The girl entered the great hallway, with its huge fireplace and its winding stairway, and then strolled through the parlors of the vast house; Helen had in all its fullness the woman"s pa.s.sion for spending money for beautiful things, and it had been her chief woe in all her travels that the furniture and pictures and tapestry which she gazed at with such keen delight must be forever beyond her thoughts. Just at present her fancy was turned loose and madly reveling in these memories, while always above her wildest flights was the intoxicating certainty that there was no reason why they should not all be possible. She could not but recollect with a wondering smile that only yesterday she had been happy at the thought of arranging one dingy little parlor in her country parsonage, and had been trying to persuade her father to the extravagance of re-covering two chairs.
It would have been hard for Helen to keep her emotions from Mr.
Harrison, and he must have guessed the reason why she was so flushed and excited. They were standing just then in the center of the great dining-room, with its ma.s.sive furniture of black mahogany, and she was saying that it ought to be papered in dark red, and was conjuring up the effect to herself. "Something rich, you know, to set off the furniture," she explained.
"And you must take that dreadful portrait from over the mantel," she added, laughing. (It was a picture of a Revolutionary warrior, on horseback and in full uniform, the coloring looking like faded oilcloth.)
"I had thought of that myself," said Mr. Harrison. "It"s the founder of the Eversons; there"s a picture gallery in a hall back of here, with two whole rows of ancestors in it."
"Why don"t you adopt them?" asked Helen mischievously.
"One can buy all the ancestors one wants to, nowadays," laughed Mr.
Harrison. "I thought I"d make something more interesting out of it.
I"m not much of a judge of art, you know, but I thought if I ever went abroad I"d buy up some of the great paintings that one reads about--some of the old masters, you know."
"I"m afraid you"d find very few of them for sale," said Helen, smiling.
"I"m not accustomed to fail in buying things that I want," was the other"s reply. "Are you fond of pictures?"
"Very much indeed," answered the girl. As a matter of fact, the mere mention of the subject opened a new kingdom to her, for she could not count the number of times she had sat before beautiful pictures and almost wept at the thought that she could never own one that was really worth looking at. "I brought home a few myself," she said to her companion,--"just engravings, you know, half a dozen that I thought would please me; I mean to hang them around my music-room."
"Tell me about it," said Mr. Harrison. "I have been thinking of fixing up such a place myself, you know. I thought of extending the house on the side that has the fine view of the valley, and making part a piazza, and part a conservatory or music-room."
"It could be both!" exclaimed the girl, eagerly. "That would be the very thing; there ought not to be anything in a music-room, you know, except the piano and just a few chairs, and the rest all flowers. The pictures ought all to be appropriate--pictures of nature, of things that dance and are beautiful; oh, I could lose myself in such a room as that!" and Helen ran on, completely carried away by the fancy, and forgetting even Mr. Harrison for a moment.
"I have often dreamed of such a place," she said, "where everything would be sympathetic; it"s a pity that one can"t have a piano taken out into the fields, the way I remember reading that Haydn used to do with his harpsichord. If I were a violinist, that"s the way I"d do all my playing, because then one would not need to be afraid to open his eyes; oh, it would be fine--"
Helen stopped; she was at the height of her excitement just then; and the climax came a moment afterwards. "Miss Davis," asked the man, "would you really like to arrange such a music-room?"
The tone of his voice was so different that the girl comprehended instantly; it was this moment to which she had been rushing with so much exultation; but when it came her heart almost stopped beating, and she gave a choking gasp.
"Would you really like it?" asked Mr. Harrison again, bending towards her earnestly.
"Why, certainly," said Helen, making one blind and desperate effort to dodge the issue. "I"ll tell you everything that is necessary."
"That is not what I mean, Miss Davis!"
"Not?" echoed Helen, and she tried to look at him with her frank, open eyes; but when she saw his burning look, she could not; she dropped her eyes and turned scarlet.
"Miss Davis," went on the man rapidly, "I have been waiting for a chance to tell you this. Let me tell you now!"
Helen gazed wildly about her once, as if she would have fled; then she stood with her arms lying helplessly at her sides, trembling in every nerve.
"There is very little pleasure that one can get from such beautiful things alone, Miss Davis, and especially when he is as dulled by the world as myself. I thought that some day I might be able to share them with some one who could enjoy them more than I, but I never knew who that person was until last night. I know that I have not much else to offer you, except what wealth and position I have gained; and when I think of all your accomplishments, and all that you have to place you so far beyond me, I almost fear to offer myself to you. But I can only give what I have--my humble admiration of your beauty and your powers; and the promise to worship you, to give the rest of my life to seeing that you have everything in the world that you want. I will put all that I own at your command, and get as much more as I can, with no thought but of your happiness."
Mr. Harrison could not have chosen words more fitted to win the trembling girl beside him; that, he should recognize as well as she did her superiority to him, removed half of his deficiency in her eyes.
"Miss Davis," the other went on, "I cannot know how you will feel toward such a promise, but I cannot but feel that what I possess could give you opportunities of much happiness. You should have all the beauty about you that you wished, for there is nothing in the world too beautiful for you; and you should have every luxury that money can buy, to save you from all care. If this house seemed too small for you, you should have another wherever you desired it, and be mistress of it, and of everything in it; and if you cared for a social career, you should have everything to help you, and it would be my one happiness to see your triumph. I would give a thousand times what I own to have you for my wife."
So the man continued, pleading his cause, until at last he stopped, waiting anxiously for a sign from the girl; he saw that she was agitated, for her breast was heaving, and her forehead flushed, but he could not tell the reason. "Perhaps, Miss Davis," he said, humbly, "you will scorn such things as I have to offer you; tell me, is it that?"
Helen answered him, in a faint voice, "It is not that, Mr. Harrison; it is,--it is,--"
"What, Miss Davis?"
"It has been but a day! I have had no time to know you--to love you."
And Helen stopped, afraid at the words she herself was using; for she knew that for the first time in her life she had stooped to a sham and a lie. Her whole soul was ablaze with longing just then, with longing for the power and the happiness which this man held out to her; and she meant to take him, she had no longer a thought of resistance. It was all the world which offered itself to her, and she meant to clasp it to her--to lose herself quite utterly and forget herself in it, and she was already drunk with the thought.
Therefore she could not but shudder as she heard the word "love"
upon her lips, and knew that she had used it because she wished to make a show of hesitation.
"I did not need but one day, Miss Davis," went on the other pleadingly, "to know that I loved you--to know that I no longer set any value on the things that I had struggled all my life to win; for you are perfect, Miss Davis. You are so far beyond me that I have scarcely the courage to ask you what I do. But I _must_ ask you, and know my fate."
He stopped again and gazed at her; and Helen looked at him wildly, and then turned away once more, trembling. She wished that he would only continue still longer, for the word was upon her lips, and yet it was horror for her to utter it, because she felt she ought not to yield so soon,--because she wanted some delay; she sought for some word that would be an evasion, that would make him urge her more strongly; she wished to be wooed and made to surrender, and yet she could find no pretext.
"Answer me, Miss Davis!" exclaimed the other, pa.s.sionately.
"What--what do you wish me to say?" asked Helen faintly.
"I wish you to tell me that you will be my wife; I wish you to take me for what I can give you for your happiness and your glory. I ask nothing else, I make no terms; if you will do it, it will make me the happiest man in the world. There is nothing else that I care for in life."
And then as the girl still stood, flushed and shuddering, hovering upon the verge, he took her hand in his and begged her to reply.
"You must not keep me in suspense!" he exclaimed. "You must tell me,--tell me."
And Helen, almost sinking, answered him "Yes!" It was such a faint word that she scarcely heard it herself, but the other heard it, and trembling with delight, he caught her in his arms and pressed a burning kiss upon her cheek.
The effect surprised him; for the fire which had burned Helen and inflamed her cheeks had been ambition, and ambition alone. It was the man"s money that she wanted and she was stirred with no less horror than ever at the thought of the price to be paid; therefore the touch of his rough mustache upon her cheek acted upon her as an electric contact, and all the shame in her nature burst into flame.
She tore herself loose with almost a scream. "No, no!" she cried.
"Stop!"
Mr. Harrison gazed at her in astonishment for a moment, scarcely able to find a word to say. "Miss Davis," he protested, "Helen--what is the matter?"
"You had no right to do that!" she cried, trembling with anger.
"Helen!" protested the other, "have you not just promised to be my wife?" And the words made the girl turn white and drop her eyes in fear.
"Yes, yes," she panted helplessly, "but you should not--it is too soon!" The other stood watching her, perhaps divining a little of the cause of her agitation, and feeling, at any rate, that he could be satisfied for the present with his success. He answered, very humbly, "Perhaps you are right; I am very sorry for offending you,"
and stood silently waiting until the girl"s emotions had subsided a little, and she had looked at him again. "You will pardon me?" he asked.
"Yes, yes," she said, weakly, "only--"
"And you will not forget the promise you have made me?"
"No," she answered, and then she gazed anxiously toward the door.
"Let us go," she said imploringly; "it is all so hard for me to realize, and I feel so very faint."
The two went slowly down the hallway, Mr. Harrison not even venturing to offer her his arm; outside they stood for a minute upon the high steps, Helen leaning against a pillar and breathing very hard. She dared not raise her eyes to the man beside her.
"You wish to go now?" he asked, gently.