Thus Lichfield, as to its staid trousered citizenry, fell prostrate at
Miss Stapylton's feet, and as to the remainder of its adults,
vociferously failed to see anything in the least remarkable in her
appearance, and avidly took and compared notes as to her personal
apparel.
"You have brought Asmodeus into Lichfield," Colonel Musgrave one day
rebuked Miss Stapylton, as they sat in the garden. "The demon of pride
and dress is rampant everywhere--er--Patricia. Even Agatha does her hair
differently now; and in church last Sunday I counted no less than seven
duplicates of that blue hat of yours."
Miss Stapylton was moved to mirth. "Fancy your noticing a thing like
that!" said she. "I didn't know you were even aware I had a blue hat."
"I am no judge," he conceded, gravely, "of such fripperies. I don't
pretend to be. But, on the other hand, I must plead guilty to deriving
considerable harmless amusement from your efforts to dress as an example
and an irritant to all Lichfield."
"You wouldn't have me a dowd, Olaf?" said she, demurely. "I have to be
neat and tidy, you know. You wouldn't have me going about in a
continuous state of unbuttonedness and black bombazine like Mrs. Rabbet,
would you?"
Rudolph Musgrave debated as to this. "I dare say," he at last conceded,
cautiously, "that to the casual eye your appearance is somewhat
--er--more pleasing than that of our rector's wife. But, on the
other hand----"
"Olaf, I am embarrassed by such fulsome eulogy. Mrs. Rabbet isn't a day
under forty-nine. And you consider me _somewhat_ better-looking than she
is!"
He inspected her critically, and was confirmed in his opinion.
"Olaf"--coaxingly--"do you really think I am as ugly as that?"
"Pouf!" said the colonel airily; "I dare say you are well enough."
"Olaf"--and this was even more cajoling--"do you know you've never told
me what sort of a woman you most admire?"
"I don't admire any of them," said Colonel Musgrave, stoutly. "They are
too vain and frivolous--especially the pink-and-white ones," he added,
unkindlily.
"Cousin Agatha has told me all about your multifarious affairs of
course. She depicts you as a sort of cardiacal buccaneer and visibly
gloats over the tale of your enormities. She is perfectly dear about
it. But have you never--_cared_--for any woman, Olaf?"
Precarious ground, this! His eyes were fixed upon her now. And hers, for
doubtless sufficient reasons, were curiously intent upon anything in the
universe rather than Rudolph Musgrave.
"Yes," said he, with a little intake of the breath; "yes, I cared once."
"And--she cared?" asked Miss Stapylton.
She happened, even now, not to be looking at him.
"She!" Rudolph Musgrave cried, in real surprise. "Why, God bless my
soul, of course she didn't! She didn't know anything about it."
"You never told her, Olaf?"--and this was reproachful. Then Patricia
said: "Well! and did she go down in the cellar and get the wood-ax or
was she satisfied just to throw the bric-à-brac at you?"
And Colonel Musgrave laughed aloud.
"Ah!" said he; "it would have been a brave jest if I had told her,
wouldn't it? She was young, you see, and wealthy, and--ah, well, I won't
deceive you by exaggerating her personal attractions! I will serve up to
you no praises of her sauced with lies. And I scorn to fall back on the
stock-in-trade of the poets,--all their silly metaphors and similes and
suchlike nonsense. I won't tell you that her complexion reminded me of
roses swimming in milk, for it did nothing of the sort. Nor am I going
to insist that her eyes had a fire like that of stars, or proclaim that
Cupid was in the habit of lighting his torch from them. I don't think
he was. I would like to have caught the brat taking any such liberties
with those innocent, humorous, unfathomable eyes of hers! And they
didn't remind me of violets, either," he pursued, belligerently, "nor
did her mouth look to me in the least like a rosebud, nor did I have the
slightest difficulty in distinguishing between her hands and lilies. I
consider these hyperbolical figures of speech to be idiotic. Ah, no!"
cried Colonel Musgrave, warming to his subject--and regarding it, too,
very intently; "ah, no, a face that could be patched together at the
nearest florist's would not haunt a man's dreams o'nights, as hers does!
I haven't any need for praises sauced with lies! I spurn hyperbole. I
scorn exaggeration. I merely state calmly and judicially that she was
God's masterpiece,--the most beautiful and adorable and indescribable
creature that He ever made."
She smiled at this. "You should have told her, Olaf," said Miss
Stapylton. "You should have told her that you cared."
He gave a gesture of dissent. "She had everything," he pointed out,
"everything the world could afford her. And, doubtless, she would have
been very glad to give it all up for me, wouldn't she?--for me, who
haven't youth or wealth or fame or anything? Ah, I dare say she would
have been delighted to give up the world she knew and loved,--the world
that loved her,--for the privilege of helping me digest old county
records!"
And Rudolph Musgrave laughed again, though not mirthfully.
But the girl was staring at him, with a vague trouble in her eyes. "You
should have told her, Olaf," she repeated.
And at this point he noted that the arbutus-flush in her cheeks began to
widen slowly, until, at last, it had burned back to the little pink
ears, and had merged into the coppery glory of her hair, and had made
her, if such a thing were possible--which a minute ago it manifestly was
not,--more beautiful and adorable and indescribable than ever before.
"Ah, yes!" he scoffed, "Lichfield would have made a fitting home for
her. She would have been very happy here, shut off from the world with
us,--with us, whose forefathers have married and intermarried with one
another until the stock is worthless, and impotent for any further
achievement. For here, you know, we have the best blood in America, and
--for utilitarian purposes--that means the worst blood. Ah, we may prate
of our superiority to the rest of the world,--and God knows, we
do!--but, at bottom, we are worthless. We are worn out, I tell you! we
are effete and stunted in brain and will-power, and the very desire of
life is gone out of us! We are contented simply to exist in Lichfield.
And she--"
He paused, and a new, fierce light came into his eyes. "She was so
beautiful!" he said, half-angrily, between clenched teeth.
"You are just like the rest of them, Olaf," she lamented, with a hint
of real sadness. "You imagine you are in love with a girl because you
happen to like the color of her eyes, or because there is a curve about
her lips that appeals to you. That isn't love, Olaf, as we women
understand it. Ah, no, a girl's love for a man doesn't depend altogether
upon his fitness to be used as an advertisement for somebody's
ready-made clothing."
"You fancy you know what you are talking about," said Rudolph Musgrave,
"but you don't. You don't realize, you see, how beautiful she--was."
And this time, he nearly tripped upon the tense, for her hand was on his
arm, and, in consequence, a series of warm, delicious little shivers was
running about his body in a fashion highly favorable to extreme
perturbation of mind.
"You should have told her, Olaf," she said, wistfully. "Oh, Olaf, Olaf,
why didn't you tell her?"
She did not know, of course, how she was tempting him; she did not know,
of course, how her least touch seemed to waken every pulse in his body
to an aching throb, and set hope and fear a-drumming in his breast.
Obviously, she did not know; and it angered him that she did not.
"She would have laughed at me," he said, with a snarl; "how she would
have laughed!"
"She wouldn't have laughed, Olaf." And, indeed, she did not look as if
she would.
"But much you know of her!" said Rudolph Musgrave, morosely. "She was
just like the rest of them, I tell you! She knew how to stare a man out
of countenance with big purple eyes that were like violets with the dew
on them, and keep her paltry pink-and-white baby face all pensive and
sober, till the poor devil went stark, staring mad, and would have
pawned his very soul to tell her that he loved her! She knew! She did it
on purpose. She would look pensive just to make an ass of you! She--"
And here the colonel set his teeth for a moment, and resolutely drew
back from the abyss.
"She would not have cared for me," he said, with a shrug. "I was not
exactly the sort of fool she cared for. What she really cared for was a
young fool who could dance with her in this silly new-fangled gliding
style, and send her flowers and sweet-meats, and make love to her
glibly--and a petticoated fool who would envy her fine feathers,--and,
at last, a knavish fool who would barter his title for her money. She
preferred fools, you see, but she would never have cared for a
middle-aged penniless fool like me. And so," he ended, with a vicious
outburst of mendacity, "I never told her, and she married a title and
lived unhappily in gilded splendor ever afterwards."
"You should have told her, Olaf," Miss Stapylton persisted; and then she
asked, in a voice that came very near being inaudible: "Is it too late
to tell her now, Olaf?"
The stupid man opened his lips a little, and stood staring at her with
hungry eyes, wondering if it were really possible that she did not hear
the pounding of his heart; and then his teeth clicked, and he gave a
despondent gesture.
"Yes," he said, wearily, "it is too late now."
Thereupon Miss Stapylton tossed her head. "Oh, very well!" said she;
"only, for my part, I think you acted very foolishly, and I don't see
that you have the least right to complain. I quite fail to see how you
could have expected her to marry you--or, in fact, how you can expect
any woman to marry you,--if you won't, at least, go to the trouble of
asking her to do so!"
Then Miss Stapylton went into the house, and slammed the door after her.