At the Age of Eve Part 16

"A bully one. I found it down home the other day--last week when I was out there--while I was rummaging in a box of ancient books and papers.

Wait, I'll run up-stairs and get it."

He returned almost immediately with a book in his hand, a ponderous old tome it was, with yellowed edges and time-stained leather covers, but I saw a name on the back which sent my pulses throbbing with pleasure.

"Moore's _Life of Byron_," I said, reaching out for it eagerly. Alfred had known that I wanted the book for years, and whenever he had been in a big city for any length of time he had always searched about for it, but had never come across a copy.

"It isn't Moore's _Life_," he said, sitting down beside me on the couch, "but from what I have been able to gather, by glancing through it, it seems to be a rather more intimate affair than even that.

Besides the poems, there are a lot of letters and extracts from his journal; the entire correspondence for several years between him and a fellow whom he calls his 'dear Murray.' Guess you know who his dear Murray is--I'm sure I don't. Then there are some letters to the Countess G-u-i-c--"

"Oh, Alfred! Guiccioli! I'm so glad to get my hands on this book. You are a darling to think about bringing it up for me to read!"

"Oh, I brought it up for you to keep. It belonged to my grandfather, and I can give it to any one I want to."

I laughed a little at his simplicity.

"But surely you would not be such a barbarian as to let a book like this go to any one outside of your family. Boy, this is an heirloom! I never heard of just this edition before. The engravings in it are wonderful. It is a very valuable book. I couldn't think of letting you give it to me!"

Ann Lisbeth had come into the room for a moment, but as she saw us sitting together on the leather couch and absorbed in the book, she had hastily left the room, closing the door behind her.

As I finished speaking Alfred glanced at the closed door then deliberately reached over and caught both my hands as they fluttered about over the leaves of the book. In my surprise they struggled a moment, but he held them--he has such big, warm, _capable_ hands; no wonder people are trusting as to their ability--and thus it was, with our heads bent close together and our hands pressing down upon the pa.s.sionate poems of the greatest pa.s.sion poet, that I received my first declaration of love.

"Don't you know that there is nothing in the world I own or could get too valuable for me to give to you, Ann?" he said, in low, tense tones that I had never heard from him before. "Surely you know what you are to me! The greatest privilege I could ask is to give you everything I have or shall have--a life of devotion--a heart, darling, that has always been yours! A world of _love_!--"

He came closer still, and in another moment he would have had his arms around me, carried away as he was by the force of his own feelings, but I drew back and he was arrested by the look on my face. His own went white with sudden misery.

"Ann! Surely you don't mean to tell me that I am already too late?"

"Too late?"

"That you love some one else!"

His face, pale and drawn, looked strangely unlike my genial, even-tempered Alfred. He was capable of great depth of feeling, then--besides being so strong, so fine! I had always had an infinite respect for him, and admiration, and affection! I had known that the strength of his nature had been tested and found _there_; and it was like the strength of oak, st.u.r.dy, deep-rooted, indomitable.

"I _so nearly_ love _you_, Alfred," I cried, struggling between the pain I felt at his hurt and the bewilderment of my own confused feelings.

For the face of Richard Chalmers was between us, and his face, too, spoke strength. Strength of steel, cold, inflexible, even cruel, perhaps--yet holding such a potent attraction.

"--But you _quite_ love some one else?" His voice was calm, although his face was even whiter than a moment before.

"I don't know--I only know that I am oh, so sorry for you--and for myself, too!"

He was still holding my hands in his strong clasp, and they felt so wonderfully at home there that I never thought to move them--if I had never known that other man I should have loved _him_ so!

"Ann, is it Chalmers?"

The question was frankly put, and as frankly answered.

"Yes.--But there is nothing yet--nothing has been _said_--still, I know--"

"Ah, I was afraid of that! That was what overpowered my determination not to speak of my love until I came back from Europe! I noticed something that first time I met him--then the Gordons told me of his attentions to you."

"Yes," I said. "But he has never told me that he cares."

"He will. And I congratulate him."

Alfred arose, as he spoke, and I laid my hand on his arm.

"This is not going to make any difference between us?" I asked appealingly. I felt that I could not lose my friend.

"Not in my feeling for you," he answered, looking down at me with a look that I hated to see in his brown eyes--they usually met the world with such a level, untroubled glance. "If you should ever change, or ever need me--you know that I will be there. But, dear, it will be painful to go on meeting you. I'm going away in a few weeks, perhaps, but until then--"

"I know. I'll stay out of your way," I promised humbly.

He leaned over suddenly and caught my face between his hands. He brushed his lips lightly against the coils of my hair.

"Good-by, _darling_," he said. Then he went out softly and closed the door.

CHAPTER X

ANN RECEIVES A CALLER

"Whoopee, what a pretty pitcher!" Waterloo cried admiringly, as he came down to breakfast this morning with the belt of his rompers still unfastened and a look of sleepiness in his brown eyes.

He followed his mother into the kitchen, as did we all, for the cook was late, and Rufe was anxious to get off early.

"Let me play with it. I won't hurt it."

I do not know whether it was the appeal in his voice or the wish to avoid a conflict, which always made her so nervous that she let the toast burn, which made Cousin Eunice pick the object under discussion up in her hand and silently debate a minute.

"Isn't it a sign of the times when a child of his age doesn't know a coffee-pot when he sees one?" Rufe asked, as he stood in the doorway and absorbed lots of s.p.a.ce. When Galileo, or whoever it was, made his famous remark about n.o.body being able to occupy more than one s.p.a.ce at a time he had never seen a man in the kitchen before breakfast.

"I think it speaks well for his up-bringing," he continued (Rufe's I mean, not Galileo). "It shows how entirely we are on the water wagon here at this house."

"Lemme play with the coffee-pot," Rufus, junior, was insisting, dangerous signs appearing around the corner of his mouth. Cousin Eunice, who is observant, noticed these signs. It always gives her a spell of indigestion for him to have a crying spell before breakfast.

"Now listen, son," she said, handing the vessel over to him with a dubious look, "you must be very careful with the coffee-pot. Father went up himself yesterday and bought it for mother, because we are going to have so much company this afternoon that the other pot won't hold enough. So you just sit down on a pile of sofa pillows to play with it, then you can't drop it and make ugly dents in the pretty, shiny thing."

This arrangement proved so satisfactory that breakfast was finished and eaten before Waterloo could be prevailed upon to break his fast. A pocket full of marbles poured headlong into the new-fangled coffee-pot had added very materially to its success as a plaything, and the music of this kept him engaged for at least half an hour after the cook finally showed up and took the reins of the kitchen work out of our relieved hands.

Cousin Eunice then went into the dining-room to give another look at the piles of silver, china and napery that are considered necessary accompaniments to civilized eating in public.

"Almonds, olives, mints," she said, touching the gla.s.s and silver dishes which were placed in a row on the sideboard. "Oh, isn't there always a gala feeling about eating out of wedding presents? And I'm going to use every pretty dish I have this afternoon."

"Is Mrs. Barnette such a big personage, then?" I inquired. The "Scribblers' Club" was going to meet with Mrs. Clayborne, and I had heard much of the visiting lioness just mentioned. Cousin Eunice is the kind of woman who takes her parties hard, and before the actual date of one, everything in the house, from Waterloo's scalp to the back kitchen shelves, is put in apple-pie order--as if a visit from the health officer were impending.