Honor Edgeworth; Or, Ottawa's Present Tense Part 5

All I will say is, that the sun which set upon the world on the day when, for the first time, Guy and Honor linked hands, never, since nor before, went down upon any two creatures who were more thoroughly satisfied with themselves than were these two.

When Guy left Mr. Rayne's house, the evening was far spent--and such an evening! If an exclamation point cannot imply its happiness it must remain a mystery. Long after he had bade his earnest "good-night," Honor and her guardian sat together over the dying coals and chatted pleasantly. It was their custom to hold this nightly gossip no matter at how late an hour their visitors left them.

"And so that is my brave nephew for you," Henry Rayne said, as Honor stood up and placed her chair against the wall, "How do you like him?"

Like him? If he could have seen her averted face--her eyes--her mouth!

"Don't you ask an opinion a little soon?" she replied, so carelessly, that the shrewdest observer would be baffled.

"Well, I don't mean to ask you if you're crazy about him, or anything like that," Mr. Rayne said, half-laughing, "but do you take to him, do you think you will be _friends_? That's what I'd like to know."

"Oh," she exclaimed, disguising her excitement in a smile of surprise, "I do not doubt that, at least so far as _I_ am concerned, I have been friends with more--with less--I mean with more--no, with _less_ intereresting people."

"Gracious! it seems to have puzzled you if you have," Henry Rayne said, mischievously, as he saw her color and grow impatient with herself, "you seem at a loss to know on what equality you would put poor Guy's interest"

"Now, you needn't teaze, just because I'm dreadfully sleepy and can't talk right; I won't say another word, only--Good-night," and kissing him brusquely on the cheek, she skipped out of the room.

But the subject had not dropped through with these remarks.

The following day as Honor sat in the library alone, Mr. Rayne bustled in, and sat down beside her, as he said, to read her some interesting item from the morning _Citizen_, but instead of leaving her again, Honor saw that he was lingering in the room purposely. (I wonder if anyone ever yet loitered around a place pretendingly to no purpose without immediately betraying that he was full of purpose.) After Henry Rayne had looked at the t.i.tles of several books, and gazed vacantly at the paintings that decorated the walls, and raised the cover of a ma.s.sive ink-stand just to drop it again, he made a bold stroke and began his subject as though it had only entered his head at that very moment.

"Honor," he said somewhat timidly, "I was going to ask you to do something, last night, but you left me so suddenly that I had to put it off."

"Oh, I am so sorry," Honor answered, raising her lace frame to her mouth, not to hide her face, but only to bite off an obstinate knot of thread that provoked her. "Is it too late, now?" she queried anxiously, looking at him.

"Oh, no; it's not too late. It's about Guy."

"Guy?"

"Yes."

"Why, what can _I_ have to do with Guy?"

"Well, I just want you to promise me you will do all you are able. If you do that, I can almost promise you I will never ask you to do me a favor again."

The puzzled, asking look in her gray eyes deepened, a curious smile stole round her lips.

"I need not tell you how strange this is to me," she said slowly, "you must know that you proposed an enigma which I cannot solve."

"Come here, Honor," Mr. Rayne said seriously. She laid down her work and went towards him. He was sitting in a velvet arm-chair, and she knelt beside him, with her white, delicate hands clasped on the ruby upholstering. He put one arm gently around her, and as he smoothed her wavy hair with one hand, he asked her earnestly,

"Honor, you know how much good is done in the world by mere contact, do you not?"

"Of course I do, Mr. Rayne; good and evil alike have been kept circulating from the beginning by individuals."

"That is so. Well, now, don't you think it is a pity when there is a very susceptible person, one who would be good if he was led, or who would be wicked if he was led--don't you think it a pity, I ask, that such a person as that should go to ruin because there is no good influence open to him in his life?"

"Undoubtedly," the girl answered seriously. "But Mr. Rayne, no one need be wicked if he wishes to be good, evil is not forced on us you know."

"I know that, my child, but we are not always as strong as our inclinations--the spirit is one thing and the flesh another. Now, I want to appoint you a mission--you are a good girl, and your pleasure is in doing good. Supposing you would favor me by doing good at my request?"

Honor started a little, and looked enquiringly into his face.

"You know you have only to tell me your wish, dear Mr. Rayne. I wish I could have antic.i.p.ated it; but as that could not be, I pray you tell me immediately. What can I do for you worth the asking?"

"I want you to promise me that you will begin right away to work your influence over Guy." The color rose to her cheeks, and the smile faded out of her eyes and mouth. "This, mind, is a profound secret, Guy has neither father nor mother--he has no home, nor no real friends. I, like the rest, have spoiled him but G.o.d has sent me you in time. I know that my dead sister would rebuke me severely were she to see her boy, my charge, so reckless and so dissipated. But I fancy it is not so much my fault--my influence could never change him much.--I want you, for my sake, to try yours. You have only to meet him often, and talk with him.

If he has eyes at all he must see in our practical life all the theories he has heard preached to him so often. Show him in all the indirect ways you can, how foolish and frivolous are the ways of society to-day. He is a clever boy, and susceptible, and your trouble will not be lost. Come, now, will you promise me only to try, for my sake?"

"How you exaggerate the capacity of a weak woman," she said a little sadly, then, after a moment's pause, she continued--"It is no trifling mission you appoint to me, Mr. Rayne; it is full of responsibilities.

But there!" and she clapped her little hand firmly into his, "That means my strongest resolution--I will do my best You can ask no more."

"G.o.d bless you" the old man murmured slowly, squeezing the slender fingers tenderly between both his hands, "I am sure you will never regret it."

No other word was spoken. Henry Rayne had left the room, and Honor stood there alone--stood with folded hands and dreamy eyes--thinking. What a strange request this had been! How was she going to fulfil her promise without betraying the real impulse that had spurred her to make it? How was she going to work her way into his confidence, and yet guard her own? Oh, if this were a task for Mr. Rayne's sake only, how easily she would convert it into a pleasure--but she had promised, that cancelled all her misgivings. She would do it now, if it were in woman's power, she would make it her duty, and with a resolute will and an anxious heart, surely the accomplishment would not prove too hard--"Only--if I had not seen my want supplied in him--if I had not recognized in him the hero of my life's dream. Oh, Guy! What a joy it will be to me if I can teach you to come to me, turning your back upon gaiety, and pleasure, and temptation, to sit by my side, when the voice of a more powerful tempter is stifling mine. What joy for me then!--but no, I am wrong!--it is not my gratification I have been sent to seek; this is a mere duty.

If I had loathed you at this moment, my duty is still the same. Just now, it is not _your_ sake nor _mine_--it is Henry Rayne's."

The door opened slowly and the croaky voice of the old male servant broke upon her reverie.

"Beg pardon Miss, but dinner is served."

Heroically she stowed away her emotions, the old pleasant smile stole back into its home, and with a beaming face and cheerful step she pa.s.sed into the dining-room.

CHAPTER VI.

"Oh the snow, the beautiful snow Filling the sky and the earth below.'

"It will be a stormy night I think," Honor says, shrugging her pretty shoulders behind the window-blind she is just lowering, "I wish I had the stout brawny arms of a man to-night...."

"Around your waist?" says a voice from behind her, and, suiting the action to the word, some one encircles her slender waist with "stout brawny arms."

"Guy! I have told you in plain English that I will not allow you to take such freedom with me. _This_ time, I say, '_Je vous difends sirieus.e.m.e.ntde mettre vos bras...._'"

"Oh! that's enough, by Jove, you'd drive a fellow crazy if he'd listen to you long enough, with your recitals on maidenly propriety. Now, there's Miss Bella Dash--many a season's belle--just chuckles with delight when I get this broad cloth sleeve fairly around her blue satin basque"

"Oh! I dare say! but society gives 'poetical licences' to her adopted children, which outside of her pale would be simply atrocious. If Bella Dash saw your coat sleeve around Betsy, the house-maid's basque, it would mean another thing altogether, though Betsy's eyes are as fine as Miss Bella's any day. Besides, you must have learned by now that the 'Bella Dash's' of Ottawa society to-day are _nothing_ to me. My sympathy for _my_ s.e.x goes out to the whole species and when I offer it to individuals, I exclude the 'Miss Dash's' that make the '_tableaux vivants_' of the modern drawing-room."

"By Jove! that is a fine speech Honor; now see here between you and me (I might also add the only two sensible people in Ottawa) what do you think would become of us young enthusiastic fellows if all the 'girls'

stood on their high-heeled dignity like you? Why of course the monasteries and lunatic asylums would have more to do, and by and by, the lunatic asylum would have it all; but destiny is not so cruel a tyrant as you, so she makes your haughty kind the exception and not the rule."

Honor laughed, a low curious laugh, and said "Then she is very kind to _me_ to have made me realize soon enough how much too worthy I am to be any man's pastime, a toy for him to play with until the paint is rubbed off--then to be flung aside for something new. If that is all Bella Dash and her prototypes, are worth in your estimation, it is no wonder they are proud, and no wonder they hold their heads high enough to sniff the air over the heads of girls, who, were you to use their names as you do Miss Dash's, would level you to the ground."

"My most supreme stand-offish friend, I hope sincerely you won't preach any of these theories around our gay little city. Why, the young ladies here are just a jolly crowd, who don't transmogrify their whole faces because a fellow likes to spoon now and then to kill time. By Jove!

you'd spoil the fun for the winter, and as soon as spring came the whole male element of Ottawa City would 'make' for the fresh pastures of the North-West."

"That is a worthy declaration Mr. Elersly, I must say. I hope you are aware that in speaking thus, you risk the good opinion of your respectable sensible friends--if you have any--outside of this house. It is cold so near the window, let me pa.s.s please. I prefer a seat by the fire to this stupid argument here in the window recess."