There must have been a faint twinkle in his eye, for she exclaimed, pa.s.sionately:
"The whole thing has been a comedy to you, and I half believe you brought it all about to annoy me."
"You do me great injustice, Miss Mayhew," said Van Berg, warmly.
"Here we are sitting in this horrid old stage by the roadside,"
she resumed, in tones of strong vexation. "Was there ever anything more absurd and ridiculous than it has all been! I am mortified beyond expression, and suppose I shall never hear the last of it,"
and she burst into a hysterical pa.s.sion of tears.
"Miss Mayhew," said Van Berg hastily, "you certainly must realize that we have pa.s.sed through very great peril together, and if you think me capable of saying a word about this episode that is not to your credit, you were never more mistaken in your life."
At this a.s.surance she became more calm.
"I know you dislike me most heartily," Van Berg continued; "but you have less reason to do so than you think---"
"I have good reason to dislike you. You despise me; and now that I have been such a coward you are comparing me with Miss Burton who acted so differently yesterday."
"I have not even thought of Miss Burton," protested Van Berg, at the same time conscious, now that her name had been recalled to his memory, that she would have acted a much better part. "I am only sincerely glad that our necks were not broken, and I hope that you have not suffered any severe bruises. As to my despising you, if you will honor me with your acquaintance you may discover that you are greatly in error."
"Then you truly think that we have been in danger?" she asked, wiping her eyes.
"Most a.s.suredly. When you come to think the matter over calmly, you will realize that we were in very great danger. I think the affair has ended most happily rather than absurdly."
"Really, sir, when I remember how the "affair," as you term it, actually did end, I feel as if I never wished to see you again."
"Miss Mayhew, I appeal to your generosity. Was I to blame for that which was so disagreeable to you? Surely you will not be so unfair as to punish me for what neither you nor I could help. I think fate means we shall be friends, and has employed this unexpected episode to break the ice between us. If you are now sufficiently composed I will a.s.sist you to alight, in order that the driver, who is approaching, may be relieved of all fears on our account."
"Oh, certainly. As it is, I suppose he will have a ridiculous story to tell."
"There is nothing that he, or the others who are following him can tell, save that the horses ran away and that we most fortunately escaped all injury. Ah! I see that you are a little lame. Please take my arm; the hotel is but a quarter of a mile away. Or perhaps you would prefer that I should send the driver for a carriage. You could wait in yonder cottage, or here, in the shade of the trees."
"I am not very lame, and if I were I would not mind it. My wish is that the horrid affair may occasion as little remark as possible.
I can reach my room by a side entrance, and so come quietly down to dinner. I suppose that I must take your arm since I cannot walk very well without it."
They therefore turned their backs on the breathless driver and his eager questions, and proceeded slowly towards the hotel. After a brief examination of the shattered stage, the man ran panting past them in search of his horses; and they were again left alone.
Chapter X. Phrases too Suggestive.
For a few moments Miss Mayhew and Van Berg walked on in silence, each very doubtful of the other. At last the artist began:
"I am well aware, Miss Mayhew, that this unexpected episode and this enforced companionship give me no rights whatever. I do not propose to annoy you, after seeing you safely to the hotel, by a.s.suming that we are acquainted, nor do I intend to subject myself to the mortification of being informed publicly, by your manner, that we are not on speaking terms. I would be glad to have this question settled now. I ask your pardon for anything that I may have said or done to hurt your feelings, and having thus gone more than half-way it would be ungenerous on your part not to respond in like spirit."
"You apologize, then?"
"No; I ask your pardon for anything that may have hurt your feelings."
"You have said very disagreeable things about me, Mr. Van Berg."
"I did not know you then."
"I do not think you have changed your opinion of me in the least."
"I evidently have a much higher opinion of you than you of me, and I am seeking your acquaintance with a persistence such as I never manifested in the case of any other lady. Thus the odds are all in your favor. Having been so unexpectedly thrown together---"
""Thrown together," indeed--Mr. Van Berg, you ARE mocking me," and her eyes again filled with tears of vexation.
"I a.s.sure you I am not," said Van Berg earnestly. "I could not be so mean as to twit you with an accident which you could not help, and with an act which was wholly involuntary on your part. Can we not both let by-gones by by-gones and commence anew?"
Miss Mayhew bit her lip and hesitated a few moments.
"I think that will be the better way," she said. "We will both let by-gones, especially this ridiculous episode in the stage. I"ll put you on your good behavior."
"Thank you, Miss Mayhew. I would take our late risk twenty times for such a result."
"I would not take it again on any account whatever. Please refer to it no more. I declare, there comes Cousin Ik and Mr. Burleigh to meet us. Was one"s fortune ever so exasperating! Ik will teaze me out of all comfort for weeks to come."
"Say little and leave all to my discretion," said Van Berg, rea.s.suringly; "and, by the way, you might limp a little more decidedly," which she immediately did.
"My dear Miss Mayhew, I trust you are not seriously hurt," began Mr. Burleigh while still several yards off.
Stanton"s face was a study as he approached. Indeed he seemed half ready to explode with suppressed merriment, but before he could speak a warning glance from Van Berg checked him.
"Miss Mayhew might have been seriously and possibly fatally injured,"
said the artist gravely, "had it not been for her self-control.
Although it seemed that the stage would be dashed to pieces every moment, I told her that in my judgement it would be safer to remain within it than to spring out upon the hard and stony road, and I am very glad that the final event confirmed my opinion."
As they were by this time near to the hotel, others who had been alarmed by seeing the horses tearing up to the stable door, now hastily joined them; and last, but not least, Mrs. Mayhew came panting upon the scene. Van Berg felt the hand of the young lady trembling in nervous apprehension upon his arm, from which, in her embarra.s.sment, she forgot to remove it. But the artist did not fail her, and in answer to Mr. Burleigh"s eager questions as to the cause of the accident, explained all so plausibly, and in such a matter-of-fact manner as left little more even to be surmised.
His brief and prosaic history of the affair concluded with the following implied tribute to his companion, which still further relieved her from fear of ridicule:
"Miss Mayhew," he said, "instead of jumping out, after the frantic terror-blinded manner of most people, remained in the stage and so has escaped, I trust, with nothing worse than a slight lameness caused by the violent motion of the vehicle. I will now resign her to your care, Mr. Stanton, and I am glad to believe that the occasion will require the services of the wheelwright and harness-maker only, and not those of a surgeon," and lifting his hat to Mrs. Mayhew and her daughter he bowed himself off the scene.
Ida, leaning on the arm of her cousin, limped appropriately to her room, whither she had her dinner sent to her, more for the purpose of gaining time to compose her nerves than for any other reason.
The impression that she had behaved courageously in peril was rapidly increased as the story was repeated by one and another, and she received several congratulatory visits in the afternoon from her lady acquaintances; and when she came down to supper she found that she was even a greater heroine than Miss Burton had been. In answer to many sympathetic inquiries, she said that she "felt as well as ever," and she tried to prove it by her gayety and careful toilet.
But she was decidedly ill at ease. Her old self-complacency was ebbing away faster than ever. From the time that it had first been disturbed by the artist"s frown in the concert garden, she had been conscious of a secret and growing self-dissatisfaction.
It seemed to be this stranger"s mission to break the spell vanity and flattery had woven about her. The congratulations she was now receiving were secured by a fraudulent impression, if not by actual falsehood, and she permitted this impression to remain and grow.
The one, who above all others she most feared and disliked, knew this. In smilingly accepting the compliments showered upon her from all sides she felt that she must appear to him as if receiving stolen goods, and she believed that in his heart he despised her more thoroughly than ever.
To the degree that he caused her disquietude and secret humiliation, her desire to retaliate increased, and she resolved, before the day closed, to use her beauty as a weapon to inflict upon him the severest wound possible. If it were within the power of her art she would bring him to her feet and keep him there until she could, in the most decided and public manner, spurn his abject homage.
She would have no scruple in doing this in any case, but, in this instance, success would give her the keenest satisfaction.