Aileen

“ As the words pass her lips she shivers, remembering Aileen's warnings. It seems to her that Power's face has grown harsh and cruel, like the face of a man who is her judge more than her lover.
"Honor, do you want to break my heart? You know how I love you, have loved you always. Launce hates me—your father has plainly said he will 'never give his only girl to a rebel;' and I am that in his opinion. But why should they stand between us, my darling? What right has any man to come between such love as ours?"
"No man can come between us, Power. ”

“ Will it tire you to be told again that Aileen was beautiful? Had she donned a few hundred dollars’ worth of clothes and joined the Easter parade, and had you seen her, you would have hastened to say so yourself.
The customers at Bogle’s were her slaves. Six tables full she could wait upon at once. They who were in a hurry restrained their impatience for the joy of merely gazing upon her swiftly moving, graceful figure. They who had finished eating ate more that they might continue in the light of her smiles. Every man there—and they were mostly men—tried to make his impression upon her. ”

“ I dare not die with my promise unkept. This very night," Lady Thetford cried, sitting up, flushed and excited, "my boy shall know all—he shall not marry in ignorance of whom he really is. Aileen has the fortune of a princess; and Aileen will not love him less for the title he must lose. When he comes home, Mrs. Weymore, send him to me, and send your son with him, and I will tell them all." ”

“ Life, however dark and somber, could never apparently cloud his soul. Brooding and idling in the wonder palace of his construction, Aileen could see what he was like. The silver fountain in the court of orchids, the peach-like glow of the pink marble chamber, with its birds and flowers, the serried brilliance of his amazing art-collections were all like him, were really the color of his soul. ”

“ Rupert, I have ceased to think so since May Everhard's return."
The young man's face flushed suddenly and hotly, but he made no reply.
"How any man in his senses could possibly prefer May to Aileen, is a mystery I cannot solve; but then these things puzzle the wisest of us at times. Mind, my boy, I don't really say you do prefer May—I should be very unhappy if I thought so. I know—I am certain you love Aileen best; and I am equally certain she is a thousand times better suited to you. Then, as a man of honor, you owe it to her. ”

“ But as he could not know what answer might or might not affect Aileen's future, he decided to speak the whole truth—let come what might.
"I sincerely hope so," he replied.
"Do—you know?" with a slight emphasis on the "know."
"I know they love each other—have loved each other for many years."
"If she does—she—won't get anything from me—you tell her—so."
"That will make no difference to Aileen, Mrs. Champney. Love outweighs all else with her."
She continued to look at him unwaveringly.
"Love—fools—" she murmured. ”

“ Oh, no, Aileen, he'll never leave Donaghmore!"
"Then the saints purtect him!" Aileen answers tremulously. "But as sure as my name is Aileen Walsh harm will come of it!"
CHAPTER III. "As sure as my name is Aileen Walsh harm will come of it!"
The words haunt Honor. They ring in her ears night and day, and spoil many hour's innocent pleasure for her.
But what harm can come? she asks herself. The country is quiet enough now to all appearance, though more than once, in the dusk, she has heard the shrill signal whistle pealing from hill to hill or dying away over the melancholy bog. ”

“ Aileen told her story.
“‘Here,’ said the parish priest, leaning over the churchyard wall, ‘here are the beads blessed by myself. Tie them round your true lover’s neck, like a collar, and neither witch nor wizzard can do him any personal harm. Let him be off to sea at once, if he wishes to be restored to his former face and figure. They can never be recovered until he is two hundred miles away from the coast of Ireland. The sooner he is far from the country the better for the two of you; as that old woman will never forgive him the fine puck he had out of her. ”

“ Father Honoré had a vision at that moment of Champney Googe's face when he said, "But you loved her with your whole manhood." He made no reply, but waited for Aileen to say more if she should so choose.
"I believed he loved me—and so I told him my love—I shall never, never get over that!" she exclaimed passionately. "But I know now—I knew before he went away the last time, that I was mistaken; no man could say what he did and know even the first letter of love." ”

“ With all this feasting and flirting and merry exchange of wit Bogle’s came mighty near being a salon, with Aileen for its Madame Récamier.
If the transients were entranced by the fascinating Aileen, the regulars were her adorers. There was much rivalry among many of the steady customers. Aileen could have had an engagement every evening. At least twice a week some one took her to a theatre or to a dance. One stout gentleman whom she and Tildy had privately christened “The Hog” presented her with a turquoise ring. ”

“ First of all, her levity had perceived, with surprise and terror, the hold that passion was taking on the delicate and sensitive nature of Aileen. This young girl, so innocent and spotless in thought, so virginally sweet in manner, so guileless in action, developed a power of loving, an absorption of the whole being in the beloved, such as our modern world but rarely sees.
She lived, she breathed for Warkworth. Her health, always frail, suffered from their separation. She became a thin and frail vision--a "gossamer girl" indeed. The ordinary life of travel and society lost all hold upon her ”

“ He had not as yet spoken, save with his dark eyes, his loving earnestness of voice, and the readiness with which, ever since his appearance in Flamsted he ran and fetched and carried for her.
Aileen enjoyed this devotion. The legitimate pleasure of knowing she is loved—even when no response can be given—is a girl's normal emotional nourishment. Through it the narrows in her nature widen and the shallows deepen to the dimensions that enable the woman's heart to give, at last, even as she has received,—ay, even more than she can ever hope to receive. ”

“ Butler, that Aileen is a grown woman, and that she has a will of her own. You think I control her to her great disadvantage. As a matter of fact, I am very much in love with her, and have been for three or four years; and if you know anything about love you know that it doesn’t always mean control. I’m not doing Aileen any injustice when I say that she has had as much influence on me as I have had on her. ”

“ Aileen kept her secret, and all the more closely because she was realizing that Champney Googe was far from indifferent to her. At first, the knowledge of the miracle of love, that was wrought so suddenly as she thought, sufficed to fill her heart with continual joy. ”

“ But Aileen was compelled to neglect this advice, if Amelia was to be saved from the eager jaws of Toby. The flying animals made straight for the stone-pines, and the girl was shortly almost knee-deep in bracken under the dripping trees. Toby just missed his prey by a hair-breadth, for Amelia was up and over the mouldering red brick wall like a flash of lightning, leaving her enemy to bark and caper at the base. But Aileen paid no attention to his antics. She was staring dumb-foundered at the body of a man, over which she had stumbled. ”

“ Webb as their guardian angel, enjoyed a good dinner, and a quiet dinner, since their happiness—a dream oasis in the midst of the woeful desert of actuality—made them little disposed to speak. Dick had demonstrated his love so very emphatically that Aileen was content to accept less pressing evidence. It was only when the meal ended, and the smiling landlady withdrew after bringing in the coffee, that Dick wished to renew earlier raptures. Aileen kept him at arm’s length. “No! We understand one another fully. I love you: you love me. Let it go at that, Dick.” ”

“ To Aurora Googe, the mother of her imaginative ideal, Aileen, attracted from the first by her beauty and motherly kindness towards an orphan waif, gave a child's demonstrative love, afterwards a girl's adoration. In all this devotion she was abetted by Elvira Caukins to whom Aurora Googe had always been an ideal of womanhood. Moreover, Aileen came to know during these years of Champney Googe's absence that his mother worshipped in reality where she herself worshipped in imagination. ”

“ It was a lucky thing for the young princess Aileen, that her grand-mother, Moyra Olliffe, was so busily engaged in contriving plans for guarding the treasures buried in the caves of Rahar; the old woman had not time to misinstruct her, to corrupt her morals, to poison her mind, or to instil into the child’s heart her own prejudices against and malignant hatred of the Irish. Whilst the old witch was picking weeds and dead men’s bones out of church-yards, to boil up into charms in her magic skillet, the young girl was running, as wild as a colt, hither and thither ”

“ She herself was a symphony in pink ("dago pink," whispered Aileen wickedly) , and she wore a small pink silk turban, apparently made from the same bolt as the gown.
"Perhaps we should have worn hats," said Gora nervously. "I didn't know—I thought..."
"You are just all right. Anything goes here. We wear what's becoming, what we can afford, and what is our own idea of the right thing. Nobody criticizes anybody else."
"Now, this is life!" said Alexina to Aileen. ”

“ If you’re quite ready we’ll have the obsequies to-night.”
He put Aileen’s hand in mine. The vicar married us, the Prince of Wales giving away the bride. Aileen’s pale face was shot with a faint flush, a splash of pink in either alabaster cheek. When the priest had made us man and wife she, who had just married me, leaned forward impulsively and kissed our former enemy on the forehead. The humorous gleam came back to his dulling eyes.
“Only one, Montagu. I dare say you can spare that. The rest are for a better man. Don’t cry, Aileen. ’Fore Heaven, ’tis a good quittance for you.” ”

“ Aileen murmured in her lover’s ear, “She means our marriage.”
“Yes! Yes!” Edith catching the words spoke with more energy, “that’s it; your marriage. Promise me that you will never fail my dear, dear girl.”
“I promise, although there is little need for me to do so,” Dick assured her, earnestly. “Aileen will be my wife as soon as circumstances permit.”
The sick woman sighed happily. “Oh, thank God! Thank God that my loving friend will have an honest man to protect her from the terrors of this cruel world. It has killed me. ”

“ But Aileen spoke the truth. Her vivid imagination, a factor in the true Celtic temperament, provided her with another life, apart from the busy practical one which Mrs. Champney laid out for her. All her childish delights of day-dreaming and joyous romancing, fostered by that first novel which Luigi Poggi thrust through the knothole in the orphan asylum fence, was at once transferred to Alice Van Ostend and her surroundings so soon as the two children established their across-street acquaintance. ”

“ But Roderick was everything to me, and I have lost him, lost him, lost him.”
“Surely Aileen——” began Dick, indignant that the girl’s proffered affection should be so definitely rejected.
More cut him short, fiercely positive. “Can Aileen carry on my research work—has she the brains, the training, the knowledge to finish what I have begun? No! You little understand my feelings, which are those of a scientist as well as those of a father. I have lost more than my son. I am deprived of an assistant, who helped me as no one else could have done, as no one else ever can do. ”

“ The villagers had approved of Aileen, all youthful charm and vivacity, but Edith Danby had never been a favourite, because of her keep-off-the-grass attitude, and evasive habits of life. Therefore, when she arrived in Fryfeld, under the protective wing of Inspector Trant, they greeted her with groans and stones, condemning her, unheard, after the usual fashion of the ignorant. Aileen, soberly dressed, and heavily veiled, clung anxiously to Hustings, as he escorted her to the scene of the inquiry. ”

“ Aileen took it with a hearty shake, “You are a good kind friend.”
“I’m all that,” he assured her, as they went to the front door, “as you will find, before we are through with this case.”
“You will try and save Edith?”
“Edith must save herself, if she can, by speaking out,” and with a reassuring nod Inspector Trant swung down the avenue, while Aileen returned with a sinking heart to the parlour.
For a young person of such a self-reliant nature, and with such clear vision, she felt singularly helpless. Her good friend had spoken truly. Edith alone, could save herself. ”

“ There was no question but that Aileen was delicately lovely with that alluring air of feminine dependence upon masculine strength, which attracts men to protect forlorn beauty. And the girl in her budding womanhood, graciously fresh as a spring flower, had already attracted at least one genuine admirer. “Does Mr. Hustings love you?” asked Edith abruptly, and ignoring the question so vehemently put. ”

“ Feeling forlorn and deserted, Aileen required demonstrative love: those caressing actions, which speak louder than mere words, however sweet. And such love—any love, according to her own showing, the girl had never received, save from Edith. Yet there had been her brother, and there was her father—ah, yes, her father. Dick desired to learn more of that wanderer. So far as he could gather from a stray word or so, there did not seem to be much love lost between Mr. More and his daughter. Dick resolved to question Aileen that very evening, and learn how matters really were. ”