glance at the three uniforms, “my decision is that as they insist on
fighting duels in any event, you had better dance with me until they
have settled it between them, and then the survivor can have the next
dance.”
“That’s a very good idea,” said Miss Morris; and taking Carlton’s arm,
she bowed to the three men and drew away.
“Mr. Carlton,” said the equerry, with a bow, “has added another argument
in favor of maintaining standing armies, and of not submitting questions
to arbitration.”
“Let’s get out of this,” said Carlton. “You don’t want to dance, do you?
Let us go where it’s cool.”
He led her down the stairs, and out on to the terrace. They did not
speak again until they had left it, and were walking under the trees in
the Queen’s garden. He had noticed as they made their way through the
crowd how the men and women turned to look at her and made way for her,
and how utterly unconscious she was of their doing so, with that
unconsciousness which comes from familiarity with such discrimination,
and Carlton himself held his head a little higher with the pride and
pleasure the thought gave him that he was in such friendly sympathy with
so beautiful a creature. He stopped before a low stone bench that stood
on the edge of the path, surrounded by a screen of tropical trees, and
guarded by a marble statue. They were in deep shadow themselves, but the
moonlight fell on the path at their feet, and through the trees on the
other side of the path they could see the open terrace of the palace,
with the dancers moving in and out of the lighted windows. The splash of
a fountain came from some short distance behind them, and from time to
time they heard the strains of a regimental band alternating with the
softer strains of a waltz played by a group of Hungarian musicians. For
a moment neither of them spoke, but sat watching the white dresses of
the women and the uniforms of the men moving in and out among the trees,
lighted by the lanterns hanging from the branches, and the white mist of
the moon.
“Do you know,” said Carlton, “I’m rather afraid of you to-night!” He
paused, and watched her for a little time as she sat upright, with her
hands folded on her lap. “You are so very resplendent and queenly and
altogether different,” he added. The girl moved her bare shoulders
slightly and leaned back against the bench.
“The Princess did not come,” she said.
“No,” Carlton answered, with a sudden twinge of conscience at having
forgotten that fact. “That’s one of the reasons I took you away from
those men,” he explained. “I wanted you to sympathize with me.”
Miss Morris did not answer him at once. She did not seem to be in a
sympathetic mood. Her manner suggested rather that she was tired and
troubled.
“I need sympathy myself to-night,” she said. “We received a letter after
dinner that brought bad news for us. We must go home at once.”
“Bad news!” exclaimed Carlton, with much concern. “From home?”
“Yes, from home,” she replied; “but there is nothing wrong there; it is
only bad news for us. My sister has decided to be married in June
instead of July, and that cuts us out of a month on the Continent.
That’s all. We shall have to leave immediately—to-morrow. It seems that
Mr. Abbey is able to go away sooner than he had hoped, and they are to
be married on the first.”
“Mr. Abbey!” exclaimed Carlton, catching at the name. “But your sister
isn’t going to marry him, is she?”
Miss Morris turned her head in some surprise. “Yes—why not?” she said.
“But I say!” cried Carlton, “I thought—your aunt told me that you were
going to marry Abbey; she told me so that day on the steamer when he
came to see you off.”
“I marry him—my aunt told you—impossible!” said Miss Morris, smiling.
“She probably said that ‘her niece’ was going to marry him; she meant my
sister. They had been engaged some time.”
“Then who are _you_ going to marry?” stammered Carlton.
“I am not going to marry any one,” said Miss Morris.
Carlton stared at her blankly in amazement. “Well, that’s most absurd!”
he exclaimed.
He recognized instantly that the expression was hardly adequate, but he
could not readjust his mind so suddenly to the new idea, and he remained
looking at her with many confused memories rushing through his brain. A
dozen questions were on his tongue. He remembered afterward how he had
noticed a servant trimming the candle in one of the orange-colored
lanterns, and that he had watched him as he disappeared among the palms.
The silence lasted for so long a time that it had taken on a
significance in itself which Carlton recognized. He pulled himself up
with a short laugh. “Well,” he remonstrated, mirthlessly, “I don’t think
you’ve treated _me_ very well.”
“How, not treated you very well?” Miss Morris asked, settling herself
more easily. She had been sitting during the pause which followed
Carlton’s discovery with a certain rigidity, as if she was on a strain
of attention. But her tone was now as friendly as always, and held its
customary suggestion of amusement. Carlton took his tone from it,
although his mind was still busily occupied with incidents and words of
hers that she had spoken in their past intercourse.
“Not fair in letting me think you were engaged,” he said. “I’ve wasted
so much time; I’m not half civil enough to engaged girls,” he explained.
“You’ve been quite civil enough to us,” said Miss Morris, “as a courier,
philosopher, and friend. I’m very sorry we have to part company.”
“Part company!” exclaimed Carlton, in sudden alarm. “But, I say, we
mustn’t do that.”
“But we must, you see,” said Miss Morris. “We must go back for the
wedding, and you will have to follow the Princess Aline.”
“Yes, of course,” Carlton heard his own voice say. “I had forgotten the
Princess Aline.” But he was not thinking of what he was saying, nor of
the Princess Aline. He was thinking of the many hours Miss Morris and he
had been together, of the way she had looked at certain times, and of
how he had caught himself watching her at others; how he had pictured
the absent Mr. Abbey travelling with her later over the same route, and
without a chaperon, sitting close at her side or holding her hand, and
telling her just how pretty she was whenever he wished to do so, and
without any fear of the consequences. He remembered how ready she had
been to understand what he was going to say before he had finished
saying it, and how she had always made him show the best of himself, and
had caused him to leave unsaid many things that became common and
unworthy when considered in the light of her judgment. He recalled how
impatient he had been when she was late at dinner, and how cross he was
throughout one whole day when she had kept her room. He felt with a
sudden shock of delightful fear that he had grown to depend upon her,
that she was the best companion he had ever known; and he remembered
moments when they had been alone together at the table, or in some old
palace, or during a long walk, when they had seemed to have the whole
world entirely to themselves, and how he had consoled himself at such
times with the thought that no matter how long she might be Abbey’s
wife, there had been these moments in her life which were his, with
which Abbey had had nothing to do.
Carlton turned and looked at her with strange wide-open eyes, as though
he saw her for the first time. He felt so sure of himself and of his
love for her that the happiness of it made him tremble, and the thought
that if he spoke she might answer him in the old, friendly, mocking tone
of good-fellowship filled him with alarm. At that moment it seemed to
Carlton that the most natural thing in the world for them to do would be
to go back again together over the road they had come, seeing everything
in the new light of his love for her, and so travel on and on forever
over the world, learning to love each other more and more each
succeeding day, and leaving the rest of the universe to move along
without them.
He leaned forward with his arm along the back of the bench, and bent his
face toward hers. Her hand lay at her side, and his own closed over it,
but the shock that the touch of her fingers gave him stopped and
confused the words upon his tongue. He looked strangely at her, and
could not find the speech he needed.
Miss Morris gave his hand a firm, friendly little pressure and drew her
own away, as if he had taken hers only in an exuberance of good feeling.
“You have been very nice to us,” she said, with an effort to make her
tone sound kindly and approving. “And we——”
“You mustn’t go; I can’t let you go,” said Carlton, hoarsely. There was
no mistaking his tone or his earnestness now. “If you go,” he went on,
breathlessly, “I must go with you.”
The girl moved restlessly; she leaned forward, and drew in her breath
with a slight, nervous tremor. Then she turned and faced him, almost as
though she were afraid of him or of herself, and they sat so for an
instant in silence. The air seemed to have grown close and heavy, and
Carlton saw her dimly. In the silence he heard the splash of the
fountain behind them, and the rustling of the leaves in the night wind,
and the low, sighing murmur of a waltz.
He raised his head to listen, and she saw in the moonlight that he was
smiling. It was as though he wished to delay any answer she might make
to his last words.
“That is the waltz,” he said, still speaking in a whisper, “that the
gypsies played that night—” He stopped, and Miss Morris answered him by
bending her head slowly in assent. It seemed to be an effort for her to
even make that slight gesture.
“_You_ don’t remember it,” said Carlton. “It meant nothing to you. I
mean that night on the steamer when I told you what love meant to other
people. What a fool I was!” he said, with an uncertain laugh.
“Yes, I remember it,” she said—“last Thursday night, on the steamer.”
“Thursday night!” exclaimed Carlton, indignantly. “Wednesday night,
Tuesday night, how should I know what night of the week it was? It was
the night of my life to me. That night I knew that I loved you as I had
never hoped to care for any one in this world. When I told you that I
did not know what love meant I felt all the time that I was lying. I
knew that I loved you, and that I could never love any one else, and
that I had never loved any one before; and if I had thought then you
could care for me, your engagement or your promises would never have
stopped my telling you so. You said that night that I would learn to
love all the better, and more truly, for having doubted myself so long,
and, oh, Edith,” he cried, taking both her hands and holding them close
in his own, “I cannot let you go now! I love you so! Don’t laugh at me;
don’t mock at me. All the rest of my life depends on you.”
And then Miss Morris laughed softly, just as he had begged her not to
do, but her laughter was so full of happiness, and came so gently and
sweetly, and spoke so truly of content, that though he let go of her
hands with one of his, it was only that he might draw her to him, until
her face touched his, and she felt the strength of his arm as he held
her against his breast.
The Hohenwalds occupied the suite of rooms on the first floor of the
hotel, with the privilege of using the broad balcony that reached out
from it over the front entrance. And at the time when Mrs. Downs and
Edith Morris and Carlton drove up to the hotel from the ball, the
Princess Aline was leaning over the balcony and watching the lights go
out in the upper part of the house, and the moonlight as it fell on the
trees and statues in the public park below. Her foot was still in
bandages, and she was wrapped in a long cloak to keep her from the cold.
Inside of the open windows that led out on to the balcony her sisters
were taking off their ornaments, and discussing the incidents of the
night just over.
The Princess Aline, unnoticed by those below, saw Carlton help Mrs.
Downs to alight from the carriage, and then give his hand to another
muffled figure that followed her; and while Mrs. Downs was ascending the
steps, and before the second muffled figure had left the shadow of the
carriage and stepped into the moonlight, the Princess Aline saw Carlton
draw her suddenly back and kiss her lightly on the cheek, and heard a
protesting gasp, and saw Miss Morris pull her cloak over her head and
run up the steps. Then she saw Carlton shake hands with them, and stand
for a moment after they had disappeared, gazing up at the moon and
fumbling in the pockets of his coat. He drew out a cigar-case and
leisurely selected a cigar, and with much apparent content lighted it,
and then, with his head thrown back and his chest expanded, as though he
were challenging the world, he strolled across the street and
disappeared among the shadows of the deserted park.
The Princess walked back to one of the open windows, and stood there
leaning against the side. “That young Mr. Carlton, the artist,” she said
to her sisters, “is engaged to that beautiful American girl we met the
other day.”
“Really!” said the elder sister. “I thought it was probable. Who told
you?”
“I saw him kiss her good-night,” said the Princess, stepping into the
window, “as they got out of their carriage just now.”
The Princess Aline stood for a moment looking thoughtfully at the floor,
and then walked across the room to a little writing-desk. She unlocked a
drawer in this and took from it two slips of paper, which she folded in
her hand. Then she returned slowly across the room, and stepped out
again on to the balcony.
One of the pieces of paper held the picture Carlton had drawn of her,
and under which he had written: “This is she. Do you wonder I travelled
four thousand miles to see her?” And the other was the picture of
Carlton himself, which she had cut out of the catalogue of the Salon.
From the edge of the balcony where the Princess stood she could see the
glimmer of Carlton’s white linen and the red glow of his cigar as he
strode proudly up and down the path of the public park, like a sentry
keeping watch. She folded the pieces of paper together and tore them
slowly into tiny fragments, and let them fall through her fingers into
the street below. Then she returned again to the room, and stood looking
at her sisters.
“Do you know,” she said, “I think I am a little tired of travelling so
much. I want to go back to Grasse.” She put her hand to her forehead and
held it there for a moment. “I think I am a little homesick,” said the
Princess Aline.
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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
2. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.