A Black Adonis Part 15

"Possibly, touch your lips with his?"

Miss Fern rose to her feet with a fierce gesture.

"Sir!" she exclaimed.

"Very well," replied Mr. Weil, shortly, turning away.

The girl resumed her seat, with rapidly rising and falling bosom. She was in a quandary. The suggestion she had heard would have sounded from any other lips like a premeditated insult. Coming from this man the venom seemed to have vanished.

Roseleaf felt somewhat discouraged after his latest talk with Weil. He wanted to make a start, to do something, no matter how little, toward the object he fully believed was to be attained. That evening while walking with Miss Fern (for it was their frequent habit to go out of doors unchaperoned) he found himself unconsciously taking her hand--that hand for which he had until now felt a genuine fright. And she, after all her resolutions never to permit anything of the sort, gave it to him, as they strolled together along an unfrequented byway.

"I want so much to make a Name," he was saying fervently. "I have tried and tried to begin such a book as Mr. Gouger wants, but I cannot. Won't you help me, dear Miss Fern? Won't you show me what I lack? I know you can, if you will. They tell me I have had no experiences, and that I must have--not a real affair, you know, but an inkling of what it is like. I have tried to say things to you and have been in fear that you would not like them, and have held my peace. But now, I can wait no longer."

In his exuberance Roseleaf spoke at last with ardor, and even went so far as to attempt to put one of his arms around the waist of the fair creature by his side. On her part Miss Fern was nearly overcome by surprise.

In one instant the timid young gentleman had changed into the similitude of a most ardent swain; but in the next he became again his natural self, with the added confusion resulting from his excited and mortified state.

"Let me take you home," he said, when he saw that she could find no words even to chide him. "Let me take you home; and to-morrow I will go away."

Go away! She did not like that idea! Her book was not yet finished, for one thing; and besides he was a nice young fellow, and had meant no offense.

"There is no reason why you should go," she stammered. "I forgive you, I am sure."

"Do you!" cried Roseleaf, grasping her hand again in his joy. "You are kindness itself to say so. I must appear very stupid" (here he half put his arm around her again, checking himself with difficulty from completeing the movement) "and dull, and wanting in manners, but you are the only young lady I have ever known on terms of the least intimacy."

Miss Fern replied that she did not mind what had occurred, and hoped he would forget it. She added that she would do anything she could for him, and had the most earnest wish that they should be friends.

At the gate they paused, and in some way their eyes were looking into each other. The girl laughed, a relief to feelings that had been for the past ten minutes somewhat overcharged.

"Well, you have made a beginning," she said, mischievously, for she wanted to drive the sober expression from his clouded face.

"A beginning?" he echoed.

"Yes," she said. "You have held my hand."

He crimsoned.

"You said you would forgive me," he murmured.

"With all my heart," she responded, putting the hand in his again.

He felt a thrill go through him, but it was a pleasant sensation.

"I came very near putting my arm around you," said he, looking away from her. "Do you forgive that, too?"

She took the hand away and struck him playfully on the cheek with the palm of it.

Then, before he surmised what she intended, she ran brightly up the steps of the house and vanished.

CHAPTER IX.

"DAISY, MY DARLING!"

It was Roseleaf's full intention to say something about this adventure to his instructor in the art of love, Mr. Archie Weil, but somehow he was not able to summon the requisite courage. He had a delicate sense that such a thing ought not to be repeated, where it might by any possibility bring a laugh. And about this time the novelist's attention began to be attracted toward the younger sister, who had till then almost entirely escaped his observation.

He noticed particularly the ceaseless devotion that the black servant of the family exhibited toward her. She might have been a G.o.ddess and he a devotee; a queen and he her slave. Hannibal moved about the girl like her very shadow, ready to antic.i.p.ate her slightest wants, while Daisy seemed to take this excess of attention as a matter of course.

Millicent constantly showed her dislike for the servant.

"I don't see how you can endure to have him touch you," she said to Daisy. "He knows better than to lay his hands on me. I have told papa often that I want him discharged, and he ought to consider my wishes a little."

To this Daisy answered that the boy, as she persisted in calling the giant, meant well and was certainly intelligent. Her father did not like to change servants, for it took him a long time to get used to new ones. So Millicent tossed her head, returned to her collaboration with Mr. Roseleaf, and things went on as usual.

Imperceptibly Shirley began to take an interest in Daisy. She did not run away from him, and he discovered, much to his surprise, that she was worth talking to. She was not exactly the child he had supposed, and she had the full value of her eighteen years in her pretty head. He got into the habit of taking short strolls with her, on evenings when Millicent was occupied with Archie, and when, as often happened, Mr. Fern was away with Hannibal in the city. There was a sequestered nook at the far end of the lawn, in which the pair found retreat. Before he realized it, Roseleaf had developed a genuine liking for these rambles, and was pleased when the evenings came that brought Mr. Weil to dinner.

Daisy was ingenuous, to a degree, if surface indications counted for anything. The words that flowed from her red lips were as unstudied as the pretty att.i.tudes she a.s.sumed, or the exceedingly plain but very becoming dresses that she wore. After she once got "used" to Roseleaf she treated him quite as if she had been five years his senior.

"Are you a rich man?" she asked him, on one of those early autumn evenings that they pa.s.sed together.

Her manner was as simple as if she had said that it looked like rain, and his answer was hardly less so.

"No, Daisy. I have not much property, but I intend to earn more, by-and-by. Did you think, because I seem so idle, that I was a millionaire?"

"No," she answered, a shade of disappointment in her face. "I only wanted, in case you had plenty of money, to get you to lend me some."

He stared at her through the half-light. Her features were turned in a direction that did not reveal them very well. What did she want of money!

"How much do you need?" he inquired, wondering if it was within his power to oblige her.

"Oh, too much, I am afraid. And I cannot answer any questions, because the object I have is a secret. I don't think my plan very feasible, for it might be years and years before I could pay it back. You won't mind my speaking of it, will you?"

Curiosity grew stronger, and as politely as possible he renewed his question as to how much the girl needed to carry out her plan.

"I don't know, exactly," she said, thoughtfully. "Perhaps a thousand dollars a year for five or six years; it might take less."

"It is a great deal," he admitted. "Does your father know what you contemplate?"

The girl changed color at once.

"Oh, no. I should not like to have him, either. He would say it was very foolish. And yet I am sure it would not be. The money would do much good--yes, ever so much."

The young man thought hard for a few moments. A desire to see a brighter light flash into those young eyes possessed him. He debated seriously the idea of handing her his patrimony, as he would have given her a pound of candy if she had wanted it.

"I might give you part," he said, after a pause. "Perhaps your thousand for the first year or two."