A Face Illumined Part 10

"I suppose you are satisfied by this time, Stanton," began Van Berg, as they drove away, "that I was very safe in offering you that picture on the conditions named, and that you have not the ghost of a chance of obtaining it."

"Nonsense," replied Stanton. "The picture is practically won already.

I admit that Miss Burton is an exception to all her species; and, now that I have seen her, I prove how little I am under the influence of prejudice by acknowledging the fact, and by giving her credit for her courage and agreeable manners. But how absurd to imagine that this plain little stranger can ever be to me more than she is to-day--a summer acquaintance at a summer resort! She will soon drop from our memories and leave no more trace than these rustling leaves overhead after they have fulfilled their brief purpose."

"Here's a symptom already," cried Van Berg. "My matter-of-fact friend is already in the subtle current, and unconsciously drops into sentiment, and expresses himself in poetic trope. I foresee that the 'rustling leaves' will end in a rustling wedding-robe and gorgeous apparel; for when you cage the 'brown thrush' you will have the bad taste to insist on a change of plumage."

"I begin to understand you at last," retorted Stanton. "You have been smitten yourself, and this is your strategy to conceal the fact.

The trouble is that you have overdone the matter, and revealed your transfixed heart long before I should have suspected the wound.

Had you not better commence on the picture soon, for this matter may disable you for a season?"

"I won't swear that I will not become your rival, for our little heroine interests me hugely. There is something back of her smiling face. Her manner seems like crystal in its frankness, and yet I think few in the house will ever become better acquainted with her than they are to-day."

"I shall take more than a languid interest in watching you progress with this smiling sphinx," said Stanton, "and in the mean time shall gloat over my picture."

"Well, Barney," said Van Berg, as they drove up to the stables on their return, "you did have a streak of good luck this afternoon.

I hope you are grateful to the lady who secured it for you."

"Faix, sur, an' I niver seed the likes o' her afore. The smilin'

look she gave me jist warmed the very core o' me heart, and her swate eyes seemed to say, 'Nary a bit o' ill-luck would ye have again, Barney, had I me way.' What's more, she's a goin' to intercade for the nurse-maid. They nadn't tell me that all the heretics will stay in purgatory."

"Look here, Stanton, were I a theologian I'd make a note of that.

Miss Burton has discovered a logic that routs superst.i.tion."

Van Berg quite longed for the supper hour, that he might resume conversation with the interesting stranger, and he was promptly in his place at the table. But she did not appear. The lady with whom she had been conversing, remarked:

"She was taken suddenly ill, just as you and your friend drove away this afternoon. Learning from Mr. Burleigh that she is here alone and without friends, I knocked at her door before I came down, and asked if I could do anything for her. She said that she would be better in the morning, and that all she needed was perfect quiet. It's strange how suddenly she was taken ill! She seemed perfectly well one moment, and then she fled to her room as if the ghost were in pursuit. I suppose it was reaction from excitement; or she may have some form of heart disease."

"Are heart difficulties so serious as that with ladies?" asked Van Berg with a smile.

"I never had acute symptoms of any kind," the lady replied. "Indeed I think I am a trifle cold and matter-of-fact in my disposition, but I began to thaw so perceptibly under Miss Burton's influence that I became quite interested in her. I think I deserve some credit for saving the child also, for it was I who kept her talking in the doorway. Most people are a weariness to me, and I was surprised to find so marked an exception."

It must not be supposed that Van Berg's interest in the new arrival had led him to forget the motive which had brought him to the Lake House. This would not be in accordance with his character, and as far as possible, he had been closely observant of Miss Mayhew during the scenes of the afternoon. He had been rewarded by discovering, for the first time, that she was at least capable of a good and generous impulse, for her face had been expressive of genuine admiration and gladness when she saw Miss Burton with the rescued child in her arms after the carriage swept by. In this expression he obtained a clearer hint than he had ever before received of the beauty that might be her constant possession could the mean and marring traits of her character be exchanged for qualities in harmony with her perfect features. But while this gleam, this flash of ideal beauty increased his desire for success in his experiment, the young lady's bearing towards him was as discouraging as ever. If he had not been at Miss Burton's side, he believed that she would have come forward and offered her congratulations as had several other ladies. It would seem that her vanity had been so severely wounded she would never forgive him, and he determined he would no longer make a martyr of himself by playing the agreeable to all in the hotel in the hope that, by pouring so much oil on the waters, even her asperity might be removed. He half believed that she recognized his effort to form her acquaintance, and found a malicious pleasure in thwarting him.

Therefore, he decided to take his sketch-book and go off upon the hills in the morning, thus enjoying a little respite from his apparently philanthropic labors.

Before he left the breakfast table the following day, Miss Burton appeared. He thought he detected an ominous redness about her eyes, as well as the pallor which would be the natural result of illness; but she seemed to have recovered her spirits, and the rather quiet and self-absorbed little group that had hitherto seriously devoted themselves to steak and coffee, speedily brightened up under her pleasantries. Indeed she kept them lingering so long that the Mayhews and Stanton pa.s.sed out before them, the latter casting a wistful glance at the cheerful party, for he had been having a stupid time.

When, much later than he expected, he started on his brief sketching excursion he found that his mind was kindled and aglow with pleasant thoughts, and that the summer landscape had been made sunnier by the sunny face he had just left.

But as he plodded his way back late in the afternoon, the sunbeams, no longer genial, became oppressive, and he was glad to hail one of the hotel stages that was returning from a neighboring village.

The vehicle already contained two adult pa.s.sengers. One was a stout, red-faced woman with a baby and an indefinite number of parcels, and the other was--Ida Mayhew, who was returning from a brief shopping excursion.

As the latter saw Van Berg enter she colored, bit her lip, half frowned, and looked steadfastly away from him. Thus the stage lumbered on with its oddly a.s.sorted inmates, that, although belonging to the same human family, seemed to have as little in common as if each had come from a different planet. That Miss Mayhew looked so resolutely away from him was rather to Van Berg's advantage, for it gave him a chance to compare her exquisite profile with the expanse, slightly diversified, of the broad red face opposite.

The stout woman held her baby as if it were a bundle, and stared straight before her. As far as Van Berg could observe, not a trace of an idea or a change of expression flitted across the wide area of her sultry visage, and he found himself speculating as to whether the minds of these two women differed as greatly as their outward appearance. Indeed he questioned whether one had any more mind than the other, and was inclined to think that despite their widely separated spheres of life they were equally dwarfed.

While he was thus amusing himself with the contrasts, physical and metaphysical, which the two pa.s.sengers opposite him presented, the stout woman suddenly looked out of the window at her side, and then, in a tone that would startle the quietest nerves, shouted to the driver:

"Hold on!"

Miss Mayhew half rose from her seat and looked around with something like dismay; but as she only encountered Van Berg's slightly humorous expression, she colored more deeply than before, and recalled her eyes to the farther angle of the stage with a fixedness and rigidity as great as if it had contained the head of Medusa.

Meantime the driver drew up to a small cottage by the road-side, and scrambled down from his seat that he might a.s.sist the stout woman with her acc.u.mulation of bundles. She handed him out the baby, preferring to look after the more precious parcels herself.

Van Berg politely held the door open for her; but just as she was squeezing through the stage entrance with her arms full and had her foot on the last step, her cottage door flew open with something to the effect of an explosion, and out burst three or four children with a perfect din of cries and shouts. Two vociferous dogs joined in the sudden uproar; the hitherto drowsy horses started as if a bomb-sh.e.l.l had dropped under their noses, and speedily broke into a mad gallop, leaving the stout woman prostrate upon her bundles in the road, and the driver helplessly holding her baby.

Miss Mayhew's cold rigidity vanished at once. Indeed dignity was impossible in the swaying, bounding vehicle. There was a momentary effort to ignore her companion, and then terror overcame all scruples. Turning her white face towards him, she exclaimed:

"Are we not in great danger?"

"I admit I would rather be in my chair on Mr. Burleigh's piazza.

With your permission, I will come to your end of the stage and speak to the horses through the open window."

"Oh, come--do anything under heaven to stop these horrid beasts."

Van Berg edged his way up a little past Miss Mayhew, and began speaking to the frightened horses in firm, quiet tones. At first they paid no heed to him, and as the stage made a sudden and desperate lurch, the young lady commenced to scream.

"If you do that you will insure the breaking of both our necks,"

said Van Berg, sharply. "If you will keep quiet I think I can stop them. See, we have quite a stretch of level road beyond us, before we come to a hill. Give me a chance to quiet them."

The terror-stricken girl kept still for a moment, and then started up, saying

"I shall spring out."

"No, Miss Mayhew, you must not do that," said Van Berg, decidedly.

"You must be greatly injured, and you would with almost certainty be disfigured for life if you sprang out upon the stony road. You could not help falling on your face."

"Oh, horrible!" she exclaimed.

At the next heavy lurch of the stage she half-rose again to carry out her rash purpose, but the artist seized her hand and held her in her place, at the same time speaking kindly and firmly to the horses. They now began to heed his voice, and to recover from their panic.

"See, Miss Mayhew," he said, "you have only to control yourself a few moments longer, and our danger is over."

"Oh, do stop them, quick," she gasped, clinging to his hand as if he were her only hope, "and I'll never forget your kind--oh, merciful heaven!"

At this favorable moment, when the horses were fast coming under control, a spiteful cur came tearing out after them, renewing their panic with tenfold intensity. As the dog barked on one side they sheered off on the other, until they plunged down the side of the road. The stage was nearly overturned, and then it stopped with a sudden and heavy thump. Miss Mayhew was precipitated into Mr.

Van Berg's arms, and she clung to him for a moment in a paroxysm of terror. His wits had not so far deserted him but that he perceived that the stage had struck against a tree, that the horses had broken away, and that he and his companion were perfectly safe. If the whole truth must be told, it cannot be said that he endured the young lady's embrace with only cold and stoical philosophy. He found it wholly novel and not a painful experience. Indeed he was conscious of a temptation to delay the information of their escape, but a second's thought taught him that he must at once employ all his tact in the delicate and difficult task of reconciling the frightened girl to herself and her own conduct; otherwise her pride, and also her sense of delicacy, would now receive a new and far deeper wound, and a more hopeless estrangement follow. He therefore promptly lifted her up, and placed her limp form on the opposite seat.

"I a.s.sure you we are now perfectly safe, Miss Mayhew," he said; "and let me congratulate you that your self-control prevented you from leaving the stage, for if you had done so you would undoubtedly have been greatly injured."

"Where--where are--the horses?" she faltered.

"I really do not know! They have disappeared. The stage struck a tree, and the brutes broke away. They will probably gallop home to the alarm and excitement of every one about the hotel. Pray compose yourself. The house is not far away, and we can soon reach it if you are not very much hurt."

"Are you sure the danger is all over?"

"Yes; this is now not the slightest chance of a tragedy."