Charles Garvice

“ From that eventful morning when he had received, as he thought, irrefutable proof of Doris’ faithlessness and treachery, and been rescued from imprisonment by Lady Grace, a great change had fallen upon Cecil Neville. Life had lost its savor, and the days that used to pass so swiftly, with pleasure at the helm and youth at the prow, hung like lead upon his hands. Time, which most of us find all too short, dragged terribly with him. Do what he would, he could not drown the memory of the beautiful girl whom he had loved so passionately, and whose image seemed engraven upon his heart. ”

“ But, good heavens, my dear Doris, have you thought? Percy Levant! Why, child, there are half-a-dozen of the best of the men here madly in love with you. I know—I know—that the Prince Romanis is only waiting an opportunity to propose to you! He hinted as much to me yesterday! And Percy Levant! Of course, I’m not surprised that he should ask you; I’ve seen that he was over head in love with you. Of course, we’ve all seen it, but never thought he would venture to tell you, least of all that he should ask you to be his wife. Why—why, he hasn’t a penny; he is as poor as a churchmouse. ”

“ Is it because—ah, no! you can’t have remembered—and yet——You are still Doris Marlowe! The dear, sweet Doris who won my heart in Barton meadows! Doris—you—you—drive me almost mad! The mere sight of you wipes out all the weary months since we parted! You are free still? Free? By Heaven, I can scarcely believe it!” He drew nearer, panting heavily, like a man who suddenly dares entertain the hope that dawns upon him. “Not married! Doris, do you remember? Let me look at your face! Why do you turn away from me? Are you playing with me still? If you are not married, there must be some reason! ”

“ Why should I not marry him—or any one else? What can Cecil Neville ever be to me, even if I were free? He will be the husband of Lady Grace; he has forgotten that such a person as Doris Marlowe ever existed; or, if he remembers me, recalls me as the girl who served to amuse him for a few days in the country. What a shame it is that I should give a thought to him who has been so base and mean, while this other, to whom I have pledged my word, is all that is good and true! Marry Percy Levant! Yes, I would marry him to-morrow if he asked me! ”

“ Churchill begging again, Lady Grace?” said Lord Cecil. “Beware of him; he never comes near you without an attempt on your purse. What’s it for now, Spenser; the ‘Indigent Washerwomen,’ or the ‘Chimney Sweeps’ Orphans?’ He’s chairman or secretary of half-a-dozen charities—aren’t you, Spenser?—and he won’t let you rest until you’ve put yourself down for lady patroness for half of ’em!” and he laughed the short, frank laugh which was so refreshing a contrast to Spenser Churchill’s oily one, that Lady Grace felt as if it washed the other away. ”

“ Doris smiled.
“That’s a mistake, I think, Jeffrey; she was eighteen, most people say! Oh, she was young enough; yes, but—but then you see she had met Romeo.”
The old man looked at her attentively, then his keen gaze dropped to the floor.
“Is it necessary for an actor to have actually died before he can perfectly represent a death scene?” he asked.
She laughed, and a faint blush rose to her face.
“Perhaps dying isn’t so important as falling in love, Jeffrey; but it seems to me that one must have loved—and lost—before one can play Juliet, and I’ve done neither.” ”

“ It is something Grace was in, too. Clever woman, Grace; too clever for Cecil. But I had my way. Yes! I had my way.”
Doris rose.
“I must go now, my lord,” she said, faintly.
“Yes?” he said, wistfully. “Yes, I suppose so. It was very good of you, my dear, to humor an old man’s whim. Let me look at you,” and he raised himself on his elbow. “You are very pretty. Did I tell you I had a daughter? Yes, yes. I think—it is only a fancy, this—that she would have looked like you. He will be a happy man who wins that beautiful face and gentle heart!” ”

“ Spenser Churchill shook his head, solemnly.
“I am afraid—how did it happen, Miss Marlowe? It is Miss Marlowe, is it not?”
“I do not know,” sobbed Doris, heedless of the latter part of the question. “I—I was not here—I heard him call! Oh, Jeffrey, Jeffrey! dear Jeffrey! Is he——A doctor! oh, if I could get a doctor! Some one——”
“My dear young lady!” murmured Spenser Churchill, pityingly, “I am afraid—do not give way, bear up! In the midst of life——”
A cry rang through the wood, and a shudder shook her frame, then she looked up with a terrible calmness.
“You say that he is dead—is that it? Dead! ”

“ Spenser Churchill watched him behind the mask of a benevolent smile.
“Oh, no, no,” he murmured; “we really must not, we really must not let dear Cecil ruin himself. My dear marquis, we should not sleep; our consciences——”
The marquis broke in with a cold, sardonic laugh.
“Yes, you are right! After all, it will be more amusing to thwart him—if we can.”
“If we can,” echoed Spenser Churchill with a smile.
“Oh, I don’t doubt your ability,” said the marquis with a sneer; “the devil himself could not be a fitter person for such work. What do you mean to do?” ”

“ Percy Levant did not start, but the quick flash of his eyes and a certain quiver of the delicately-formed lips, sufficiently indicated the surprise which fell to his share.
He had imagined a girl, plain almost to ugliness; not only plain, but shy and diffident, and—as he would have put it—bad form; a dark, colorless, governess kind of creature; and this vision of perfect grace and youthful loveliness startled him almost to bewilderment. He bowed low to hide the faint signs of his discomfiture, and Doris, just inclining her head, at once moved away. ”

“ There was a moment’s silence, during which his eyes lost their keen expression and grew absent and dreamy.
“Marriages are made in heaven,” he said, as if to himself. “Yes, in heaven. Do you know my nephew, Cecil Neville?”
Doris sank lower into her chair, and averted her face.
“I have heard of him, my lord,” replied Percy Levant.
“Ah, no doubt! He is not clever, but he marries a clever girl! Yes, Grace is clever,” and a smile curved his thin lips. “Cecil gave us some trouble, but we were too sharp for him. I think I told you, my dear?” he broke off to ask of Doris. ”

“ Get the marriage over, my dear Percy!”
“You speak of a marriage, and we were engaged only last night!” he said, after a pause. “Do you think she would consent? How little you know her. Perhaps you think”—with a bitter smile—“that she is as madly in love with me as I am with her!”
Spenser Churchill shook his head.
“No, my dear fellow, I don’t think anything of the kind. I think I can understand why Miss Doris has promised to marry you. But if she doesn’t love you now, she will do so. Oh, yes, believe me, with most women love comes after marriage!” ”

“ And why should she?” he added, not bitterly, but with a grave sadness that touched Doris deeply. “I am, as I have always been, alone in the world—a man of no account, a speck of dust dancing in the sunbeam one moment, the next, floating in the gutter. Don’t think I say this to excite your pity. No! It is because I want you to remember what I am, how worthless and insignificant—just Percy Levant, ‘the man who sings for Lady Despard!’”
He smiled with a bitter self-scorn which lent to his face an air of tragedy that fascinated Doris. ”

“ For a couple of seasons she had been the acknowledged belle, but now it seemed as if suddenly she had become one of the veritable queens of society. Wherever she went, she was surrounded by a crowd, eager to lay their tribute of adulation at the feet of the beautiful girl who had succeeded, where so many had failed, in securing handsome Cecil Neville, the future Marquis of Stoyle. Women who envied and hated her approached her with faces wreathed in smiles and voices soft and affectionate. ”

“ The butler—more in sorrow than in anger—asked what time he should send the carriage, but Lord Cecil declined a conveyance for any part of the evening.
“I’ll walk back,” he said; “I rather like a stroll after the theatre,” and the butler, with a sigh of resignation, gave him up as a bad job.
As he walked along the lanes, fragrant with the breath of spring, a thought—a hope—flashed through his mind that he might, perhaps, see the girl in the theatre. He never asked himself what his object in seeking her might be; men seldom ask themselves such questions. ”

“ The smile was still on her face while her maid brushed the long tresses of silky hair that fell like a shower of gold over the white shoulders, and even when she was alone she smiled still as she leaned forward and looked at her face in the glass.
“Yes,” she murmured, falling back and half-closing her eyes. “He is worth winning. There is only one thing I fear.” She paused, with a faint sigh. “I am afraid that I shall love him too well!”
Lord Cecil stood with his back to the fire for twenty minutes after Lady Grace had left him. ”

“ Even you will not expect me to applaud such a step as you propose taking. You are a Neville, you will be the Marquis of Stoyle, a peer of the three kingdoms: you will get, or you would have got, the Garter; and you propose to marry—an actress! An actress! If there is any man in England who would not call you a fool, I should like to see him; I should like to see him very much, indeed. Why, my dear fellow, depend upon it, no one thinks you more decidedly a fool than the girl herself.”
“By Heaven, if you only knew her!” broke from Lord Neville’s parched lips. ”

“ Seriously, my dear, I am beginning to be a little jealous; more than half the pretty speeches this afternoon were addressed to Miss Marlowe, and your bouquets were quite as numerous as mine. Beware of vanity, Doris!”
And Doris had looked up at her with the quiet smile, beneath which always lay an undercurrent of sadness, and shook her head, as she replied:
“The danger is all on your side, Lady Despard. You are the sun, I am merely the shadow. Some day some one will pluck the sun from its place, and the shadow will be desolate!” ”

“ Doris lay awake all through that night trying to realize the fact that she was betrothed to Percy Levant, and by the morning she had succeeded. She would begin a new chapter of her life from this date. The past, which was illuminated by the memory of those happy days in Barton meadows, when she loved and thought herself beloved by Lord Cecil Neville, must be buried forever. In the future she must set her heart upon one task, that of learning to love the man who loved her so truly and devotedly, and whom she had promised to marry. ”

“ Levant,” said Doris, in a low voice.
“Mr. Levant,” he repeated, in quite a different voice. “And who is——Ah, yes, I remember. I thank you sir, for granting my request,” and he inclined his head to Percy Levant with stately courtesy. “I wished to see you, wished to see you very much. This young lady has been very kind to the old and feeble man you see before you. She has a gentle and a good heart, sir. And you are the fortunate man who has won her, it would seem.”
“I deem myself very fortunate, my lord,” said Percy Levant. ”

“ A man is never so tender as regards his heart as in the moment when he has been betrayed by one woman and succored by another; and Lord Cecil’s heart throbbed with a painful sense of admiration and gratitude toward this woman of the world, the girl whom he had always regarded as just a society beauty, who had, at such fearful risks to her own name, come to his side in his dark hour. ”

“ Cecil turned his back upon her, and, leaning his elbow on the mantel-shelf, covered his eyes with his hand.
“Mr. Spenser Churchill is really and truly a remarkably clever man; but, like some other clever men, he has chosen his tools badly. I can’t understand why he should have confided in a person of Mr. Levant’s character!” and she shot a contemptuous glance from under her half-closed lids at his pale face. “But having done so, he has, of course, been betrayed. ‘Put not your trust in—adventurers’ will for the future be an excellent motto for him!” ”