Laura Jean Libbey

“ Yea, when she smileth another’s bride;
Still for her love her heart makes moan.
To love once is forever, and once alone!”
“I do hope, Queenie, that you are not commencing to grow sentimental!” cried Mrs. Trevalyn, holding up her hands as though the very idea was a blow which she was warding off.
“Would such a state of affairs surprise you very much, mamma?” retorted the girl, cresting her head defiantly. “Youth is the age of romance, of joy, and—and the mating of true hearts.”
“Youth is the age of nonsense!” ”

“ Surely he must understand what she has left unsaid—and he does, and gives a great start of surprise. Hitherto Queenie has occupied a pedestal high as an angel in his heart. Is this the girl whom he has worshiped so madly, this girl who is coolly counseling him to divorce the girl who is his wedded wife? All in an instant of time the mad, passionate love he has had for Queenie dies a tragic death.
It was his intention to divorce little Jess, but now that it is proposed to him by another—oh, strange perversity of human nature!—he seems to recoil from it, he knows not why. ”

“ For a moment only Queenie loses her self-possession, the next instant her face is wreathed in a cruel sneer, as she answers, defiantly:
“Am I mad, or do my ears deceive me? Are you really championing the cause of the girl who has betrayed you so shamefully? made your name, of which you were so proud, a byword for the sensational press when they learn what has happened? Most men would resent her action with all the pride in their natures, and despise her accordingly; being glad to be rid of such a——”
“Again I cry hold!” cut in John Dinsmore, in ringing, sonorous tones. ”

“ Jess throws herself face downward on the red-painted bench of the porch, sobbing as though her heart would break.
All in an instant she had been hurled from the heights of bliss down to the very depths of dark despair. She had forgotten Mr. Dinsmore completely for one short, happy week, as completely as though he had never existed.
“Oh, how cruel of you to remind me, Lucy,” she sobbed, bitterly. “You have brought me from heaven back to earth.”
“You are talking wildly, and in riddles,” remarked [120] Lucy, sharply. “Why should you not be pleased to hear of the man whom you are soon to marry? ”

“ For an instant the young man standing in the doorway was dazed with amazement, but in the next he sprang forward to raise the girl.
“Do not go near my Lucy! Do not touch her!” cried the unhappy mother, distractedly. “This is all your work, sir—all your work!”
John Dinsmore drew back in much distress. Never by word, act or deed, had he given the girl encouragement to bestow her affections upon himself. He was touched deeply. He remembered his own hopeless love for Queenie Trevalyn, and could sympathize from the very bottom of his heart with any human being who loved in vain. ”

“ A cry broke from Jess’ lips, and her grasp tightened on his hand.
“Courage!” cried the girl. “I will save you! Keep still and let me float you along. I—I am an expert swimmer.”
“No, no! Save yourself!” he cried, white to the lips. “I would only hamper you. I have nothing left in life worth the effort of living for. To you life is sweet; life is everything. Save yourself, girl—never mind me.” ”

“ I longed for companionship, and girl friends.”
“Had you no thought of—a lover?” queried Queenie, ever so softly.
“Yes,” whispered Jess, almost shyly. “I had my ideal of the kind of a man who would captivate my heart; a girl who reads much has her ideal, you know. I often said to myself: ‘If there is a Prince Charming in this world for me, he must be tall, and grave, and handsome, with blue eyes, and chestnut hair waving above a broad, white brow, and——’ Why, what in the world is the matter, Queenie? You look as though you were dying.” ”

“ If he had been rich he would have stood a fair chance of winning her. The love of a great, strong, honorable heart did not count with her. Her affection was not for exchange, but for sale. The beautiful girl whom he had thought little less than the angels above was but common clay, a mercenary creature, who weighed [13] gold in the scale against marriage, and whose idea of a gentleman, one of nature’s noblemen, was measured by his wealth. To her a poor man was less than the dust beneath her dainty feet.
“You have heard what I have said, Mr. Dinsmore,” said Queenie Trevalyn, haughtily. ”

“ For an instant, that seemed the length of eternity, Jess stood on the bank, watching, with strained eyes, the spot where the boat and its occupant had gone down to death among the treacherous lilies that floated to and fro on the bosom of the waters.
In all the after years of her life she could never fully explain just how it was accomplished. The girl was only conscious of seizing a little skiff that floated idly near at hand, and rowing for dear life to the scene of the catastrophe. She was indifferent to the awful danger, though she had just witnessed a cruel example of it. ”

“ Low as Jess had uttered the words, Raymond Challoner’s quick ear had caught the words distinctly, and he crushed back an imprecation most fierce behind his white teeth.
“Ye gods! how the girl detests me!” he thought; “and by the Eternal, I’ll give her good cause to do so before I am through with her. She is expecting me to rush up and embrace her, while I feel more like making her ears tingle with a thorough boxing. I have no patience whatever with that kind of a girl—they arouse all the hatred and antagonism in my nature. ”

“ Could he, a dismissed suitor, cast the first stone at his successful rival? Would it be manly, or ignoble?
How Queenie Trevalyn would hate him for it! That thought settled the matter, his rival should not come to his downfall through him. Far better that Challoner’s bullet should pierce his heart.
He stood quite motionless, leaning heavily against the massive pillar of the piazza, lost in deep reverie, thinking it all over.
What had he to live for, now that Queenie Trevalyn [25] was lost to him forever? Death seemed far more desirable to him than life—without her. ”

“ And as he walks quickly along, smoking the cigar which he has lighted, he thinks, amusedly, that the girl’s resolve to marry him is like the old quotation of counting chickens before they are hatched; for he has not as yet asked her hand in marriage—that marriage which is so distasteful to both of them—and then he falls to abusing the will which would tie them together for life—two who had not the slightest affection for each other. ”

“ Ay, as much as though she lay in the grave, and again and again such terrible waves of grief swept over him that they threatened to dethrone his reason. He did not care to live an hour longer. All that he loved on earth was lost to him.
He had loved Queenie Trevalyn as few men love in a lifetime. She had drawn him on, encouraged him by all the wiles with which a finished coquette ensnares her victims, and then had cast him off without the least compunction.
But, ah, how strange a thing is the human heart. ”

“ And he could hardly keep from falling on his knees before it, touching the little hands that seemed so lifelike; and, God help him, to restrain himself from kissing passionately the beautiful lips that he had hungered so to caress from the first moment that he and Queenie Trevalyn had met.
The temptation mastered him. “Just once; no one in the wide world will ever know,” he muttered, hoarsely, “and what can it matter; it can do no harm to the soulless canvas,” and, raising his feverish face, he kissed passionately the lips of the picture, not once, but many times. ”

“ An amused laugh broke from the girl’s fresh red lips as she looked up into the handsome, cynical face.
“Ah, if you were less heartless, Jess,” he sighed. “But even the hardest heart may sometimes suffer, and your day may come. Perhaps you may experience some day the love that I feel now, and if the object of your affection laughs at you in your face for your folly in loving, then you will know what I am suffering to-night.” ”

“ He comes in a smile, and goes in a kiss,
He dies in the birth of a maiden’s bliss;
He wakes in a tear, he lives in a sigh,
He lingers in hope, refusing to die.
But whence he does come, and whither he goes,
There is not a mortal in all the world knows.”
Her wedding day! That was the first thought that entered Jess’ mind, as she opened her eyes the next morning, and with a bound she was out of her couch to see from the window what fate portended in the way of a cloudy or a sunshiny day for her. ”

“ Does he love her?” was Queenie’s mental cry.
At the sight of the beautiful vision in the doorway, John Dinsmore springs to his feet, putting his young wife hastily from him.
Jess is blushing like a full-blown rose in June.
“Oh, Mrs. Brown—Queenie—don’t be so terribly shocked, please,” she cries, dancing to her side and flinging her arms around her. “I am going to explain something about this gentleman which will surprise you dreadfully. He is my husband!” And as she utters the words triumphantly, she steps back and looks at Queenie, cresting her pretty head sideways, like a young robin. ”

“ My love died for you long ago, and to-night my respect goes with it; for the woman who would counsel me to turn from my wedded wife, no matter what she has done, and find consolation with her, is one whom I do not desire even to know.”
As he uttered these words he strode from the room, leaving Queenie staring after him, the very picture of a fiend incarnate, with her eyes blazing like two coals of yellow fire, and her face and lips bloodless.
“Foiled!” she shrieked. “Foiled! and I had set my heart and soul upon winning him, and the way seemed so easy!” ”

“ For half an instant he almost believed that he was the victim of a mad, wild nightmare. The woman he loved so madly, the woman who so cruelly deceived him, the woman whom he had tried in his heart to scorn, to hate, kneeling before him, asking his forgiveness! He almost fancied that he did not hear, or see aright.
His first impulse is to gather her in his arms and rain all the passionate love that has been locked up in his almost broken heart upon her, but, just in the nick of time, he remembers that they are no longer lovers—that a barrier is between them. ”

“ The words have scarcely left her lips ere Jess falls like a log at her feet.
Dead! Queenie thinks at first, but as she bends over her, she finds to her disappointment that is but a swoon.
For a moment she stands gazing down at her evil work with a fiendish smile curling her lips.
“This is the first step I have taken in the plot to part this girl most effectually from the man I love, and have set myself to win,” she muttered in a hard voice, adding: “Why should I not? For he loves me—not her.” ”

“ It was as yet too early to determine that, for the first gray streak of dawn had not appeared in the eastern sky, and the early mornings were always misty, and every branch and shrub and blade of grass was burdened by great drops of dew.
“I am sure the sun is going to shine,” she ruminated, “and that will mean: ‘Happy is the bride the sun shines on,’ as the old saying goes.”
Jess made all possible haste with her toilet, and hurried down as fast as she could to the grounds; but, early as she was, Mr. Moore was there before her. ”

“ That is just how I feel,” cried Jess, great sighs welling up from her heart to her lips.
“You have promised to marry a young man whom you do not love!” repeats Lucy, for the first time realizing that part of Jess’ excited remarks. She was about to add: “How could you do it?” Then she thinks better of what she was about to say, and goes on: “Mother says the greatest love has often commenced with a very decided aversion.”
“I must marry John Dinsmore, but I shall hate him till the day I die!” sobbed Jess, vehemently. ”

“ As usual, “the beautiful Miss Trevalyn,” as every one called her, was the belle of the ball, as she had been the belle of the season, much to the chagrin of a whole set of beauties who had come this summer to take Newport by storm and capture the richest matrimonial prize. Even Miss Queenie Trevalyn’s cruelest enemy could not help but admit that she was simply perfect to-night as she floated down the plant-embowered ballroom, a fairy vision in pink tulle, fluttering ribbons and garlands of blush-roses looping back her long jetty curls. ”

“ Moore’s feelings were it was hard to conjecture.
One moment he hated all womankind, for the sake of the one he had found so fair and so false—beautiful Queenie Trevalyn, whom he had loved too well, and to his bitter cost.
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Then he found himself softening toward one of the hated sex—little Jess, whose heart was as innocent and pure as a little babe’s.
He wondered if she would ever have the heart to draw a man on to declare his love, and then, when she found that he was not possessed of wealth, discard him as unconcernedly as she would a withered flower of which she had grown tired. ”

“ I did not suppose you ever enjoyed the luxury of being alone; such is the penalty of having admirers by the score,” bowing low before the beauty, adding: “I beg to remind you that this is our waltz, and it is my favorite music, ‘My Queen.’”
Queenie Trevalyn arose graciously, her rosebud lips [14] wreathed in the sweetest of smiles. She danced and laughed, the gayest of the gay, never for an instant did her thoughts revert to the heart that was enduring the agonies of death, for love of her, down upon the cold, white sands. ”