FLORENCE
The morning brought sunshine and the sound of sleigh-bells. In the
wonderfully clear air of New York, the snow-covered streets dazzled the
eyes. Never did a town look more brilliant, or people feel more blithe,
than on this fine day after the long snow-storm.
“Isn't it glorious?” Edna Hill was looking out on the shining white
gardens from Florence's parlor window. “Certainly, on a day like this, it
doesn't seem natural for one to cling to the past. It's a day for
beginning over again, if ever there are such days.” Her words had
allusion to the subject on which the two girls had talked late into the
night. Edna had waited for Florence to resume the theme in the morning,
but the latter had not done so yet, although breakfast was now over.
Perhaps it was her father's presence that had deterred her. The incident
of the meal had been the arrival of a note from Mr. Bagley to Mr. Kenby,
expressing the former's regret that he should be unavoidably prevented
from keeping the engagement to go sleighing. As Florence had forgotten to
give her father Mr. Bagley's verbal message, this note had brought her in
for a quantity of paternal complaint sufficient for the venting of the
ill-humor due to his having stayed up too late, and taken too much
champagne the night before. But now Mr. Kenby had gone out, wrapped up
and overshod, to try the effect of fresh air on his headache, and of
shop-windows and pretty women on his spirits. Florence, however, had
still held off from the all-important topic, until Edna was driven to
introduce it herself.
“It's never a day for abandoning what has been dear to one,”
replied Florence.
“But you wouldn't be abandoning him. After all, he really is the
same man.”
“But I can't make myself regard him as the same. And he doesn't regard
himself so.”
“But in that case the other man has vanished. It's precisely as if he
were dead. No, it's even worse, for there isn't as much trace of him as
there would be of a man that had died. What's the use of being faithful
to such an utterly non-existent person? Why, there isn't even a grave, to
put flowers on;--or an unknown mound in a distant country, for the
imagination to cling to. There's just nothing to be constant to.”
“There are memories.”
“Well, they'll remain. Does a widow lose her memories of number one when
she becomes Mrs. Number Two?”
“She changes the character of them; buries them out of sight; kills them
with neglect. Yes, she is false to them.”
“But your case isn't even like that. In these peculiar circumstances the
old memories will blend with the new.--And, dear me! he is such a nice
man! I don't see how the other could have been nicer. You couldn't find
anybody more congenial in tastes and manners, I'm sure.”
“I can't make you understand, dear. Suppose Tom Larcher went away for a
time, and came back so completely different that you couldn't see the old
Tom Larcher in him at all. And suppose he didn't even consider himself
the same person you had loved. Would you love him then as you do now?”
Edna was silenced for a moment; but for a moment only. “Well, if he came
back such a charming fellow as Turl, and if he loved me as much as Turl
loves you, I could soon manage to drop the old Tom out of my mind. But of
course, you know, in my heart of hearts, I wouldn't forget for a moment
that he really was the old Tom.”
The talk was interrupted by a knock at the door. The servant gave the
name of Mr. Turl. Florence turned crimson, and stood at a loss.
“You can't truly say you're out, dear,” counselled Edna, in an undertone.
“Show him in,” said Florence.
Turl entered.
Florence looked and spoke coldly. “I told you I'd send a message when I
wished you to call.”
He was wistful, but resolute. “I know it,” he said. “But love doesn't
stand on ceremony; lovers are importunate; they come without
bidding.--Good morning, Miss Hill; you mustn't let me drive you away.”
For Edna had swished across the room, and was making for the hall.
“I'm going to the drawing-room,” she said, airily, “to see the
sleighs go by.”
In another second, the door slammed, and Turl was alone with Florence. He
took a hesitating step toward her.
“It's useless,” she said, raising her hand as a barrier between them. “I
can't think of you as the same. I can't see _him_ in you. I should have
to do that before I could offer you his place. All that I can love now
is the memory of him.”
“Listen,” said Turl, without moving. “I have thought it over. For your
sake, I will be the man I was. It's true, I can't restore the old face;
but the old outlook on life, the old habits, the old pensiveness, will
bring back the old expression. I will resume the old name, the old set of
memories, the old sense of personality. I said last night that a
resumption of the old self could be only mental, and incomplete even so.
But when I said that, I had not surrendered. The mental return can be
complete, and must reveal itself more or less on the surface. And the old
love,--surely where the feeling is the same, its outer showing can't be
utterly new and strange.”
He spoke with a more pleading and reverent note than he had yet used
since the revelation. A moist shine came into her eyes.
“Murray--it _is_ you!” she whispered.
“Ah!--sweetheart!” His smile of the utmost tenderness seemed more of a
kind with sadness than with pleasure. It was the smile of a man deeply
sensible of sorrow--of Murray Davenport,--not that of one versed in good
fortune alone--not that which a potent imagination had made habitual to
Francis Turl.
She gave herself to his arms, and for a time neither spoke. It was she
who broke the silence, looking up with tearful but smiling eyes:
“You shall not abandon your design. It's too marvellous, too successful;
it has been too dear to you for that.”
“It was dear to me when I thought I had lost you. And since then, the
pride of conceiving and accomplishing it, the labor and pain, kept it
dear to me. But now that I am sure of you, I can resign it without a
murmur. From the moment when I decided to sacrifice it, it has been
nothing to me, provided I could only regain you.”
“But the old failure, the old ill luck, the old unrewarded drudgery,--no,
you sha'n't go back to them. You shall be true to the illusion--we shall
be true to it--I will help you in it, strengthen you in it! I needed only
to see the old Murray Davenport appear in you one moment. Hereafter you
shall be Francis Turl, the happy and fortunate! But you and I will have
our secret--before the world you shall be Francis Turl--but to me you
shall be Murray Davenport, too--Murray Davenport hidden away in Francis
Turl. To me alone, for the sake of the old memories. It will be another
tie between us, this secret, something that is solely ours, deep in our
hearts, as the knowledge of your old self would always have been deep in
yours if you hadn't told me. Think how much better it is that I share
this knowledge with you; now nothing of your mind is concealed from me,
and we together shall have our smile at the world's expense.”
“For being so kind to Francis Turl, the fortunate, after its cold
treatment of Murray Davenport, the unlucky,” said Turl, smiling. “It
shall be as you say, sweetheart. There can be no doubt about my good
fortune. It puts even the old proverb out. With me it is lucky in love as
well as at cards.”
“What do you mean, dear?”
“The Bagley money--”
“Ah, that money. Listen, dear. Now that I have some right to speak, you
must return that money. I don't dispute your moral claim to it--such
things are for you to settle. But the danger of keeping it--”
“There's no longer any danger. The money is mine, of Bagley's own free
will and consent. I encountered him last night. He is in my secret now,
but it's safe with him. We cut cards for the money, and I won. I hate
gambling, but the situation was exceptional. He hoped that, once the
matter was settled by the cards, he should never hear a word about it
again. As he hadn't heard a word of it from me--Davenport--for years,
this meant that his own conscience had been troubling him about it all
along. That's why he was ready at last to put the question to a toss-up;
but first he established the fact that he wouldn't be 'done' out of the
money by anybody. I tell you all this, dear, in justice to the man; and
so, exit Bagley. As I said, my secret--_our_ secret--is safe with him. So
it is, of course, with Miss Hill and Larcher. Nobody else knows it,
though others besides you three may have suspected that I had something
to do with the disappearance.”
“Only Mr. Bud.”
“Larcher can explain away Mr. Bud's suspicions. Larcher has been a good
friend. I can never be grateful enough--”
A knock at the door cut his speech short, and the servant announced
Larcher himself. It had been arranged that he should call for Edna's
orders. That young lady had just intercepted him in the hall, to prevent
his breaking in upon what might be occurring between Turl and Miss Kenby.
But Florence, holding the door open, called out to Edna and Larcher to
come in. Something in her voice and look conveyed news to them both, and
they came swiftly. Edna kissed Florence half a dozen times, while Larcher
was shaking hands with Turl; then waltzed across to the piano, and for a
moment drowned the outside noises--the jingle of sleigh-bells, and the
shouts of children snowballing in the sunshine--with the still more
joyous notes of a celebrated march by Mendelssohn.
THE END.