"I am speaking the most commonplace sense I possess. If Prim was not referring to your wedding dress, what did she mean?"
"That is just what I do not quite know. Prim asked that all of a sudden, and I said, I did not know what she meant by "do;" and she said "manage;" and I said I never managed. And then she said?at least asked?"
"What?" said Dane, a trifle imperatively.
"Whether I thought you would like to have me dress as I do,"?said Hazel in a low voice.
The gray eyes took quick account of several items in the little lady"s attire, then turned away; and Dane remarked that "Prim had meant no harm."
"No, not a bit. But it puzzled me,?and I looked down at my dress, just?as you did now. And Prim said, of course she did not mean what I wore _then_, but that I always dressed so beautifully. And then I thought," said Hazel with the laugh in her voice, "that maybe she thought it was wrong to have one"s dress hang right. And next morning I was naughty enough to pull out her loopings and do them over. Then I asked her if she felt demoralized, or something.
And Prim wanted to know if I thought she meant _that?_ and bade me look at your dress. Which I have, very often," Hazel added with a shy glance, "but I do not find that it gives me any help about my own."
Dane rewarded this speech with a look of grave deliberation, which ended with the corners of his mouth breaking into all manner of lines of fun. Hazel smiled too, partly at him, partly at herself.
"You see what always happens when I talk out," she said. "I am sure to be laughed at for my "confidence," as you call it. But Mr. Rollo, I did not much mind what Prim said. Not a bit, only for two little things."
"What little things, Hazel?" and there was the force of a dozen "dears" and "my loves" in the quiet intonation.
"I thought for a while that you had told her to talk to me. As you did once before."
A quick look denied all knowledge of such an occasion.
"At Greenbush?that night," said Hazel.
"That night," said Dane smiling again. "But I did not set her to talk to you then. I only sent her to do what I supposed at the moment she might do more acceptably."
"I know?"said Hazel, "but I never could take second-hand orders.
That was one of the times when you made a mistake in your dealings with me."
"Well? You know I shall not make such mistakes any more. And yet, Hazel," said he growing grave, "that is too much for me to say even lightly. Perhaps I shall make mistakes. Till we have lived long enough together to know each other thoroughly, I might.
What will you do then?"
She laughed a little, half raised her eyes, and let them fall. "No," she said, "you will not repeat those two or three great ones; and others do not matter."
"Two or three!" said Dane; but then he began again.?"What was the other "little thing" that annoyed you in Prim"s words the other night?"
"About as wise as the first! I never supposed you noticed my dress,?or would,?while I kept out of yellow feathers and sky blue gloves. But Prim left a sort of impression, that if ever you _should_, it would be to dislike it. And that troubled me a little bit at the time, and has troubled me?just a little bit?ever since."
Probably Dane"s first thoughts were not put into words. What he did, was to get hold of Wych Hazel"s hand, and between the kisses he gave it he remarked,
"I never noticed your dress without feeling a certain delight in its perfect harmonies; and?I never saw you without noticing your dress."
"_You?_" Hazel said with a quick, timid intonation. And then there came a great flush of pleasure, and she looked away and was silent; thinking to herself?what she herself would have called "all sorts of things."
"Don"t you think," said Dane coolly, "that as we have evidently so much respectively to learn about each other, we had better begin as soon as possible?"
"Are you expecting such new developments??But then," she said, the doubtful look waking up again, "what did Primrose mean? She meant something,?and you know what it was."
"Do I? I suppose Primrose felt that I had changed from my once views of that, as of other subjects."
"What were your "once" views?" said Hazel. "I hardly knew that people had what you call "views" about dress."
Rollo smiled.
"I suppose mine were what yours are now."
"Then yours never had existence."
"And your dress _happens_. Do you mean that?"
"No, no!?but if I had worn two or three necklaces to the woods this morning, it would have been want of sense and taste, not of views."
"Certainly. Your "views" of dress are sense and taste. Or rather, your instinct, I should say."
"But," said Hazel,?"no, that is not what I mean. Sense and taste have to do directly with the subject,?they grow out of it, or are mixed up with it,?I wish anybody had ever taught me to talk, among other things!?I mean, they are intrinsic. And "views"
always seemed to take an outside stand, irrespective of everything.
I think I do not like "views." "
"You cannot help having them," said Dane laughing at her. "
"Views" are merely the simplest word for _how you see a thing;_ under what light, and proportions, and relations."
Hazel shook her head.
"I never was famous for seeing things," she said. "I think I go more by instinct. What do you compliment me by supposing my views of dress to be, Mr. Rollo?"
"That is something from which you are to get, and give, the sense of beauty, in infinite variety."
"Well, leaving that statement for the present, what are yours, please?"
"That it is a usable thing, which I am to use, like everything else,?
for my Master."
Hazel glanced at him, and looked away.
"Up to a certain point," she said, "our views go side by side; we both call it a power."
Dane was silent, with a certain sweet, grave silence, that evidently was not in want of thoughts. Hazel sat still too for a few minutes, knotting her little fingers together. She glanced at him again before she went on.
"But further than that, I do not understand. I think, generally, I have dressed to please myself,?not often for a purpose; though I could do that, I suppose, upon occasion. That is, in my sort of way. But in _yours_, Mr. Rollo,?I should get in such a labyrinth of black merino and green silk and blue velvet and white muslin, no line that ever was twisted would be long enough to guide me out."
"There"s a short way out," said Rollo. "I will not let you get into a labyrinth."
"That may alter the case," said Hazel with a half laugh. "But just Prim"s words, and the thought of your criticising my dress, put me in such confusion to-day that I was very near not getting dressed at all; and was ever so much ashamed of myself." The fluttering white dress, by the way, had given place to one of the soft leaf-brown silks in which she delighted. Perhaps Rollo"s eyes liked it too; for they took a complacent view and came back to her face with a smile.
"It is a problem, to be worked out," he said.
"In my way, to your ends?" queried Hazel. "The difference lying in the use or disposal of the power when in hand. Is that what you mean?"
"That will do. But _sometimes_ it happens, that beauty of effect must give way before more important uses."