"How am I to thank you?" said Adelaide Lyster to the girl she had
betrayed. "I have a letter from Allan, and he says the very thought of
seeing you has given him a fresh life--fresh energy. I have never read
anything so rapturous in my life. Do you wish to see the letter?"
As Marion Arleigh read the passionate, poetical words that had been
written expressly for her, her face flushed. How wonderful it was to
hold a man's life in her hands--to sway a genius so that her nod meant
stay or go, her least words meant happiness or misery! She looked around
with something of pity for other girls who had not this new and
wonderful sensation.
"A life in her hands!" There came to her, young as she was, a vague idea
of woman's power for good or for evil. A cruel or cold word from her,
and the artist would go in his misery only to seek death in some far-off
land. A kind word, and he would remain--his genius would have its sway,
and he would paint pictures that the world should glory in.
"I have arranged it all," said Miss Lyster. "Miss Carleton is going
to-day to that grand dinner-party at Macdonald's. She has given orders
that the young ladies shall go over to Herrington, and take some
refreshments with them--it will be a picnic on a small scale. You can
excuse yourself from going. I will volunteer to remain with you, and
toward sunset, we will walk through the old orchard. Allan will await us
there."
The girl's heart beat; it was a romantic dream after all--that strange,
wonderful reality; the interview she had so often imagined was to take
place at last.
"I cannot tell an untruth," she said to Miss Lyster; "I could not if I
tried. How could I excuse myself from going?"
Adelaide looked slightly shocked.
"I would not ask you to speak untruthfully, not even to save Allan's
life, dearly as I love him," she said. "There is no need. Say you are
not inclined to go. Miss Carleton will not interfere with the whims of
an heiress."
So it was arranged, and everything fell out just as Adelaide Lyster had
foreseen. Miss Carleton did not care to interfere with the whims of a
great heiress like Marion Arleigh.
"By all means, stay at home, my love, if you wish, and Miss Lyster, too.
She is an admirable young person; so prudent, so discreet. I could not
leave you in better hands."
Marion Arleigh lived afterward to be presented at Court, but she never
again felt the same diffidence, the same trepidation, as when, with her
false friend by her side, she went down the steps that led to the
orchard. The hedge was high and thick, tall trees formed a complete
barrier between the grounds and the high road, no strangers or passersby
could be seen. Miss Lyster had chosen her time well. She knew that in
the lady superintendent's absence the servants would hold high revels;
there was no fear of interruption.
In after life Marion Arleigh remembered every detail of that evening. It
was May then, and the hedge was white with hawthorn; there was a gleam
of gold from the laburnums, and the scent of the lilacs filled the air;
the apple trees were all in blossom, the birds were singing, the sun
shining, warmth and fragrance and beauty lay all around her.
Far down the orchard, standing sketching a picturesque old tree, was the
artist, Allan Lyster. He looked up as the sound of light footsteps
rustled in the grass. When he saw who was coming he flung down his
pencils and advanced, hat in hand.
There was something graceful and poetical, after all, in the way in
which he went up to Miss Arleigh and knelt lightly on one knee.
"I would kiss the hem of your robe if I dared," he said. "How am I to
thank you?"
Then he sprang up and took his sister's hand in his. He allowed no time
for confusion and embarrassment--he was too clever for that.
"How am I to thank you, Miss Arleigh?" he said. "If the sun had fallen
from the heavens, I could not have felt, more surprise than your
kindness has caused me. My sister tells me you are good enough not to be
angry at my presumption."
Miss Lyster laughed.
"I think, Allan," she said, "that I shall leave you to listen to Miss
Arleigh's lecture alone. She will be able to say harder words to you if
I am not by to listen. I will see if I can finish your picture."
She walked over to the tree where paper and pencils lay, leaving them
alone, and though she was a woman, and young--though she knew that she
was most foully betraying a girl whose youth and innocence might have
pleaded for her, she had not even a passing thought of pity. "Let Allan
win the fortune if he can. He will make better use of it than she
could."
"You are so good to me," murmured the young artist, his dark eyes
flashing keenly for one-half a minute over that beautiful face. "I am at
a loss for words."
Allan Lyster was gifted with a most musical voice, and he understood
perfectly well how to make the most use of it. The pathos with which he
said those words was wonderful to hear.
"I am glad to see you," she said. "Your sister tells me you think of
going abroad."
"Has she told you why?" he asked eagerly.
Marion's face grew crimson. The beautiful eyes dropped from his. She
drew back ever so little, but another keen, sharp glance told him she
was not angry; only shy and timid.
"You are so good to me," he continued, with passionate eagerness, "that
I am not afraid to tell you. I must go; life here is torture to me; it
is torture to see you, to hear you speak, to worship you with a heart
full of fire, and yet to know that the sun is not farther from me than
you, to know that if I laid my life at your feet you would only laugh at
me and think me mad. It is torture so great that exile and death seem
preferable."
He saw her lips quiver, and her eyes, half raised, had in them no angry
light.
"You are a great lady," he said, "rich, noble, powerful. I am a poor
artist. I have but one gift--that is genius. And I have dared, fired by
such a beauty as woman never had before, to raise my eyes to you. They
are dazzled, blinded, and I must suffer for my rashness; and yet--"
He paused, gave another keen glance, felt perfectly satisfied that what
he was saying was well received, then went on:
"Artists before now have loved great ladies, and by their genius have
immortalized them. But I am mad to say such things. This is the age of
money-worship, and art is no longer valued as in those times."
"I do not value money," she said, in a clear, sweet voice. "I value many
things a thousand times more highly."
"You are an angel!" he cried. "Even though my love tortures me, I would
not change it for the highest pleasures other men enjoy. The poets learn
by suffering what they teach in song; so it will be with me. Sorrow will
make me a great artist; whereas, if I had been a happy man, I might
never, perhaps, have risen much above the common level. I am resigned to
suffer all my life."
"I do not like to hear you speak so," she said. "Life will not be all
suffering."
"I have raised my eyes, looked at the sun, and it has dazzled me," he
said. "Ah, lady, I have had such dreams, of love that overleaped all
barriers, as Art has rendered loveliness immortal for all time. I have
dreamed of loves such as Petrarch had for Laura, Dante for Beatrice, and
I wake to call myself mad for indulging in such dreams."
She was deeply interested. This was exactly as heros spoke in novels;
they always had a lofty contempt for money, and talked as though love
was the only and universal good. She looked half shyly at him; he was
very handsome, this young artist who loved her so, and very sad. How
dearly he loved her, and how strange it was! In all this wide world
there was not one who cared for her as he did; the thought seemed to
bring her nearer to him. No one had ever talked of loving her before.
Perhaps the beauty of the May evening softened her and inclined her
heart to him; for after a few minutes' silence she said to him:
"We are forgetting the very object for which I consented to see you."