Mrs. Baillie Reynolds

“ I am not a fit man for you to love!"
"You are the man that saved me," said Rona, clinging to him. "How strange it seems. I never thought of you as a young man, somehow, until I saw you sitting here with such a sad, grave face."
"And I," said Felix, with a depth of wonder that was almost stupefaction—"I actually never knew that you were beautiful until this evening. But now I know. I see everything with a new clearness. I am a man, and you are going to be a woman in a year or two. And I want you for my wife."
She was silent, hushed with a new awe. "For your wife? Oh, David!" ”

“ You must know that I should not think of marrying a man I have hardly seen and do not love, except for you and the children. Do you call me cold-blooded because I am careful to assure myself that I shan't be sacrificed in vain?"
Her mother wrung her hands. "Virgie, you know that I do not demand such an unnatural bargain?"
"Of course I know that you don't demand it," was the quiet answer. "It is my own decision. I promise you one thing: if, when Mr. Gaunt comes, I feel that he is a person I never could care for, if he repels me utterly, I will draw back. ”

“ Vanston, you may be in time! By God's help you may not be too late to let him know that he is not all alone in the world."
Her lover raised his eyes and looked firmly upon her. He also folded his arms. "Rona," he said solemnly, "I have made up my mind. To go is my duty; and it shall be at once."
She gave a gasp of relief. "Do not try to hinder me," continued Denzil, with unnecessary heroism.
"To hinder you? I should think not," cried Rona. "As you say, to go is your duty, and at once. I will not try to prevent you. Every minute is precious." ”

“ Cinderella's expression changed as she entered her home—changed to an eager, glowing delight of anticipation. Light-footed she ran up the tiny staircase, and, pushing open the door of the back room on the landing, flew to the side of a child who lay almost flat upon an invalid-couch at the open window.
There were ecstatic cries: "Virgie, Virgie!" and "Pansy, my Pansy blossom!" and the two sisters were clinging together in a rapture of affection.
"Let's look at you, Virgie, darling! Oh, yes, you are better! It has done you good, hasn't it, dear? Plenty to eat—you never have enough at home." ”

“ They pass out from their world of dreams into real life, through a fairy archway built up of the pretty accessories which go to make a wedding.
But Veronica had no such initiation. Hardly had the door of her convent closed upon, her than the wolves of life were upon her heels. The shock which she had received, when first a glimmering of what was meant by her uncle's arrangement with Levy dawned upon her, had as it were flung her violently away from the mood of shy and artless pleasure with which the average young girl awaits her destiny.
Rona had no idea what being in love meant. ”

“ Virginia's heart surged up within her until she almost broke into weeping. Her own mother, the widow of Bernard Mynors, the widow of the most-beloved, the dearest, the best, the handsomest—she was setting out gaily to fascinate an old lover, wearing on her finger the ring he had bestowed in the days when she had never seen her husband.
"How she can!" thought Virgie to herself. Her mother was a continual puzzle to her. In her intense simplicity the girl took her usually at her own value. She believed devoutly that it was at great personal cost that Mrs. Mynors was going to town that day. ”

“ His tears were actually falling, and he shook with emotion. To the astonishment of her governess Nadia went up to him, and laid her hands upon his shoulders; it seemed as if she almost embraced him, as though he had been a father.
"Oh!" she cried, and her sweet voice—the Slav voice, with tears in it—quivered and vibrated with emotion. "Oh! is it possible that he should love a girl who—who cannot keep faith with him?"
Vronsky grew suddenly very still. His sobs ceased. As though he were touching some sacred thing, he put his arms about the girl's shoulders. ”

“ Virginia hesitated. "Well, I think it is, but not in the sense in which this inscription means it," she ventured timidly. "I mean—there is a love which is stronger than anything or anybody—but not that love—not that silly winged boy." She blushed a little as she spoke, and looked so divinely pretty, her small teeth just showing between the parted lips, her shadowy, Greuze eyes uplifted, that Gerald felt his head swim.
"I think you are right," he said, speaking with extra gravity to hide his emotion.
"Virgie is simply ridiculous about love," grumbled Mims. ”

“ He was free to avow himself the suitor of the Russian girl.
Was not this the summit of his desires?
Nadia smiled rapturously. Snatching her hands from Felix, she held them impulsively to Rona.
"Oh," said she, "I have wanted so long to see an English girl! And you are—you are—like the girls in story books, just as Mr. Vanston is exactly like the men!"
"Why," cried Rona in astonishment, "how well you talk English!"
Over the heads of the two girls the glance of the brothers met. There was no malice in Felix's steady gaze. He went to Denzil and took his hand. ”

“ I am going to turn you into something human—into a feeling, breathing, and, if necessary, a suffering woman. I am going to take away your false standards, to humble your vanity, to mortify your avarice. You shall see yourself, Virginia Gaunt, as you really are! Your outward beauty, upon which you trade, as your mother traded, is nothing to me but a whip, reminding me of the fool I was in my youth. I saw you first, using your lure, casting your net, hoping to secure young Rosenberg as your escape from poverty and debt. ”

“ Rona felt a kind of resentment against that cruelty of fate which seems to blind a young girl to her own feelings until it is too late. She recalled her sober fondness for Denzil, her eager clutching at any arrangement which would secure to her the continuance of her happy life. And the shock of repulsion which had seized her when some new feeling leaped to life in her at the touch of the man's lips in leave-taking, and she knew that she not only did not share his feeling, but that it excited in her the most complete distaste. ”

“ Omberleigh Grange was in Derbyshire, and it must have a garden—a real garden, such as she had been born to, such as she loved. A garden in which to rest and grow strong again, a garden in which Pansy might be wheeled along smooth walks, and lie under the spreading shade of big trees. These things could be hers, at a price. What did the price involve?
Mr. Gaunt had loved her mother. He knew, of course, that her mother had preferred another man; but she, Virginia, bore a wonderful resemblance to the woman lost, and the lonely man wanted to satisfy his empty heart by cherishing her. ”

“ With this he disappeared, and they heard him stumping along the jetty. The cognac was really good, and the hot drink pulled the young man together. Rona and he sat by the fire side by side, gazing at the red coals, with a drowsiness born of fatigue and excitement.
Felix had an illusion of being separated from the world which was to him so detestable a spot, and placed in a new setting, in a universe where there was clearly a post for him, and a work which he alone could do. He looked, in a fervor of compassion, at the figure of the waif beside him. ”

“ There was just enough bedding-out to make a meagre display; but when she thought of the flaming herbaceous flowers which ought to fill those long border edgings, of the Alpine plants which ought to bloom from every cleft in those limestone walls, she sighed at the thought of wasted opportunities. The tastes of the master of the house were not for horticulture, it appeared.
The thought of his sneer at her for a mercenary marriage rushed to her mind. This husband—this stranger—what manner of man was he? What was to be her fate at his hands? The doubt and terror turned her blood to water. ”

“ They were the eyes of one who knew the harder side of life, and did not fear it: unlike those of the elder man. Vronsky's were the eyes of a dreamer, and beamed with the idealistic love which is the virtue of the Slav race. To him this young man was as a son. He had found him, taken him up out of despair, restored to him his self-respect, and given him, into the bargain, the love for lack of which the young man's soul had starved until that hour. Felix had satisfied the warmest hopes of his adopted father. ”

“ Pansy was to be fetched downstairs, the tea-table spread in the garden, more tea prepared. Tony was a willing, if somewhat boisterous, helper. He and his sister between them soon arranged things, and the too brilliant eyes of the little cripple glistened with pleasure as she was laid beside the wire arch smothered in Hiawatha, to enjoy the air of the exquisite summer evening.
Virgie sat, the socks she endlessly knitted for Tony in her never idle fingers, watching the clear-cut profile, which, as she could not conceal from herself, grew ever more ethereal. ”

“ She reflected with cold wonder that she had once thought herself in love with Felix—Felix, whose color had never changed, whose breath had never quickened at her coming—whose manner to her was as his manner to Miss Forester, civil, pleasant, neutral. She could not look at Denzil without becoming aware of his intense consciousness of her look. He was her slave. He reddened and paled, smiled or frowned, as she willed. Nadia was a young woman who loved her own way. Her intelligence had always warned her that with Felix she would not have had it. ”

“ Even as Gerald's blood leapt with the throb of triumph, he realised how careful he must be not to let her see the admission she had just made. The thing which he might safely say sprang into his mind as by inspiration. "There is such a thing as spiritual freedom, Virgie," he softly murmured. "Don't forget that liberty is a thing nobody can really take from you."
She turned a radiant face to him, and broke into a smile. "Oh, Gerald, how lovely! How fine of you to say that! Yes, it is so. You are right. ”

“ Miss Rawson looked fixedly at Denzil. Never before had she seen him so confused, so little sure of himself. He stammered; he was, so to speak, at her mercy. Her face was quite grave; her manner calmly sympathetic. She knew that there are some men with whom there must always be the protective instinct to excite love. The notion of playing Providence to that lovely young girl was full of an exquisite seductive charm to young Vanston. He really did not know that he was in love with her. ”

“ What was Gaunt's plan she could not exactly know. If it was simply to mortify her, then she could not see why he should be unkind to Virgie. Yet she distrusted and feared him; and she had given no warning to the simple creature at her side, going like a lamb to the slaughter, blind to all life's mysterious issues, blind to the sinister motive which her mother so clearly saw behind Gaunt's eccentric marriage. For Virginia, the old truth held good, that at the actual moment one ceases to realise what is happening. ”

“ On the writing-table, where the father's eye could always rest upon it, stood a panel portrait of a beautiful young girl—Nadia Stepanovna, as she appeared when she made her first bow to the Czar at Court.
Felix stood where he could see the photograph, and gazed upon it while he waited.
It was a vivid face, truly Russian in its intensity. The great eyes seemed to hold almost too much expression: a woman who would both love and hate with passionate fervor, to whom the sober tenor of existence which comes natural to English girls would be a thing impossible. ”

“ As he spoke, the door opened softly and Virginia walked in.
She wore her deceptive air of extreme elegance, and her prettiest frock. It was a costume grossly unsuited to the tiny villa, and she had hitherto worn it only in London. Any man beholding her might have been pardoned for supposing her to be a luxury-loving idler, a girl who thought of little else but appearances.
Gaunt stood up. She approached him with a mingling of shyness and welcome; her manner seemed to trust him completely—to say that she knew herself safe in his hands. ”

“ He set his lips firmly, and looked his new friend straight in the eyes. "I was there—in prison—with Loris Ivanovitch," he said, steadily.
Vronsky gazed at him in pure sympathy. His eyes were still soft with tears. "My poor lad," he said, softly. "Poor, misguided child. You have suffered."
It was the first time that any soul had pitied Felix Vanston for his downfall. The whole world had said to him: "You have sinned." Not one human soul had said: "You have suffered."
"I have suffered," he said, slowly, "and through all my future I must suffer. I am branded, I am a marked man. ”