Portia - Margaret Wolfe Hungerford (top 100 books of all time checklist txt) 📗

low at times, and again wild and sweet--rises and swells as the director waves to and fro his magic wand.

Inside, in the conservatories, the lamps are burning low; the tender blossoms are hanging down their heads. Between the dark green branches of the shrubs, lights blue and red and yellow gleam softly. In the distance may be heard the plaintive drip-drip of many fountains.

Roger, passing through one of the halls, and seeing Dulce and Mr. Gower standing before a huge Chelsea bowl of flowers, stops short, hesitates, and then, _bon gre mal gre_, goes up to them and makes some trivial remark that neither deserves an answer nor gets one.

Dulce is apparently wrapped up in the contemplation of a flower she has taken from the old bowl--that looks something like an indoor Marguerite; she is plucking it slowly to pieces, and as she so mutilates it, whispers softly the incantation that will help to declare her fortune:

"Il m'aime--un peu--beaucoup--passionement--pas du tout. Il m'aime--un peu--"

The petals are all gone; nothing remains but the very heart of the poor flower, which now, as she breaks it mercilessly in two, flutters sadly to her feet, and dies there.

"Yes--just so," she says, with a little hostile glance at Roger, distinctly seen by Gower--"and such a very little, that it need hardly count!"

"What an unsatisfactory lover," says Roger, rather satirically, returning her glance with interest. "Of whom were you thinking?"

"My dear Roger, you forget," says Miss Blount, with admirable promptitude; "how could I think of any one in that light! I have never had a lover in my life. I have only had--_you_!" She says this slowly, and lets her lids fall half over her eyes, that are now gleaming with undue brilliancy.

"True!" replies Dare, with maddening concurrence, stroking his mustache softly.

"_Isn't_ Roger charming," says Dulce (her own manner deeply aggravating in its turn), tapping Gower's arm lightly and confidentially with her fan; "_so_ honest and withal _so_ gracious."

"A compliment from you is, indeed, worth having," says Roger, who is in a dreadful temper; "but a truce to them now. By-the-by, were you really thinking of me just now when you plucked that unoffending flower to pieces? I can hardly bring myself to believe it."

"If not of you, of whom should I be thinking?" retorts she, calmly but defiantly.

"Well--Gower, for example," says Roger, with a sneering laugh, and unpardonable bad taste. "_He_ looks as though he could do a lover's part at a moment's notice, and without the slightest effort."

As he makes this objectionable little speech, he turns on his heel and leaves them.

Dulce, crimson, and with her breath coming somewhat quickly, still lets her eyes meet Gower's bravely.

"I must ask you to excuse my cousin," she says, quietly. "How warm the rooms are; is there no air anywhere, I wonder?"

"On the balcony there is," says Gower, gently. "Shall we go there for a minute or two?"

She lays her hand upon his arm, and goes with him through the lighted, heavily-perfumed rooms on to the balcony, where the cool air is blowing, and where the fresh scent from the waving pines makes itself felt.

The moon is sailing in all its grandeur overhead. Below, the world is white with its glory. The music of many rivulets, as they rush sleepless to the river, sounds sweeter far than even the strains of the band within.

It is past midnight. The stars are growing pale. Already the "world's heart" begins to throb,


"And a wind blows,
With unknown freshness over lands and seas."


Something in the silence and majesty of the hour, and something, perhaps, within her own heart, brings the unbidden tears to Dulce's eyes.

"What can be the matter with Roger?" asks Stephen, presently, in a low tone. "We used to be such good friends, long ago. I never saw anyone so changed. He _used_ to be a genial sort of fellow." The emphasis is very expressive.

"Used he?" says Dulce, in a somewhat expressionless tone.

"Yes; a right down good sort."

"Is he so very bad now?" says Dulce, deliberately and dishonestly ignorant.

"To you--yes."

There is a pause.

"I think I hardly understand you," she says, in a tone that should have warned him to be silent.

"Have you forgotten the scene of a moment since?" he asks her, eagerly. "His voice, his glance, his whole manner were unbearable; you bore it like an angel--but--why should you bear _anything_? Why should you trouble yourself about him at all? Why not show that you care as little for him as he cares for--"

"Go on," says Dulce, imperiously.

"As he cares for _you_, then," says Stephen, recklessly.

"You have been studying us to some purpose, evidently," exclaims Dulce, turning to him with extreme bitterness. "I suppose, indeed, you are not alone in your judgment. I daresay it is apparent to the whole world that I am a matter of perfect indifference to--to--my cousin!"

"'Who runs may read,'" says Stephen with quiet determination. "Why should I lie to you? He must be blind and deaf, I think--it is not to be accounted for in any other way. Why, that other morning in the garden, you remember how he then--"

"I remember nothing," interrupts she, haughtily, turning away from him, deep offence in her eyes.

But he follows her.

"Now you are angry with me," he says, miserably, trying to look into her averted face.

"Why should I be angry?" she says, petulantly. "Is it because you tell me Roger does not care for me? Do you think I did not know that before? It is, indeed, a question with me whether I am or am not an object of aversion to the man I have promised to marry."

"You speak very hardly," he says.

"I speak what is in my heart," says Dulce, tremulously.

"Nevertheless, I should not have said what I did," says Stephen, remorsefully, "I know that. Whatever I might have thought, I should have kept it to myself; but"--in a low tone--"it maddens me to see you give yourself voluntarily to one incapable of appreciating the treasure that has fallen to his share--a treasure beyond price--when there are others who, for a word, a glance, a smile, would barter--"

He pauses. His voice is trembling. His eyes are bent upon the ground as though he is half afraid to meet her glance. There is genuine feeling in his tone.

Dulce, impressed by his open agitation, in spite of herself, leans over the balcony, and lets her fingers wander nervously amongst the leaves of the Virginian creeper that has intertwined itself in the ironwork, and is now fluttering within her reach. It is gleaming blood-red beneath the kiss of the fickle moonbeams, that dance hither and thither amidst its crimson foliage.

Plucking two or three of the reddest leaves, she trifles with them gently, and concentrating all her attention on them, gives herself an excuse for avoiding Stephen's earnest gaze. Her hands are unsteady. She is affected by the sincerity of his manner; and just now, too, she is feeling hurt and wounded, and, perhaps, a little reckless. Her self-pride (that dearest possession of a woman) has sustained a severe shock; for the first time she has been awakened to the fact that the whole country considers her as naught in the eyes of the man whose wife she has promised to be.

To prove to the country that she is as indifferent to Roger as he (it appears) is to her, becomes a settled desire within her heart; the more she dwells upon this, the more sweet it seems to her that there should be another man willing to be her slave; another in whose sight she is all that a woman should be, and to whom each tone of her voice, each glance of her soft eyes, is as a touch of heaven!

Her silence emboldening Gower, he bends over her, and lays his hand upon the slender fingers that are still holding the scarlet leaves of the Virginian creeper.

"Do you understand me?" he asks, nervously.

"Yes."

She feels almost constrained to answer him honestly, so compelling is the extreme earnestness of his manner.

"It seems a paltry thing now to say that I love you," goes on Gower in an impassioned tone that carries her away with it, now that she is sore at heart; "You _know_ that. You have known it for weeks." He puts aside with a gesture her feeble attempt at contradiction. "Every thought of my heart is yours; I live only in the hope that I shall soon see you again. Tell me now honestly, would it be possible to break off this engagement with your cousin?"

At this she shrinks a little from him, and a distressed look comes into her beautiful eyes.

"What are you saying?" she says, in a half-frightened way. "It has been going on for so long, this engagement--_always_, as it seems to me. How should I break it off? And then there is Uncle Christopher, he would be unhappy; he would not forgive, and--besides--"

Her voice dies away. Memory vague but sharp, comes to her. If she should now deliberately discard Roger, how will it be with her in the future? And yet what if he should be glad of his freedom; should welcome it with open arms? If, indeed, he should be only waiting for her to take the initiative, and give him his release!

This reflection carries its sting; there is madness in it. She closes her lips firmly, and her breath comes quickly and uncertainly.

"It will be better for you later on," breaks in Gower, tempting her, surely but quietly. "When you are married--it is all very well for you now, when escape at any moment is possible; but when you are irrevocably bound to an unloving husband how will it be with you? Other women have tried it, and how has it ended with them? Not as it will with you, I know; you are far above the many; but still your life will drag with you--there will be no joy! no sympathy! no--Dulce have pity on yourself (I do not say on _me_), and save yourself while you can."

She makes a last faint protest.

"How do you _know_ he does not love me?" she asks, painfully. "How can you be sure?--and at least"--wistfully--"we are accustomed to each other, we have known each other all our lives, and we have quarrelled _so_ hard already that we can scarcely do anything more--the worst with us is over."

"It will be different then," says Gower--he is speaking from his heart in all honesty. "Now you belong to him only in an improbable fashion; then--"

"It is your belief that he does not love me at all?" interrupts she, tapping her foot impatiently upon the ground.

"It is my belief," returns he slowly.

Almost as he speaks, some one steps from the lighted room beyond on the balcony and approaches them. It is Roger.

"This is ours, I think," he says, addressing Dulce, and alluding to the waltz just commencing.

"Is it--what a pity; I had quite forgotten," she says, wilfully. "I am afraid I have half promised it to Mr. Gower, and you know _he_ dances charmingly."

The emphasis not to be mistaken. The remark, of course, is meant alone for Roger, and he alone hears it. Gower has gone away from them a yard