 | CHAPTER XXVIII. Vashti, or, "Until death us do part" |  |
28. CHAPTER XXVIII.
“MERTON, you are not conscious of the extent of your
infatuation, which has already excited comment in
our limited circle of acquaintances.”
“Indeed! The members of `our limited circle of acquaintances'
are heartily welcome to whatever edification or amusement
they may be able to derive from the discussion of my individual
affairs, or the analysis of my peculiar tastes. You
forget, my dear Constance, that to devour and in turn be
devoured is an inexorable law of this world; and if my eccentricities
furnish a ragout for omnivorous society, I should be
philanthropically glad that tittle-tattledom owes me thanks.”
The speaker did not lay aside the newspaper that partially
concealed his countenance; and when he ceased speaking, his
eyes reverted to the statistical table of Egyptian and Algerine
cotton, which for some moments he had been attentively
examining.
“My dear brother, you are spasmodically and provokingly
philosophical! Pray do me the honor to discard that stupid
Times, which you pore over as if it were the last sensation
novel, and be so courteous as to look at me while you are
talking,” replied the invalid sister, beating a tattoo on the side
of her couch.
“I believe I have nothing to communicate just now,” was
the quiet and unsatisfactory answer, as he drew a pencil from
his pocket and made some numeral annotations on the margin
of the statistics.
“Surely, Merton, you are not angry with your poor Constance?”
Merton Minge lowered his paper, restored the pencil to his
vest pocket, and wheeling his chair forward, brought himself
closer to the couch.
“I wish you were as far removed from fever as I certainly
am from anger. Your eyes are too bright, my pretty one.”
He put his fingers on her pulse, and when he removed them,
compressed his lips to stifle a sigh.
“Why will you so persistently evade me? — why will you
always change the subject when I allude to that young lady?”
“Because, when a man attains the sober and discreet age of
forty years, he naturally and logically thinks he has earned,
and is entitled to, an exemption from the petty teasing to which
sophomores and sentimentalists are subjected. While I gratefully
appreciate the compliment implied in your forgetfulness,
permit me to remind you of the disagreeable fact that I am no
longer a boy.”
“You lose sight of that same ugly and ill-mannered fact, much
more frequently than I am in danger of doing; and I affectionately
suggest that you stimulate your own torpid memory.
Ah, brother! why will you not be frank, and confide in me?
Women are not easily hoodwinked, except by their lovers, —
and you can not deceive me in this matter.”
“What pleasure do you suppose it would afford me to practice
deceit of any kind towards my only sister? To what class
of motives could you credit such conduct?”
“I think you shrink from acknowledging your real feelings,
because you very well know that I could never sanction or consent
to them.”
Mr. Minge arched his heavy brows, and the sternly drawn
lines of his large mouth relaxed, and threatened to run into
curves that belong to the ludicrous, as he turned his twinkling
eyes upon his sister's face.
“What extraordinary hallucinations attack even sage, sedate,
middle-agedmen? Ten minutes ago I would have sworn I was
your guardian; whereas, it seems your apron-strings are the
credentials before I bow submissively to your ukase.”
“Irony is not your forte; and, Merton, I beg you to recollect
that I detest bantering, — it is so excessively ungenteel.
No wonder you look nervous and ashamed, after your recent
very surprising manifestation of — well, I might as well say
what I mean — of mauvais goût.”
Constance Minge impatiently threw off the light worsted
shawl that rested on her shoulders, and propped her cheek on
her jewelled hand.
Her brother's countenance clouded, and his lips hardened,
but after one keen look at her flushed features, he once more
resumed the persual of the paper. Some moments elapsed, and
his sister sobbed, but he took no notice of the sound.
“Merton, I never expected you would treat me so cruelly.”
“Make out your charges in detail, and when you are sure you
have included all the petty deeds of tyranny as well as the
heinous acts of brutality, I will examine the indictment, and
hear myself arraigned. Shall I bring you some legal cap, and
loan you my pencil?”
For five minutes she held her handkerchief to her eyes, and
then Mr. Minge rose and looked at his watch.
“You will not be so unkind as to leave me again this afternoon,
and spend your time with that —”
“Constance, you transcend your privileges, and this is a most
apropos and convenient occasion to remind you that presumption
is one fault I find it particularly difficult to forgive. Since
my forbearance only invites aggression, let me here say (as an
economy of trouble), that you are rashly invading a realm where
I permit none to enter, much less to dictate. I hope you understand
me.”
“I knew it, — I felt it! I dreaded that artful girl would
make mischief between us, — would alienate the only heart I had
left to care for me. Oh, how I wish she had been forty fathoms
under the sea before you ever saw her! — before you ceased to
love me!”
A flood of tears emphasized the sentence, which seemed lost
it away, and puffed the smoke from a second.
“I am sorry you can't smoke and compose your nerves, as I
am preparing to do, — though I confess I prefer to kiss your
lips untainted by such odors. Shall I?”
He held his cigar aside to prevent the wind from wafting the
curling column of smoke in her face, and bent his head close to
hers; but she put up her hand to prevent the caress, and
averted her face.
“As you like. But mark you, Constance, the next time our
lips touch, you will find yourself in the nominative case, while
I meekly fill an objective position. You are a poor, wilful,
spoiled child, and I must begin to undo my own ruinous work.”
He picked up his hat and walked off, followed by a pretty
Italian mouse-colored greyhound, whose silver bell tinkled as
she ran down the steps.
“Merton, come back! Do not leave me here alone, or I
shall die. Brother! —”
On strode the stalwart figure, looking neither to right nor
left, and behind him trailed the vaporous aroma of the fine
cigar. Raising herself on her couch, the invalid elevated her
voice, and exclaimed, —
“Please, dear Merton, come back, — at least long enough to
let me kiss you. Please, brother!”
He paused, — wavered, — drew geometrical figures on the
ground with the tip of his boot, and finally took off his hat,
turned and bowed, saying, —
“Show some flag of truce, if you really want me to return.”
She raised her hands and gracefully tossed him several
kisses.
Slowly Mr. Minge retraced his steps, and, as he sat down
once more close to his sister and pushed back his hat, she saw
that he intended her to realize that her reign was at an end;
and she trembled and turned pale at the expression with which
he regarded her.
“Merton, don't you know — don't you believe — that I love
you above everything else?”
She sat erect, and stole one arm around the neck that did
not bend toward her, as was its habit.
“If you really loved me, you would desire to see me happy.”
“I do desire it, earnestly and sincerely; and there is no sacrifice
I would not make to see you really happy.”
“Provided I selected your mode of obtaining the boon, and
moreover consulted your caprices and antipathies; otherwise,
my happiness would annoy and insult you.”
“Don't scold, — kiss me.” She put up her lips, but he did
not respond to the motion, and she pettishly drew his head
down and kissed him several times. “How obstinate you have
grown! — how harsh towards me! It is all the result of
that —”
She bit her lip, and her brother frowned.
“Take care! You seem continually disposed to stumble very
awkwardly into forbidden realms.”
The petted invalid nestled her pretty head on his bosom, and
patted his cheek with one hot hand.
“Brother, Kate Sutherland was here this morning, and left
— besides numerous kind messages for you — a three-cornered
note that I ordered Adèle to place in your dressing-case, where
I felt sure you would see it.”
“Yes, I saw it.”
“An invitation to ascend Monte Pellegrini?”
“Which I respectfully decline.”
“O Merton! Why not go?”
“Simply because I never premeditatedly, and with malice
prepense, bore myself by joining parties composed of persons
in whom I have not an atom of interest.”
“But Kate is so lovely?”
“Not to me.”
“Nonsense! She was the handsomest young girl in Paris,
and was the acknowledged belle of the season.”
“Possibly. Henna-dyed nails are considered irresistible in
Turkey, but your opalescent ones attract me infinitely more
pleasantly.”
“Pray what have my nails to do with Kate's beauty?”
“Nothing destructive, I hope, — as I am disposed to think she
has little to spare.”
“Good heavens! You surely would not insinuate that you
believe or consider, — or would admit, that she is not vastly
superior to — to — there, Beauty, down! She is actually
dining on the fringe of my pelerine!”
To cover her confusion, Constance addressed herself to the
diminutive dog at her feet, and taking her flushed face in his
hands, the brother looked steadily down, and answered, —
“I never insinuate. It impresses me as a cowardly and contemptible
bit of plebeian practice that found favor after the
royal purple was trailed in agrarian democratic dust; and lest
you should unjustly impute abhorred innuendoes to me, I will
say perspicuously, that the most attractive and beautiful
woman I have ever seen is not your fair friend Miss Sutherland,
nor any other darling of diamond and satin sheen, but a
young lady whom I admire beyond expression, Miss Salome
Owen.”
An angry flush burned on the invalid's face, and her mouth
curled scornfully.
“She is rather handsome sometimes, — so are gypsies and
other waifs; but it is a wild sort of beauty, — if beauty you
persist in terming it; and low birth and blood are visible in
everything that appertains to her. I never expected to see my
brother condescend to the level of opera-singers, and I am
astonished at your infatuation. There! you need not expect to
blast me with that fiery look, and besides, you know you mentioned
her name, which I had scrupulously avoided. I confess
I am very proud of my family, and of you, its sole male representative,
and I wish it preserved from all taint.”
“Untainted it shall remain, while a drop of the blood throbs
in my veins, and I, who am jealous of my honor, have carefully
pondered the matter, and maturely decided that he who entrusts
his happiness to Salome Owen will be indeed an enviable man,
and pardonably proud of his prize. Once I bartered myself
away at the altar, and gave my name and hand for wealth,
for aristocratic antecedents, for fashionable status, and five
the insult I offered my heart. Death freed me, and for ten
years I have lived at least in peace, indulging no thought of a
second alliance, and merely amused, or disgusted by the matrimonial
snares that have lined my path. I no longer belong to
that pitiable class who feel constrained to marry for position,
and who convert the altar-steps into so many rounds of the
social ladder; and I have earned the right to indulge my outraged
heart in any caprice that promises to mellow, to gild the
evening of my life with that home-sunshine that was denied
its gloomy tempestuous morning. My future, my fortune, my
social standing, my unblemished name, are all my own, — and
I shall exercise my privilege of bestowing them where and
when I please, heedless of the sneers and howls of disappointed
mercenary schemers. Come weal, come woe, I here
announce that neither you nor the world need hope to influence
me one `jot or tittle' in an affair where I allow no impertinent
interference. I warn you this is the last time I shall permit
even an indirect allusion to matters with which you have no
legitimate concern; and provided you do not obtrude them
upon me, it is a question of indifference to me what your opinion
and that of your `circle' may chance to be. Constance,
you here have your ultimatum. Defy me, if you please, but
prompt separation will ensue; and you will unexpectedly
find yourself en route for America. Peace or war? Before
you decide, recollect that all your future will be irretrievably
colored by it.”
“In my state of health it is positively cruel for you to
threaten me; and some day when you follow my coffin to Mount
Auburn, you will repent your harshness. I wish to heaven I
had never left home!”
A passionate fit of weeping curtailed the sentence, and, while
the face was covered with the lace handkerchief, the brother
rose and made his escape.
Despite the fact that forty years had left their whitening
touches on his head and luxuriant beard, Merton Minge, who
had never been handsome, even in youth, was sufficiently
in the circle where he moved. Medium-statured, and very
robust, a healthful ruddy tinge robbed his complexion of that
sallow hue which mercantile pursuits are apt to induce, and
brightened the deep-set black eyes which his debtors considered
mercilessly keen, cold, and incisive.
The square face, with its broad, full forehead, and deep curved
furrow dividing the thick straight brows, — its well-shaped
but prominent nose, and massive jaws and chin partially veiled
by a grizzled beard that swept over his deep chest, — was
suggestive of ledgers rent-roll, and stock-boards, rather than
æsthetics, chivalry, or sentimentality. The only son of a proud
but impoverished family, who were eager to retrieve their
fortune, he had early in life married the imperious spoiled
daughter of a Boston millionaire, whose dower consisted of five
hundred thousand dollars, and a temper that eclipsed the
unamiable exploits of ancient and modern shrews.
Hopeless of domestic happiness in a union to which affection
had not prompted him, Mr. Minge devoted himself to the rapid
accumulation of wealth, and by judicious and successful speculations
had doubled his fortune, ere, at the comparatively early
age of thirty, he was left a childless widower. Whether he
really thanked fate for his timely release, his most intimate
friends were never able to ascertain, for he wore mourning,
badges for three years, and conducted himself in all respects
with exemplary dignity and scrupulous propriety. But the
frigid indifference with which he received all matrimonial overtures
indicated that his conjugal experience was not so rosy as
to tempt him to repeat the experiment.
His mother was a haughty, frivolous woman, jealously tenacious
of her position as one of the oligarchs of le beau monde,
and his fragile sister had from childhood been the victim of
rheumatism that frequently rendered her entirely helpless. To
these two and their fashionable friends, he abandoned his elegant
home, costly equipages, and opera-box, reserving only a
suite of rooms, his handsome riding-horse, and yacht.
Grave and unostentatious, yet not moody, — neither impulsively
— he led a quiet and monotonously easy life, varied by
occasional trips to foreign lands, and comforted by the assurance
that his income-tax was one of the heaviest in the state. Two
years after the death of his mother, he took his sister a second
time to Europe, hoping that the climate of the Levant might
relieve her suffering; and upon the steamer in which he crossed
the Atlantic he met Salome Owen.
Extravagantly fond of music, though unable to extract it
from any instrument, his attention had first been attracted by
her exquisite voice, which invested the voyage with a novel
charm and rendered her a great favorite with the passengers.
Human nature is wofully inflexible and obstinate, and not all
the Menus, Zoroasters, Solomons, and Platos have taught it
wisdom; wherefore it is not surprising that a caustic wit and
savage cynic asserts, “The vices, it may be said, await us in
the journey of life like hosts with whom we must successively
lodge; and I doubt whether experience would make us avoid
them if we were to travel the same road a second time.”
Habit may be second nature, but it is the Gurth, the thrall
of the first, — the vassal of inherent impulses; and even the
most ossified natures contain some soft palpitating spot that will
throb against the hand that is sufficiently dexterous to find it.
In every man and woman there lurks a vein of sentiment, which,
no matter how heavily crushed by the superincumbent mass of
utilitarian, practical commonplaceisms, will one day trickle
through the dusty débris, and creep like a silver thread over the
dun waste of selfishness; or, Arethusa-like, burst forth suddenly
after long subterranean wandering.
For forty years it had crawled silently and sluggishly under the
indurated and coldly egoistic nature of Merton Minge, — had
been dammed up at times by avarice and at others by grim
recollections of his domestic infelicity; but finally, after tedious
meandering in the Desert of Heartlessness, it struggled triumphantly
to the surface one glorious autumn night, when a
golden moon illumined the Atlantic waves and kindled a bewitching
an impassioned strain from La Favorite.
Her silvery voice was the miraculous rod that smote his petrified
affections, and a wellspring of tenderness gushed forth,
freshening, softening, and clothing with verdure and bloom his
arid, sterile, stony temperament. Long-buried dreams of his
boyhood stirred in their chilly graves and flitted dimly before
him, and a hope that had slumbered so soundly he had utterly
ignored its memory, started up, eager and starry-eyed, as in the
college days of eld, — the precious hope, underlying all other
emotions in a man's heart, that one day he too would be loved
and prayed for by a pure womanly heart, and pure, sweet,
womanly lips.
Fifteen years before, he had vowed “to cherish,” not the
haughty girl whose hand he clasped, but the five hundred thousand
dollars that gilded it; and faithfully he had kept his oath
to the god of his idolatry, sacrificing the best half of his life to
insatiate Kuvera.
On that cloudless October night, as he watched the shimmer
of the moon on Salome's silky hair, and noted the purely oval
outline of her daintily carved face, and the childish grace of her
fine form, — as he listened to flute-like tones, as irresistible as
Parthenope's, his cold, formal, non-committal mouth stirred, his
hand involuntarily opened and closed firmly, as if grasping
some “pearl of great price,” and his slow, almost stagnant
pulses, leaped into feverish activity, and soon ran riot. Perhaps
more regular features, and deeper, richer carnation bloom had
confronted him, but love makes sad havoc of ideals and abstract
standards, and he who defined beauty, “the woman I love,” was
wiser than Burke and more analytical than Cousin.
The freshness, the brusquerie, the outspoken honesty, that
characterized Salome, strangely fascinated this grave, selfish,
blasé aristocrat, who was weary of hollow, polished conventionalities
and stereotyped society phrases; and, as he sat on deck
watching her countenance, he would have counted out his fortune
at her feet for the privilege of claiming her fair, slender hand,
him.
Henceforth life had a different goal, a nobler aim, a tenderer
and more precious hope; and all the energy of his vigorous
character was bent to the fulfilment of the beautiful dream that
one day that young girl would bear his name, grace his princely
home, and nestle in his heart.
He did not ask, Can that fair, graceful, gifted young thing
ever love a gray-haired man, old enough to call her his daughter?
Nay, nay! Common sense was utterly dethroned and
expelled, — romance usurped the realm, and draped the future
with rainbows; and he only set his teeth firmly against each
other, and said to his bounding heart and blinded soul, “Patience,
ye shall soon possess her!”
To Paris, Lyons, Naples, he had followed her, and finally
secured a villa at Palermo, where Prof. V— had established
himself and his household in a comfortable suite of rooms.
To-day, as he left his sister and approached the house where
the professor dwelt, his countenance was moody and forbidding,
but its expression changed rapidly, as he caught a glimpse of
the white muslin dress that fluttered in the evening wind.
Salome was swiftly pacing the wide terrace that commanded
a view of the Mediterranean, and her hands were clasped behind
her, as was her habit when immersed in thought.
Over her head she had thrown a white gauze scarf of fringed
silk, which, slipping back, displayed the elaborate braids of hair
wound around the head, where a crescent of snowy hyacinths
partially encircled the glossy coil, and drooped upon her neck.
Her face wore a haggard, anxious, restless expression, and
the thin lips had lost their bright coral tint, — the smooth, clear
cheeks something of their rounded perfection.
As Mr. Minge came forward, she paused in her walk and
leaned against the marble railing of the terrace, where a lemon
tree, white with bloom, overhung the mosaiced floor and powdered
it with velvety petals.
He held out his hand.
“I hope I find you better?”
“Do I look so, think you?” said she, eyeing him impatiently,
and keeping her hands folded behind her.
“Unfortunately, no; and if I possessed the right I have more
than once solicited, other physicians should be consulted. Why
will you tamper with so serious a matter, and unnecessarily
augment the anxiety of those who love you?”
“I beg you to believe that my self-love is infinitely stronger
than any other with which I am honored, and prompts me to
all possible prudential precautions. Three doctors have already
annoyed me with worthless prescriptions, and this morning I
paid their bills and dismissed them; whereupon, one of them
revenged himself by maliciously informing me that I should not
be able to sing a note for one year at least.
“To what do they attribute the disease?”
“To that attack of scarlet fever, and also to the too frequent
and severe cauterization of my throat. Time was when like
other fond fools, I fancied Fate was not the hideous hag that
wiser heads had painted her, but an affable old dame, easily
cajoled and propitiated. With Carthaginian gratitude she repays
my complimentary opinion by trampling my hopes and
aims as I crush these petals, which yield perfume to their
spoiler, while I could —”
She put her foot upon the drifting lemon blossoms, and bit
her lip to keep back the bitter words that trembled on her
tongue.
“Come and sit here on the steps, and confide your plans to
one whose every scheme shall be subordinated to your wishes,
your happiness.”
Mr. Minge attempted to take her hand, but she drew back
and repulsed him.
“Excuse me. I prefer to remain where I am; and when I am
so fortunate and sagacious as to mature any plans, I shall be
sure to lock them in my own heart beyond the tender mercies
of meddling, marplot fortune.”
Her whole face grew dark, sinister, almost dangerous in its
sudden transformation, and, leaning against the railing, she impatiently
swept off the snowy lemon leaves. Mr. Minge took
heavily.
“Of course you are forced to abandon your contemplated
début in Paris?”
“Yes. A début miuus a voice, does not tempt me. Ah! how
bright the future looked when I sang for the agent of the Opera-House,
and found myself engaged for the season. How changed,
how cheerless all things seem now.”
“Salome, fate is Janus-faced, and while frowning on you
smiles benignantly on me. I joyfully hail every obstacle that
bars your path, hoping that, weary of useless resistance, you
will consent to walk in the flowery one I have offered you. My
beautiful darling, why will you refuse the —”
“Silence! I am in no mood to listen to a repetition of sentiments
which, however flattering to my vanity, have no power
to touch my heart. Mr. Minge, I have twice declined the offer
you have done me the honor to make; and while proud of your
preference, my Saxon is not so ambiguous or redundant as to
leave any margin for misconception of my meaning.”
“My dear Salome, I fear your decision has been influenced by
the consciousness that my poor, petted Constance has occasionally
neglected the courtesies which you had a right to claim
from the sister of the man who seeks to make you his wife.”
“No, sir; your sister's sneers, and the petty slights and persecutions
for which I am indebted to her friend, Miss Sutherland,
have not sufficient importance to affect me in any degree.
My decision is based upon the unfortunate fact that I do not
love you.”
“No woman can withstand such devotion as I bring you, and
time would soon soften and deepen your feelings.”
“Sir, you unduly flatter yourself. Neither time nor eternity
would change me, and you would do well to remember that it is
my voice, sir, — not my hand and heart, — that I offer for
sale.”
“Your stubborn rejection is explicable only by the supposition
that you have deceived me, — that you have already bartered
away the heart I long to call my own.”
“I am a miller's child, — you a millionnaire; but permit
me to remind you that I allow no imputation on my veracity.
Why should I condescend to deceive you?”
She petulantly snatched her scarf from the fingers that still
stroked it caressingly; but an instant later a singular change
swept over her countenance, and pressing her hands to her
heart, she said in a proud, almost exultant tone, —
“Although I deny your right to question me upon this subject,
you are thoroughly welcome to know that I love one man
so entirely, so deathlessly, that the bare thought of marrying
any one else sickens my soul.”
Mr. Minge turned pale, and grasped the carved balustrade
against which he rested.
“O Salome! you have trifled.”
“No, sir. Take that back. I never stoop to trifling; and
the curse of my life has been my almost fatal earnestness of
purpose. If I ever deliberated one moment concerning the
expediency of clothing myself first with your aristocratic
name, afterwards with satin, velvet, and diamonds, — if I ever
silenced the outcry of my heart long enough to ask myself
whether gilded misery was not the least torturing type of the
epidemic wretchedness, — at least I kept my parley with Mammon
to myself; and if you obstinately cherished hopes of final
success, they sprang from your vanity, not my dissimulation.
Mark you, I here set up no claim to sanctity, — for indeed my
sins are `thick as leaves in Vallombrosa'; but my pedigree does
not happen to link me with Sapphira, and deceit is not charged
to me in the real Doomsday Book. Theft would be more possible
for me than falsehood, for while both are labelled `wicked,'
I could never dwarf and shrivel my soul by the cowardly
process of mendacity. Mr. Minge, had I been a trifle less
honest and true than I find myself, I might have impaired my
self-respect by trifling.”
“Forgive me, Salome, if the pain I endure rendered me harsh
or unjust. My dearest, I did not intend to wound you, but
indeed you are cruel sometimes.”
“Yes; truth is the most savagely cruel of all rude, jagged
and these are the hurts that never cicatrize, — that gape and
bleed while the heart throbs to feed them.”
“Tell me candidly whether the heart I covet belongs to
that Mr. Granville, who paid you such devoted attention in
Paris.”
A short, scornful, mirthless laugh rang sharply on the air,
and turning quickly, Salome exclaimed contemptuously, —
“I said I loved a man, — a true, honest, brave, noble man, —
not that perfumed, unprincipled, vain, foppish automaton, who
adorns a corner of the diplomatic apartment where attachés of
the American embassy `most do congregate'! Gerard Granville
is unworthy of any woman's affection, for maugre the indisputable
fact that he is betrothed to a fond, trusting girl, now
in the United States, he had the effrontery to attempt to offer
his addresses to me. If an honest man be the noblest work of
God, then, beyond all peradventure, the disgrace of creation is
centred in an unscrupulous one, such as I have the honor to
pronounce Mr. Granville.”
Seizing her hands, Mr. Minge carried them forcibly to his lips,
and said, in a voice that faltered from intensity of feeling, —
“Is it the hope that your love is reciprocated which bars
your heart so sternly against my pleadings? Spare me no
pangs, — tell me all.”
She freed her fingers from his grasp, and retreating a few
steps, answered with a passionate mournfulness which he never
forgot, —
“If I were dowered with that precious hope, not all the
crown jewels in Christendom and Heathendom could purchase
it. Not the proudest throne on that continent of empires that
lies yonder to the north, could woo me one hour from the only
kingdom where I could happily reign, — the heart of the man I
love. No — no — no! That hope is as distant as the first star
up there above us, which has rent the blue veil of heaven to
gaze pityingly at me; and I would as soon expect to catch that
silver sparkle and fold it in my arms as dream that my affection
could ever be returned. The only man I shall ever love
towers beyond me, a pinnacle of unapproachable purity and perfection.
Ah, indeed, he is one of those concerning whom it
has been grandly said: `The truly great stand upright as columns
of the temple whose dome covers all, — against whose pillared
sides multitudes lean, at whose base they kneel in times
of trouble.' Mr. Minge, it is despair that crouches at my heart,
not hope that shuts its portals against your earnest petition; for
a barrier wider, deeper than a hundred oceans divides me from
my idol, who loves, and ere this, is the husband of another.”
She did not observe the glow that once more mantled his
cheek, and fired his eyes, until he exclaimed with unusual
fervor, —
“Thank God! That fact is freighted with priceless comfort.”
Compassion and contempt seemed struggling for mastery, as
she waved him from her, and answered, impatiently, —
“Think you that any other need hope to usurp my monarch's
place, —that one inferior dare expect to wield his sceptre over
my heart? Pardon me, —
Must then the owl be king among the feathered herds?'
music, and your heart with peace and sunshine; and, in that
hour, thank honest Salome Owen for the blessings you owe to
her candor. I must bid you good-night.”
She drew the scarf closer about her head and throat, and
turned to leave the terrace.
“Will you not allow me to drive you to-morrow afternoon on
the Marino? Do not refuse me this innocent and inexpressibly
valued privilege. I will not be denied! Good-night, my —
Heaven shield you, my worshipped one! Hush!—I will hear
no refusal.”
He stooped, kissed the folds of the scarf that covered her
head, and hurried down the steps of the terrace.
The glory of a Sicilian sunset bathed the face and figure that
stood a moment under the lemon-boughs, watching the retreating
olive, and palm; and a tender compassion looked out of the
large hazel eyes, and sat on the sad lips that murmured, —
“God help you, Merton Minge, to strangle the viper that
coils in your heart, and gnaws its core. My own is a serpent's
lair, and I pity the pangs that rend yours also. But after a
little while, your viper will find a file, — mine, alas! not until
death arrests the slow torture. To-morrow afternoon I shall be
— where? Only God knows.”
She shivered slightly, and raised her beautiful eyes towards
the west, where golden gleams and violet shadows were battling
for possession of a reef of cloud islets, which dotted the azure
upper sea of air, and were reflected in the watery one beneath.
“Courage! courage!
Have nothing left to dread.'”
| CHAPTER XXVIII. Vashti, or, "Until death us do part" | |