Not Like Other Girls Part 71

But here d.i.c.k interrupted them. He was still new to his _role_, and hardly had the a.s.surance that belongs to the engaged man, who feels himself safely steering towards the desired haven of matrimony. It appeared to him that on this evening he ought not to lose sight of Nan for a moment. To see Mr. Drummond taking his place was too much for him, and he put down his untasted coffee.

"I am afraid it is rather cold," observed Mattie, anxiously; but she spoke to deaf ears.

d.i.c.k was already half-way to the corner. Nan received him a little shyly; but Mr. Drummond at once took the hint.

"Oh, d.i.c.k, people will notice! you must take care," remonstrated Nan.

She was preparing one of those gentle little lectures to which she sometimes treated him, and to which he was wont to listen with the utmost submission; but, to her intense surprise, he turned restive.

"That was all very well when things were not settled between us,"

observed d.i.c.k, decidedly. "Now we are engaged, of course I shall a.s.sert my rights publicly. What does it matter if people notice? They will only think what a lucky fellow I am, and how they would like to be in my place. Do you think I was going to remain at the other end of the room while that parson was talking to you?" And then Nan all at once discovered that, in spite of d.i.c.k's boyish looks and easy temper, she had found her master,--that, like other men, he was capable of jealousy and insisted on an entire and undivided allegiance.

Nan was weak enough to like him all the better for this little touch of tyranny; and, after all, though she felt it a little hard on Mr.

Drummond, who was so harmless and good-natured, the sense of this monopoly was very sweet to her.

CHAPTER XLVI.

A NEW INVASION OF THE GOTHS.

It was the most successful evening--every one said so; but, somehow, Mattie had not enjoyed it. She supposed she was tired; that lamp had worried her; but, though every one had been very pleasant, and had said nice things to her,--even that formidable Mr. Frere,--Mattie felt something had been lacking. She had been very pleased to see Sir Harry, and he had come up to her at once and spoken to her in his usual genial manner; but after the first few minutes, during which he had drunk his coffee standing beside her, she did not remember that he had again addressed her. After that, he had made his way to Grace, and did not stir for a long time.

Mattie had Colonel Middleton on her hands then; but her eyes would stray to that part of the room. How pretty Grace looked in that soft creamy dress, with the dainty lace ruffles that Archie had sent her!

Her face generally wanted color and animation, but to-night she was quite rosy by comparison. She seemed to find Sir Harry amusing, for she looked up at him very brightly. And then Archie joined them: he would not be _de trop_ there, he knew. And the three talked as though they never meant to leave off.

When Sir Harry came to take his leave, he said, a little abruptly,--

"I like that sister of yours, Miss Mattie. She is sensible for a girl; and yet she knows how to laugh. Clever girls are generally a little priggish, do you know? But one need not be afraid of Miss Grace." And Mattie knew that from Sir Harry this was high praise.

"Every one likes Grace," she faltered.

"I am not surprised at that," was the ready response; and then he shook hands and thanked her for the pleasant evening. He did not even look at her as he spoke, Mattie remembered afterwards: he was watching Nan, who was smiling on d.i.c.k's arm.

The young vicar stood bare-headed on the snowy door-step, as his guests merrily trooped out together. d.i.c.k and Nan came first: Nan had a scarlet hood over her bright hair, and d.i.c.k was grumbling over the lightness of her cloak, and was wrapping his gray overcoat round her.

"Nonsense, Nan! I insist upon it! and you know nothing gives me cold!"

d.i.c.k was saying, in his authoritative way; and then of course Nan yielded.

"'Oh, wert thou in the cauld blast,'" sang Phillis, mockingly, who was following them under Captain Middleton's escort. "Don't you think engaged people are sometimes very masterful?" She spoke, of course, to her companion; but he had turned to warn his father and Dulce of an awkward step, and Archie intercepted the sentence:

"Most men are masterful, Miss Challoner. You will find that out some day for yourself." He meant nothing by this little speech, and he was rather taken aback by the sudden hot blush that came to the girl's face, and the almost angry light in her eyes, as she turned away from him and ran down the slippery steps, to Captain Middleton's alarm.

"'On yonder lea, on yonder lea,'" they heard her humming gayly; and Hammond caught the refrain, and finished it in a fine manly ba.s.s, while Archie stood still under the wintry sky. Why had she looked like that at him? What was there in his lightly-uttered speech to offend her?

Grace was standing alone when he re-entered the drawing-room. Most of the wax candles were extinguished, but the soft glow of the firelight irradiated the farthest corner of the room.

"What a glorious fire!" he said, warming his chilly hands at it, and then throwing himself into the easy-chair that Grace silently placed for him. "And where is Mattie? Really, she did very well to-night."

"You must tell her to-morrow, she will be so pleased; she seems tired, and her head aches, so I advised her to go to bed." And, though Archie did not say openly that he approved of this sensible advice, he implied it by the way he drew a low chair forward for Grace,--so close beside him that she could rest her arm upon the cushioned elbow of his.

They remained comfortably silent for along time: it was Grace who spoke first.

"Archie," she said, rather nervously, but her eyes had a settled purpose in them, "shall you be angry if I disobey you, dear, and speak again on a certain subject?"

"What subject?" he asked, rather surprised by her manner. He had not a notion to what she was referring; he did not know how during that long silence their thoughts had been couching the same point, and that all this time she was seeking courage to speak to him.

"I know your secret, Archie; I discovered it to-night."

"My secret!" he returned, in utter amazement. "I have no secret, Gracie." And then, as he caught her meaning, a cloud came to his brow.

"But this is nonsense!" he continued harshly,--"pure nonsense; put it out of your head."

"I saw it to-night," she went on, in a very low voice, undisturbed by his evident displeasure. "She is good and sweet, and quite lovely, Archie, and that young man is not half worthy of her; but she has no thought but for him."

"Do you think I do not know that?" he returned, in an exasperated tone. "Grace, I will not have you talk in this way. I am cured,--quite cured: it was nothing but a pa.s.sing folly."

"A folly that made you very unhappy, my poor Archie; but--hush! you must not interrupt me--I am not going to talk about her."

"Oh, that is well," he returned, in a relieved tone.

"I was sorry--just a little sorry--at first, because I knew how much it had cost you; but this evening I could have found it in my heart to be angry with you,--yes, even with you. 'Oh, the blindness of these men!' I thought: 'why will they trample on their own happiness?'"

"Are you speaking of me?" he asked, in a bewildered tone.

"Of whom should I be speaking?" she answered; and her voice had a peculiar meaning in it. "You are my dear brother,--my dearest brother; but you are no more sensible than other men."

"I suppose not," he returned, staring at her; "I suppose not."

"Many men have done what you are doing," she went on, quietly. "Many have wanted what belonged to another, and have turned their backs upon the blessing that might have been theirs. It is the game of cross-purposes. Do you remember that picture, Archie,--the lovely print you longed to buy--the two girls and the two men? There was the pretty demure maiden in front, and at the back a girl with a far sweeter face to my mind, watching the gloomy-looking fellow who is regarding his divinity from afar. There was a face here to-night that brought that second girl strongly to my mind; and I caught an expression on it once----" Here Archie violently started.

"Hush! hush! what are you implying? Grace, you are romancing; you do not mean this?"

"As there is a heaven above us, I do mean it, Archie."

"Then, for G.o.d's sake, not another word!" And then he rose from his seat, and stood on the rug.

"You are not really angry with me?" she urged, frightened at his vehemence.

"No; I am not angry. I never am angry with you, Grace, as you know; but all the same there are some things that never should be said."

And, when he had thus gravely rebuked her speech, he kissed her forehead, and muttering some excuse about the lateness of the hour, left the room.

Grace crept away to her chamber a little discomfited by this rebuff, gently as it had been given; but if she had only guessed the commotion those few hinted words had raised in her brother's mind!

He had understood her; in one moment he had understood her. As though by a lightning-flash of intelligence, the truth had dawned upon him; and if an electric shock had pa.s.sed through his frame and set all his nerves tingling he could not have been more deeply shaken.

Was that what she thought, too, when she had turned away from him with that quiet look of scorn on her face! Did she know of any possible blessing that might have been his, only that he had turned his back upon it, crying out childishly for a shadowy happiness? Did she mutter to herself also, "Oh, the blindness of these men!"?