The next day Thea had another delightful canter with her guardian, and
when they returned, he told her to bring her verses down to him as she
had promised yesterday.
“I hoped you had forgotten,” Thea exclaimed, ruefully. Having spent
hours over her portfolio last night, she had decided that the dozen or
so poems she had picked out for his inspection were nothing but trash,
and she regretted the promise she had made.
But Norman de Vere would not release her until she promised to bring
him the portfolio at once.
“I am anticipating quite a treat,” he said, with a _soupçon_ of sarcasm
that brought the color rushing to her cheeks.
“Then you will be disappointed,” she answered, tartly, but she went
obediently for the verses.
“But I can not stay to see you read them. There is company only just
arrived, and your mother wants me in the drawing-room,” she said,
glad of so good an excuse for getting away, for her fair cheeks
tingled with bashfulness. Why, oh, why had she been so silly as to
own to verse-making? She could fancy him laughing quietly to himself
at her crudities. But the die was cast. She had blundered into this
humiliation of her own accord in her eagerness to climb nearer to the
height of his genius. She flung the portfolio down upon the table, and
made a very undignified retreat in her haste to be gone.
The visitors waiting for her in the drawing-room were some
acquaintances she had made on first coming to Verelands several months
ago--two gay young girls, and their brother, an unexceptionable young
man. They were wealthy, and of good family--old friends of Mrs. de
Vere, who warmly seconded the invitation they extended to Thea to
return with them for a week’s visit to their country home, something
more than three miles away.
“There will be quite a party of us. Some of our schoolmates will arrive
from the North this evening, and we shall have a gay week,” said Miss
Diana Bentley, the elder of the two girls, a tall, handsome brunette.
“Say that you will come, Thea!” cried the younger, Nell, a girl of
about the same age as Thea, and her good-looking young brother added,
eagerly:
“We will not take ‘no’ for an answer.”
Thea looked at Mrs. de Vere, who said, kindly:
“Go, if you wish, dear. The old woman will try to do without you for a
few days.”
“But my riding-lessons? You know I have just commenced learning,” Thea
said, doubtfully.
“I will take pleasure in riding with you every day,” said Cameron
Bentley, quickly.
He admired Thea very much, and was eager to have her at Orange Grove,
his beautiful home. She flushed slightly under the thrilling glance of
his dark eyes, then gave her consent to go.
It had occurred to her that here was a fortunate escape from the
intolerable bashfulness that had overwhelmed her since she had
thoughtlessly given her promise to let Norman de Vere read her verses.
“A whole week--he will have read and forgotten the trash by then,” she
thought, with swift relief, and made ready gladly to return with the
Bentleys to Orange Grove--Mrs. de Vere promising to pack her trunk and
send it later in the day.
Norman de Vere, eagerly conning the papers she had left with him, was
startled presently by a soft little tap at the door.
“Come in,” he said, and the door opened, admitting a lovely
vision--Thea in a dress and hat of dark-blue velvet with pale-blue
plumes sweeping her shoulders and mingling with the spun silk of her
golden curls, her beautiful face bright, eager, smiling.
Norman’s heart leaped with a thrill that no sophistry could pronounce
brotherly--a thrill that startled him with its keen pleasure.
“What, going out again--so soon? You said there was company!” he cried.
She came nearer and stood at the furthest corner of his writing-desk,
her small, gray-gloved hand resting on the corner.
“Yes--the Bentleys,” she said. “They have come to take me to Orange
Grove for a week. There is to be quite a gay party there. I expect I
shall enjoy it very much.”
“No doubt,” he said with sudden stiffness. He had risen, and stood
with one hand on the back of his chair, looking keenly into her face,
which had gone crimson as she recognized her papers scattered about on
his desk. “But,” he continued, reproachfully, “are you going to give up
your riding-lessons so soon?”
“Oh, no! I spoke of that, and Cameron Bentley promised to take me every
day.”
“Ah!” he laughed; but it was mirthless, and the tone was unconsciously
bitter with which he added: “A most agreeable substitute for your
elderly guardian, Sweetheart.”
“Oh, no; I do not think so,” Thea answered, sweetly. The frank, blue
eyes looked at him a moment--almost tenderly, it seemed to him--then
the long-fringed lashes fell, as she added: “I hope you will come to
Orange Grove sometimes while I am there--if not, I must say good-bye
for a week.”
“Good-bye, then,” he replied, coldly, it seemed to her.
With a rapid step he crossed the space that intervened between them and
caught both her hands in his, and stooping down, would have pressed his
lips to hers; but Thea swiftly drew back from him, exclaiming, saucily:
“No, no; you are not really my brother, you know. It is only
make-believe.”
“I beg your pardon,” he said, flushing hotly, and instantly releasing
the little hands.
“I forgive you,” she answered, laughing lightly, and turning to go; but
Norman followed her out into the hall.
“I will pay my respects to your friends,” he said, longing for a look
at young Bentley, whom he remembered such a short while back as a
boy. Now, doubtless, he was sprouting a young mustache, and aspiring
to Thea West’s favor. There was Miss Bentley, too, a handsome girl of
twenty-five, who was always so cordial when they met. Decidedly he
ought to go in and speak to her a moment, and he was gratified at her
eager pleasure when he entered.
“It is an honor we did not expect--to have you lay aside your pen to
welcome us giddy girls,” she cried, brightly. “But perhaps you have
come to scold us for taking Miss West away from her riding-lessons.”
“Not at all, since she has found a better teacher,” he replied, bowing
to Cameron Bentley, and adding: “We shall miss her, of course, but old
folks, like my mother and myself, must not stand in the way of her
enjoyment.”
“Old folks? The idea!” Nell Bentley cried, boisterously, “Why, Diana
has been dying to ask you to join our party, but was afraid, knowing
you would decline.”
Miss Bentley colored slightly, but stood her ground, and turning to
him, said:
“Will you join us? Since Nell has betrayed me, I will not deny that she
has spoken the truth.”
“I shall be glad to look in now and then at Orange Grove,” he replied,
courteously, without a sign of his exultation at receiving the
invitation that would enable him to comply with Thea’s timid request.
The young ladies protested they would be delighted, but Mr. Cameron
Bentley remained silent. He did not care to have Thea’s grave,
attractive guardian at Orange Grove, lest he should spoil sport.
But in blissful unconsciousness of the young sprig’s disapprobation,
Norman went out to hand them to their carriage, and to give Thea one
last grave glance that somehow set her heart beating madly, so that
she scarcely heard the gallantries of the young man at her side, for
Thea knew quite well that there was more than the love of brother or
guardian in Norman de Vere’s lingering look.
As for him, he went back to the library with the thought:
“Little coquette, she has Cameron Bentley in her toils now. Well, I
shall see for myself how far she goes in her flirtations, in spite of
her denials of them.”
With a frown he went back to his desk and resumed the perusal of Thea’s
verses. The first one he took up had the suggestive heading:
“IN AUTUMN DAYS.
“My heart, ah! why regret
Sweet spring’s first violet
Dead underneath these drifts of red and gold,
Where golden-rod doth wave
O’er summer’s new-made grave
Deep down within the dark and frosty mold?
“Alas, alas! one knows
That with the fading rose
And with the rustling of the dead leaves down,
The splendor soon will fade
From mountain height and glade,
And all the earth lie withered, bare, and brown.
“So one would fain go back
Along the spring-time’s track
And bid the tender flowerets bloom again--
Recall the faded rose
From under wintery snows
To greet the patter of the summer rain.
“Poor heart, how vain thy dream!
As easy would it seem
In winter time dead summer to recall,
As in life’s autumn days
Retracing youthful ways
For him on whom the length’ning shadows fall!”
“A thoughtful rhyme!” Norman de Vere muttered, throwing it from him
with an impatient sigh.