"Oh the snow, the beautiful snow
Filling the sky and the earth below.'
"It will be a stormy night I think," Honor says, shrugging her pretty
shoulders behind the window-blind she is just lowering, "I wish I had
the stout brawny arms of a man to-night...."
"Around your waist?" says a voice from behind her, and, suiting the
action to the word, some one encircles her slender waist with "stout
brawny arms."
"Guy! I have told you in plain English that I will not allow you to take
such freedom with me. _This_ time, I say, '_Je vous difends
sirieusementde mettre vos bras...._'"
"Oh! that's enough, by Jove, you'd drive a fellow crazy if he'd listen
to you long enough, with your recitals on maidenly propriety. Now,
there's Miss Bella Dash--many a season's belle--just chuckles with
delight when I get this broad cloth sleeve fairly around her blue satin
basque"
"Oh! I dare say! but society gives 'poetical licences' to her adopted
children, which outside of her pale would be simply atrocious. If Bella
Dash saw your coat sleeve around Betsy, the house-maid's basque, it
would mean another thing altogether, though Betsy's eyes are as fine as
Miss Bella's any day. Besides, you must have learned by now that the
'Bella Dash's' of Ottawa society to-day are _nothing_ to me. My sympathy
for _my_ sex goes out to the whole species and when I offer it to
individuals, I exclude the 'Miss Dash's' that make the '_tableaux
vivants_' of the modern drawing-room."
"By Jove! that is a fine speech Honor; now see here between you and me
(I might also add the only two sensible people in Ottawa) what do you
think would become of us young enthusiastic fellows if all the 'girls'
stood on their high-heeled dignity like you? Why of course the
monasteries and lunatic asylums would have more to do, and by and by,
the lunatic asylum would have it all; but destiny is not so cruel a
tyrant as you, so she makes your haughty kind the exception and not the
rule."
Honor laughed, a low curious laugh, and said "Then she is very kind to
_me_ to have made me realize soon enough how much too worthy I am to be
any man's pastime, a toy for him to play with until the paint is rubbed
off--then to be flung aside for something new. If that is all Bella Dash
and her prototypes, are worth in your estimation, it is no wonder they
are proud, and no wonder they hold their heads high enough to sniff the
air over the heads of girls, who, were you to use their names as you do
Miss Dash's, would level you to the ground."
"My most supreme stand-offish friend, I hope sincerely you won't preach
any of these theories around our gay little city. Why, the young ladies
here are just a jolly crowd, who don't transmogrify their whole faces
because a fellow likes to spoon now and then to kill time. By Jove!
you'd spoil the fun for the winter, and as soon as spring came the whole
male element of Ottawa City would 'make' for the fresh pastures of the
North-West."
"That is a worthy declaration Mr. Elersly, I must say. I hope you are
aware that in speaking thus, you risk the good opinion of your
respectable sensible friends--if you have any--outside of this house. It
is cold so near the window, let me pass please. I prefer a seat by the
fire to this stupid argument here in the window recess."
The mischievous smile died out of Guy's handsome face, as he looked
earnestly into the beautiful eyes of the girl standing by him.
"Oh yes, of course" said he, with a sigh, "anything is stupid in _my_
company, although I come to you when I'm in good spirits for sympathy,
as well as when I'm 'blue' for consolation: you always find it dull and
stupid, and you don't hesitate to tell me either. If I bore you so
dreadfully, I'll be off."
Honor looked up suddenly; she stretched out her hand and laid it on his
shoulder; her voice was changed and earnest as she said. "Stay Guy, and
we'll talk it over in a friendly way. There are two seats by the grate,
and I will be very amiable--I promise you."
There was a moment of hesitation--temptation--both ways for Guy. At last
he looked up, saying: "I'm really sorry, Honor, but I made an engagement
for eight o'clock, and I've only ten minutes to walk over half a mile;
so we'll have to postpone our little '_veillée_.'"
She turned from him and looked into the fire "Very well," she answered
quietly, "the night is stormy, but I suppose you don't mind that."
"Not much," a fellow has to humour the weather for the weather won't
humour him.
"But by Jove! its eight o'clock," said Guy, looking at his watch, "and
I'll be puckering my patrician brow to invent an excuse for this delay.
So 'ta-ta.'"
"Good night," Honor said in a low voice, extending her hand as Guy
approached the fire to light his cigar. Another moment, and the young
girl was alone with her thoughts.
We might stop here and wonder at the mysterious conventionality that is
influencing all our lives now-a-days. It is not a deception, and yet its
consequences are often the same. Here was a striking instance of its
existence. It might have been noticed from the beginning of the last
interview that Honor and Guy had grown somewhat more familiar with one
another. It was Mr. Rayne's doings, for had he not interfered, the same
cold mysterious distance would still have been between them; but there
was no sacrifice too great where he was concerned, and it was purely for
his sake the young people dispensed with the formality of their early
acquaintance. And yet, how superficial this familiarity was on both
sides! Just now, look at them--read their thoughts--see their hearts.
Guy closed the front door with a heavy bang and went out into the street
troubled. He was talking to himself: "Such a farce, by Jove! one would
think she was a little sister, by the way I try to speak, and if she
only knew how I struggle to suffocate the passion that rises within me,
when she looks up so earnestly out of her big dreaming eyes; it is sheer
folly and I'll go mad if it must continue--and yet--if uncle ever
suspected my love he would separate us then and there. But it is
dangerous dust I am flinging in his eyes by being free and easy with her
in this way. In a little while more I won't be able to trust myself, and
God help me then. Confound those Teazle girls, only for their invitation
I would have stayed with Honor to-night, but a fellow belongs to every
one in this city before himself, and I can't expect to escape"
"Alas! for the rarity
Of Christian charity
Under the sun."
By this time he was mounting the steps of his boarding-house, and he
flung the butt of his cigar violently at a gaunt spare cat that just
ventured its pinched countenance from under the verandah. As he turned
the latch-key, he was indulging in a strain of "In the gloaming, oh! my
darling" as though he were the happiest of living creatures.
For some moments after Guy left his uncle's house Honor sat motionless
reading the coals. She was troubled: Mr. Rayne expected her to be able
to entice his nephew away from these never ending parties of pleasure,
and she could not. If she did not care for him quite so much, her task
would indeed be easier, indifference spurs on so to a task that is mere
duty. How miserable she was, here, all alone, on his account, while he,
where was he spending these moments fraught with so much anxiety for
her?
At this juncture Mr. Rayne bustled in and, somewhat surprised to find
his little girl alone, he took the seat Honor had placed for Guy, and
settled himself for a comfortable fireside chat.