Lady Sweetapple; or, Three to One, Chapters XXXII - XXXIII [pp. 566-569]

566 LADY S WEETAPPLE; OR, THREE TO ONE. [MAY 25,
the wife of a man whom it is simply a moral
impossibility to hate, and to hold your own
in a circle of people who have their faults,
doubtless, being for the most part flippant
folly-lovers, but a circle of people, neverthe.
less, who contrive to make one of their exiled
members very dissatisfied with any other social consolation which New York may have it
in her power to offer him. I know you well
enough to understand rather clearly that your
future must have its hours, perhaps its days,
of bitterest regret, and longing, and self-reproach; but, all in all, you have chosen the
wiser course, and you must believe, Olive, that
I really think so."
With that his hand dropped caressingly
upon my shoulder. I am not sure that I
should have changed my very woful attitude
for some moments yet, had not a faint, rumbling sound from the region of the foldingdoors intruded itself most abruptly upon the
silence. As it was, the color sprang in
surges to my face when I had sacrificed tragic
inclination to a curiosity concerning the origin of this sound.
Mr. Erskine had made it-Mr. Erskine was
standing a few steps from the dining-room
threshold-Mr. Erskine was watching me
with eyes that somehow made me certain he
had heard every thing.
I didn't think the situation at all funny,
and I didn't feel at all like meeting it as if I
thought so - conclusive reasons, possibly,
why a low, little peal of laughter left my lips,
and some rattled-off, tremulous words, to this
effect: "We three should be in a comedy,
or a tragedy, or something. We'd do superbly for Wallack's just as we are."
"You speak for yourself, I trust," Mr.
Erskine at length stated, breaking the dead
silence of a good half-minute. "I, for one,
can't say that my present part completely
pleases me."''
"It's an important part, you know," I hurried forth, with a toss of the head. "Very
few plays are constructed without their eavesdropper."
He came many paces nearer while I was
speaking.
"Quite true. But the eavesdroppers don't
usually cry mea ~clvpa. as I have done."
Just then I glanced across his shoulder to
discover mamma, framed between the foldingdoors, her face expressing keen anguish, and
her hands agitatedly preparing to unpin her
brooch. Under any severe mental stress
mamma invariably unpins her brooch. This
is the fact. Let those learned in such phenomena explain it as they can.
"I might so easily have avoided discovery," Mr. Erskine went on, with a serenity
which made me marvel, "but you see that I
have chosen otherwise. No doubt your mother thinks me very uncivil, too, in making this
intrusion wholly against her wishes, not to
speak of my having almost forced her to keep
silence ever since we became aware that you
and Mr. Grosvenor were talking together."
"You paint yourself in unsparing colors,"
I burst out, with an impatient sneer. "Pray
what does it all mean? I am released from
my engagement with you, I suppose. Well "laughing that laugh again-" the misfortune
must be endured, you know."
Just then Aleck cleared his throat with a
kind of nervous importance.
"Let me say good-night, Olive," he began,
approaching me with outheld hand.
"One moment, Mr. Grosvenor, if you
please."
John Erskine spoke these words with soft
courtesy. Pausing, Aleck shot toward the
man one distrustful, penetrant look. While
they stood facing each other, Mr. Erskine
continued:
"Miss Olive has no apparent wish that
our engagement should continue. I agree
with her regarding the necessity of dissolving it. But, if I stand toward your cousin no
longer in the light of her future husband, I
am hardly justified in making you an offer
which otherwise might have been made with
thorough propriety. And yet, whether justified or no, I shall make this offer, and say
what merely a press of business has prevented
me from saying to-day at a more fitting time
and under more fitting circumstances."
"This is quite Arabic," murmured Aleck,
with wide eyes.
"But easily translatable. You may have
heard that our firm intends shortly to establish a new branch-house in Vienna. We need
some gentleman both willing to assume and
capable of assuming there a certain very important and very lucrative position. I know
that you possess the abilities requisite for
such a position. Will you make the trial for
a year or two?"
Aleck looked as if he had recently
happened in upon one of the Gorgons, and
met with the worst sort of petrifying results.
Very soon Mr. Erskine's quiet voice proceeded:
"Pray believe that I have only one motive for the present offer-your known capacity to accept it confidently and to discharge
its duties with full success. We are not well
acquainted, Mr. Grosvenor, but I have had occasion to observe, without your knowledge,
two or three recent years of your businesslife."
I don't know what Aleck intended to reply, but he would very probably have launched
forth his answer the next moment if I had
not enforced just then my feminine right of
lingual precedence.
"You musn't accept, Aleck. You musn't,
and you sha'n't!" I clamored. After that I
burst into bounteous tears, and addressed my
remarks to John Erskine: "You're a saint,
and I wish you'd go away. Mamma, and
Aleck, and I, aren't good enough company for
you."
Somehow he had got one of my hands between both his own the next moment.
"I shall go at once."
Through my tears I saw his smile now,
and his kind, gleaming eyes, and had an odd
fancy about an angel with its wings folded
away under a dress-coat.
"It is better that Mr. Grosvenor gave me
no immediate answer," he whispered, softly"better that you and he talked together a
little first. I have heard you say "-and here
his voice grew very, very low-" that you
have been longing for Europe these three
years past."
Then, while he was pressing my hand, I
snatched it away to help hide my rushing.
tears withal; and after that I only know that
for fully a quarter of an hour I was buried in
the easy-chair, sobbing great, heavy sobs.
And when at length I unsepulchred myself
from the easy-chair I found the room vacant
of everybody except mamma, who was seated
near me in the act of restoring her brooch to
its proper place-an act which I took for a
symbol of resignation on the part of the sufferer.
That night I didn't sleep at all exorbitantly, and during the next day I kept my
room, determined that if any thing like an
efficient locksmith had spent his skill upon
the door thereof, no Aunt Susan or Aunt Anybody Else should disturb my privacy. And
toward nightfall I was able triumphantly to
reflect that for a single day at least I had escaped long faces, dark looks, and all other
marks of family disfavor.
When the servant brought me, at six
o'clock, the dinner which I didn't choose to
take down-stairs, she learned that I should be,
ill that evening to any one who might call
except Mr. Grosvenor.
Mr. Grosvenor did call, and I went down
to see him. We talked together till about
ten o'clock, I should say. Then we went upstairs and found mamma. She was seated in
her own room hearing Linda recite a French
verb.
"Que-que-que," floundered my sister,
painfully, in the midst of her subjunctives"que j'6-que j'6-que j'lcrivisse."
"Linda," I broke in, "stop a moment,
please.-Mamma, Aleck and I have come to
tell you that we are going to Vienna together
next spring."
"Heavens and earth!" apostrophized
Linda.
Mamma sighed tremulously.
"One must accept one's little crosses,"
she had the rudeness to murmur, while Aleck
manufactured a good-humored grimace. "I
think, Olive, that Mr. Erskine's conduct has
been noble enough to make one believe-"
"That he's crazy! " finished Linda.
"There's no other elucidation to be thought
of. I, for one, feel confident that the poor
man has a bee in his bonnet, to speak idiomatically."
"You should know more about French
verbs, Linda," I snapped, "and less about
things which don't concern you."
But somehow Linda's remark teased my
memory for days afterward. Possibly because it was so unjust.
EDGAR FxAWCETT..
LADY SWEETAPPLE; OR,
THREE TO ONE.
CHAPTER XXXII.
IN WHICH THERE ARE SOME EXPLANATIONS.
WHEN the walking-party reached the Hall
-which they did at the very hour that Edith
Price was having that interview with Mrs.
Briggs on the landing in Pump Court-they
found Lord Pennyroyal and Sir Thomas returned from the model farm, and Mr. Sonder
566
LAD Y SW-&E-,APPL.E; OR, THR.EE TO ONE.
[MAY 25,