"But you will come to-morrow?" still holding her hand.
"Perhaps so--if I have nothing better to do."
"You cannot do anything better than visit the sick, and oh, yes! do me another favour. Fetch me some books to read--to pa.s.s the dismal hours of your absence."
"Very well; now let me go."
He released her plump little hand, and Rose drew on her gloves.
"Adieu, Mr. Reinecourt," moving to the door.
"_Au revoir_, Miss Danton, until to-morrow morning."
Rose rode home in delight. In one instant the world had changed. St.
Croix had become a paradise, and the keen air sweet as "Ceylon"s spicy breezes." As Alice Carey says, "What to her was our world with its storms and rough weather," with that pallid face, those eyes of darkest splendour, that magnetic voice, haunting her all the way. It was love at sight with Miss Danton the second. What was the girlish fancy she had felt for Jules La Touche--for Dr. Frank--for a dozen others, compared with this.
Joe, the stable-boy, led away Regina, and Rose entered the house.
Crossing the hall, she met Eeny going upstairs.
"Well!" said Eeny, "and where have you been all day, pray?"
"Out riding."
"Where?"
"Oh, everywhere! Don"t bother!"
"Do you know we have had luncheon?"
"I don"t care--I don"t want luncheon."
She ran past her sister, and shut herself up in her room. Eeny stared.
In all her experience of her sister she had never known her to be indifferent to eating and drinking. For the first time in Rose"s life, love had taken away her appet.i.te.
All that afternoon she stayed shut up in her chamber, dreaming as only eighteen, badly in love, does dream. When darkness fell, and the lamps were lit, and the dinner-bell rang, she descended to the dining-room indifferent for the first time whether she was dressed well or ill.
"What does it matter?" she thought, looking in the gla.s.s; "he is not here to see me."
Doctor Frank and the Reverend Augustus Clare dropped in after dinner, but Rose hardly deigned to look at them. She reclined gracefully on a sofa, with half shut eyes, listening to Kate playing one of Beethoven"s "Songs without Words," and seeing--not the long, lamp-lit drawing-room with all its elegant luxuries, or the friends around her, but the bare best room of the old yellow farm-house, and the man lying lonely and ill before the blazing fire. Doctor Danton sat down beside her and talked to her; but Rose answered at random, and was so absorbed, and silent, and preoccupied, as to puzzle every one. Her father asked her to sing. Rose begged to be excused--she could not sing to-night. Kate looked at her in wonder.
"What is the matter with you, Rose?" she inquired; "are you ill? What is it?"
"Nothing," Rose answered, "only I don"t feel like talking."
And not feeling like it, n.o.body could make her talk. She retired early--to live over again in dreams the events of that day, and to think of the blissful morrow.
An hour after breakfast next morning, Eeny met her going out, dressed for her ride, and with a little velvet reticule stuffed full, slung over her arm.
"What have you got in that bag?" asked Eeny, "your dinner? Are you going to a picnic?"
Rose laughed at the idea of a January picnic, and ran off without answering. An hour"s brisk gallop brought her to the farm house, and old Jacques came out, bowing and grinning, to take charge of her horse.
"Monsieur was in the parlour--would Mademoiselle walk right into the parlour? Dr. Pillule had been there and seen to Monsieur"s ankle.
Monsieur was doing very well, only not able to stand up yet."
Rose found Monsieur half asleep before the fire, and looking as handsome as ever in his slumber. He started up at her entrance, holding out both hands.
"_Mon ange!_ I thought you were never coming. I was falling into despair."
"Falling into despair means falling asleep, I presume. Don"t let me disturb your dreams."
"I am in a more blissful dream now than any I could dream asleep. Here is a seat. Oh, don"t sit so far off. Are those the books? How can I ever thank you?"
"You never can--so don"t try. Here is Tennyson--of course you like Tennyson; here is Sh.e.l.ley--here are two new and charming novels. Do you read novels?"
"I will read everything you fetch me. By-the-by, it is very fatiguing to read lying down; won"t you read to me?"
"I can"t read. I mean I can"t read aloud."
"Let me be the judge of that. Let me see--read "Maud.""
Rose began and did her best, and read until she was tired. Mr.
Reinecourt watched her all the while as she sat beside him.
And presently they drifted off into delicious talk of poetry and romance; and Rose, pulling out her watch, was horrified to find that it was two o"clock.
"I must go!" she cried, springing up; "what will they think has become of me?"
"But you will come again to-morrow?" pleaded Mr. Reinecourt.
"I don"t know--you don"t deserve it, keeping me here until this hour.
Perhaps I may, though--good-bye."
Rose, saying this, knew in her heart she could not stay away if she tried. Next morning she was there, and the next, and the next, and the next. Then came a week of wild, snowy weather, when the roads were heaped high, going out was an impossibility, and she had to stay at home. Rose chafed desperately under the restraint, and grew so irritable that it was quite a risk to speak to her. All her old high spirits were gone. Her ceaseless flow of talk suddenly checked. She wandered about the house aimlessly, purposelessly, listlessly, sighing wearily, and watching the flying snow and hopeless sky. A week of this weather, and January was at its close before a change for the better came. Rose was falling a prey to green and yellow melancholy, and perplexing the whole household by the unaccountable alteration in her. With the first gleam of fine weather she was off. Her long morning rides were recommenced; smiles and roses returned to her face, and Rose was herself again.
It took that sprained ankle a very long time to get well. Three weeks had pa.s.sed since that January day when Regina had slipped on the ice, and still Mr. Reinecourt was disabled; at least he was when Rose was there. He had dropped the Miss Danton and taken to calling her Rose, of late; but when she was gone, it was really surprising how well he could walk, and without the aid of a stick. Old Jacques grinned knowingly. The poetry reading and the long, long talks went on every day, and Rose"s heart was hopelessly and forever gone. She knew nothing more of Mr.
Reinecourt than that he was Mr. Reinecourt; still, she hardly cared to know. She was in love, and an idiot; to-day sufficed for her--to-morrow might take care of itself.
"Rose, _cherie_," Mr. Reinecourt said to her one day, "you vindicate your s.e.x; you are free from the vice of curiosity. You ask no questions, and, except my name, you know nothing of me."
"Well, Mr. Reinecourt, whose fault is that?"
"Do you want to know?"
Rose looked at him, then away. Somehow of late she had grown strangely shy.
"If you like to tell me."
"My humble little Rose! Yes, I will tell you. I must leave here soon; a sprained ankle won"t last forever, do our best."