Elizabeth Jordan

“ He walked straight to Miss Clarkson, buried his face in her lap, and burst into tears. For a moment she held him close, smoothing his black head with a tender hand. Almost immediately he straightened himself and returned to the side of Josephine, shy, shamefaced, but smiling again—a new Ivan.
"What did you cry for?" demanded that young lady, obtusely. "Because you feel bad?"
Augustus Adolphus replied for his friend, with an insight beyond his years.
"You let him alone," he said severely. "He don't never cry when he feels bad; he only cries when he feels good!" ”

“ She ventured what she believed would be a fairly safe inquiry.
"When the real girl arrives," she asked, "how does a man know it?"
Bertie regarded her pityingly, as one outside the garden of life.
"There's no mistaking it," he declared, positively. "Every nerve, every drop of blood in one's body, testifies to it. Every instinct of one's heart and soul cries, 'She's here at last!' Jove! but it's great when that happens—simply great! It makes the other little affairs seem like the tuning up of the violins before the symphony begins." ”

“ Far back in a corner of the garden where she lay, almost hidden by the drooping branches of an old willow, sat her two sisters, Helen Adeline and Grace Margaret, highly superior beings of a stately dignity even beyond their ripe ages of eleven and nine years. They were too old to play with little girls, as they had frequently mentioned to Genevieve Maud, but they were not wholly beyond the power of her spell, and there had been occasions when they had so far forgotten themselves as to descend to her level and enjoy doll tea-parties and similar infantile pleasures. ”

“ The Furnace Man, too, was staring moodily at his plate. The voice of Carlotta from Sweden broke the silence that had fallen upon them.
"I ban go home," she said; "I ban seek for home. I ban so loone-some. It is awful to be loone-some. Yes."
As if swung on a pivot, Anita turned and looked at the Furnace Man. As if impelled by a similar force, he had turned to look at her. For a long five seconds the gray eyes and the brown ones plumbed each other's depths and the abyss of each other's loneliness. ”

“ Varick, sitting stiffly on the old marble bench, became conscious of an odd dizziness, and set his teeth with a sudden determination to show no evidence of it. She had risen and was moving about among the rose-bushes just behind them. Almost before he missed her she had returned, holding in her hand a beautiful salmon-hued rose, with a flame-colored, crumply heart. He had never before seen one like it. As she held it near him it exhaled an exquisitely reminiscent perfume—the perfume of old joys, old memories, and loves of long ago.
"Is it not beautiful?" she said. "It is called the noisette. ”

“ He crossed to the hearth-rug, picked up the discarded Banner, and, still standing there, read the story aloud, a little unsteadily at first and with a momentary tendency to clear his throat, then as tenderly and as understandingly as the author herself had read it. And as he did so some dim realization of Olive's dream came to her at last. For here—oh, here indeed, now that they knew—were the wide-eyed interest, the strained attention, the delight, and the appreciation which she had seen in her vision of this hour. ”

“ Within a few minutes the women would leave the table. After a decent interval with the men—the smoking, say, of half a cigarette—he would follow Dorothy to the drawing-room, and, being the only man there, he would quite naturally take her out on the veranda for a glimpse of the moon or the stars. Given five minutes, uninterrupted, he could pour into her ear the story of his love, tell her of his new prospects and his impending journey west, and ask her to be his, thus putting an end for all time to the suspense that had tortured him for weeks. ”

“ Sometimes the young are indeed heedless. So that was why Evelina May came right in.
I saw Emily wipe her eyes and begin to act queerly, so I hoped all would yet be well. But even Emily seemed to lose her head, for, instead of leading up to it with a little speech, she picked up all the money—it lay on the bed—and stuffed it into Evelina May's hands and burst out crying again. Then we all joined in, for the artistic nature is emotional, and we all have some of it. I have most of all, so I cried loudest; but just the same I was looking at Evelina May to see what she would do. ”

“ I'm awfully sorry to hurt you, Bertie, but, to be frank, I don't think the hurt goes very deep. If the feeling itself were deep you couldn't make a joke and a game of it as you've done for the last two years, making yourself and me the laughing-stock of every one who knows us."
He rose, a sudden gravity draping him like a mantle. In it he looked strange to her, and, for the moment, much older than his years.
"I understand," he said. "I didn't before. Naturally, if I had, I wouldn't have kept on annoying you. A man doesn't deliberately annoy the girl he loves. ”

“ Thus Mademoiselle Verrier, who in the beginning had appealed to parental authority with something like confidence, grew accustomed to the picture that usually met her eyes after these parental sessions were ended. In her father's arms Hildegarde slept the innocent sleep of childhood, and on her curly head rested a book, over which the professor pored with his near-sighted eyes close to its pages. Under these conditions there seemed nothing for a discouraged nursery governess to do but put the child to bed and make yearning appeals to heaven. ”

“ Sister Irmingarde was at her desk at the head of the study-hall, sitting with her eyes on a book that lay open before her. When she is reading one cannot see her eyes at all—only eyelids that seem closed, and long, black eyelashes resting on her cheeks. ”

“ She moved a little and wiped her eyes with an absurdly tiny, lace-edged square of linen, One corner, he noticed, bore an embroidered coronet.
"Yes," she said very quietly, "I love you."
Her tone as she spoke expressed such entire hopelessness that the full sense of her words did not at once come to him. When it did, slowly, sweetly, she was speaking again.
"But oh, dear heart, dear heart!" she broke out. "Why do we love? To what can love lead us—two poor shadows in a dream world, in which alone we can meet!" ”

“ Then, as she was about to turn away, his small face took on for an instant the dawn of an expression. "Good night, madam," he said again, more faintly.
Slight as the change had been, Miss Clarkson caught it. She swayed toward, him.
"Are you homesick, Ivan?" she asked, caressingly, almost lovingly. "Would you like me to take you up-stairs and put you to bed?"
Fraülein von Hoffman broke in upon her speech.
"But they shall all go," she cried. "It is their time. He will not be alone. Josephine shall take him by the hand; Augustus Adolphus shall lead the way. ”

“ But before I go I must say frankly, Professor, you do not understand a little child. Many wise men have not that knowledge. A child should lead a child's life—not the life of a grown person."
Her brilliant eyes filled suddenly. She rose abruptly and left the room, while a startled gentleman rubbed his eyes before the fire. He sat very still for a long time. Hildegarde awoke and began to talk to him, but at first he did not hear her. His thoughts were busy. "You do not understand a little child." ”

“ H. E. Blair, Editor! Olive repeated the words softly to herself, rolling them as precious titbits under her tongue. She did not know Mr. Blair, but she knew of him—a great man, editor of a great newspaper, yet, among all the exacting duties of his crowded life, finding time to sweep the literary sky with piercing eyes, and recognize a new star when he saw one. ”

“ If stern disapproval in the gaze of one human being could blight another, both Mr. Howe and Mr. Bryce would have shriveled up as they sat beside Her half an hour later. They remained, however, in excellent health and spirits, and it was evident even to the prejudiced eyes of Mr. Hapgood that they were entertaining. She seemed absorbed in them, and not once during the endless, maddening meal, with its foolish laughter and its silly talk, did her gaze stray toward Teddy.
After dinner, in the drawing-room, that young man approached her with a look of stern decision on his handsome face. ”

“ A woman or a ghost? A creature of this world or a fantasy of the night? Wherever she was, whatever she was, he loved her and he wanted her. And in that hour of his agony her eyes had told that she loved him.
It was eight months before they met again. Varick's friends thought him changed, and quite possibly he was. The insouciant boy of twenty-eight had become a man, a sympathetic, serious, thoughtful man, still given to sports and out-door life, but more than all devoted to a search which had taken in no end of out-of-the-way European towns. ”

“ At the top of the stairs she turned her head sharply, a sudden curiosity uppermost in her mind. Was he glancing back? she wondered. Was he showing any emotion? Did he feel any? He seemed so horribly mature—he must understand something of what this departure meant. Did he, by chance, need comforting? But Ivan was close by her side, his sombre black eyes looking straight before him, his new shoes creaking freshly as he descended the rickety steps. Miss Clarkson sighed. If only he were pretty, she reflected. There were always sentimental women ready and willing to adopt a handsome child. ”

“ Then they carried the girl off to distant corners in the convent grounds and talked to her long and earnestly. Sometimes the girl was grateful and sometimes she wasn't, but, whether she was or not, Mabel and Maudie clung to her and drilled her in motion study, at first alone and then with other girls. Wherever I looked I could see silent groups of girls making strange, mysterious motions under the trees and along the river-bank, or standing petrified in one spot, because they had made a wrong motion and didn't dare to move for fear of making another. ”

“ The holding up of such lofty ideals of consistency conquered Grace Margaret—so thoroughly, in fact, that she helped to carry the sleeping Genevieve Maud, not only to the barn, but even, in a glorious inspiration, to Rover's kennel—a roomy habitation and beautifully clean. The pair deposited the still sleeping innocent there and stepped back to survey the effect. Helen Adeline drew a long breath of satisfaction. "Well," she said, with the content of an artist surveying the perfect work, "if that ain't simple lives, I don't know what it is!" ”

“ Ethel had a dinner engagement for that night—made before she had met him—and as they had been together all day, her aunt had sternly ruled that she must keep it. Miss Varick, it appeared, was happily disengaged, and Bertie, lounging before her open fire, his hands behind his head in excess of comfort, discoursed of the Only One.
"You're quite sure, Bertie," Janet ventured to ask, "that this is the real thing—that it will stand the wear and tear of life? You know marriage is important. You've got to spend your lives together. Are you really congenial? Will you make each other happy? ”

“ As the days passed they brought the reassuring discovery that however much her sympathetic elders might suffer over her lonely lot, the contemplation of her state brought no grief to the breast of Hildegarde. She was an exceedingly normal child, though "of an activity," as Mademoiselle Verrier confided to the cook, and this activity took startling forms.
Whatever life might be in the Seymour household, it was not dull. To follow Hildegarde about was in itself an exciting occupation, and constant vigilance was required to prevent her from leaving a long train of devastation in her wake. ”

“ Teddy Hapgood, in blithe ignorance of his disapproval, was already on his way to the drawing-room. Pausing on its threshold, he studied the scene before him with an anxious eye. She was off in a corner with Miss Bigelow, and their faces wore the look of patient waiting which dims the features of most women guests during their lonely after-dinner vigil. ”

“ But the fat arm of the old woman offered no resistance to his grasp, and the gold pieces did not exist for her. It was evident that she saw neither him nor them, nor the woman with him. With an unsparing hand she spanked the child, whose voice rose in shrill lamentations. Varick and his companion in guilt crept out of the room with a sense of great helplessness upon them, and he breathed a long breath of relief at finding himself—in bed, with a cold February sun shining in through his windows, and the faithful Parker at his side with the quieting announcement that his bath was ready. ”

“ Stewart when her older daughter was not with her, dropped now from her features like a discarded veil. She regarded her ewe lamb with an expression in her eyes which Olive would never see in any other eyes in the world, however many she looked into.
"Aren't you cold, dear?" she asked. "Come to the fire."
Olive dropped a kiss on her head as she passed, touched her father's shoulder with a tender hand, and sank into her favorite place on the hearth-rug before the huge open fireplace, in which several logs were blazing. She was still holding The Evening Banner with a desperate grip. ”

“ On Thursday morning Anita learned by telephone that the time set for Philip's luncheon was one o'clock, a detail her overworked host had omitted to mention. She presented herself at five minutes before that hour, and was escorted to the drawing-room by a servant who appeared to be struggling with abysmal emotions. She was, it appeared, the last arrival, and Philip, his blue eyes blazing with excitement, shook hands with her ceremoniously, and hastened to introduce her to his other guests—an attention complicated by the abrupt disappearance of two of them. ”

“ He heard a dry twig crack under his foot as he walked, and he recognized the different perfumes of the flowers around him—the heavy sweetness of a few belated orange blossoms, the delicate breath of the oleander, the reminiscent perfume of the rose. Then their hands met and their eyes, and each drew a long breath, and neither spoke for a moment. When Varick found words they were very commonplace ones, in use by many others in this weary world. ”

“ And it isn't nice to go on making a game of something that is a big and vital interest to those who take life seriously."
It was not easy to bring out the final words, for he was staring at her like the small boy of eight he had been when she first knew him, and his face bore the same hurt, puzzled look it used to wear when she, a "temperamental" infant of the same tender age, had flown at him in one of her sudden childish tempers. It was hard to hurt Bertie, her lifelong playmate, schoolmate, chum, and friend, but Bertie was becoming impossible. ”

“ Once, indeed, he had rebelled.
"Why don't you fall on some one else?" he had demanded, sulkily. "You don't have to fall on me all the time."
The reply of the sunbeam was convincing in its simple truth.
"I do," he explained. "Fraülein has said so. It must fall always on the same place if it is there."
Augustus Adolphus was silenced. He was indeed there, always. It was unfortunate, but seemed inevitable, that he should contribute his share to the daily entertainment so deeply enjoyed by all.
It was, very appropriately, at Thanksgiving-time that Ivan's mission as an active sunbeam ended. ”