Only an Incident Part 11

"Dismiss them."

"All?"

"All but one."

"What will you do with him?"

"Marry him, of course. That is what he will be there for, won't it? I expect to marry some one some time. Marriage makes a woman's life fuller and freer, though not necessarily happier. I want to get all into my life that I can."

"I wonder whom you will marry," mused Phebe, where she sat curled up on the sofa. "I wonder what he could be like. Gerald, how I should like to see you in love!"

"You won't see it," replied Gerald. "No one will ever see it. It wouldn't be my way to make a display of the insanity, supposing, that is, that I have it."

"I hope at least you will show it to _him_."

"Not overmuch even to _him_. He'll have to take it on faith. I haven't the faintest intention of informing any one of the state of my affections a dozen times a day. Once for all ought to be sufficient with the declaration, as it is with the marriage vow."

Phebe puckered up her forehead. "Ah, how different we are! If I am ever engaged to any one I shall want to keep telling him all the time how much I love him, for fear he wouldn't guess it."

"You will bore him to death then."

"I suppose I shall," replied Phebe, dejectedly. "I don't suppose any one living wants to be loved so much as I would want to love him. I couldn't be cool and deliberate and wise at loving as you would be. I should have to do it with my whole heart and just give myself up to it for good and all."

"That's the story-book way of loving," said Gerald. "I don't believe in it for real life. Blind adoration doesn't do either the lover or the loved any good. There should be sense in one's emotions as well as in one's opinions."

Phebe was silent a moment or two. "You are so self-possessed, and so self-controlled, Gerald," she said at last. "It must be very nice to have one's self so perfectly in command as you have. And yet I don't know. I think it would be rather nice too to find one's self suddenly under the power of some one a great deal better and stronger and wiser than one's self, who compelled one to love him, not because one would, but just because one could not help it."

The girls were alone in the sitting-room, Mrs. Lane having gone out to a neighbor's, taking Olly with her, and Miss Lydia not having yet appeared for her usual hour downstairs. It was a few days after the picnic, and was one of those suddenly cool August evenings that sometimes drop down so unexpectedly upon the summer heat, and a wood-fire lay upon the hearth ready to light at the invalid's coming. Phebe too sprang from the sofa as she spoke, as if her words had evoked too vivid a picture, and kneeling down by the hearth, applied a match. The bright flame leaped swiftly up and filled all the room with a flickering golden glow. Gerald turned in the window to watch it. How quickly it had flushed Phebe's cheeks, and how soft her eyes looked in its light!

"It's downright cruelty to spoil our first cool evening with a fire, Phebe, but I'll forgive you, it makes you look so pretty," she said, quite unconscious of her beauty as she stood against the dark background of the curtain in picturesque stateliness, her dress of soft cream-white cloth falling in clinging folds about her, and her clear pale face turned dreamily toward the light, which gleamed out in fitful reflection from the heavy gold ornaments at her throat and wrists.

"Ah, you do not see yourself!" murmured Phebe, looking adoringly back at her. "No one else could look pretty to you if you did."

"How foolish!" said Gerald, scornfully. "Pray don't let us begin bandying compliments back and forth. That's next worse to eternally discussing love. Why it is that two girls seem never able to talk together half an hour without lugging in that threadbare subject as if it were the one most important thing in the world, I don't understand."

"Well, isn't love the most important thing,--to women?" asked Phebe, sitting down on the floor to nurse the fire, her thin muslin making a little ripple of pretty lightness around her.

"No, it isn't," replied Gerald. "It may be to some few perhaps, but certainly not to all women. It isn't to me. It's one thing; not every thing; and not even the best thing. Knowledge is better, and goodness is better, and to come down to purely personal blessings, health is better, and so is common-sense better, and in the long run there are dozens of things infinitely better worth having and better worth aiming for. It's a good enough thing to have in addition, but as to its being the sum and substance, the Alpha and Omega, of any sensible woman's life, that's all foolishness. Let's have done with it and order in the lights. I want to get at Euclid again. It will never do for that conceited Yale brother of mine to get ahead of me. Shall I call to Nancy?"

"No use. The servants are out. Wait a moment till the fire is well started, and I'll bring in the lamp."

"The servants are out?" repeated Gerald. "Both? At the same time? Is that the way you keep house in Joppa?"

"Oh, they like running out together, and we never want any thing in the evenings, you know. The front door always stands ajar, and visitors let themselves in."

"And you make your own fires and bring in your own oily lamps; or do your evening guests a.s.sist you perhaps in lieu of the servants?"

"But we don't generally have fires," laughed Phebe, greatly amused at Gerald's disgust. "Only to-night it would be too chilly for Aunt Lydia here without one. I feel cool too. I was not so sensible as you, and put on too thin a dress. Isn't it a pretty blaze? Wait just till I throw on another log. How it snaps and crackles!"

"Take your time," said Gerald, turning back to the window. "But what a way to manage! Why should you hire servants, if you do their work for them?"

Phebe only laughed, and a little shower of sparks flew over her from the hearth as if the fire laughed too.

"It's being needlessly indulgent," pursued Gerald. "One can give servants proper liberties without making one's self a slave to their caprices. If you yield to them in one instance because it chances to be convenient, they'll certainly exact it of you another time when it is not convenient.

Gracious heavens! Phebe, what is it?"

There was a sudden outburst of light behind her, and a sharp scream of mingled terror and pain, and she turned to find Phebe standing the centre of a pillar of fire. Her light dress had ignited from the flying sparks, and the devouring flames seemed to burst forth in a hundred places at once and rush exultantly together. Phebe gave another wild cry and started for the door in that blind agony of despair which seems to hasten people at such times to their doom, as if by aimless flight they could escape the awful demon who possesses them. Too horror-stricken to utter a sound, Gerald sprang at her, and seizing her with fearless hands, forced the poor struggling girl by main strength down on to the floor. No one near to help! No water at hand! Not so much as a rug or a shawl to throw over her and stifle the flames! Yes! there was the table-cover, heavy and thick, as if created for this very life-service. Gerald tore it off,--books, boxes, china cups, and gla.s.s vases crashing to the ground together,--and flinging it over Phebe, threw herself on top of it, pressing it close in every direction with hands and limbs, and smothering the flames resolutely beneath it. It was but a moment, though a moment of lifetime horror, and all was over. There was only the fire on the hearth hissing and leaping as if in anger at its defeated design.

"Phebe!" whispered Gerald, hoa.r.s.ely; "Phebe!"

Phebe had ceased to struggle, and lay perfectly motionless, apparently scarcely breathing, but she opened her eyes and smiled faintly as Gerald called her. The fright and the pain had taken her speech away. She could not find it at once. But the smile gave new hope and energy to Gerald.

"Never mind talking," she exclaimed, springing briskly to her feet.

"If you are only alive it's all right. Don't attempt to stir. I'll get some one."

"Aunt Lydia--don't let her know," Phebe managed to gasp.

"No, no, of all people!" cried Gerald. She paused an instant. Not a servant in the house! whom was she to summon? A vague idea seized her of running into the street and catching hold of the first pa.s.ser, when at the moment the door opened, and Mr. Halloway appeared on the threshold.

"Is there any one at home? Shall I come in, please?" called the bright, cheery voice.

"Mr. Halloway! oh, thank Heaven!" And seizing him by the arm, Gerald dragged him over to where Phebe lay. "Help me to take her up-stairs to her room."

Denham staggered back unutterably shocked and horrified as he recognized the prostrate form at his feet, the fire-light playing mockingly over it and revealing the white face and loosened hair. For the instant he thought her dead. He caught his breath and put his hand up over his eyes.

"My G.o.d! what has happened?"

"Her dress took fire--she is burned, no, not badly I am sure, but let us get her up-stairs without losing time. Quick!"

Denham put Gerald aside almost roughly, and stooping down lifted Phebe tenderly in his arms. She moaned as he touched her, but smiled up at him as she had done at Gerald.

"Do I hurt you, dear?" he asked, with infinite pity and tenderness in his voice. "I will be as gentle as I can. Poor child! poor child!"

"Let me help you," said Gerald. "The stairs are steep and I am very strong."

She came nearer, but he shook his head. "I need no help."

"This way, then," said Gerald, shortly. "And don't speak. Miss Lydia mustn't know."

She led the way to Phebe's room, and he followed slowly, laying his burden carefully down on the bed and arranging the pillows under her head with all of a woman's gentleness of touch.

"Now go for the doctor," ordered Gerald, turning to the bureau to light the candles. "Dr. Dennis. If he is out, Dr. Harrison. Only find some one immediately."

Denham lingered an instant, bending down over the bed.

"I thought we had lost you to-night, Phebe," he said, so low the words were but just audible. "G.o.d be thanked if only that you are still here!"

And stooping nearer yet he added: "We could not let you go, dear child."

Gerald came anxiously back to the bedside as he left the room. "Are you in much pain now?" she asked, lifting off the heavy braid that lay across Phebe's bosom like a great rope of loosely twisted silk. "You do not think you are badly hurt, do you, dear?"