After that first night, Norman de Vere found no occasion for
unconscious pique at Thea’s sisterly frankness toward him. By the next
morning her manner had changed indefinably. It had developed into a
pretty dignity that just escaped shyness, and was almost reserve. She
tacitly avoided her handsome guardian and clung to his mother with all
the tenderness of a daughter.
But he knew that for the first week or two she was engaged about half
her time in reading his own works, for his mother had come herself to
the library for them.
“Sweetheart is so anxious to read them, but she would not come herself
lest she should disturb you,” she said.
“Good little girl!” her son muttered, dryly, and went on with his
scribbling; but more than once that day he wondered if Thea was reading
his books, and how she liked them.
“But I shall not ask her, since she is so silly as to pretend to be
afraid of me,” he thought, severely; and tried to dismiss her from his
mind, chafing to himself at the persistency with which her image came
between him and his work.
Why should the blue eyes haunt him so when they scarcely saw each other
save at the table, for he spent half of his time in his library, the
other half walking or riding unsociably by himself, with now and then
an evening at the Author’s Club or theater. Thea and his mother rode
a great deal, too, but it was always in the elder lady’s two-seated
pony-phaeton, which she drove herself. There was only room for two, and
in any case Mrs. de Vere would not have asked him to make one of the
party. She vaguely felt that Norman was not to be annoyed for the sake
of a simple school-girl who seemed to him a mere child.
Norman saw it all--his mother’s care that he should not be bothered by
Thea, and the girl’s entire acquiescence. Before she came he would have
been pleased to know that it would be this way. It piqued him now.
“I do not want her to fear me now--she confided in me so sweetly when
she was a child,” was the excuse he made to himself for his pique.
But Thea firmly determined on being “good,” as she phrased it--gave him
not the least trouble. She subdued her joyous spirits when he was by;
she did her daily practicing on the piano when he was out for his walk;
when the neighbors began to call, and the young people found her out,
she was demurely social; she held firmly in check the gayety that in
Virginia had earned her the title of coquette.
“He said he believed in me, and he shall have no cause to change his
mind,” the girl said to herself, when the temptation to be recklessly
gay assailed her.
She had grown morbidly anxious to appear at her best in those dark
eyes, whose grave glances haunted her dreams by night and her thoughts
by day.
The same strange attraction that had drawn the two together so long ago
was at work now--had been magnetizing both ever since that night when
they had met again; but both were struggling against it, both called it
by a colder name. To her it was gratitude, to him it was anxiety lest
she should be repelled by one she had once trusted in so tenderly.
Across the gulf of reserve and apparent indifference each heart
clamored eagerly for the other. Thea knew that he was always in her
thoughts--that he was the handsomest man she had ever seen, the most
famous, the most cultured. She lay awake at nights to think of him, and
sometimes the snowy pillow was wet with tears.
“Oh, what is the matter with me? Surely, I am not pining for any one of
those who treated me so harshly!” she would sigh, in plaintive wonder.
Then, pityingly: “I wonder if Emmie has caught Charley back. I hope
so. It must be sad to love in vain. I am sorry now for Frank and Tom.
Perhaps I did not refuse them kindly enough. It seemed so ridiculous,
because I was so young then” (she was about four months older now).
And one day Norman saw in the mail that was about to be sent out two
letters addressed respectively to Frank and Tom Hinton. He called Thea
into the library.
“Are you renewing your flirtation with your jilted lovers?” he asked,
severely.
She blushed as she saw the letters in his hand.
“Oh, no, indeed! How can you think it? Please let me explain,” she
cried, eagerly, and he waited curiously. The big, lustrous blue eyes
lifted to his face, and somehow the glance they met in return held them
fixed, though Thea trembled with strange pleasure at her own boldness;
so she said: “I will look you straight in the eyes, Mr. de Vere, then
you will see I am telling you the truth. I have been thinking lately
that I was cruel to those poor boys--”
“And that you love them, after all?” he interrupted, harshly.
“Oh, no, no--never! I am sorry I laughed at them, that is all. I think
now I ought to have refused them more sweetly--more kindly--so I am
writing just to ask them to forgive me for laughing at them.”
Her eyes withdrew themselves reluctantly from his, and the long-fringed
lashes swept her cheeks. She looked adorable.
“I never heard of such nonsense!” he exclaimed, but not sternly. “If
you will take my advice, Sweetheart, you will put the letters into the
fire. Your cruelty helps them to forget you. Send them, and you will
only have Tom and Frank at your feet again.”
“Do you really think so?” she cried, snatching the letters and tearing
them to fragments in a hurry.
Her cheeks were glowing and her heart beat fast. How strange, yet
sweet, it seemed to be here alone in the library with him--sitting in
that chair before him like a little culprit, yet a happy one withal,
for only to be near him was an exquisite delight to the girl! Her
heart throbbed faster and the blood ran quicker through her veins with
painful pleasure, at his mere presence.
Norman in his arm-chair, with his pen waiting for him on the desk,
was in no hurry to begin writing. He was wishing he could think of
something that would detain her yet longer. How the fair face and
golden head seemed to light up the somber library!
She, on her part, was thinking that she must go now--that he had
nothing more to say to her. But she--she had something else to say to
him, if only she could muster up courage.
She glanced bashfully at him under the long lashes. Yes, he was
regarding her attentively. The color flew warmly to her cheek in the
dread lest he was remembering again with amusement that she had adored
him when she was a very, very little girl.
But she kept her seat despite a sudden impulse to fly. She must tell
him now.
“Oh, I am very sorry, Mr. de Vere, that--that--about Frank--you know. I
couldn’t--couldn’t--” she stopped helplessly, her face like a rose.
“I am sure I do not understand what you are trying to tell me. Why are
you so afraid of me? I’m not an ogre, child. Go on. I shall not scold
you, what ever you confess.”
The sudden, kind, reassuring smile was a wonderful help. She could look
at him again--she could say without blundering:
“I’m sorry you were disappointed in me--about Frank, you know.
I’ve heard all about it--how you educated him for a profession,
thinking--thinking to provide a nice husband for me. It was so kind in
you. Were you very angry with me? I hope you can forgive me,” anxiously.
He bit his lip with vexation. So his mother had betrayed him.
“You don’t say a word, Mr. de Vere. I suppose you are vexed still.
Perhaps you did not want me here, breaking up the peace and quiet
you had with your mother before I came. This is what I wanted to
say. It isn’t likely I will ever marry anybody, so you can’t get rid
of me that way. But, please, can’t I go away and support myself? I
could teach music. I have a talent for that, and for millinery, too.
I--would--rather go, please, because I’m afraid I’m in your way here.”
The big blue eyes shone pathetically through starting tears.
Norman held out his hand to her as if she had been a child, and said,
huskily:
“Sweetheart!”
She arose and went to him with the docility of a child, and put her
dimpled white hand in his. When he pressed it tightly he felt how she
was trembling.
“Dear Little Sweetheart, I have wounded you,” he murmured, tenderly.
“Forgive me, child. That was a foolish fancy of mine to provide for
your future. But it was different then. I did not know it would ever be
so that you could come back to live at Verelands. I am glad you did not
marry Frank Hinton. I hope you will never marry any one. I want you to
stay always at Verelands to make the sunshine brighter and the flowers
sweeter, as they have been ever since you came.”
His arm slipped around the slender, throbbing waist and pressed it
gently.
“Never think yourself unwelcome again,” he whispered. “You must never
be afraid of me again. Stay at Verelands and be my mother’s daughter,
Sweetheart, and my own dear little sister.”
He turned and pressed his lips to the tear-wet cheek, and it seemed to
him that it suddenly grew cold, the fair head drooped against him, the
form grew limp in his arms. For a moment he held her quite unconscious,
then she revived and struggled from his clasp.
“Let me go,” she said, with sudden coldness; and the next moment, alone
in her room, she fell sobbing on the bed.
“His sister!” she moaned. “His sister, dear Heaven! just in the moment
when I realized I loved him and hoped--hoped--he was going to ask me to
be his wife!”