardly transaction--"
"You shall answer to me for this," says Gower, in a white rage; "you
have lied in your statement from beginning to end."
"No one shall answer for anything," says Sir Mark, promptly; "I won't
hear of it. Are you both gentlemen! and to dream of dragging a woman's
name into a scandalous quarrel of this kind? For shame! Take my advice,
Roger, and go abroad, or to the--or anywhere you like for a month or
two, and see what that will do for you. You know you are only trying to
make a grievance out of nothing; you never _really_ cared for her, as a
man should for his wife." Sir Mark's eyes sadden as he says this, and an
irrepressible sigh escapes him; is he thinking of the time when he could
have cared for a woman with all his heart and soul?
"No, of course not; you and she and all are quite agreed about _that_,"
says Roger, bitterly.
"My good boy, all your world knows it," says Sir Mark, persistently.
"My world is wiser than even _I_ gave it credit for," says Roger,
sneeringly. But there is a sob in his voice as he turns away that sends
a pang through Sir Mark's heart. What has happened? Have they all been
mistaken, then? Even have the principal actors in this small drama been
blind until now, when the awakening has come too late.
Without another word to Stephen, Sir Mark goes slowly indoors, and,
passing through the hall, meets Portia coming toward him, a troubled
expression in her large sad eyes.
"What is it, Mark?" she says, laying her hand on his arm, "Something has
happened to Dulce; she is lying on her bed, and will not speak to me or
any one. Has she really quarreled finally with Roger?"
"Oh, it is worse than that," says Gore, with something that is almost a
groan.
"It can't be true that she has thrown him over for Mr. Gower?" says
Portia, recoiling.
"One never knows what a woman will do," says Mark, gloomily, "I think
she has."
"But what is it all about? How did it begin?"
"With a chocolate cream," says Sir Mark, sententiously. "I assure you,
my dear Portia, for the sake of a paltry box of bon-bons she has
sacrificed the entire happiness of her life!"