A Romance of Toronto Part 17

"'Mrs. Dale, my friend, Mr. King,' from the tower-crowned city, dear."

"And you come to a spire-crowned one, at which, Mr. King, don't become unduly elevated."

"I am in the heights," he said, with a swift glance at Mrs. Gower.

"Then beware of the attraction of gravitation," laughed his hostess, thinking, "I shall have to do a little fencing, I can see by his face."

"Excuse me, Elaine, I see my family are arriving."

"Quite a cavalcade, Mr. King," she said, gaily.

"And mercy me, that young monkey is on horseback, while the driver is giving his attention to bell ringing; I must fly. May I bring them upstairs, Elaine?"

"Certainly, dear; and as your colony will want you all to themselves, send Miss Crew to the drawing-room; she will be happy with the piano."

"How handsome he is; I wonder if he thought me uneven," mused Mrs. Dale, as she left the library.

"Thank heaven, they are all despatched," he said, fervently, leaning over the back of her chair; "look around at me, dear, and tell me I am welcome."

"You are;" and turning her face, her cheek was brushed by his whiskers; "but I am going to be very proper, and tell you to take that very comfortable chair, at the other side of the room."

"Why, what have I done; don't send me away, when my heart is bursting to take you in my arms."

"With your temperament, how full, metaphorically speaking, your arms must be."

"No, no; you only, with your warm eyes and handsome mouth."

"Come, come; no more of this, Mr. King."

"Since when have you dropped Cyril; I cannot bear my surname from your lips."

"'Tis safer so; and you _know_ I have tried to act up to this, since knowing you have a wife."

"Yes, yes, you have; but you magnetized me from the first, and had it not been for that meddling fellow, Dubois, telling you, I believe, dearest, you would have learned to love me, wholly, and alone."

"Thank heaven he did tell me, and in time."

"I think there has been every excuse for me, dearest; you are aware of the circ.u.mstances of my marriage; then, after fifteen years of _such_ wedded bliss, I find you, my heart's mate. I often think how tame life is before the meeting with the one that is to fill one's being with rapturous content; well, if they come to one while one has one's freedom, if not, what miserable loneliness; what an array of jealous fears. Do not turn me out of some corner in your heart, Elaine," he pleaded, "just because the Church and the law come between us; it is no fault of mine that I have met you too late to offer you my name; therefore, pity my misfortune, be kind to me; give me a corner in your affections; you will, won't you, darling," he pleaded, earnestly, his winsome voice coming on the air like sweet notes of song to the accompaniment of 'Il Trovatore,' exquisitely rendered, by Miss Crew, across the hall.

"You must never again talk to me in this strain, Cyril," she says, putting her feelings aside, for she pities him intensely; "it is harmful for both of us; be a man, be brave. I, too, have trials; help me to bear them by seeing you at the post of duty; let us forget that we have hearts; let us harden ourselves by looking at life teeming with ill everywhere.

"Let us, from this moment, begin over again, and talk as though the room was full of a gaping crowd; let us talk of anything but ourselves. Of Chamberlain and the fisheries; of who will run for mayor; of how that hot pickle, the French cabinet, will be formed; of whether Bishop Cleary wishes he had been tongue-tied before his imagination went without bit or curb on our girls; _anything_ but _ourselves_, Cyril, for pity sake."

"No, it will not do, dear; we can never be as common acquaintances, though you charm me in any mood."

"Very well; if that be so, you must go. Those songs, without words, by Miss Crew, with the scent of flowers, have been enough to intoxicate one; but you _know_ that since the knowledge came to me of your having a wife, that I have told you, repeatedly, our acquaintance must end unless you always remember, in our intercourse, the fact of your being bound to another. If you care to meet Mr. and Mrs. Dale, and a young lady friend, stay to luncheon, if you will not more than look at me as a friend--for I will be that."

"I cannot face strangers now, and shall go, but shall write you from the west; and pray let me have a line in answer, saying you will see me on my return?" he said, beseechingly, his handsome face clouded.

"I see I must tell you something I had not intended," she said, nervously, "they are coming downstairs to luncheon; I have promised, nay, am under oath," she said, gravely, "to marry a man who would make trouble, did he hear your words."

"For heaven's sake, Elaine, don't be mad! you would be wretched, chained to a man like that; for the light has all left your dear face, even when you name him."

"Beg pardon, luncheon is served, ma'am," said Thomas.

"I must hasten to the dining-room, and I fear I don't look very calm.

Good-bye; remember and be brave; others there are who have no more a bed of roses than yourself."

"G.o.d bless you, good-bye; and I implore you, say _No_ to him. I speak, as you know, from experience," he whispers, with a tight hand-clasp.

CHAPTER XV.

THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE.

"Your visitor is a strikingly handsome man, Mrs. Gower," said Mr. Dale, coming from the window to the table; "we shall be losing you one of these days as--Mrs. Gower," he continued, noticing by her pallor and the light in her eyes that she had been feeling intensely.

"He is wondrously so; and as well, what is more perilous to the hearts of our s.e.x, he possesses a rare fascination of manner."

"I have been telling Henry not to jump at conclusions, for, perhaps Mr.

King is married," said Mrs. Dale, curiously.

"He is, dear; but your husband is not one of those absurd beings who imagine all one's men friends to be possible suitors."

"Far from it, Mrs. Gower: I am a believer in men and women friendships, and if, in the numerous mistakes society makes, she would obliterate her opposition to such friendships, she would have fewer matrimonial blunders to chronicle."

"That is very true, Mr. Dale; I have frequently found it both mortifying, distressing and annoying to the last degree, at little social gatherings at Toronto, to find myself openly accused of flirtation, because some man friend and I dared to enjoy a _tete-a-tete_ chat on some mutual topic of interest."

"But some women do flirt when they get a man in a corner, whether he is married or no," said Mrs. Dale.

"Yes; but because some do, we should not all drift as we are, into no conversation between the s.e.xes," said Mrs. Gower.

"No, certainly not," said Dale; "Emerson says, 'I prize the mechanics of conversation, 'tis pulley, lever and screw;' and it is especially delightful between men and women--when it occurs."

"Yes, as you say--when it occurs--Mr. Dale; but why is it, that the more solid tone of conversation of men is so seldom blended with the, at times more refined, even if it be more frivolous, chit-chat of my s.e.x?

Simply because of our dread of gossip?"

"Then there is something 'rotten in the state of Denmark,'" said Mrs.

Dale.

"There is, dear," said Mrs. Gower, gravely, rising from the table.

"Mr. Smyth is in the library, ma'am," said Thomas.

"Oh, ask him if he has lunched, Thomas."