"Pardon me. I am going to defend the absent. Did he smoke while they
were engaged?"
"Yes."
"Very well. Now, do you wish to hear some words of wisdom?"
"Yes, indeed."
"Here they are. If Hilda disliked tobacco, she should have said so,
then; and she probably did. When she found Mr. Page would not give up
the habit, she should have weighed the question in her mind as to
whether the matter of smoking were going to affect her happiness
seriously. If she thought it would, she should have broken her
engagement. The great point is, that if she decided to marry him she
should have realized that she took him as he was, tobacco and all, and
would be likely to have rather more than less of it for the rest of her
life."
"A man is a selfish brute," remarked Gorham.
"Sometimes; but he has the same right a woman has to choose between his
habit and his love; that is, if the woman speaks in time."
"Hilda does not particularly dislike cigar smoke," said Page, "but she
thinks smoking is bad for Robert. I wonder if all men are as
thick-skinned as you say. Now, there is Jack. Do you believe he would
not fling all his cigars into the lake for--for you?"
"Yes, indeed; so long as there were plenty more to be had."
"No, Mrs. Van Tassel, be serious; and for the moment pardon
personalities. If Jack were engaged to you"--
He waited, gazing at Clover. She smiled at him and said, "Well, if Jack
were engaged to me?"
Page swallowed some impediment to speech.
"And you should earnestly ask him not to smoke, can you doubt the
result?"
Clover shrugged her shoulders. "No, I am afraid I can't. Jack is a
gentleman, and such an impulsive, affectionate fellow, I know pretty
well what he would do, supposing of course that he were very earnestly
and deeply in love with me."
"Which he is, of course." The dismal exclamation broke from Page
unawares.
Clover stared at him. "Oh no, he isn't," she said gently, after a
minute.
"What!"
"No, indeed. Jack and I always were good comrades, and always will be,
I hope."
Page suddenly took both her hands excitedly, and laughed aloud.
"Pardon me," he said, sobering suddenly. "I was forgetting where we
were." He drew her hand within his arm and they started to walk.
"Pretty little light things these bamboo houses are," he continued.
"What a gentle life they suggest. I don't know exactly why I am so glad
to hear what you tell me, Mrs. Van Tassel. I was under a mistaken idea
that you and Jack were--and it is no reflection upon Jack that I am
relieved. He is a fine fellow. There is no man I like better; so it
is--it is really difficult for me to explain why--why"--
"Never mind trying, Mr. Page," returned Clover, smiling softly at a cage
of doves outside a cottage door. "It isn't necessary," she added
demurely, "to label every feeling one has."
"It is a sort of habit of mine," he returned apologetically. "What is
this long straw building?"
"The theatre."
"Will you come in?"
"Yes; I have not visited it, but I hear it is interesting."
So they entered the well-filled hall just as the performance was
beginning, and were fortunate enough to find seats near the stage. At
both sides of the latter were placed rows of puppets with grotesque
faces, featured like the masks worn by most of the actors. At the back
of the stage were ranged the musicians, sitting cross-legged in rows
before their highly ornamented instruments. These were soft-toned gongs,
bells, and strings of strange fashion, and instead of being solely
noticeable for rhythm, like most of the music of the Midway, one heard
from this orchestra plaintive harmonies and cadences which seemed but an
amplification of the minor pleading in the water-wheel's play.
The curtained entrances at the side back of the stage looked too small
and low to admit the actors, but there was room and to spare even for
the men, and still more for the dainty brown dancing-girls who soon
glided forth. They were exceedingly pretty and graceful, dressed in
gold-embroidered velvet trousers to the knee, and short skirts. Their
dimpled shoulders and arms were bare, and their fringed sashes were used
to fling over their wrists in the fascinating monotonous gestures with
which they pointed their little hands as they stepped about in their
white-stockinged feet.
The performance was all in pantomime, the lines being read by some one
hidden behind a screen in the centre of the stage. The orchestra men in
their calico gowns and turbans often smiled at some sally of the clown;
but Clover and Page did not need to comprehend in order to be amused.
There was something tenderly comical in the pompous movements of the
little people gesturing in stiff, studied fashion. From time to time
the dancing-girls would appear, gliding hither and yon, and posing to
the tinkling music.
"This is surprisingly pretty," said Page.
"I want one of those brown girls to take home as bricabrac," returned
Clover. "Aren't they the roundest, prettiest little creatures! Really,
the whole thing seems strange enough to be a sight in fairy-land; and do
you hear that enchanting rustle of trees above our heads?"
The light summer breeze was stirring the dried straw and grass that
thatched the roof, with the lulling effect of wind in a forest.
"I am enchanted, I admit," answered Gorham.
After the play they walked about the village, among the houses where the
little inhabitants sat upon their piazzas and sang, or talked, or rested
silently.
"I shall never see such a reposeful place again," said Gorham, when at
last they passed out beneath the bamboo arch into the turbulent street.
"I should like to prolong that experience indefinitely."
"You can repeat it," suggested Clover.
"I should like to believe that; but one seldom has so much enjoyment in
the same space of time as I have had this evening. I feel grateful to
you for showing me all that."
They passed down the remainder of the Midway and under the last viaduct.
Walking north around the end of the Woman's Building, they stood a
moment arm-in-arm by the lagoon, and watched the quiet boats glide by,
then slowly began the homeward walk.
"You did not tell me," said Page, "what you knew Jack would do in our
supposed case."
"Haven't we finished yet with the sins of smokers?"
"I don't know. Perhaps we have. Were you going to say that you
believed Jack would give up the habit at the request of the woman he
loved?"
"I was going to say that he would promise to. Yes, I am quite sure what
Jack would do, for I have known men of his kind to do the same thing.
His fiancee--I, for example"--
"No, say your sister; although he is not at all her kind."
"Why, what is the matter with poor Jack, Mr. Page?" asked Clover rather
resentfully. "In what category do you place him, pray?"
"I place him high enough," returned Gorham hastily. "I only refer to a
woman's fancy, and I have an idea that Miss Bryant would prefer a more
sober, studious man."
"Why, I can't imagine what makes you think that!"
"It doesn't matter," said Page. "It can't hurt her at all for us to
engage her to him for a few minutes. You are not going to say that Jack
would make a promise and break it? If you think that, you rate him
lower than I do."
"He wouldn't mean to. This is about the way it goes, or the way I have
known it to go. Supposing Mildred to be engaged to Jack, she might tell
him she wished he did not smoke; that she disapproved it for many
reasons. He would probably reply that he hoped she would not ask him to
give it up, for if she insisted of course he should comply with her
wishes. This would make such an appeal to her tenderness that she would
forbear objecting awhile, feeling sure, poor thing, that her lover was
completely in her power; but after a time, inclination and conviction
both urging her, she would return to the subject. She might say, for
instance, that she could not help wishing strongly that he would give up
this habit, and that Clover had said no man would do it for any woman.
At this Jack would flare up. How could Clover be guilty of such a
speech! She had evidently never known any man who loved a woman as he,
Jack, adored her, Mildred. He would die for her. It would be a
pleasure to him to give up this comparatively slight gratification for
the sake of proving his affection for his beloved. Great elation on the
part of Mildred. Lying low on the part of Clover. Jack stops smoking,
and is ostentatiously careless and cheerful. Mildred flatters him
gratefully. He assures her that he does not care if he never sees a
cigar again, and is glad if such a trifling sacrifice pleases her.
"Some day, perhaps before their marriage, perhaps after, it depends upon
the length of the engagement, Jack, after dinner, lights a cigar with a
friend. Mildred protests gently. He answers reproachfully. Of course
she knows the habit is entirely broken up, she surely is not going to be
puritanical and unreasonable because once in a way he lights a cigar as
she would eat confectionery? She still feels uneasy, but is rather
ashamed to show it. He puts his arm around her, tells her she is a nice
little girl, and came just in time to save him from smoking to excess,
and he thanks her for it."
"Well?" said Gorham, as she paused.
"Well, that occasional cigar soon becomes a daily one, or one of a daily
half-dozen."
"Mrs. Van Tassel! How cynical you are!"
Clover laughed. "Oh no, not cynical. Jack was honest in his
expectation to give up his pet indulgence. He reasoned himself into
thinking his course was right."
"I can't believe it is always so."
"Always, Mr. Page," returned Clover, nodding wisely. "Men have died and
worms have eaten them, but not for love. Men have given up tobacco and
endured the torment it entails, but _not--for--love_!"
"I never wished before that I was a smoker," said Page musingly, "but I
suppose it would be rather foolish to cultivate the appetite merely to
deny it."
"A piece of braggadocio which would be sure to reap the reward of
failure," replied Clover.
"Don't say that, or you will tempt me to experiment. My first cigar
made me dreadfully ill when I was twelve years old, and my father
counter-irritated my internal misery with an outward application; so I
didn't try it again for some time. In the past year I have occasionally
yielded to Jack's urgency and smoked a cigar, but it doesn't interest
me. I forget about it, and it goes out."
"By all means let well enough alone," laughed Clover.
"Do you object to the use of tobacco?" asked Page earnestly.
"In you I should," answered the other, her eyes shining in the darkness.
"I wish I could give it up," he replied simply.
*CHAPTER XXII.*
*ON THE LAGOON.*
Mildred and Jack, when they discovered that they had lost their
companions, made no effort to find them.
"It is a great bore for more than two to try to keep together in this
place. Don't you think so?" asked Van Tassel.
"It is very difficult, certainly," agreed the girl. "Isn't it strange to
look about this wonder-world of a street and realize that it is just the
Midway Plaisance? Recall the old driveway at this hour."
"Yes; early evening was its most populous time too; but even then, how
quiet it was. What a wild idea it would have been to expect to see
Turkish dancing-girls, half-naked Dahomeyans, and all the rest, living
in those still, green fields. Have you been in to Hagenbeck's and seen
the marvelous trained animals?"
"Yes; but it is a rather creepy pleasure to watch lions, tigers, bears,
and leopards walking around that one solitary man and hissing
threateningly at him even while they obey."
"The one moment when I found my breath short was when the trainer made
five lions lie down on the ground, and threw himself on his back upon
them as though on a rug. He flung his arms out and caressed their great
noses. I tell you, I didn't like him to let those beasts out from under
his eyes."
"That was thrilling, I remember; but I felt for the lions sometimes,
too. I didn't like to see them demean themselves. When one had to hold
the end of a rope in his teeth and swing it to let a hound jump, it
seemed rather small business to demand of the king of the forest."
When the two friends, stopping often by the way to watch some curious
object of interest, reached the Japanese bazaar, they went in for a few
minutes. By the time they emerged, the twilight had wholly faded.
"See your kings of the forest!" exclaimed Jack.
Mildred looked across the street. There in mid-air, apparently
suspended like Mahomet's coffin, the iron cage above the entrance to the
Hagenbeck arena was brilliant with electric light. Five great lions
were within, and the strange effect, in the surrounding darkness, was
heightened when the trainer, whip in hand, entered and closed the door
behind him. In a shorter time than it takes to tell it, Jack and
Mildred found themselves in the centre of an ever-growing crowd, all
with upturned faces watching the wondrous apparition. The magnificent
beasts glided lithely back and forth, watching the trainer, who,
exciting them more and more by the whip which he cracked in the air,
adroitly avoided being knocked down as they bounded about him, passing
and repassing one another with increasing swiftness.
"A great advertisement," remarked Jack; then, as Mildred moved and
turned her head, "Are you being uncomfortably crowded?" he asked.
"Never mind, it is worth it!" she said, rather breathlessly, as a big
fellow, uncouth in his open-mouthed wonder, unconsciously shoved her
against her companion.
Van Tassel drew her in front of him and placed his arm between her and
the countryman. The latter still pressed, but feeling an obstruction
firm as a bar of iron, turned his admiring countenance vaguely around
toward Van Tassel.
"Well, I vum," he exclaimed. "Ever seen anything like that before?
Wife and I never did. Them lions hangin' betwixt earth and heaven
shakin' their manes at that feller, and he dodgin' around out o' their
way as cool as a cucumber! It's wife's aim to tell the truth when we get
home, and it's mine, too. It's both our aims; but we might's well lie.
There won't anybody believe this."
"It is amazing," said Jack; "but you can see as well in one place as
another. Would you kindly push the other way?"
"They're a-hunchin' us on this side too," explained the man; then
continued to gape, oblivious of his surroundings.
The trainer placed a white and gold chair in the centre of the cage, and
made one of the lions spring into it. The creature placed its powerful
forepaws on the chair-back, and waved its graceful tail from side to
side. Another of the beasts reared on its hind legs high above the
trainer's head, resting its paws against the iron bars; and its roar
resounded through the crowded street.
The trainer motioned the sitting lion from the chair, shot a revolver
twice into the air, left the cage, and lo! the wondering spectators were
gazing into blank darkness.
"Another dream over," said Jack into the ear so close to him.
The tightly hemmed-in mass of humanity slowly dissolved into its
integral parts.
"They ought to have a packed house after that," remarked Mildred.
"Shall we swell the number?"
"Not unless you wish it."
"I don't. I wish something else very much. Will you answer as meekly
and civilly when I ask it?"
They had begun again their walk eastward.
"I don't know."
"Oh, that is not encouraging."
"It is wise, though. I was brought up never to be afraid to confess
that I didn't know a thing."
"I want you to go with me in a gondola. Compare my humility with Robert
Page's _sang-froid_."
"A gondola will be even more difficult to catch by this time than a
horse-car," suggested the girl.
Jack looked at her, but her piquant smiling face taught him renewed
patience.
"Then you will not run much risk in promising," he answered. "Shall we
leave it to Fate to decide? If we find a gondola easily, will you go?"
"Yes, indeed."
As they left the Plaisance and came around the Woman's Building, a
sun-burst of fire in the east illuminated the sky.
"A salute to royalty," said Jack. "Queen Mildred has arrived."
The white light faded, to be followed by dazzling green, ruby, and gold,
as one bomb followed another, to burst above the lake and cast abroad in
the heavens fountains of jewels that rained down in glittering showers.
"Now, let us see if Fate is good-natured," said Van Tassel, leading his
companion toward the nearest gondola-landing. A graceful willow hung
above and obscured it.
"I must laugh at you, Jack," said the girl, suiting the action to the
word. "The idea of expecting to find a gondola now, way over here."
"Stranger things have happened. Suppose," suddenly standing still and
looking down into her eyes,--"suppose you should say that you wish it.
Just for luck, you know."
"I never wish for impossibilities."
"Do you expect me to believe that?"
"Well, I try not to."
"But wish for this. You know it is possible to have strawberries in
January."
"What a great boy you are still, Jack. Very well, I wish that two
gondoliers may have been attacked by an unusual access of laziness this
evening, have denied their craft to all applicants, and skulked over
here away from the crowd, and that they may be waiting for us now in the
shadow of the willow. Any more midsummer madness you would like me to
indulge in?"
Van Tassel led her down the bank. "Behold!" he said. "Mildred, what a
witch you are! This is necromancy."
The girl stood with lips parted, for the waiting gondoliers sent their
graceful craft to her feet. She put her hand in Jack's and stepped
within. In a moment Van Tassel was beside her, and they had glided away.
The lagoon rippled in a light breeze. Along the edge of Wooded Island
the sedges dipped in the waves. Here and there on the bank a group of
water-birds showed white, as a neighboring electric light touched the
soft plumage beneath which their heads nestled.
Jack wanted his companion to speak first, but she kept silence long.
"Is the sorceress enjoying herself?" he asked gently, at last.
Mildred returned his gaze as she leaned back in her cushioned corner.
"I am a philosopher," she answered. "I am being kidnapped, but I might
as well enjoy it."
"Well, that is pretty good. I should say"--
"I don't want to hear anything you have to say. I am convinced that you
are the most designing creature alive. Ask your minions to sing,
please."
Jack longed that he might know the thoughts that flitted white-winged
through his companion's mind as their boat glided on, to the gondoliers'
song.
This ceased as they entered the Court of Honor, grown dusk now in
preparation for the second playing of the electric fountains. Half the
weary sightseers had gone home; no black crowd lined the railings around
the Grand Basin.
The rainbow jets sprang triumphant skyward. An invisible orchestra lent
their colors richer meaning and beauty.
"Do you remember the song that Clover sang last night?" asked Jack,
leaning a little toward his companion. "It suddenly came to my mind
then as the water shot up. Those lines,--
'I share the skylark's transport fine,
I know the fountain's wayward yearning,
I love--and the world is mine!'
Clover says that is a man's song. I don't agree with her. A woman may
be angel enough to feel divine fullness of content simply in loving; but
a man who loves must be loved again, or else feel that nothing is
his,--nothing; there is no beggar so poor as he. Isn't it so?"
The earnest tone thrilled close to Mildred's cheek. She caught her
breath quickly. "I--I don't know," she said, nervously surprised.
"Still true to your bringing up," remarked her companion, controlling
himself with a strong will as he felt her shrink, and leaning back with
a short laugh. "Not afraid to say you don't know, when such is the
case. Well, I can only speak for myself. When I love and am loved I
will agree with the poet,--I would even sing with her if I could:
'For soft the hours repeat one story,
Sings the sea one strain divine,
My clouds arise, all flushed with glory,
I love--and the world is mine!'"
Mildred was startled. What a lover Jack would make! He was not
Clover's. She was sure of it now, but the thought brought no elation,
rather a new, timid humility, which made her seem strange to herself.
She felt her companion's dark eyes upon her, and her usually ready
tongue was mute.
Van Tassel did not know whether to gather courage or alarm from her
silence as they sat there side by side. The gondoliers slowly propelled
the boat, keeping in view of the fountains' tossing banners of liquid
light.
"Tell me what you are thinking, Mildred," he urged, at last.
"I am not thinking. Do you ever come to such times? I do always in
this spot. Perhaps it is because I have no thoughts to match such
unearthly beauty. At all events I never think, here. I feel. I
absorb."
"Yes, that is it," answered Jack simply.
"Give me the Peristyle," said Mildred, "and what I can see from it, and
sweep all the rest of the Fair away if you like. I don't love many
things in this world beside Mildred Bryant, but the Peristyle is one of
them."
It was a novel speech from her, and in a novel tone. The low cadence of
her voice had lost the laughter or imperiousness which usually
characterized it.
Jack was silent for a time. "Are you warm enough?" he asked at last.
"Yes; but I think we had better go home."
"Aren't you comfortable?"
"Oh, certainly, and it was very kind of you, Jack, to take so much
trouble."
This gentleness alarmed Van Tassel more than any amount of coldness or
impertinence would have done; but he fought off dejection.
"I have given you one thing, then, that you can't hand on to Clover," he
said lightly.
The fountains leaped a last time and fell, dropping lower and lower,
till only the white sea foaming about Columbia's barge was left. Soft
radiance again lit up water and sculpture.
Mildred longed to be at home; and soon she and Jack entered a wagonette
at the Park gate and were driven to the house. When they arrived, the
orchestra at the hotel was playing the music of Carmen.
"There is a delicate compliment to you, Jack," she suggested, as they
ascended the steps.
"Yes; but must you go right in?" for she showed symptoms of leaving him.
"It has been a long day," she answered, lingering with an unusual gentle
compliance from which he gathered no hope.
"You are tired," he said, with tender contrition. "I have had you so
long, and yet--when should I be ready to let you go! Oh, Mildred,--is
it any use?" he burst forth suddenly, in a low tone, seizing both her
hands and holding them with painful tightness.
A fluttering and wild, loud peeping came from the tangle of vines near
which they stood, and a small dark object half fell, half flew down past
their heads to the grass below.
Mildred started. "It is Electra,--a falling star." She laughed
nervously. "I am glad she fell, else I might be crying now instead of
laughing. It would be such a serious unhappiness to me if I should cause
you pain, Jack," she added brokenly. "You are so different from anybody
else."
"I am answered," he said briefly and steadily; but he did not loosen her
hands. "I am going to ask a great deal of you now, Mildred. Can you
forget what I have said?"
"I--I am afraid not."
"Please try to; I will help you."
"Help me?" repeated the girl, bewildered.
"Yes, for everything between us shall be the same as before. To-morrow
morning you will say to yourself that you had a dream. That is all."
"Very well." The girl regarded him questioningly. "I hope you are
not--are not thinking that I might--might speak of it?"
Jack threw his head back and gave an excited laugh before suddenly
growing grave and gazing ardently into her eyes.
"Speak of it? What would it be to me, my darling, if every one knew,"
he said with swift ardor. "I love--but the world is not mine. That is
the whole story, and the only peace for you is to forget it."
Her head drooped under his look.
"I am dreadfully tired, Jack," she said faintly.
"Yes, dear, go, and forgive me." He kissed her hands passionately and
released them. She passed into the house, her head and heart pulsing.
Bewilderment was her chief sensation. The finality with which Jack
seemed to accept defeat was so at variance with his manner.
She stole upstairs silently to her room, closed the door, and turned up
the light. Then she went to her mirror and questioned her own pale face
with wistful eyes.
"I haven't expected it. I didn't know it was coming this time," she
said, answering some thought. "Is Jack really so unselfish as that? Can
he care for me enough to--and then cover his disappointment with gayety
to save me pain?"
His loving words rang in her ears, her hands still felt the wild
pressure of his, and the warmth of his kisses. No one had ever received
failure so before. No man had ever dared to call her "darling." A look
that was almost fear came into the eyes that gazed back from the mirror.
How had Jack contrived to make himself seem victor instead of
vanquished?
He had not even pressed his suit; he had not begged her to try to love
him. How nobly he had spared her,--but how audaciously he had treated
her!
The color was flowing back to her cheeks. Mildred could no longer study
that face in the glass. She turned away, weary, perplexed, troubled by
the restless beating of her heart.
"I will get to sleep as quickly as possible. He told me to believe it a
dream. I must try to take it all as Clover would."
The thought of her sister was like calling up the image of a saint. She
had not been the object of Jack's adoration, after all. How strange,
strange! How much better it would have been for him. Not that Clover
would have married him, but it would have been good for him merely to
love her. Fevers, perplexities, could not come where Clover was; and
with this thought came a great longing to breathe Clover's cool,
wholesome atmosphere. Mildred slipped into a wrapper, and without
pausing to think further, crossed to her door. There was but a dim
light within.
She spoke her sister's name very softly, not to wake her if possibly she
might be asleep; but Clover herself in an instant opened the door.
"I thought I heard you come in, Milly."
"Why, what are you doing here, all dressed, in the dark?" asked the
younger, entering.
"Thinking." Clover laughed. "It sounds amusing, doesn't it; but the
music was pleasant and my window especially enticing. I felt rather
tired when I reached home a little while before you, and meant to be
asleep by this time, but here I am, you see."
"Let me come and think too," said Mildred; "or rather, let me come where
I can't think."
The two sisters sat down in the large bay window overlooking the lake.
"Haven't you had a pleasant day?" asked Clover.
"I've had all sorts of a day. How has yours been?"
"Delightful."
"You are my despair, Clover. Things are always delightful to you."
Clover heard the depression in her sister's voice, and wondered; her
thoughts flew to Jack too, and she questioned what mood the day might
have left him in. "Oh no," she answered, "but those nut-brown maids in
the Javanese theatre would put any one into good humor. When they
dance, you can no more help laughing than if you were being tickled with
a feather. Such dear, cunning, absurd motions as they make, their
little bits of mouths looking so serious all the time."
"You take such an interest in everything," said Mildred wistfully. "It
is because you have 'a heart at leisure from itself.' I have never
longed for that sort of a heart as I have to-day. For quite a while it
has been slowly dawning upon me that I am more self-centred than most
people; but to-day Gorham Page gave me the final blow."
"Mr. Page? Why, you astonish me. He has a high opinion of you. He was
saying to-day how much deeper and more earnest you were"--
"For mercy's sake," exclaimed Mildred, flushing to her ears, "don't tell
me what he said!"
"Why? Are you too conscientious to accept a compliment when you haven't
a 'trade'?"
"I have plenty of 'trades.' Jack never talks about you without using
superlatives."
"Dear Jack. He is far too appreciative," returned Clover, wishing it
were light enough to see how her sister accepted this; "but you haven't
told me how Mr. Page hurt you."
"No, it was the truth that hurt me."
"Mr. Page is a very good representative of that," smiled Clover.
"We were coming out of Old Vienna, and you and Jack fell behind to speak
to one another, and I addressed Mr. Page. He looked at me vaguely, and
answered at random. Well, it was the way that trifle affected me that
made me see Mildred Bryant as I had never seen her before. I was deeply
offended, yes, angry, that the important favor of a remark from my lips
should be disregarded. Oh, Clover, the disgrace of it!"
The speaker's voice was unsteady, and she suddenly covered her face with
her hands.
Clover leaned forward and put a hand on her knee.
"Isn't it beautiful," she said earnestly, "to find yourself shrinking
from sin? It is so safe to condemn it in ourselves. Hatred of evil is
only treacherous when we feel it for the mistakes of others."
"The worst of it was that I knew I should have felt less injured had it
not been that another woman was what was preoccupying his attention. He
was thinking of you, and I resented it. I couldn't live if I didn't
tell you. It proved to me that I was growing into a regular--oh, a
regular octopus. Everything must be absorbed to feed my vanity, and
especially every man."
"Why, Mildred, I am so glad for you," said Clover simply, her cool tones
falling on the other's scornful heat and extinguishing its fire. "We
have to come to these places, you know, for we mustn't be left in our
badness, and a little light is let in at a time as we can bear it."
"But I can't bear it," exclaimed Mildred wildly, "for it is second
nature to me to be vain and exacting."
"You won't indulge it now."
"Yes, I shall."
"Not so carelessly as before. All this is what comes into the battle of
life. One part of our dual nature loves our evils and the other hates
them. You can have God's help if you ask it, you know, and you will
find how little and how deceptive the progress will be that you make
without Him."
"Your battle seems won, Clover."
"I am in one of the peaceful places now, and I am very happy and
grateful. I wasn't given your tempestuous nature, dear, so our
experiences always are and will be different. The Father in mercy lets
us develop as irresponsibly as the plants until we get such a glimpse
into our souls as you had to-day; but then responsibility begins. It is
sinning against light that warps and distorts us."
"I wonder if it would be good for me to be married," said Mildred
musingly. "When girls are married, they haven't much time to think
about themselves."
"It is good for every girl to marry when she truly loves a man who is
unexceptionable," returned Clover, smiling at her own triteness. "But
you remember the girl must ask herself, not Can I live with this man?
but Can I live without him?"
"Then I should certainly never marry. You didn't do that, Clover."
Clover looked musingly out at the window. "No; I didn't do that. I
often think of that little ignorant girl who married dear Mr. Van
Tassel. I don't know whether I did right or not; but at the time I
thought I did, and that is all I have any concern with; but I was not in
freedom. You are in freedom. The Can I live without him? ought to mean
Can we be more useful together than we could apart?"
"Why, you don't leave a girl any comfort in thinking about herself at
all," complained Mildred, half in tears.
"There isn't much comfort in it, that is a fact," returned Clover,
smiling. "You are tired, dear; go to bed now."
They rose, and Mildred took the smaller woman in her arms and their
cheeks clung together. "I am unhappy, Clover," she said, with plaintive
surprise at the fact.
"It is so restful," replied the other, "to think you have all eternity
before you. Even if we only make a beginning here, it will be all
right."
"I like your arms around me," said Mildred. "Let me sleep with you
to-night."
*CHAPTER XXIII.*
*THE HOTEL DANCE.*
It was Gorham Page's habit to drop in at the Van Tassel house before
making his nearly daily visit to the Fair.
One morning, as he ascended the steps, his sister met him. "I hoped you
would come," she said. "I want to be condoled with. Robert's foot has
descended. We are going home."
"Oh, I am sorry," replied Gorham, taking the chair she offered him; "but
can't some arrangement be made?"
"No. Robert has said 'positively;' and when he says 'positively,' I
never waste any more nervous force. Poor, dear boy, he wants to stay as
badly as I do, but we have been here longer than we expected already,
and after all I would rather go back than to give up the apartment and
go to the poorhouse, which he says is the alternative."
"I must go to Boston before long," said Page. "Wouldn't you like to stay
and go back with me?"
"Let Robert go home alone?"
"Yes."
"No, I thank you," with a firm shake of the head. "I shouldn't care for
the Fair without Robert."
"That is nice," remarked Gorham, regarding her attentively. "I think I
should like my wife to feel like that."
Hilda laughed. "Oh, that vague and shadowy wife of yours! Once I
believed in her. Too bad that such a good-natured match-maker as I
would have been should be burdened with such an impossible brother as
you. I have lost all my interest in you, and have transferred it to
Jack."
Gorham smiled pensively, and struck the palm of one of his hands with
the knuckles of the other. "You think yourself very clever about Jack,
don't you?"
"It goes without saying that I am clever, of course, but this occasion
does not demand much insight. If they were a trifle more secret in
their chats in corners and their exchange of masonic signals, I should
think, perhaps, I was a treacherous guest to mention them; but they
enjoy their little comedy, and are perfectly willing others should. I
think it is unkind in them not to come out openly and allow me to give
them my blessing before I go."
"I must say, Hilda, I don't enjoy hearing you use that tone about Mrs.
Van Tassel."
"What is the matter with my tone?" asked Hilda.
"It is light," answered Page, with grave simplicity.
His sister stared a moment, then burst into laughter. "What crotchet
have you taken now?" she asked. "Doesn't the match please you?"
"It is not a match. You are laboring under a false idea. If Mrs. Van
Tassel should ever distinguish a man in the way you are speaking of, it
will come to our knowledge in a different manner from the one you
describe. We are talking in low tones in a corner now; but we are not
sentimentally interested in one another."
"An unanswerable argument," said Hilda good-naturedly. "You needn't
take the matter _au grand serieux_. I am profoundly grateful to Mrs.
Van Tassel, and think her one of the most charming women I ever knew."
Page's countenance, which had been grave to sternness, relaxed until,
slowly smiling, he looked into his companion's eyes and beamed mutely
upon her.
Hilda noted the change with private astonishment, and determined to
experiment.
"She is so refined," she added after a pause.
"The perfection of refinement," said Page.
"And very graceful."