University of Virginia Library

21. CHAPTER XXI.
THE AMULET.

“Step into the library a moment, if you
please, Miss Wansted,” said Mr. Chappelleford,
as, dinner over, the guests went up-stairs
together. “I brought that proof-engraving
of which I was speaking to show to you, and
left it in here. Will you look at it?”

“Certainly.” said Beatrice, still a little
coldly. “But why not take it into the drawing-room,
and let our friends see it also?”

“Because I brought it for you, and not for
your `friends,' as you call them.”

“I said our friends,” replied Beatrice
smiling.

“None for me, thank you,” replied the
philosopher. “It is some years since I indulged
in that delusion.”

“What—of friendship?”

“Exactly. It is one of the dreams of youth,
and as impossible to retain as your milk-teeth.
There, is not that a fine head?”

“Admirable. But about friendship—I wish
you would not say such things,” said Beatrice,
only glancing at the engraving, and fixing her
wistful eyes upon the shrewd, sad face of the
philosopher.

“Why do you wish so?”

“Because you know so much, and are so
often right when we differ, that it terrifies me
to have you assert what I cannot bear to believe
true.”

“Then you have a particular fancy for this
particular delusion?” asked Mr. Chappelleford,
not unkindly.

“Fancy! I consider friendship one of the
holiest and sweetest of realities, and it is because
I do not wish to have my faith disturbed
that I dread to hear you speak
of it.”

“Like the man falling asleep at low-water
mark, who begs his companions not to disturb
his nap.”

“But even if friendship is a dream, it will
not hurt me to believe in it. There is no
approaching destruction like that threatening
the sleeper you speak of,” pleaded Beatrice.

“Which is worse, destruction of your body
or destruction of your interest in keeping it
alive?” asked Chappelleford. “Believe in a
man, and after he has deceived you, or after
you have proved him a fool, you despise or
hate all men on his account. Avoid friendship,
that you may continue to care for mankind.
If you wish to value the species,
don't examine specimens—familiarity breeds
contempt.”

“O Mr. Chappelleford! yours is a very
dreary faith!” exclaimed Beatrice bitterly.

“My dear young lady, when you come to
my time of life, it will be yours as well. I remember
the period when I too believed in all
these pretty toys of friendship, confidence,
mutual reliance, and the rest, and the waking
from my dream was like the revivification of a
drowned man, who is roused from the sweet
visions that are death to the keen torture that
is life.”

“And what comes afterward?” asked Beatrice
slowly.

“Indifference,” replied the philosopher
drearily. “Things take the place of men,
theories of sentiment, speculations of passion.
You become an observer instead of an
actor—a thinker instead of a puppet.”

“And then do you become happy?” asked

the young girl slowly wringing her hands
together.

“Happy!” echoed the philosopher scornfully.
“What is the need of that? Content
yourself with your position as an atom in
creation, and do not expect the universe to be
delayed, or its eternal order to be disturbed,
because you do not like travelling so fast, or
because some other atom becomes divided
from you. Nothing is more puerile than this
outcry for happiness in which young persons
constantly indulge. Make yourself happy, if
you choose, with what you have, or, if you
prefer, go unhappy, but expect nothing better
than what chances to befall you, for you will
not get it. And, after all, happiness is principally
a question of digestion, and your best
friend is a pill-box.”

“I do not like you in this mood, Mr.
Chappelleford, and I am going to the drawing-room,”
said Beatrice, turning toward the
door.

The cynic smiled grimly, and followed her
across the hall. In the open doorway of the
drawing-room he suddenly laid a hand upon
her arm, and drew her slightly back.

“Look!” whispered he. “There are two of
the friends whom you trust the most, and
who have no secrets from you, as you fancy.”

Half startled, half indignant, Beatrice followed
the direction of his eyes, and saw Mrs
Charlton standing with Mr. Monckton in the
recess of a bay-window at the farther end of
the room. She, with her face buried in her
hands, appeared to be weeping bitterly, and
he, stooping toward her, was talking in a low
voice, full, as the accents betrayed, of tender
meaning. As Beatrice looked, he extended
his hand with something in it toward the
weeping woman, who seized and kissed it
passionately. Then she made some request,
in a voice broken with sobs, and Monckton,
leaning over her, clasped the bauble he held
about her neck. Seizing it in both hands,
Juanita kissed it again and again, while
Monckton leaned caressingly over her.

“No secrets from you, you know,” whispered
Mr. Chappelleford mockingly.

And Beatrice angrily replied:

“At least you shall not make a spy of me,”
and walked openly into the room.

As she approached the window, Monckton
came forward, and with a skilful remark,
drew her to the piano where lay some new
music, while Juanita made her escape through
a door at the farther end of the room. Beatrice
understood the manœuvre, and smiled
sadly. For a moment she considered within
herself, and then fixing her eyes upon Monckton's
face, quietly asked:

“Of what were you and Juanita talking
when I came in?”

“Oh! nothing much. I was speaking of
Venice, I believe,” said the traveller; and
Beatrice turned away from him without a
word.

In a few moments, Mrs. Charlton reëntered
the room, smiling and calm as usual; and
Beatrice, sitting in a shaded corner of the
sofa, a fire-screen before her eyes, looked on
in silent amazement while she placed herself
at the piano, selected one of the new pieces
offered by Mr. Monckton, and played it through
with a faultless brilliancy, proving the closest
attention and real interest in the subject before
her.

Mr. Chappelleford, who, instead of returning
to the library with his host, as was his
usual fashion, had followed Beatrice into the
drawing-room, now took a seat upon the sofa
beside her.

“This cannel-coal makes a very pretty
fire,” remarked he; but Beatrice did not hear
him.

“You were telling me that you wanted a
new study yesterday,” said he again. “You
seem to have found one. How do you like
it?”

The girl turned her eyes upon him, dark
and piteous with anguish.

“Do not mock me,” said she pleadingly.
“Can it be that those two have deceived me?”

“In what?”

“Why, they both seemed so open and so
trustful with me. He said I was his friend
and knew all his life; and she—she always
spoke of him as a stranger. And now what
does it mean?”

“Poor child, my warning was too late,” said
the philosopher pitifully. “You have trusted,
and you have been deceived—that is all—only
the old story once more. I do not know the
precise meaning of what we saw, but I do
know that Juanita Charlton is a coquette,
trained and practised from her earliest youth.
I know that she has risked her own reputation
and the happiness of others in more than
one folly, and I know that she sincerely wishes
to marry any one with money and position to
render her independent of me; for which desire

I do not blame her in the least. As for Mr.
Monckton, I only know that he is—a man.”

“But when I spoke to him just now he told
me— I am sure it could not have been
true,” murmured Beatrice.

“It was what you should have expected.
Your question was a piece of Quixotic daring.
Not one man in a thousand could or should
have answered you truly.”

“What! you defend a lie?”

“For Mr. Monckton in that situation—yes.
It was a necessary part of his system.”

“What is that system?” asked Beatrice
faintly.

“The system of polite, social intercourse,”
replied the philosopher.

“What would you have done in his place?”

“I cannot imagine myself in his place; but
had I been, I suppose I should have told you
I did not choose to answer your question.
That would have been bearish and brutal, and
that isn't Mr. Monckton's manner of doing
things.”

“But why not the truth?”

“What! that I was making love to another
woman! Pardon me, Miss Wansted, but you
suggest a stupidity.”

“Better that than a lie.”

“That depends upon who has the choice to
make,” said the philosopher, rising and strolling
toward the piano, where he began to
speak to his niece in so confidential a tone
that Mr. Monckton withdrew, and after a little
uneasy wandering, seated himself near Beatrice,
who met his attempts at conversation
with cold reserve—only tempered by remembrance
of her position as hostess. Monckton
felt it, and determined to bring the matter to
an issue.

“You are offended with me in some manner.
What is it?” asked he. “Remember
that we are friends.”

“How long since we became friends—that
is, since I told you that I considered you one?”
asked Beatrice.

“Nearly four months—four very happy
months to me,” said Monckton earnestly.

“Well, in all that four months I have never
deceived you in a single point. There are
passages in my life which I have not told you,
because I tell them to no one; but every thing
that has occurred to me since you knew me, I
have told you with perfect unreserve, and I have
never answered one of your questions with
less than entire truth. Do you believe this?”

“I believe it most fully, Beatrice.”

“And can you say as much upon your
part?” asked Beatrice, fixing her eyes keenly
upon him.

Monckton hesitated.

“Do your ideas of friendship demand as
much as this?” asked he.

“Yes; every thing or nothing,” replied
Beatrice.

“There is only one relation of life in which
that can be expected,” said Monckton, in a
still lower voice than that he had already used.

“No relation is to me more sacred than a
professed and accepted friendship—no relation
demands stricter honor or more inviolable
confidence,” said Beatrice severely.

“I know what you mean, Beatrice,” said
Monckton, after a silent but obvious struggle;
“and I cannot clear myself at present from
your imputation of insincerity. I confess
that I told you an untruth just now, when
you asked me, in Mr. Chappelleford's hearing,
of what I had been talking with Mrs. Charlton;
but my reply was a mere form, as I
wished you to perceive. I could not answer
you, and I could not leave you unanswered.
I was obliged to speak, and I replied as a lady
does who sends word that she is not at home
when she means she cannot see company.
Nor can I very clearly explain myself, nor—”

“It is quite unnecessary that you should do
so at all, Mr. Monckton. You confess to having
told me one untruth this evening; and although
you defend your course in some remarkable
manner, I am not enough of a sophist
to follow you. Let us drop the subject
at once and forever; and I will now wish you
good-evening, and leave you to complete your
explanation to Mrs. Charlton, who will probably
understand it better than I can.”

“Before retiring, please to receive my
adieux, as I am on the point of leaving.
Good-evening, Miss Wansted, and may our
next interview find you less severely and more
reasonably inclined. Good-evening, Mrs.
Charlton—Mr. Chappelleford. May I trouble
you, Mrs. Charlton, to say good-evening for me
to Mr. Barstow?”

And with a formal bow to every one, he
was gone; and Beatrice, honestly indignant
though she felt, was yet conscious of a heavy
pain at her heart in feeling that he had gone
in anger.

Mr. Chappelleford soon took his leave; and
the two women, left alone together, eyed each

[ILLUSTRATION]

The Amulet

[Description: 454EAF. Page 058. In-line image of two well-dressed women sitting in a richly furnished parlor. The younger woman is showing the older an amulet.] other in the manner of familiar friends between
whom lies an unspoken secret. Suddenly
Juanita approached the sofa, where
Beatrice still sat, and crouching upon the hassock
at her feet, held up by its chain the glittering
toy hanging about her neck.

“See what Mr. Monckton gave me just
now. It is an Eastern amulet, and was sent
to me by a friend whom Mr. Monckton met
abroad,” said she.

“And he has never given it to you until to-night?”
asked Beatrice incredulously.

“No, he could not. I cannot tell you about
it just now.”

“There is no need, Juanita. It is no affair
of mine; and these answers of form, as Mr.
Monckton calls them, are very distasteful to
me. You need not have tried to explain at
all.” And Beatrice, her heart full of bitterness
and her eyes of tears, rose, and hastily
left the room.

Mrs. Charlton rose also, and replacing the
amulet in her bosom, muttered:

“Poor child!—poor, jealous baby—striking
at the hand that tries to soothe you. I am sure
it was very good of me to try to explain, and
no fault if she would not listen; and yet I am
sorry to break off that friendship. But, O
my heart! my heart! what are all these childish
troubles to your great anguish? Now, at
least, I can be alone.”

And with hurried, yet trembling steps,
Juanita fled to her own chamber, and locked
herself into it alone.