"I love sawdust," he answered, comically.
"Then I"m ashamed of you."
"You haven"t seen other men tried."
"It is no honor to you to be thinking of her under existing circ.u.mstances."
"I would run away with her to-night if she would run with me."
"Then I despise you."
"You love like a woman, Mystic; I love like a man."
"I hope that no man will ever dishonor himself or dishonor me with love like that."
As he stooped to pick up his glove, his breath swept her cheek; she started, almost exclaiming as she drew back, flushed and bewildered. He colored angrily, then laughed an excited, reckless laugh, and gathered the reins which had been hanging loose.
"Dr. Lake," in a hurried, tremulous voice, "please don"t do that. Oh, why must you? Why can"t you be brave?" Her voice was choking with tears.
"I did not _think_ such a thing of you."
"Of course you didn"t! But I will not do it again-I really will not. I am half mad as I told you. Good night, Mystic."
"Good night," she said sadly.
He held the reins still lingering.
"Will you ride with me again some day?"
"No, I don"t like to hear you talk."
Again she went back to her pansies; the innocent pansies with their faint, pure breath were more congenial. As he drove under the maples, he muttered words that would have startled her as much as his tainted breath.
"Do you like it in this world, little pansies?" she sighed.
Her father laid his book within a window on the sill, and came down to her to talk about the buds of the day-lilies; her mother fanned herself with a palm-leaf fan and complained of the heat; Dinah ran down-stairs, fresh and airy in green muslin with a scarlet geranium among her curls, and after standing still to ask if she looked pretty, ran across to the planks to walk up and down with Norah Bird with their arms linked and their heads close together.
Tessa sighed again, remembering the old confidential talks with Laura when they both cared for the same things before she had outgrown Laura.
There were so many things in her world to be sighed about to-night; the thought of Felix threw all her life into shadow; Norah and Dinah were laughing over some silly thing, and her mother was vigorously waving the fan and vigorously fretting at the heat and the dust in this same hour in which Felix-her bright, good Felix-was moaning out his feeble strength. She had not dared to ask Dr. Lake how he was; what comfort would it be to know that he was a little better or a little worse? How could she talk to him of her busy life and take him a copy of her book?
She was counting the days, also; for in October her book would surely be out.
"You think more of that than you would of being married," Dinah had said that day.
"So I do-than to be married to any one I know."
"Do you expect to find somebody _new_?"
"Perhaps I do not expect to find any one at all," she had answered.
"Oh, don"t be so dreary," laughed Dinah.
_Was_ that dreary? Once it might have seemed dreary; a year ago with what a smiting pain she would have echoed the word, but it was not a dreary prospect to-night as she stood with her father"s arm about her.
A new thing had happened to disturb her; Dinah was becoming shy and constrained in the presence of Mr. Hammerton; last summer she would run out to meet him, hang on his arm and chatter like a magpie; this summer she would oftener avoid him than move forward to greet him; this shamefacedness was altogether new and very becoming, yet the elder sister did not like it. There was no change in Mr. Hammerton, why should there be change in Dinah or in herself? He came no oftener than he had come last summer, he manifested no preference, sometimes she thought that this non-manifestation was too studied; gifts were brought to each, were it books or flowers. Did poor little Dine care for him, and was she so afraid of revealing it? Or, had she decided that it was for _her_ sake that he came, and did she leave them so often together alone that it might be pleasanter for both? More than once or twice when he was expected, she had pleaded an engagement with Norah, and had not appeared until late in the evening.
"I wonder what"s got Dine," their mother had remarked, "she seems possessed to run away from Gus."
Their father had looked annoyed and exclaimed, "Nonsense, mother, nonsense."
Tessa"s reverie was ended by Mr. Hammerton"s quick step upon the planks.
"He was here last night," commented Mrs. Wadsworth as he crossed the street.
"Good evening, good people," he said opening the gate. "You make quite a picture! If you had fruit and wine I should rub up my French or Spanish.
I think that I am not too late; I did not hear until after tea that Professor Towne is to read tonight in a.s.sociation Hall; some of your favorites, Lady Blue. Will you go, you and Dine?"
"Oh, yes, indeed; that is just what I want."
"It is to be selections from "Henry V.," "The High Tide," "Locksley Hall," I think, and a few lighter things. You will think that you would rather elocute "The High Tide" than even to have written it."
"That is impossible. Did you tell Dine?"
"No, but I will. It was proper to ask the elder sister was it not?"
"I am not Leah," said Tessa seriously, "call Rachel."
"Rachel! Rachel!" he called, beckoning to Dinah. Dinah whistled by way of reply and dropped Norah"s arm.
"Have you brought me Mother Goose or a sugar-plum?" she asked lightly.
"And why do you call me Rachel?"
"Don"t talk nonsense, children," said Mr. Wadsworth very gravely. The color deepened in Mr. Hammerton"s cheeks and forehead as he met the old man"s grave eyes. "Mother, let"s you and I go too," proposed Mr.
Wadsworth, "we will imagine it to be twenty-seven years ago."
"I only wish it was," was the dissatisfied reply.
That evening was an event in Tessa"s quiet life: she heard no sound but the reader"s voice, she saw no face but his; she drew a long breath when the last words were uttered.
"Was it so good as all that?" whispered Mr. Hammerton. "You shall go to the Chapel with me next Sunday and hear him preach about "Meditation.""
Dr. Towne, his mother, and Sue Greyson were seated near them; she did not observe the group until she arose to leave the hall.
"Wasn"t it stupid?" muttered Sue, catching at her sleeve. "And isn"t he perfectly elegant? Almost as elegant as the doctor."
"You will not forget your promise?" Mrs. Towne said as Tessa turned towards her.
"Has Miss Tessa been making you a promise? She does not know how to break her word," said Dr. Towne.
"You do not need to tell me that; her eyes are promise-keepers."