"Yes. Don"t draw it tight; leave it loose--so; but you can tie the knot tight. That will do; there!" She smiled broadly. "Don"t tie me in as if you were tying me in forever."
Madame Zen.o.bie understood perfectly, and, smiling in response, did tie it as if she were tying her in forever.
Half an hour or so later the quadroon, being--it may have been by chance--at the street door, ushered in a person who simply bowed in silence.
But as he put one foot on the stair he paused, and, bending a severe gaze upon her, asked:--
"Why do you smile?"
She folded her hands limply on her bosom, and drawing a cheek and shoulder toward each other, replied:--
"Nuttin""--
The questioner"s severity darkened.
"Why do you smile at nothing?"
She laid the tips of her fingers upon her lips to compose them.
"You din come in you" carridge. She goin" to thing "tis Miche Reechin."
The smile forced its way through her fingers. The visitor turned in quiet disdain and went upstairs, she following.
At the top he let her pa.s.s. She led the way and, softly pushing open the chamber-door, entered noiselessly, turned, and, as the other stepped across the threshold, nestled her hands one on the other at her waist, shrank inward with a sweet smile, and waved one palm toward the huge, blue-hung mahogany four-poster,--empty.
The visitor gave a slight double nod and moved on across the carpet.
Before a small coal fire, in a grate too wide for it, stood a broad, cushioned rocking-chair, with the corner of a pillow showing over its top. The visitor went on around it. The girlish form lay in it, with eyes closed, very still; but his professional glance quickly detected the false pretence of slumber. A slippered foot was still slightly reached out beyond the bright colors of the long gown, and toward the brazen edge of the hearth-pan, as though the owner had been touching her tiptoe against it to keep the chair in gentle motion. One cheek was on the pillow; down the other curled a few light strands of hair that had escaped from her brow.
Thus for an instant. Then a smile began to wreath about the corner of her lips; she faintly stirred, opened her eyes--and lo! Dr. Sevier, motionless, tranquil, and grave.
"O Doctor!" The blood surged into her face and down upon her neck.
She put her hands over her eyes, and her face into the pillow. "O Doctor!"--rising to a sitting posture,--"I thought, of course, it was my husband."
The Doctor replied while she was speaking:--
"My carriage broke down." He drew a chair toward the fireplace, and asked, with his face toward the dying fire:--
"How are you feeling to-day, madam,--stronger?"
"Yes; I can almost say I"m well." The blush was still on her face as he turned to receive her answer, but she smiled with a bright courageousness that secretly amused and pleased him. "I thank you, Doctor, for my recovery; I certainly should thank you." Her face lighted up with that soft radiance which was its best quality, and her smile became half introspective as her eyes dropped from his, and followed her outstretched hand as it rearranged the farther edges of the dressing-gown one upon another.
"If you will take better care of yourself hereafter, madam," responded the Doctor, thumping and brushing from his knee some specks of mud that he may have got when his carriage broke down, "I will thank you.
But"--brush--brush--"I--doubt it."
"Do you think you should?" she asked, leaning forward from the back of the great chair and letting her wrists drop over the front of its broad arms.
"I do," said the Doctor, kindly. "Why shouldn"t I? This present attack was by your own fault." While he spoke he was looking into her eyes, contracted at their corners by her slight smile. The face was one of those that show not merely that the world is all unknown to them, but that it always will be so. It beamed with inquisitive intelligence, and yet had the innocence almost of infancy. The Doctor made a discovery; that it was this that made her beautiful. "She _is_ beautiful," he insisted to himself when his critical faculty dissented.
"You needn"t doubt me, Doctor. I"ll try my best to take care. Why, of course I will,--for John"s sake." She looked up into his face from the ta.s.sel she was twisting around her finger, touching the floor with her slippers" toe and faintly rocking.
"Yes, there"s a chance there," replied the grave man, seemingly not overmuch pleased; "I dare say everything you do or leave undone is for his sake."
The little wife betrayed for a moment a pained perplexity, and then exclaimed:--
"Well, of course!" and waited his answer with bright eyes.
"I have known women to think of their own sakes," was the response.
She laughed, and with unprecedented sparkle replied:--
"Why, whatever"s his sake is my sake. I don"t see the difference. Yes, I see, of course, how there might be a difference; but I don"t see how a woman"-- She ceased, still smiling, and, dropping her eyes to her hands, slowly stroked one wrist and palm with the ta.s.sel of her husband"s robe.
The Doctor rose, turned his back to the mantel-piece, and looked down upon her. He thought of the great, wide world: its th.o.r.n.y ways, its deserts, its bitter waters, its unrighteousness, its self-seeking greeds, its weaknesses, its under and over reaching, its unfaithfulness; and then again of this--child, thrust all at once a thousand miles into it, with never--so far as he could see--an implement, a weapon, a sense of danger, or a refuge; well pleased with herself, as it seemed, lifted up into the bliss of self-obliterating wifehood, and resting in her husband with such an a.s.surance of safety and happiness as a saint might pray for grace to show to Heaven itself. He stood silent, feeling too grim to speak, and presently Mrs. Richling looked up with a sudden liveliness of eye and a smile that was half apology and half persistence.
"Yes, Doctor, I"m going to take care of myself."
"Mrs. Richling, is your father a man of fortune?"
"My father is not living," said she, gravely. "He died two years ago. He was the pastor of a small church. No, sir; he had nothing but his small salary, except that for some years he taught a few scholars. He taught me." She brightened up again. "I never had any other teacher."
The Doctor folded his hands behind him and gazed abstractedly through the upper sash of the large French windows. The street-door was heard to open.
"There"s John," said the convalescent, quickly, and the next moment her husband entered. A tired look vanished from his face as he saw the Doctor. He hurried to grasp his hand, then turned and kissed his wife.
The physician took up his hat.
"Doctor," said the wife, holding the hand he gave her, and looking up playfully, with her cheek against the chair-back, "you surely didn"t suspect me of being a rich girl, did you?"
"Not at all, madam." His emphasis was so p.r.o.nounced that the husband laughed.
"There"s one comfort in the opposite condition, Doctor," said the young man.
"Yes?"
"Why, yes; you see, it requires no explanation."
"Yes, it does," said the physician; "it is just as binding on people to show good cause why they are poor as it is to show good cause why they"re rich. Good-day, madam." The two men went out together. His word would have been good-by, but for the fear of fresh acknowledgments.
CHAPTER V.
HARD QUESTIONS.
Dr. Sevier had a simple abhorrence of the expression of personal sentiment in words. Nothing else seemed to him so utterly hollow as the attempt to indicate by speech a regard or affection which was not already demonstrated in behavior. So far did he keep himself aloof from insincerity that he had barely room enough left to be candid.
"I need not see your wife any more," he said, as he went down the stairs with the young husband at his elbow; and the young man had learned him well enough not to oppress him with formal thanks, whatever might have been said or omitted upstairs.