"For aught that ever I could read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth."
--_Midsummer Night's Dream._
WHEN dinner comes Dulce is wonderfully silent. That is the misfortune of
being a rather talkative person, when you want to be silent you can't,
without attracting universal attention. Every one now stares at Dulce
secretly, and speculates about what Stephen may, or may not, have said
to her.
She says yes and no quite correctly to everything, but nothing more, and
seems to find no comfort in her dinner--which is rather a good one. This
last sign of depression appears to Dicky Browne a very serious one, and
he watches her with the gloomiest doubts as he sees dish after dish
offered her, only to be rejected.
This strange fit of silence, however, is plainly not to be put down to
ill temper. She is kindly, nay, even affectionate, in her manner to all
around, except, indeed, to Roger, whom she openly avoids, and whose
repeated attempts at conversation she returns with her eyes on the
table-cloth, and a general air about her of saying anything she _does_
say to him under protest.
To Roger this changed demeanor is maddening; from it he instantly draws
the very blackest conclusions; and, in fact, so impressed is he by it
that later on, in the drawing-room, when he finds his tenderest glances
and softest advances still met with coldness and resistance, and when
his solitary effort at explanation is nervously, but remorselessly,
repulsed, he caves in altogether, and, quitting the drawing-room, makes
his way to the deserted library, where, with a view to effacing himself
for the remainder of the evening, he flings himself into an arm-chair,
and gives himself up a prey to evil forebodings.
Thus a quarter of an hour goes by, when the door of the library is
opened by Dulce. Roger, sitting with his back to it, does not see her
enter, or, indeed, heed her entrance, so wrapt is he in his unhappy
musings. Not until she has lightly and timidly touched his shoulder does
he start, and, looking round, become aware of her presence.
"It is I," she says, in a very sweet little voice, that brings Roger to
his feet and the end of his musings in no time.
"Dulce! What has happened?" he asks, anxiously, alluding to her late
strange behavior. "Why won't you speak to me?"
"I don't know," says Dulce, faintly, hanging her head.
"What can I have done? Ever since you went away with Stephen, down to
the Beeches to-day, your manner toward me has been utterly changed.
Don't--_don't_ say you have been persuaded by him to name your wedding
day!" He speaks excitedly, as one might who is at last giving words to a
fear that has been haunting him for long.
"So far from it," says Miss Blount, with slow solemnity, "that he sought
an opportunity to-day to formally release me from my promise to him!"
"He has released you?" Words are too poor to express Roger's profound
astonishment.
"Yes; on one condition."
"A condition! What a Jew! Yes; well, go on--?"
"I _can't_ go on," says Dulce, growing crimson. "I can't, _indeed_,"
putting up her hands as she sees him about to protest; "it is of no use
asking me. I neither can or will tell you about that condition, _ever_."
"Give me even a _hint_," says Roger, coaxingly.
"No, _no_, NO! The rack wouldn't make me tell it," returns she, with a
stern shake of her red-brown head, but with very pathetic eyes.
"But what _can_ it be," exclaims Roger, fairly puzzled.
"_That_ I shall go to my grave without divulging," replies she,
heroically.
"Well, no matter," says Roger, after a minute's reflection, resolved to
take things philosophically. "You are free, that is the great point. And
now--_now_, Dulce, you will marry me?"
At this Miss Blount grows visibly affected (as they say of ladies in the
dock), and dropping into the nearest chair, lets her hands fall loosely
clasped upon her knees, and so remains, the very picture of woe.
"I can't do that, either," she says at last, without raising her
afflicted lids.
"But why?" impatiently. "What is to prevent you?--unless, indeed,"
suspiciously, "you really don't care about it."
"It isn't that, indeed," says Dulce, earnestly, letting her eyes,
suffused with tears, meet his for a moment.
"Then _what_ is it? You say he has released you, and that you have
therefore regained your liberty, and yet--yet--Dulce, _do_ be rational
and give me an explanation. At least, say why you will not be my wife."
"If I told that I should tell you the condition, too," says poor Dulce,
in a stifled tone, feeling sorely put to it, "and _nothing_ would induce
me to do that. I told you before I wouldn't."
"You needn't," says Roger, softly. "I see it now. And anything more
sneaking-- So he has given you your liberty, but has taken good care you
sha'n't be happy in it. I never heard of a lower transaction. I--"
"Oh! how did you find it out?" exclaims Dulce, blushing again
generously.
"I don't know," replies he, most untruthfully, "I guessed it, I think;
it was so like him. You--did you agree to his condition, Dulce?"
"Yes," says Dulce.
"You gave him your word?"
"Yes."
"Then he'll keep you to it, be sure of that. What a pity you did not
take time to consider what you would do."
"I considered _this_ quite quickly," says Dulce: "I said to myself that
_nothing_ could be worse than marrying a man I did not love."
"Yes, yes, of course," says Roger, warmly. "Nothing could be worse than
marrying Gower."
"And then I thought that perhaps he might relent; and then, besides--I
didn't know what to do, because," here two large tears fall down her
cheeks and break upon her clasped hands, "because, you see, _you_ had
not asked me to marry you, and I thought that perhaps you never might
ask me, and that so my promise meant very little."
"How could you have thought that?" says Roger, deeply grieved.
"Well, you hadn't said a word, you know," murmurs she, sorrowfully.
"How could I?" groans Dare. "When you were going of your own free will,
and my folly, to marry another fellow."
"There was very little free will about it," whispers she, tearfully.
"Well, I'm sure I don't know what's going to be done now," says Mr.
Dare, despairingly, sinking into a chair near the table, and letting his
head fall in a distracting fashion into his hands.
He seems lost in thought, sunk in a very slough of despond, out of which
it seems impossible to him he can ever be extricated. He has turned away
his face, lest he shall see the little disconsolate figure in the other
arm-chair, that looked so many degrees too large for it.
To gaze at Dulce is to bring on a state of feeling even more keenly
miserable than the present one. She is looking particularly pretty
to-night, her late encounter with Stephen, and her perplexity, and the
anxiety about telling it all to Roger, having added a wistfulness to her
expression that heightens every charm she possesses. She is dressed in a
white gown of Indian muslin made high to the throat, but with short
sleeves, and has in her hair a diamond star, that once belonged to her
mother.
Her hands are folded in her lap, and she is gazing with a very troubled
stare at the bright fire. Presently, as though the thoughts in which she
has been indulging have proved too much for her, she flings up her head
impatiently, and, rising softly, goes to the back of Roger's chair and
leans over it.
"Roger," she says, in a little anxious whisper, that trembles ever so
lightly, "you are not angry with me, are you?"
Impulsively, as she asks this, she raises one of her soft, naked arms
and lays it round his neck. In every action of Dulce's there is
something so childlike and loving, that it appeals straight to the
heart. The touch of her cool, sweet flesh, as it brushes against his
cheek, sends a strange thrill through Roger--a thrill hitherto unknown
to him. He turns his face to hers; their eyes meet; and then, in a
moment, he has risen, and he has her in his arms, and has laid his lips
on hers; and they have given each other a long, long kiss, a kiss of
youth and love!
"Angry--with you--my darling!" says Roger, at length, in a low tone,
when he has collected his scattered senses a little. He is gazing at her
with the most infinite tenderness, and Dulce, with her head pressed
close against his heart, feels with a keen sense of relief that she can
defy Stephen, the world, cruel Fate, _all!_ and that her dearest dream
of happiness is at last fulfilled.
When they have asked each other innumerable questions about different
matters that would concern the uninitiated world but little, but are
fraught with the utmost importance to them, they grow happily silent;
and, sitting hand in hand, look dreamily into the glowing embers of the
fire. Trifles light as air rise before them, and strengthen them in the
belief at which they have just arrived, that they have been devoted to
each other for years. All the old hasty words and angry looks are now to
be regarded as vague expressions of a love suppressed, because fearful
of a disdainful reception.
Presently, after a rather prolonged pause, Dulce, drawing a deep but
happy sigh, turns to him, and says, tenderly, though somewhat
regretfully:
"Ah! if only you had not stolen those chocolate creams!"
"I didn't steal them," protested Roger, as indignantly as a man can
whose arm is fondly clasped around the beloved of his heart.
"Well, of course, I mean if you hadn't _eaten_ them," says Dulce, sadly.
"But, my life, I never _saw_ them!" exclaims poor Roger, vehemently; "I
swear I didn't."
"Well, then, if I hadn't _said_ you did," says Dulce, mournfully.
"Ah! that indeed," says Mr. Dare, with corresponding gloom. "If you
hadn't all might now be well; as it is-- Do you know I have never since
seen one of those loathsome sweets without feeling positively murderous,
and shall hate chocolate to my dying day."
"It was a pity we fought about such a trifle," murmurs she, shaking her
head.
"Was it?" Turning to her, he lifts her face with his hand and gazes
intently into her eyes. Whatever he sees in those clear depths seem to
satisfy him and make glad his heart. "After all, I don't believe it
was," he says.
"Not a pity we quarreled, and--and lost each other?" Considering the
extremely close proximity to each other at this moment, the allusion to
the loss they are supposed to have sustained is not very affecting.
"No. Though we were rather in a hole now," says Mr. Dare, rather at a
loss for a word. "I am very _glad_ we fought."
"Oh, Roger!"
"Aren't you?"
"How can you ask me such a heartless question?"
"Don't you see what it has done for us? Has it not taught us that"--very
tenderly this--"we _love_ each other?" His tone alone would have brought
her round to view anything in his light. "And somehow," he goes on,
after a necessary pause--"I mean," with an effort that speaks volumes
for his sense of propriety, "Gower will give in, and absolve you from
your promise. He may as well, you know, when he sees the game is up."
"But when will he see that?"
"He evidently saw it to-day."
"Well, he was very far from giving in to-day, or even dreaming of
granting absolution."
"Well, we must make him see it even _more_ clearly," says Roger,
desperately.
"But how?" dejectedly.
"By making violent love to me all day long, and by letting me make it to
you. It will wear him out," says Mr. Dare confidently. "He won't be able
to stand it. Would--would you much mind trying to make violent love to
me?"
"Mind it?" says Dulce, enthusiastically, plainly determined to render
herself up a willing (very willing) sacrifice upon the altar of the
present necessity. "I should _like_ it!"
This _naive_ speech brings Roger, _if possible_, a little closer to her.
"I think I must have been utterly without intellect in the old days, not
to have seen then what a darling you are."
"Oh, no," says Dulce, meekly, which might mean that, in her opinion,
either _he_ is not without intellect, or she is not a darling.
"I was abominable to you then," persists Roger, with the deepest
self-abasement. "I wonder you can look with patience at me now. I was a
perfect bear to you!"
"_Indeed_ you were not," says Dulce, slipping her arm round his neck.
"You couldn't have been, because I am sure I loved you even then; and
besides," with a little soft, coaxing smile, "I won't listen to you at
all if you call my own boy bad names."
Rapture; and a prolonged pause.
"What _shall_ we do if that wretched beggar won't relent and let me
marry you?" says Roger, presently.
"Only bear it, I suppose," with profoundest resignation; it is _so_
profound that it strikes Mr. Dare as being philosophical, and displeases
him accordingly.
"_You_ don't seem to care much," he says, in an offended tone, getting
up and standing with his back to the mantelpiece, and his face turned to
her, as though determined to keep an eye on her.
"I don't care?" reproachfully.
"Not to any very great extent, I think; and of course it is not to be
wondered at. I'm not much, I allow, and perhaps there are others--"
"Now that is not at all a pretty speech," interrupts Dulce, sweetly; "so
you sha'n't finish it. Come here directly and give me a little kiss, and
don't be cross."
This decides everything. He comes here directly, and gives her a little
kiss, and isn't a bit cross.
"Why shouldn't you defy him and marry me?" says Roger, defiantly. "What
right has he to extort such a promise from you? Once we were man and
wife he would be powerless."
"But there is my word--I swore to him," returns she, earnestly. "I
cannot forget that. It was an understanding, a bargain."
"Well, but," begins he again; and then he sees something in the little,
pale, but determined face gazing pathetically up into his that deters
him from further argument. She will be quite true to her word once
pledged, he knows that; and though the knowledge is bitter to him, yet
he respects her so highly for it, that he vows to himself he will no
longer strive to tempt her from her sense of right. Lifting one of her
hands, he lays it upon his lips, as though to keep himself by her dear
touch from further speech.
"Never mind," he says, caressing her soft fingers tenderly. "We may be
able to baffle him yet, and even if not, we can be happy together in
spite of him. Can we not. I know _I_ can." Drawing her closer to him,
he whispers gently,
"A smile of thine shall make my bliss!"
After a while it occurs to them that they ought to return to the
drawing-room and the prosaic humdrumedness of everyday life. It is
wonderful how paltry everything has become in their sight, how it is
dwarfed and stunted by comparison with the great light of love that is
surrounding them. All outside this mist seems lost in a dull haze, seems
pale, expressionless.
Opening the library-door with slow, reluctant fingers, they almost
stumble against a figure crouching near the lintel. This figure starts
into nervous life at their appearance, and, muttering something
inaudible in a heavy indistinct tone, shuffles away from them, and is
lost to sight round a corner of the corridor.
"Surely that was old Gregory," says Dulce, after a surprised pause.
"So it was," returns Roger, "and, _as_ usual, as drunk as a fiddler."
"Isn't it dreadful of him?" says Dulce. "Do you know, Roger, his manner
is so strange of late, that I verily believe that man is going mad."
"Well, he won't have far to go, at any rate," says Mr. Dare, cheerfully.
"He has been on the road, I should say, a considerable time."