"Why may I have this alb.u.m to-night when I mightn"t _last_ night?" asks the Boodie, shrewdly, her big sapphire eyes bigger than usual. "You scolded me about it last night, and every other time I touched it. And what"s the matter with your eyes?" staring up at Portia, who has turned a page in the forbidden alb.u.m, and is now gazing at a portrait of Fabian that is smiling calmly up at her.
It is a portrait taken in that happy time when all the world was fair to him, and when no "little rift" had come to make mute the music of his life. Portia is gazing at it intently. She has forgotten the child--the book--everything, even the fear of observation, and her eyes are heavy with unshed tears, and her hands are trembling.
Then the child"s questioning voice comes to her; across the bridge of past years she has been vainly trying to travel, and perforce she gives up her impossible journey, and returns to the sure but sorry present.
Involuntarily she tightens her hand upon the Boodie"s. There is entreaty in her pressure, and the child (children, as a rule, are very sympathetic), after a second stare at her, shorter than the first, understands, in a vague fashion, that silence is implored of her, and makes no further attempts at investigation.
After a little while the men come; all except Fabian. Their entrance is a relief to the girls, whatever it may be to Julia. She rouses herself by a supreme effort to meet the exigencies of the moment, and really succeeds in looking quite as if she has not been in the land of Nod for the past sweet thirty minutes.
"You have broken in upon a really delicious little bit of gossip," she says to Sir Mark, coquettishly; whereupon Sir Mark, as in duty bound, entreats her to retail it again to him.
She doesn"t.
"I hope you have been miserable without us," says d.i.c.ky Browne, sinking into a chair beside Portia, and lifting the Boodie on to his knee. (It would be impossible to d.i.c.ky Browne to see a child anywhere without lifting it on to his knee). "We"ve been wretched in the dining-room; we thought Sir Christopher would never tip us the wink--I mean," correcting himself with a.s.sumed confusion, "give us the word to join you. What are you looking at? An alb.u.m?"
"Yes; you may look at it, too," says Portia, pushing it anxiously towards him. She cannot talk to-night. There is a mental strain upon her brain that compels her to silence. If he would only amuse himself with the caricatures of his friends the book contains.
But he won"t. Mr. Browne rises superior to the feeble amus.e.m.e.nts of the ordinary drawing-room.
"No, thank you," he says, promptly. "Nothing on earth offends me more than being asked to look at an alb.u.m. Why look at paper beauties when there are living ones in the room?"
Here he tries to look sentimental, and succeeds, at all events, in looking extremely funny. He has been having a good deal of champagne, and a generous amount of Burgundy, and is now as happy and contented as even his nearest and dearest could desire. Don"t mistake me for a moment; n.o.body ever saw Mr. Browne in the very faintest degree as--well, as he ought not to be; but there is no denying that after dinner he is gaiety itself, and (as Dulce"s governess used to say of him), "very excellent company indeed."
"I always feel," he goes on airily, still alluding to the despised alb.u.m, "when any one asks me to look at a book of this kind, as if they thought I was a dummy and couldn"t talk. And I _can_ talk, you know."
"You can--you can, indeed," says Sir Mark, feelingly. "Dulce, what was that we were reading yesterday? I remember, now, a quotation from it _apropos_ of talking, _not apropos_ of our friend d.i.c.ky, of course.
"Then he will talk. Good G.o.ds, how he will talk!" Wasn"t that it?"
"Sing us something, d.i.c.ky, do. You used to sing long ago," says Julia, insinuatingly, who thinks she might be able to accomplish another surrept.i.tious doze under cover of the music.
"I"ve rather given it up of late," says Mr. Browne, with a modest air, and a chuck to his shirt collar.
"You used to sing "Ye banks and braes o" bonny Doon" sweetly," says Julia, when she has recovered from a vigorous yawn, got through quite safely behind her sheet anchor--I mean her fan.
"Well--er--such a lot of fellows go in for the sickly sentimental; I"m tired of it," says d.i.c.ky, vaguely.
"You didn"t tire of _that_ song until that little girl of the Plunkets asked you what a "brae" was and you couldn"t tell her. She told me about it afterwards, and said you were a very amusing boy, but, she feared, uneducated. You gave her the impression, I think," says Sir Mark, pleasantly, "that you believed the word had something to do with that n.o.ble (if tough) animal, the donkey!"
"I never told her anything of the kind," says d.i.c.ky, indignantly. "I never speak to her at all if I can help it. A most unpleasant girl, with a mouth from ear to ear and always laughing."
"What a fetching description," says Stephen Gower, with a smile.
"You _will_ sing us something?" says Portia, almost entreatingly. She wants to be alone; she wants to get rid of d.i.c.ky and his artless prattle at any price.
"Certainly," says Mr. Browne, but with very becoming hesitation. "If I could only be sure what style of thing you prefer. I know a comic song or two, if you would like to hear them."
"Heavens and Earth!" murmurs Sir Mark, with a groan. He throws his handkerchief over his face, and places himself in an att.i.tude suggestive of the deepest resignation.
"I"m afraid I shan"t be able to remember _all_ the words," says d.i.c.ky, regretfully. "There is any amount of verses, and all as funny as they can be. But I"ve a shocking memory."
"For small mercies--" says Sir Mark, mildly.
"Nevertheless I"ll try," says d.i.c.ky, valiantly, moving toward the piano.
"No don"t, d.i.c.ky," exclaims Sir Mark, with tearful entreaty. "It would break my heart if Portia were to hear you for the first time at a disadvantage. "I had rather than forty shillings you had your book of songs and sonnets here," but as you haven"t, why, wait till you have.
Now," says Sir Mark, casting a warning look upon the others; "I"ve done _my_ part--hold him tight, some of you, or he will certainly do it still."
"Oh! if you don"t _want_ to hear me," returns d.i.c.ky, with unruffled good humor. "Why can"t you say so at once, without so much beating about the bush. I don"t want to sing."
"Thank you, d.i.c.ky," says Sir Mark, sweetly.
Stephen is sitting close to Dulce, and is saying something to her in a low tone. Her answers, to say the least of them, are somewhat irrelevant and disconnected. Now she rises, and, murmuring to him a little softly-spoken excuse, glides away from him to the door, opens it, and disappears.
At this Portia, who has never ceased to watch her, grows even paler than she was before, and closes one hand so tightly on her fan that part of the ivory breaks with a little click.
Five minutes pa.s.s; to her they might be five interminable hours; and then, when she has electrified Mr. Browne by saying "yes" twice and "no"
three times in the wrong places, she, too, gets up from her seat and leaves the room.
Before the fire in his own room Fabian is standing, with Dulce crying her heart out upon his breast. He has one arm around her, but his eyes are looking into a sad futurity, and he is gently, absently, tapping her shoulder with his left hand. He is frowning, not angrily, but thoughtfully, and there is an expression in his dark eyes that suggests a weariness of the flesh, and a longing to flee away and be at rest.
"Do not take this thing so much to heart," he says, in a rather mechanical tone, addressing his little sister, who is grieving so bitterly because of the slight that has been cast upon him from so unexpected a quarter. "She told you the truth; the very first moment my eyes met hers I knew she had heard all, and--had condemned."
He sighs wearily.
"Who shall blame her?" he says, with deepest melancholy.
"I blame her," cries Dulce, pa.s.sionately. "Nay, more, I hate and despise her. She has seen you, known you. She must, therefore, be _mad--blind_--to credit so vile a thing of you. And you, my saint, my darling, what have you not endured all this time! Knowing everything, bearing everything, without a murmur or reproach. Her scorn, her contempt. Oh, Fabian! at least you do not suffer alone, for I suffer with you."
"That only adds another drop to my cup," replies he, gently. "It does not comfort me. I had some faint pleasure in the thought that you and she were friends, and now, even that belief is denied me. _I_ have severed you. What have I to do with either she or you? My misfortune is my own, let it be so. Your tears only aggravate my pain, my dear, _dear_ little sister."
He draws her closer to him, and kisses her warmly. Is she not the one being who has clung to him, and loved him, and believed in him through good and evil report?
"Who could dream she was so deceitful?" says Dulce, tearfully, alluding to the unhappy Portia. "I never once even suspected the real truth. Why, over and over again she has spoken of you, has compelled me to discuss you, has seemed to court the subject of--"
"Spoken of _me_!"
"Yes, often--often, hundreds of times. She seemed never to tire of you and your history; I thought she--"
Dulce hesitates.
"Go on; you thought she--"
"Well, then," recklessly, "I thought she was in love with you; I was _sure_ of it."
"Dulce," sharply, "you forget yourself. What are you saying? Do you think your cousin would like you to speak like this?"
"I don"t care what she likes," cries the rebel, angrily; "as I am speaking like this, I hope she wouldn"t. When I think how good you have always been to her, how you gave her your friendship--your--" her voice fails her, and in a whisper, she adds, "_your love_."