Anne Part 39

Anne felt at once the touch of real feeling. "I am very sorry," she said, gently, looking up into his face. "I should have said it at first, but that I did not think you were in earnest until now. I am engaged, Mr. Dexter; I was engaged before I came here."

"But," said Dexter, "Miss Vanhorn--"

"Yes, I know. Grandaunt does not approve of it, and will not countenance it. But that, of course, makes no difference."

He looked at her, puzzled by her manner. In truth, poor Anne, while immovably determined to keep her promise to Rast, even cherishing the purpose, also, of hastening the marriage if he wished it, was yet so inefficient an actress that she trembled as she spoke, and returned his gaze through a mist of tears.

"You _wish_ to marry this man, I suppose--I am ignorant of his name?" he asked, watching her with attention.

"His name is Erastus p.r.o.nando; we were children together on the island,"

she answered, in a low voice, with downcast eyes.

"And you wish to marry him?"

"I do."

Gregory Dexter put another disappointment down upon the tablets of his memory--a disappointment and a surprise; he had not once doubted his success.

In this certainty he had been deceived partly by Miss Vanhorn, and partly by Anne herself; by her unstudied frankness. He knew that she liked him, but he had mistaken the nature of her regard. He could always control himself, however, and he now turned to her kindly. He thought she was afraid of her aunt. "Sit down for a few minutes more," he said, "and tell me about it. Why does Miss Vanhorn disapprove?"

"I do not know," replied Anne; "or, rather, I do know, but can not tell you. Never mind about me, Mr. Dexter. I am unhappy; but no one can help me. I must help myself."

"Mr. p.r.o.nando should esteem it his dearest privilege to do so," said Dexter, who felt himself growing old and cynical under this revelation of fresh young love.

"Yes," murmured Anne, then stopped. "If you will leave me now," she said, after a moment, "it would be very kind."

"I will go, of course, if you desire it; but first let me say one word.

Your aunt objects to this engagement, and you have neither father nor mother to take your part. I have a true regard for you, which is not altered by the personal disappointment I am at present feeling; it is founded upon a belief in you which can not change. Can I not help you, then, as a friend? For instance, could I not help Mr. p.r.o.nando--merely as a friend? I know what it is to have to make one's own way in the world unaided. I feel for such boys--I mean young men. What does he intend to do? Give me his address."

"No," said Anne, touched by this prompt kindness. "But I feel your generosity, Mr. Dexter; I shall never forget it." Her eyes filled with tears, but she brushed them away. "Will you leave me now?" she said.

"Would it not be better if we returned together? I mean, would not Miss Vanhorn notice it less? You could excuse yourself soon afterward."

"You are right. I will go down with you. But first, do I not show--" she went toward the mirror.

"Show what?" said Dexter, following her, and standing by her side. "That you are one of the loveliest young girls in the world--as you look to-night, the loveliest?" He smiled at her reflection in the mirror as he spoke, and then turned toward the reality. "You show nothing," he said, kindly; "and my eyes are very observant."

They went toward the door; as they reached it, he bent over her. "If this engagement should by any chance be broken, then could you not love me a little, Anne--only a little?" he murmured, looking into her eyes questioningly.

"I wish I could," she answered, gravely. "You are a generous man. I would like to love you."

"But you could not?"

"I can not."

He pressed her hand in silence, opened the door, and led the way down to the hall-room. They had been absent one hour.

Blum, who was standing disconsolately near the entrance, watching Helen, came up and asked Anne to dance. Reluctant to go to her grandaunt before it was necessary, she consented. She glanced nervously up and down the long room as they took their places, but Heathcote was not present. Her gaze then rested upon another figure moving through the dance at some distance down the hall. Mrs. Lorrington in her costume that evening challenged criticism. She did this occasionally--it was one of her amus.e.m.e.nts. Her dress was of almost the same shade of color as her hair, the hue unbroken from head to foot, the few ornaments being little stars of topaz. Her shoulders and arms were uncovered; and here also she challenged criticism, since she was so slight that in profile view she looked like a swaying reed. But as there was not an angle visible anywhere, her fair slenderness seemed a new kind of beauty, which all, in spite of sculptor's rules, must now admire. Rachel called her, smilingly, "the amber witch." But Isabel said, "No; witch-hazel; because it is so beautiful, and yellow, and sweet." Rachel, Isabel, and Helen always said charming things about each other in public: they had done this unflinchingly for years.

Miss Vanhorn was watching her niece from her comfortable seat on the other side of the room, and watching with some impatience. But the Haunted Man was now asking Anne to dance, and Anne was accepting. After that dance she went out on the piazza for a few moments; when she returned, Heathcote was in the room, and waltzing with Helen.

All her courage left her before she could grasp it, and hardly knowing what she was doing, she went directly across the floor to Miss Vanhorn, and asked if she might go to her room.

Miss Vanhorn formed one of a majestic phalanx of old ladies. "Are you tired?" she asked.

"Very tired," said Anne, not raising her eyes higher than the stout waist before her, clad in shining black satin.

"She does look pale," remarked old Mrs. Bannert, sympathizingly.

"Anne is always sleepy at eight or nine, like a baby," replied Miss Vanhorn, well aware that the dark-eyed Rachel was decidedly a night-bird, and seldom appeared at breakfast at all; "and she has also a barbarous way of getting up at dawn. Go to bed, child, if you wish; your bowl of bread and milk will be ready in the morning." Then, as Anne turned, she added: "You will be asleep when I come up; I will not disturb you. Take a good rest." Which Anne interpreted, "I give you that amount of time: think well before you act." The last respite was accorded.

But even a minute is precious to the man doomed to death. Anne left the ball-room almost with a light heart: she had the night. She shut herself in her room, took off the lace dress, loosened her hair, and sat down by the window to think. The late moon was rising; a white fog filled the valley and lay thickly over the river; but she left the sash open--the cool damp air seemed to soothe her troubled thoughts. For she knew--and despised herself in the knowledge--that the strongest feeling in her heart now was jealousy, jealousy of Helen dancing with Heathcote below.

Time pa.s.sed unheeded; she had not stirred hand or foot when, two hours later, there was a tap on her door. It was Helen.

"Do not speak," she whispered, entering swiftly and softly, and closing the door; "the Grand Llama is coming up the stairs. I wanted to see you, and I knew that if I did not slip in before she pa.s.sed, I could not get in without disturbing her. Do not stir; she will stop at your door and listen."

They stood motionless; Miss Vanhorn's step came along the hall, and, as Helen had predicted, paused at Anne's door. There was no light within, and no sound; after a moment it pa.s.sed on, entered the parlor, and then the bedroom beyond.

"If Bessmer would only close the bedroom door," whispered Helen, "we should be quite safe." At this moment the maid did close the door; Helen gave a sigh of relief. "I never could whisper well," she said. "Only cat-women whisper nicely. Isabel is a cat-woman. Now when it comes to a murmur--a faint, clear, sweet murmur, I am an adept. I wonder if Isabel will subdue her widower? You have been here long enough to have an opinion. Will she?"

"I do not know," said Anne, wondering at her own ability to speak the words.

"And I--do not care! I am tired, Crystal: may I lie on your bed? Do close that deathly window, and come over here, so that we can talk comfortably," said Helen, throwing herself down on the white coverlet--a long slender shape, with its white arms clasped under its head. The small room was in shadow. Anne drew a chair to the bedside and sat down, with her back to the moonlight.

"This is a miserable world," began Mrs. Lorrington. Her companion, sitting with folded arms and downcast eyes, mentally agreed with her.

"Of course _you_ do not think so," continued Helen, "and perhaps, being such a crystal-innocent, you will never find it out. There are such souls. There are also others; and it is quite decided that I hate--Rachel Bannert, who is one of them."

Anne had moved nervously, but at that name she fell back into stillness again.

"Rachel is the kind of woman I dread more than any other," continued Helen. "Her strength is feeling. Feeling! I tell you, Crystal, that you and I are capable of loving, and suffering for the one we love, through long years of pain, where Rachel would not wet the sole of her slipper.

Yet men believe in her! The truth is, men are fools: one sigh deceives them."

"Then sigh," said the figure in the chair.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "ANNE DREW A CHAIR TO THE BEDSIDE AND SAT DOWN, WITH HER BACK TO THE MOONLIGHT."]

"No; that is not my talent: I must continue to be myself. But _I_ saw her on the piazza with Ward to-night; and I detest her."

"With--Mr. Heathcote?"

"Yes. Of course nothing would be so much to her disadvantage as to marry Ward, and she knows it; he has no fortune, and she has none. But she loves to make me wretched. I made the greatest mistake of my life when I let her see once, more than a year ago, how things were."

"How things were?" repeated Anne--that commonplace phrase which carries deep meanings safely because unexpressed.

"Of course there is no necessity to tell _you_, Crystal, what you must already know--that Ward and I are in a certain way betrothed. It is an old affair: we have known each other always."

"Yes," said the other voice, affirmatively and steadily.