Louisiana Part 6

CHAPTER V.

"I HAVE HURT YOU."

From the day of his arrival a new life began for Louisiana. She was no longer an obscure and unconsidered young person. Suddenly, and for the first time in her life, she found herself vested with a marvellous power. It was a power girls of a different cla.s.s from her own are vested with from the beginning of their lives. They are used to it and regard it as their birthright. Louisiana was not used to it. There had been nothing like it attending her position as "that purty gal o'

Rogerses." She was accustomed to the admiration of men she was indifferent to--men who wore short-waisted blue-jean coats, and turned upon their elbows to stare at her as she sat in the little white frame church. After making an effort to cultivate her acquaintance, they generally went away disconcerted. "She's mighty still," they said.

"She haint got nothin' to say. Seems like thar aint much to her--but she's powerful purty though."

This was nothing like her present experience. She began slowly to realize that she was a little like a young queen now. Here was a man such as she had never spoken to before, who was always ready to endeavor to his utmost to please her: who, without any tendency toward sentimental nonsense, was plainly the happier for her presence and favor. What could be more a.s.siduous and gallant than the every-day behavior of the well-bred, thoroughly experienced young man of the period toward the young beauty who for the moment reigns over his fancy! It need only be over his fancy; there is no necessity that the impression should be any deeper. His suavity, his chivalric air, his ready wit in her service, are all that could be desired.

When Louisiana awakened to the fact that all this homage was rendered to her as being only the natural result of her girlish beauty--as if it was the simplest thing in the world, and a state of affairs which must have existed from the first--she experienced a sense of terror. Just at the very first she would have been glad to escape from it and sink into her old obscurity.

"It does not belong to me," she said to herself. "It belongs to some one else--to the girl he thinks I am. I am not that girl, though; I will remember that."

But in a few days she calmed down. She told herself that she always did remember, but she ceased to feel frightened and was more at ease.

She never talked very much, but she became more familiar with the subjects she heard discussed. One morning she went to Olivia's room and asked her for the address of a bookseller.

"I want to send for some books and--and magazines," she said, confusedly. "I wish you--if you would tell me what to send for.

Father will give me the money if I ask him for it."

Olivia sat down and made a list. It was along list, comprising the best periodicals of the day and several standard books.

When she handed it to her she regarded her with curiosity.

"You mean to read them all?" she asked.

"Isn't it time that I should?" replied her pupil.

"Well--it is a good plan," returned Olivia, rather absently.

Truth to tell, she was more puzzled every day. She had begun to be quite sure that something had happened. It seemed as if a slight coldness existed between herself and her whilom adorer. The simplicity of her enthusiasm was gone. Her affection had changed as her outward bearing. It was a better regulated and less noticeable emotion. Once or twice Olivia fancied she had seen the girl looking at her even sadly, as if she felt, for the moment, a sense of some loss.

"Perhaps it was very clumsy in me," she used to say to herself.

"Perhaps I don't understand her, after all."

But she could not help looking on with interest. She had never before seen Laurence enjoy himself so thoroughly. He had been working very hard during the past year, and was ready for his holiday. He found the utter idleness, which was the chief feature of the place, a good thing.

There was no town or village within twenty miles, newspapers were a day or two old when they arrived, there were very few books to be found, and there was absolutely no excitement. At night the band brayed in the empty-looking ball-room, and a few very young couples danced, in a desultory fashion and without any ceremony. The primitive, domesticated slowness of the place was charming. Most of the guests had come from the far South at the beginning of the season and would remain until the close of it; so they had had time to become familiar with each other and to throw aside restraint.

"There is nothing to distract one," Ferrol said, "nothing to rouse one, nothing to inspire one--nothing! It is delicious! Why didn't I know of it before?"

He had plenty of time to study his sister's friend. She rode and walked with him and Olivia when they made their excursions, she listened while he read aloud to them as he lay on the gra.s.s in a quiet corner of the grounds. He thought her natural reserve held her from expressing her opinion on what he read very freely; it certainly did not occur to him that she was beginning her literary education under his guidance. He could see that the things which pleased him most were not lost upon her. Her face told him that. One moonlight night, as they sat on an upper gallery, he began to speak of the novelty of the aspect of the country as it presented itself to an outsider who saw it for the first time.

"It is a new life, and a new people," he said. "And, by the way, Olivia, where is the new species of young woman I was to see--the daughter of the people who does not belong to her sphere?"

He turned to Louisiana.

"Have you ever seen her?" he asked. "I must confess to a dubiousness on the subject."

Before he could add another word Louisiana turned upon him. He could see her face clearly in the moonlight. It was white, and her eyes were dilated and full of fire.

"Why do you speak in that way?" she cried. "As if--as if such people were so far beneath you. What right have you----"

She stopped suddenly. Laurence Ferrol was gazing at her in amazement.

She rose from her seat, trembling.

"I will go away a little," she said. "I beg your pardon--and Miss Ferrol's."

She turned her back upon them and went away. Ferrol sat holding her little round, white-feather fan helplessly, and staring after her until she disappeared.

It was several seconds before the silence was broken. It was he who broke it.

"I don't know what it means," he said, in a low voice. "I don't know what I have done!"

In a little while he got up and began to roam aimlessly about the gallery. He strolled from one end to the other with his hands thrust in his coat pockets. Olivia, who had remained seated, knew that he was waiting in hopes that Louisiana would return. He had been walking to and fro, looking as miserable as possible, for about half an hour, when at last she saw him pause and turn half round before the open door of an upper corridor leading out upon the verandah. A black figure stood revealed against the inside light. It was Louisiana, and, after hesitating a moment, she moved slowly forward.

She had not recovered her color, but her manner was perfectly quiet.

"I am glad you did not go away," she said.

Ferrol had only stood still at first, waiting her pleasure, but the instant she spoke he made a quick step toward her.

"I should have felt it a very hard thing not to have seen you again before I slept," he said.

She made no reply, and they walked together in silence until they reached the opposite end of the gallery.

"Miss Ferrol has gone in," she said then.

He turned to look and saw that such was the case. Suddenly, for some reason best known to herself, Olivia had disappeared from the scene.

Louisiana leaned against one of the slender, supporting pillars of the gallery. She did not look at Ferrol, but at the blackness of the mountains rising before them. Ferrol could not look away from her.

"If you had not come out again," he said, after a pause, "I think I should have remained here, baying at the moon, all night."

Then, as she made no reply, he began to pour himself forth quite recklessly.

"I cannot quite understand how I hurt you," he said. "It seemed to me that I must have hurt you, but even while I don't understand, there are no words abject enough to express what I feel now and have felt during the last half hour. If I only dared ask you to tell me----"

She stopped him.

"I can't tell you," she said. "But it is not your fault--it is nothing you could have understood--it is my fault--all my fault, and--I deserve it."

He was terribly discouraged.

"I am bewildered," he said. "I am very unhappy."

She turned her pretty, pale face round to him swiftly.

"It is not you who need be unhappy," she exclaimed. "It is I!"