Wife in Name Only Part 23

"And she seems attached to you," he said, earnestly.

"She is very good to me--she is goodness itself;" and the blue eyes, with their depth of poetry and pa.s.sion, first gleamed with light, and then filled with tears.

"We must be friends," said Lord Arleigh, "for I, too, love the d.u.c.h.ess.

She has been like a sister to me ever since I can remember;" and he drew nearer to the beautiful girl as he spoke. "Will you include me among your friends?" he continued. "This is not the first time that I have seen you. I stood watching you yesterday; you were among the roses, and I was in the morning-room. I thought then, and I have thought ever since, that I would give anything to be included among your friends."

His handsome face flushed as he spoke, his whole soul was in his eyes.

"Will you look upon me as one of your friends?" he repeated, and his voice was full of softest music. He saw that even her white brow grew crimson.

"A friend of mine, my lord?" she exclaimed. "How can I? Surely you know I am not of your rank--I am not one of the cla.s.s from which you select your friends."

"What nonsense!" he exclaimed. "If that is your only objection I can soon remove it. I grant that there may be some trifling difference. For instance, I may have a t.i.tle; you--who are a thousand times more worthy of one--have none. What of that? A t.i.tle does not make a man. What is the difference between us? Your beauty--nay, do not think me rude or abrupt--- my heart is in every word that I say to you--your grace would enn.o.ble any rank, as your friendship would enn.o.ble any man."

She looked up at him, and said, gently:

"I do not think you quite understand."

"Yes, I do," he declared, eagerly; "I asked the d.u.c.h.ess yesterday who you were, and she told me your whole story."

It was impossible for him not to see how she shrank with unutterable pain from the words. The point-lace fell on the gra.s.s at her feet--she covered her face with her hands.

"Did she? Oh, Lord Arleigh, it was cruel to tell it!"

"It was not cruel to tell me," he returned. "She would not tell any one else, I am quite sure. But she saw that I was really anxious--that I must know it--that it was not from curiosity I asked."

"Not from curiosity!" she repeated, still hiding her burning face with her hands.

"No, it was from a very different motive." And then he paused abruptly.

What was he going to say? How far had he already left all conventionality behind? He stopped just in time, and then continued, gravely: "The d.u.c.h.ess of Hazlewood and myself are such true and tried friends that we never think of keeping any secrets from each other. We have been, as I told you before, brother and sister all our lives--it was only natural that she should tell me about you."

"And, having heard my story, you ask me to be one of your friends?" she said, slowly. There were pain and pathos in her voice as she spoke.

"Yes," he replied, "having heard it all, I desire nothing on earth so much as to win your friendship."

"My mother?" she murmured.

"Yes--your mother's unfortunate marriage, and all that came of it. I can repeat the story."

"Oh, no!" she interrupted. "I do not wish to hear it. You know it, and you would still be my friend?"

"Answer me one question," he said, gently. "Is this sad story the result of any fault of yours? Are you in any way to blame for it?"

"No; not in the least. Still, Lord Arleigh, although I do not share the fault, I share the disgrace--nothing can avert that from me."

"Nothing of the kind," he opposed; "disgrace and yourself are as incompatible as pitch and a dove's wing."

"But," she continued, wonderingly, "do you quite understand?"

"Yes; the d.u.c.h.ess told me the whole story. I understand it, and am truly grieved for you; I know the duke's share in it and all."

He saw her face grow pale even to the lips.

"And yet you would be my friend--you whom people call proud--you whose very name is history! I cannot believe it, Lord Arleigh."

There was a wistful look in her eyes, as though she would fain believe that it were true, yet that she was compelled to plead even against herself.

"We cannot account for likes or dislikes," he said; "I always look upon them as nature's guidance as to whom we should love, and whom we should avoid. The moment I saw you I--liked you. I went home, and thought about you all day long."

"Did you?" she asked, wonderingly. "How very strange!"

"It does not seem strange to me," he observed. "Before I had looked at you three minutes I felt as though I had known you all my life. How long have we been talking here? Ten minutes, perhaps--yet I feel as though already there is something that has cut us off from the rest of the world, and left us alone together. There is no accounting for such strange feelings as these."

"No," she replied, dreamily, "I do not think there is."

"Perhaps," he continued, "I may have been fanciful all my life; but years ago, when I was a boy at school, I pictured to myself a heroine such as I thought I should love when I came to be a man."

She had forgotten her sweet, half sad shyness, and sat with faint flush on her face, her lips parted, her blue eyes fixed on his.

"A heroine of my own creation," he went on; "and I gave her an ideal face--lilies and roses blended, rose-leaf lips, a white brow, eyes the color of hyacinths, and hair of pale gold."

"That is a pretty picture," she said, all unconscious that it was her own portrait he had sketched.

His eyes softened and gleamed at the _navete_ of the words.

"I am glad you think so. Then my heroine had, in my fancy, a mind and soul that suited her face--pure, original, half sad, wholly sweet, full of poetry."

She smiled as though charmed with the picture.

"Then I grew to be a youth, and then to be a man," he continued. "I looked everywhere for my ideal among all the fair women I knew. I looked in courts and palaces, I looked in country houses, but I could not find her. I looked at home and abroad, I looked at all times and all seasons, but I could not find her."

He saw a shadow come over the sweet, pure face as though she felt sorry for him.

"So time pa.s.sed, and I began to think that I should never find my ideal, that I must give her up, when one day, quite unexpectedly, I saw her."

There was a gleam of sympathy in the blue eyes.

"I found her at last," he continued. "It was one bright June morning; she was sitting out among the roses, ten thousand times fairer and sweeter than they."

She looked at him with a startled glance; not the faintest idea had occurred to her that he was speaking of her.

"Do you understand me?" he asked.

"I--I am frightened, Lord Arleigh."

"Nay, why should you fear? What is there to fear? It is true. The moment I saw you sitting here I knew that you were my ideal, found at last."

"But," she said, with the simple wonder of a child. "I am not like the portrait you sketched."