Mr. Raleigh, suddenly lifting one oar, gave the boat a sharp curve and sent it out on the open expanse; it seemed to him that he had no right thus to live two lives in one. Still he wished to linger, and with now and then a lazy movement they slipped along. He leaned one arm on the upright oar, like a river-god, and from the store of boat-songs in his remembrance sang now and then a strain. Marguerite sat opposite and rested along the side, content for the moment to glide on as they were, without a reference to the past in her thought, without a dream of the future. Peach-bloom fell on the air, warmed all objects into mellow tint, and reddened deep into sunset. Tinkling cow-bells, where the kine wound out from pasture, stole faintly over the lake, reflected dyes suffused it and spread around them sheets of splendid color, outlines grew ever dimmer on the distant shores, a purple tone absorbed all brilliance, the shadows fell, and, bright with angry lustre, the planet Mars hung in the south and struck a spear, redder than rubies, down the placid mirror. The dew gathered and lay sparkling on the thwarts as they touched the garden-steps, and they mounted and traversed together the alleys of odorous dark. They entered at Mr. Raleigh's door and stepped thence into the main hall, where they could see the broad light from the drawing-room windows streaming over the lawn beyond. Mrs. Laudersdale came down the hall to meet them.
"My dear Rite," she said, "I have been alarmed, and have sent the servants out for you. You left home in the morning, and you have not dined. Your father and Mr. Heath have arrived. Tea is just over, and we are waiting for you to dress and go into town; it is Mrs. Manton's evening, you recollect."
"Must I go, mamma?" asked Marguerite, after this statement of facts. "Then I must have tea first. Mr. Raleigh, I remember my wasted sweetmeats of the morning with a pang. How long ago that seems!"
In a moment her face told her regret for the allusion, and she hastened into the dining-room.
Mr. Raleigh and Marguerite had a merry tea, and Mrs. Purcell came and poured it out for them.
"Quite like the days when we went gypsying," said she, when near its conclusion.
"We have just come from the Bawn, Miss Marguerite and I," he replied.
"You have? I never go near it. Did it break your heart?"
Mr. Raleigh laughed.
"Is Mr. Raleigh's heart such a delicate organ?" asked Marguerite.
"Once, you might have been answered negatively; now, it must be like the French banner, _percé, troué, criblé,"
"Pray, add the remainder of your quotation," said he,"sans peur et sans reproche."
"So that a trifle would reduce it to flinders," said Mrs. Purcell, without minding his interruption.
"Would you give it such a character, Miss Rite?" questioned Mr. Raleigh lightly.
"I? I don't see that you have any heart at all, Sir."
"I swallow my tea and my mortification."
"Do you remember your first repast at the Bawn?" asked Mrs. Purcell.
"Why not?"
"And the jelly like molten rubies that I made? It keeps well." And she moved a glittering dish toward him.
"All things of that summer keep well," he replied.
"Except yourself, Mr. Raleigh. The Indian jugglers are practising upon us, I suspect. You are no more like the same person who played sparkling comedy and sang passionate tragedy than this bamboo stick is like that willow wand."
"I wish I could retort, Miss Helen," he replied. "I beg your pardon!"
She was silent, and her eye fell and rested on the sheeny damask beneath. He glanced at her keenly an instant, then handed her his cup, saying,
"May I trouble you?"
She looked up again, a smile breaking over the face wanner than youth, but which the hour's gayety had flushed to a forgetfulness of intervening years, extended her left hand for the cup, still gazing and smiling.
Various resolves had flitted through Marguerite's mind since her entrance. One, that she would yet make Mr. Raleigh feel her power, yielded to shame and self-contempt, and she despised herself for a woman won unwooed. But she was not sure that she was won. Perhaps, after all, she did not care particularly for Mr. Raleigh. He was much older than she; he was quite grave, sometimes satirical; she knew nothing about him; she was slightly afraid of him. On the whole, if she consulted her taste, she would have preferred a younger hero; she would rather be the Fornarina for a Raffaello; she had fancied her name sweetening the songs of Giraud Riquier, the last of the Troubadours; and she did not believe Beatrice Portinari to be so excellent among women, so different from other girls, that her name should have soared so far aloft with that escutcheon of the golden wing on a field azure. "But they say that there cannot be two epic periods in a nation's literature," thought Marguerite hurriedly; "so that a man who might have been Homer once will be nothing but a gentleman now." And at this point, having decided that Mr. Raleigh was fully worth unlimited love, she added to her resolves a desire for content with whatever amount of friendly affection he chose to bestow upon her. And all this, while sifting the sugar over her raspberries. Nevertheless, she felt, in the midst of her heroic content, a strange jealousy at hearing the two thus discuss days in which she had no share, and she watched them furtively, with a sharp, hateful suspicion dawning in her mind. Now, as Mrs. Purcell's eyes met Mr. Raleigh's, and her hand was still extended for the cup, Marguerite fastened her glance on its glittering ring, and said abruptly,
"Mrs. Purcell, have you a husband?"
Mrs. Purcell started and withdrew her hand, as if it had received a blow, just as Mr. Raleigh relinquished the cup, so that between them the bits of pictured porcelain fell and splintered over the equipage.
"Naughty child!" said Mrs. Purcell. "See now what you've done!"
"What have I to do with it?"
"Then you haven't any bad news for me? Has any one heard from the Colonel? Is he ill?"
"Pshaw!" said Marguerite, rising and throwing down her napkin.
She went to the window and looked out.
"It is time you were gone, little lady," said Mr. Raleigh.
She approached Mrs. Purcell and passed her hand down her hair.
"What pretty soft hair you have!" said she. "These braids are like carved gold-stone. May I dress it with sweet-brier to-night? I brought home a spray."
"Rite!" said Mrs. Laudersdale sweetly, at the door; and Rite obeyed the summons.
In a half-hour she came slowly down the stairs, untwisting a long string of her mother's abandoned pearls, great pear-shaped things full of the pale lustre of gibbous moons. She wore a dress of white samarcand, with a lavish ornament like threads and purfiles of gold upon the bodice, and Ursule followed with a cloak. As she entered the drawing-room, the great bunches of white azalea, which her mother had brought from the swamps, caught her eye; she threw down the pearls, and broke off rapid dusters of the queenly flowers, touching the backward-curling hyacinthine petals, and caressingly passing her finger down the pale purple shadow of the snowy folds. Directly afterward she hung them in her breezy hair, from which, by natural tenure, they were not likely to fall, bound them over her shoulders and in her waist.
"See! I stand like Summer," she said, "wrapped in perfume; it is intoxicating."
Just then two hands touched her, and her father bent his face over her. She flung her arms round him, careless of their fragile array, kissed him on both cheeks, laughed, and kissed him again. She did not speak, for he disliked French, and English sometimes failed her.
"Here is Mr. Heath," her father said.
She partly turned, touched that gentleman's hand with the ends of her fingers, and nodded. Her father whispered a brief sentence in her ear.
"Here is Mr. Heath," her father said.
She partly turned, touched that gentleman's hand with the ends of her fingers, and nodded. Her father whispered a brief sentence in her ear.
"Jamais, Monsieur, jamais!" she exclaimed; then, with a quick gesture of deprecation, moved again toward him; but Mr. Laudersdale had coldly passed to make his compliments to Mrs. Heath.
"You are not in toilet?" said Marguerite, following him, but speaking with Mr. Raleigh.
"No,Mrs. Purcell has been playing for me a little thing I always liked,that sweet, tuneful afternoon chiding of the Miller and the Torrent."
She glanced at Mrs. Purcell, saw that her dress remained unaltered, and commenced pulling out the azaleas from her own.
"I do not want to go," she murmured. "I need not! Mamma and Mrs. McLean have already gone in the other carriage."
"Come, Marguerite," said Mr. Laudersdale, approaching her, as Mr. Heath and his mother disappeared.
"I am not going," she replied, quickly.
"Not going? I beg your pardon, my dear, but you are!" and he took her hand.
She half endeavored to withdraw it, threw a backward glance over her shoulder at the remaining pair, and, led by her father, went out.
Marguerite did her best to forget the vexation, was very affable with her father, and took no notice of any of Mr. Heath's prolonged remarks. The drive was at best a tiresome one, and she was already half-asleep when the carriage stopped. The noise and light, and the little vanities of the dressing-room, awakened her, and she descended prepared for conquest. But, after a few moments, it all became weariness, the air was close, the flowers faded, the music piercing. The toilets did not attract nor the faces interest her. She danced along absent and spiritless, when her eye, raised dreamily, fell on an object among the curtains and lay fascinated there. It was certainly Mr. Raleigh: but so little likely did that seem, that she again circled the room, with her eyes bent upon that point, expecting it to vanish. He must have come in the saddle, unless a coach had returned for him and Mrs. Purcell,yes, there was Mrs. Purcell,and she wore that sweet-brier fresh-blossoming in the light. With what ease she moved!it must always have been the same grace;how brilliant she was! There,she was going to dance with Mr. Raleigh. No? Where, then? Into the music-room!
The music-room lay beyond an anteroom of flowers and prints, and was closed against the murmur of the parlors by great glass doors. Marguerite, from her position, could see Mr. Raleigh seated at the piano, and Mrs. Purcell standing by his side; now she turned a leaf, now she stooped, and their hands touched upon the keys. Marguerite slipped alone through the dancers, and drew nearer. There were others in the music-room, but they were at a distance from the piano. She entered the anteroom and sat shadowed among the great fragrant shrubs. A group already stood there, eating ices and gayly gossiping. Mr. Laudersdale and Mr. Manton sauntered in, their heads together, and muttering occult matters of business, whose tally was kept with forefinger on palm.
"Where is Raleigh?" asked Mr. Manton, looking up. "He can tell us."
"At his old occupation," answered a gentleman from beside Mrs. Laudersdale, "flirting with forbidden fruit."
"An alliterative amusement," said Mrs. Laudersdale.
"You did not know the original Raleigh?" continued the gentleman. "But he always took pleasure in female society; yet, singularly enough, though fastidious in choice, it was only upon the married ladies that he bestowed his platonisms. I observe the old Adam still clings to him."
"He probably found more liberty with them," remarked Mrs. Laudersdale, when no one else replied.
"Without doubt he took it."
"I mean, that, where attentions are known to intend nothing, one is not obliged to measure them, or to calculate upon effects."
"Of the latter no one can accuse Mr. Raleigh!" said Mr. Laudersdale, hotly, forgetting himself for once.
Mrs. Laudersdale lifted her large eyes and laid them on her husband's face.
"Excuse me! excuse me!" said the gentleman, with natural misconception. "I was not aware that he was a friend of yours." And taking a lady on his arm, he withdrew.
"Nor is he!" said Mr. Laudersdale, in lowest tones, replying to his wife's gaze, and for the first time intimating his feeling. "Never, never, can I repair the ruin he has made me!"
Mrs. Laudersdale rose and stretched out her arm, blindly.
"The room is quite dark," she murmured; "the flowers must soil the air.
Will you take me up-stairs?"
Meanwhile, the unconscious object of their remark was turning over a pile of pages with one hand, while the other trifled along the gleaming keys.
"Here it is," said he, drawing one from the others, and arranging it before him,a gondel-lied.
There stole from his fingers the soft, slow sound of lapsing waters, the rocking on the tide, the long sway of some idle weed. Here a jet of tune was flung out from a distant bark, here a high octave flashed like a passing torch through night-shadows, and lofty arching darkness told in clustering chords. Now the boat fled through melancholy narrow ways of pillared pomp and stately beauty, now floated off on the wide lagoons alone with the stars and sea. Into this broke the passion of the gliding lovers, deep and strong, giving a soul to the whole, and fading away again, behind its wild beating,with the silence of lapping ripple and dipping oar.
Mrs. Purcell, standing beside the player, laid a careless arm across the instrument, and bent her face above him like a flower languid with the sun's rays. Suddenly the former smile suffused it, and, as the gondel-lied fell into a slow floating accompaniment, she sang with a swift, impetuous grace, and in a sweet, yet thrilling voice, the Moth Song. The shrill music and murmur from the parlors burst all at once in muffled volume upon the melody, and, turning, they both saw Marguerite standing in the doorway, like an angry wraith, and flitting back again. Mrs. Purcell laughed, but took up the thread of her song again where it was broken, and carried it through to the end. Then Mr. Raleigh tossed the gondel-lied aside, and rising, they continued their stroll.
"You have more than your share of the good things of life, Raleigh," said Mr. McLean, as the person addressed poured out wine for Mrs. Purcell. "Two affairs on hand at once? You drink deep. Light and sparkling,thin and tart,isn't it Solomon who forbids mixed drink?"
"I was never the worse for claret," replied Mr. Raleigh, bearing away the glittering glass.
The party from the Lake had not arrived at an early hour, and it was quite late when Mr. Raleigh made his way through ranks of tireless dancers, toward Marguerite. She had been dancing with a spirit that would have resembled joyousness but for its reckless abandon. She seemed to him then like a flame, as full of wilful sinuous caprice. At the first he scarcely liked it, but directly the artistic side of his nature recognized the extreme grace and beauty that flowed through every curve of movement. Standing now, the corn-silk hair slightly disordered and still blown about by the fan of some one near her, her eyes sparkling like stars in the dewdrops of wild wood-violets, warm, yet weary, and a flush deepening her cheek with color, while the flowers hung dead around her, she held a glass of wine and watched the bead swim to the brim. Mr. Raleigh approached unaware, and startled her as he spoke.
"It is au gré du vent, indeed," he said,"just the white fluttering butterfly,and now that the wings are clasped above this crimson blossom, I have a chance of capture." And smiling, he gently withdrew the splendid draught.