"I hope she is," said Nan Gerard, "she deserves to be."
Tessa kept herself in a sofa corner all the evening.
Nan said that she was a queen surrounded by courtiers, for first one and then another came for a quiet talk. When she was not talking or listening, she was watching: figures, faces, voices, motions, all held something in them worth her studying; she had been watching under cover of a book of engravings Professor Towne, for some time before he came and stood at the arm of her sofa.
She was shy, at first, as she ever was with strangers, but no one could be shy with him for a longer time than five minutes. Dine"s last letter had contained an account of an afternoon with Miss Towne, with many quotations from her sayings.
"My sister thinks that your sister is a saint," said Tessa; "she has written me about her beautiful life."
"All about her invalids, I suppose. _Shut-ins_ she calls them! Invalids are her mania; she had thirty-five on her list at her last writing; she finds them north, south, east, and west."
"Dine loves to hear about them; Miss Towne gives her some of their letters to read to Aunt Theresa. Dine runs over every morning to hear about last night"s mail. I am looking forward to my good times with her if she will be as good to me as she is to my little sister."
"She is looking forward to you; your sister"s enthusiasm never flags when she may talk of you."
The talk drifted into books; Mr. Hammerton drew nearer, his questions and apt replies added zest to the conversation; Tessa mentally decided that he was more original than the Professor; the Professor"s questions were good, but no one in all _her_ world could reply like Gus Hammerton; she was proud of him to-night with a feeling of ownership; in loving Dine, had he not become as near as a brother to her?
This feeling of ownership was decidedly pleasant; with it came a safe, warm feeling that she was taken care of; that she had a right to be taken care of and to be proud of him. No one in the world, the most keen-eyed student of human nature, could ever have guessed that he was suffering from a heartache; he had greeted her with the self-possession of ten years ago, had inquired about the "folks at home," and asked if Dine were up in the clouds still. Could Dine have made a mistake? Had she dreamed it?
Professor Towne moved away to go to Nan Gerard; Tessa listened to Mr.
Hammerton, he was telling her about a discovery in science, and half comprehending and not at all replying she watched Professor Towne"s countenance and motions. She could hear about this discovery some other time, but she might not have another opportunity to study the Professor.
He was her lesson to-night. As he talked, she decided that he did not so much resemble his cousin as her first glance had revealed; his voice was resonant, his manner more courteous; he was not at all the "big boy," he was dignified, frank, and yet reserved; simple, at times, as his sister might be, and cultured, far beyond any thing she had ever thought of in regard to Dr. Towne; he was as intellectual as Gus Hammerton, as gracious as Felix Harrison, with as much heart as Dr. Lake, a physical presence as fascinating as Dr. Towne, and as pure-hearted and spiritualized as only himself could be. She had found her ideal at last.
She had found him and was scrutinizing him as coolly and as critically as if he were one of the engravings in the book in her lap. She would never find a flaw in him; when she wrote her novel he should be her hero.
"Why, doctor! Have the skies fallen? Did you hear that we were all taken with convulsions?"
Nan Gerard"s laugh followed this; the doctor"s reply was cool and commonplace.
"What is the t.i.tle of your book?" Mr. Hammerton was asking. ""Hepsey"s Heartache?" "Jennie"s Jumble?" "Dora"s Distress?" "Fannie"s Fancy?" or it may be "Up Top or Down Below," "Smashed Hopes or Broken Idols.""
"I will not answer you if you are not serious."
"I thought that young ladies gloried in sentiment."
She turned the leaves of her book.
"Lady Blue, I can not be a just critic; I can not take a sentimental standpoint; you take it naturally and truly; you are right to do so; it is your mission, your calling, your election. Do not think that I despise sentiment and the ideal world of feeling-"
"You know that I do not think that," she interrupted earnestly.
"These questions of feeling can not be tackled like a problem in mathematics, and an answer given in cold, clear cut, adequate words; such a problem I like to tackle; such an answer I like to give; but these sentimental questions in "Blighted Hopes" are many sided, involved, and curvilinear; they are for the theologian, metaphysician, and mystic. What can you and I say about life"s hard questions after Ecclesiastes and Job?"
"Then you think I am presuming?"
"Did I not just say that sentiment is your mission? The story of each human life has a pathos of its own, and each is an enigma of which G.o.d only knows the solution."
She colored and dropped her eyes; he did not dream that she knew any thing of the "pathos" in his life. How kind she would be to him!
"You are living your solution; perhaps you will help me to find mine."
"I can"t imagine any one in the world knowing you well enough to be of any help to you."
"Very likely; but I am not on a throne of rocks, in a robe of clouds, crowned with a diadem of snow!"
"It"s a little bit warm at the foot of Mount Blanc," she replied laughing.
"Then you shall live at the foot."
"Dine and I," she answered audaciously.
"Not Dine! She has gone away from us; she would rather listen to a love-ditty from the lips of her new acquaintance than a volume of sober sense from us."
"I had not thought to be jealous. She is not taking any thing from me."
"Be careful; never tell her any thing again; if you write to her that Mary wears a black silk to-night, and that Nan has geranium leaves in her hair, she will run and tell him. She will never keep another secret for you."
Tessa looked grave. She never would be supreme in her little sister"s heart again. Perhaps this evening she had arrayed herself in garnet and gone with him to the mite society, and was laughing and playing games, fox and geese, or ninepins, in somebody"s little whitewashed parlor, forgetting that such a place as Dunellen was down upon the map.
"Gus, we want you," said Mary Sherwood, approaching them. "The girls are having a quarrel about who wrote something; now, go and tease them to your heart"s content."
"Wrote what?" asked Tessa.
"Oh, I don"t know. Why are you so still? You are sitting here as stately and grand and pale and intellectual-one must be pale to look intellectual, I suppose-as if you had written _Middlemarch_. I thought that you never went home without a separate talk with every person in the room, and there you sit like a turtle in a sh.e.l.l. What change has pa.s.sed over the spirit of your dream?"
"I feel quiet; I feel as if I were afraid that some one would push against me if I should attempt to cross the room."
Mary was called away and she drew herself into her sofa corner; the two long rooms were crowded; bright colors were flashing before her eyes, the buzz and hum of merry talk filled her ears; a black silk in contrast with a gray or blue cashmere; a white necktie, a head with drooping curls, a low, fair forehead, a pair of square shoulders in broadcloth, an open mouth with fine teeth, sloping shoulders of gray silk, a slender waist of brown, a coat-sleeve with cuff and onyx cuff-b.u.t.ton, a small hand with a diamond on the first finger, and dark marks of needle-p.r.i.c.ks on the tip of the same finger, a pearl ear-ring in a red, homely ear;-Tessa"s eyes saw them all, as well as the rounded chin, the fretful lip, the humorous lines at the corner of the eye, the manner that was frank and the manner that was intended to be, the lips that were speaking truth and the lips that were dissembling, the eyes that were contented and the eyes that were missing something-a word, perhaps, or a little attention, the eyes that brightened when some one approached, the eyes that dropped because some one was talking nonsense to some one else;-it was a rest to dwell upon these things and forget that Dr. Lake was suffering and Sue frightened.
The gentlemen"s faces she did not scan; it was fair, matured women like Mrs. Towne and Miss Jewett, and sprightly, sweet girls like Nan Gerard that she loved.
Dr. Towne was hedged in a corner, behind a chair, conversing or seeming to converse with a gentleman; he was not a lady"s man, he could not be himself in the presence of a third or fourth person, that is himself, socially; he could be himself professionally under the gaze of the mult.i.tude. Tessa smiled, thinking how uncomfortable he must be and how he must wish himself at home. Was he longing for his leisure at Old Place, where, as a society man, nothing was expected of him? Did he regret that he had come out "into the world"? Was the old life in his "den" with his book a dream that he would fain dream again? Perhaps that book that had loomed up before her as containing the wisdom of the ages was not such a grand affair after all? Who had ever thought so beside herself? Who had ever worshipped him as hero and saint beside herself?
He was not looking like either, just now, for his face was flushed with the heat of the room and he was standing in a cramped position.
"The bear is in his corner growling," said Nan Gerard bending over her.
"How ungracious he can be when he wills. Sometimes he is positively rude to me."
"Is there but one bear?"
"You know well enough whom I mean. I expect that Mrs. Lake is mad enough because she couldn"t come! How prettily she makes up; I have seen her when she really looked elegant. Homely girls have a way of looking prettier than the pretty ones. How grave you are! You don"t like my nonsense, do you?"
"I was thinking of poor Sue."
"Oh yes; sad, isn"t it? She"ll be married in less than two years, if he dies, see if she isn"t. I can"t understand what her attraction is! She has a thousand little airs, perhaps that is it. I am to sleep with you to-night. May I?"
"Thank you," said Tessa warmly, "I am very glad."
"There, the bear is looking at us. He"ll be over here; now I"ll go over to the piano and see if I can make him follow me; I"ve had great fun doing that before now-_you_ don"t do such things;" Nan shook her curls back with a pretty movement, threw a grave, alluring glance across the heads, and through the lights at the bear, then moved demurely away.
The color touched his eyes; he looked amused and provoked; Tessa saw it while her eyes were busy with the lady in the chair near him; would he follow her? Mr. Hammerton returned.