Janet's Love and Service Part 79

"Miss Elliott," murmured he, "_you_ will never take your friendship from me, whatever may happen?"

She was too startled to answer for a moment, and then they were in the crowd again. What was he thinking of! Of Allan and the past, or of Rose and Amy and the future? A momentary indignation moved her, but she did not speak, and then little Amy was looking up in her face, rather anxiously and wistfully, Graeme thought.

"You are not going away, Miss Elliott, are you?" said she.

"I am very tired," said Graeme. "Oh! here is my brother. I am very sorry to take you away, Harry, but if you don't mind much, I should like to go home. Will you make my adieux to your mother, Miss Roxbury?--No, please do not come up-stairs. I would much rather you did not.

Good-night."

"You might at least have been civil to the little thing," growled Harry, as she took his arm when they reached the street. Graeme laughed.

"Civil!" she repeated and laughed again, a little bitterly. "Oh!

Harry, dear! there are so many things that you cannot be supposed to know. But, indeed, I did not mean to be uncivil to the child."

"Then you were uncivil without meaning it," said Harry, sharply.

Graeme was silent a moment.

"I do not choose to answer a charge like that," said she. "I beg your pardon, Graeme, but--"

"Harry, hush! I will not listen to you."

They did not speak again till they reached home. Then Graeme said,--

"I must say something to you, Harry. Let us walk on a little. It is not late. Harry, what is the trouble between you and Rose?"

"Trouble!" repeated Harry, in amazement. "Do you mean because she fancied herself left alone this afternoon?"

"Of course I do not mean that. But more than once lately you have spoken to each other as though you were alluding to something of which I am ignorant--something that must have happened when you were away from home--at the West, I mean--something which I have not been told."

"Graeme, I don't understand what you mean. What could possibly have happened which has been concealed from you? Why don't you ask Rose?"

"Because I have not hitherto thought it necessary to ask any one, and now I prefer to ask you. Harry, dear, I don't think it is anything very serious. Don't be impatient with me."

"Has Rose been saying anything to you?"

"Nothing that I have not heard you say yourself. You accused her once in my hearing of being too fond of admiration, of--of flirting, in short--"

"My dear Graeme! I don't think I ever made any such a.s.sertion--at least in a way that you or Rose need to resent--or complain of."

"Rose does not complain of it, she laughs at it. Harry, dear, what is it? Don't you remember one night when something was said about Mrs Gridley--no, don't be impatient. You were annoyed with Rose, then, and it was not about anything that was said at the time, at least I thought not. I don't wish to seem prying or inquisitive, but what concerns Rose is a great matter to me. She is more to me than any one."

"Graeme," said Harry, gravely, "you don't suppose that I love Rose less than you do. I think I know what you mean, however. I annoyed her once by something I said about Charlie, but it was only for the moment. I am sure she does not care about that now."

"About Charlie!" repeated Graeme.

"Yes; you did not know it, I suppose, but it was a serious matter to Charlie when you and Rose went away that time. He was like a man lost.

And I do believe she cared for him, too--and I told him so--only she was such a child."

"You told him so!" repeated Graeme, in astonishment.

"I could not help it, Graeme. The poor fellow was in such a way, so--so miserable; and when he went West last winter, it was more to see Rose than for anything else. But he came back quite downhearted. She was so much run after, he said, and she was very distant with him. Not that he said very much about it. But when I went out there afterwards, I took her to task sharply about it."

"Harry! How could you?"

"Very easily. It is a serious thing when a girl plays fast and loose with a man's heart, and such a man as Charlie. And I told her so roundly."

"And how did she take it?" asked Graeme, in a maze between astonishment and vexation.

"Oh! she was as high and mighty as possible, called my interference rudeness and impertinence, and walked out of the room like an offended princess--and I rather think I had the worst of it," added Harry, laughing at the remembrance. "But I don't bear malice, and I don't think Rose does."

"Of course, she does not. But Harry, dear, though I should not call your interference impertinent in any bad sense, I must say it was not a very wise thing to take her to task, as you call it. I don't believe Mr Millar ever said a word to her about--about his feelings, and you don't suppose she was going to confess, or allow you to scold her about--any one."

"Now; Graeme, don't be missish! 'Never said a word!'--Why, a blind man might have seen it all along. I know we all looked upon her as a child, but a woman soon knows when a man cares for her."

"No wise woman will acknowledge it to another till she has been told so in words; at least she ought not," said Graeme, gravely.

"Oh, well!--there is no use talking. Perhaps I was foolish; but I love Charlie, dearly. I daresay Rose thinks herself too good for him, because he does not pretend to be so wonderfully intellectual as some of her admirers do, and you may agree with her. But I tell you, Graeme, Charlie is pure gold. I don't know another that will compare with him, for everything pure and good and high-minded--unless it is our own Will; and it is so long since we have seen him, we don't know how he may be changed by this time. But I can swear for Charlie."

"You don't need to swear to me, Harry. You know well I have always liked Charlie."

"Well, it can't be helped now. Charlie has got over it. Men _do_ get over these things, though it doesn't seem possible to them at the time,"

added Harry, meditatively. "I was rather afraid of Rosie's coming home, and I wanted Charlie to go to Scotland, then, but he is all right now.

Of course you are not to suppose that I blame Rose. Such things will happen, and it is well it is no worse. It is the way with those girls not to know or value true worth because they see it every day."

"Poor Charlie!" said Graeme, softly.

"Oh, don't fret about Charlie. He is all right now. He is not the man to lose the good of his life because a silly girl doesn't know her own mind. 'There's as good fish in the sea,' you know. If you are going to be sorry for any one, let it be for Rosie. She has lost a rare chance for happiness in the love of a good man."

"But it may not be lost," murmured Graeme.

"I am afraid it is," said Harry, gravely. "It is not in Rose to do justice to Charlie. Even you don't do it, Graeme. Because he lives just a commonplace life, and buys and sells, and comes and goes, like other men, you women have not the discrimination to see that he is one of a thousand. As for Rose, with her romance, and her nonsense, she is looking for a hero and a paladin, and does not know a true heart when it is laid at her feet. I only hope she won't wait for the 'hats till the blue-bonnets go by,' as Janet used to say."

"As I have done, you would like to add," said Graeme, laughing, for her heart was growing light. "And Harry, dear, Rosie never had anybody's heart laid at her feet. It is you who are growing foolish and romantic, in your love for your friend."

"Oh! well. It doesn't matter. She will never have it now. Charlie is all right by this time. Her high and mighty airs have cured him, and her flippancy and her love of admiration. Fancy her walking off to-day with that red-headed fool and quite ignoring Mrs Roxbury and her daughter, when they--Miss Roxbury, at least--wanted to see her to engage her for this evening."

"He is not a fool, and he cannot help his red hair," said Graeme, laughing, though there was both sadness and vexation in her heart. "The Goldsmiths might have called her 'high and mighty' if she had left them and gone quite out of her way, as she must have done, to speak to those 'fine carriage people.' She could only choose between the two parties, and I think politeness and kindness suggested the propriety of going on with her friends, not a love of admiration, as you seem determined to suppose."

"She need not have been rude to the Roxburys, however. Charlie noticed it as well as I."

"I think you are speaking very foolishly, Harry," said Graeme. "What do the Roxburys care for any of us? Do you suppose Mrs Roxbury would notice a slight from a young girl like Rose. And she was not rude."

"No, perhaps not; but she was polite in a way so distant and dignified, so condescending, even, that I was amazed, and so was Charlie, I know, though he did not say so."

"Nonsense, Harry! Rose knows them, but very slightly. And what has Mr Millar to do with it?"

"Mr Millar!" exclaimed Harry. "Do be reasonable, Graeme. Is it not of Mr Millar that we have been speaking all this time? He has everything to do with it. And as for not knowing them. I am sure Rose was at first delighted with Miss Roxbury. And Amy was as delighted with her, and wanted to be intimate, I know. But Rose is such a flighty, flippant little thing, that--"

"That will do, Harry. Such remarks may be reserved for Mr Millar's hearing. I do not choose to listen to them. You are very unjust to Rose."