Angela

“ Angela heard and saw, for she understood what moved him, so far as almost childlike simplicity can have intuition of what most touches a strong man. She was less like the portrait now than a moment earlier; her lips, just parting in a little half-longing, half-troubled smile, were like dark rose leaves damp with dew, her eyelids drooped at the corners for an instant, and the translucent little nostrils quivered at the mysterious thrill that stirred her maiden being. ”

“ Angela was so delighted with the garden city watched by desert hills; and she said so innocently, "What sweet houses for brides and grooms! Oh, no one except people in love ought to live here!" that Nick had to bang the door of his dream-house with violence. And for the first time since he had fallen in love with Angela, he began to say, "Why not—why shouldn't I try to make her care? There are folks who think you need only to want a thing enough to get it." ”

“ By odd coincidence, it fell out that the re-meeting of Mary Wing's two cousins took place within fifty feet of the Choristers' window. What more natural than that Angela, in the moment of passing her home-come friend, should look over her shoulder and speak a pleasant greeting? Or that Donald, surprised and civil, should unconsciously take a responsive step or two toward the sudden speaker of the greeting? What more certain than death or taxes but that the Fordette should thereupon come to a halt—which it did so easily and naturally? ”

“ Is the sacrifice of a wish wanted? Angela makes it. Is her pure feeling offended by Richard's faults? She kisses them away and raises him to her level. My wife--is she not just the opposite in every thing? Is she not quick-tempered, bitter, loveless, extravagant, and stiff-necked? Has she a look--I will not say of love--but even of respect for me? Do not all her thoughts and acts look to the pleasures of the toilette, the opera, balls, and concerts? O my poor children! who grow up without a mother, in the hands of domestics. ”

“ Though Angela always thought the Mother blest
Must love the time of her own hawthorn best,
Each evening through the year, with equal, care,
She placed her flowers; then kneeling down in prayer,
As their faint perfume rose before the shrine,
So rose her thoughts, as pure and as divine.
She knelt until the shades grew dim without,
Till one by one the altar lights shone out,
Till one by one the Nuns, like shadows dim,
Gathered around to chant their vesper hymn;
Her voice then led the music’s wingèd flight,
And “Ave, Maris Stella” filled the night. ”

“ Thus it was that the strange day, already memorable to Charles Garrott, memorable, too, to Mary Wing, turned past all counting into the unforgettable day of Angela's life. Thus, into the little house in Center Street, life and death came stepping side by side. ”

“ Final, yes: for while Angela was attaining success to the full limit of her small conceptions, every aspiration that Mary had cherished, literally, had one by one gone down. And if this last was not the worst, perhaps, neither was it the easiest to bear. No, if anything on earth was calculated to harden and embitter a woman who could not easily yield, surely it must be her own so easy overthrow by pink cheeks and soft, empty eyes.
And these white-stone steps Charles now ascended had for him a reminiscent power, by no means comforting. ”

“ Angela returned after housing the steer. Frank went some steps toward her, as if to thank her on his knees for his life; but he concluded to stand, and a sad smile passed over his countenance.
"Fräulein Angela," said he, "I have the honor of introducing to you my friend, Herr Lutz, professor at our university."
"It gives me pleasure to know the gentleman," said she. "But I regret that, through the negligence of Louis, you have been in great danger. Great God! if I had not been in the yard." And her beautiful face became as pale as marble. ”

“ And—so sardonically does life twine joy with sorrow in its willful tangle—it was as she spoke these words that Mrs. Flower, standing at the head of the dark stairs, first called Angela's name. However, that call died unheard. The mother's voice was low, the daughter, for her part, could be conscious of nothing but that this dear and imperious Mr. Manford was a very difficult person to resist. ”

“ Angela is hardly the same girl she was when we met her a little more than a fortnight back. A nameless change has come over her face and manner; the merry smile, once so bright, has grown softer and more sweet, and the laughing light of her grey eyes has given place to a look of some such gratitude and wonder, as that with which the traveller in lonely deserts gazes on the oasis of his perfect rest. ”

“ Angela was thankful enough to drop into a chair, for she was trembling from head to foot with the surprise and joy and happiness of the moment, and the whole world was swaying unsteadily about her. Two unshed tears stood in her eyes.
"You are very, very good to me," she said, "and I am not used to it. You don't know what it is to find a friend when you have lived all your life amongst strangers, who regard you as a mere unit in a garden of children. ”

“ You have convinced yourself of the injustice of your opinion of women. You have found a noble woman. I am willing to believe that Angela is a magnificent and faultless creature, although she have an ultramontane father. But my consent to your union with Siegwart's daughter you will never receive. Now, Richard, you can without trouble find a woman that will suit you, and who is as beautiful and as noble-minded as the Angel of Salingen. ”

“ Who, however hardened a sinner, could have remained insensible at the sight of Angela, thus radiant in her divine beauty, comforting her old father with sweet soft words, whilst the purest affection, the most childlike goodness, beamed from her eyes, evidently coming from the very depths of her heart? ”

“ Angela said firmly—"at least, not yet. Oh, you don't know what you are saying; you don't know what forces you are up against. And I can't talk to you any more to-night."
Angela dropped the receiver and crept miserably back to bed. There was a way out here, perhaps a desperately foolish one, but a way out, all the same. Was there ever anything in the shape of comedy more illogical and absurd than this? To give her heart and her confidence to a man she had never seen! And yet she must escape; she must follow the line of the least resistance. ”

“ Gordon tried not even to think of Aunt Angela oftener than he could help.
Poor, dear, good, kind, depressing Aunt Angela! Poor, shrivelled, parchment-yellow, skin-and-bone Aunt Angela! There in her miserable little semi-detached house in Highgate—Briarbrae, its name was—there in her palace in the northern mountains, there dwelleth she, Angela the Ever-virgin, of whom no man either living or among the shades can say truly that upon her lips he hath pressed the dear caresses of a lover. ”

“ As for Neville, his admiration for Angela burst from him as he looked at her. “Dearest,” he said, holding both her hands, “you have become beautiful. You are a woman now and not a child. You have grown up since that night on the wharf at Harrowby.”
“I have gone through that which makes a girl into a woman,” replied Angela, softly. “Until two nights ago I had every night at family prayers to hear every name called except yours, but I called your name in my heart.” ”

“ So without great pomp or ritual, fuss or feathers, came the great moment to which all one woman's life had looked forward, to which, conceivably, it might all look back. Standing statue-like a few feet from her, the fingers of one hand feeling in Judge Blenso's waistcoat-pocket for the ring, those of the other resting lightly on the cold Latrobe, Charles listened to the beautiful words which converted Angela Flower into Mrs. Donald Manford. ”

“ CHECK TO FROBISHER.
The whole thing struck Angela as strangely unreal. It hardly seemed possible that this swiftly-moving drama could be played amongst the settings of her daily life in this fashion. There was the dreamy music of the band—the Scarlet Bavarian Band of so many big social functions—the familiar fuss and flutter of drapery, the sound of well-known voices. Mrs. Benstein was smiling in the most natural way, the two men appeared to be quite at their ease. And yet here was a moving drama that any one moment might flare into tragedy. Still, Angela played the game mechanically. ”

“ You dream of beautiful things,—and the world is full of ugly ones; you dream of love and constancy, and purity,—and the world is full of spite, and hate, and bribery, and wickedness; you have a world of your own,—but Angela, it is a glass world!—in which only the exquisite colours of your own soul are reflected, take care that the pretty globe does not break!—for if it does you will never be able to put it together again! Adieu!"
"Adieu!" and Angela returned her loving embrace with equal affection,
"I will announce your departure to the Marquis Fontenelle to-morrow." ”

“ A queer little laugh broke from Angela's lips. Her heart was beating wildly, the grey eyes gleamed like stars.
"There is no evading you," she whispered. "Now, if you will turn your eyes towards the west, down at the foot of a great clump of pines you will see a tiny red-roofed cottage. And if you could see like the bird can, then you would also make out a figure in a cotton dress and a cotton sun-bonnet, and that figure is me. You are not more than half a mile away, Ariel, and I can't quite realise it yet." ”

“ Tommy, noting what she had written about her long, dull walks, was offering to give her an automobile.
At first, Angela simply could not take in this offer as a solid reality. It sprang upon her like some wild, exciting joke. She read, with her breath coming faster and faster, and her soft eyes as big as saucers:—
Now, Sis, I know a car may strike you offhand as a good deal of an undertaking for a poor family, but you'd find it wouldn't prove so at all. ”

“ Saw all the sisters kneeling round a bed,
Where Angela lay dying; every breath
Struggling beneath the heavy hand of death.
But suddenly a flush lit up her cheek,
She raised her wan right hand, and strove to speak.
In sorrowing love they listened; not a sound
Or sigh disturbed the utter silence round.
The very tapers’ flames were scarcely stirred,
In such hushed awe the sisters knelt and heard.
And through that silence Angela told her life:
Her sin, her flight; the sorrow and the strife,
And the return; and then clear, low and calm,
“Praise God for me, my sisters;” ”

“ Angela faltered: but was unskilled in flattery, and could not reply with a compliment.
“No, sister; surely none have ever called this countenance handsome; but it is a face to set one thinking.”
“Ay, child, and he who owns the face is a man to set one thinking. He has made me think many a time when I would have travelled a day’s journey to escape the thoughts he forced upon me. He was not made to bask in the sunshine of life. He is a stormy petrel. It was for his ugliness I chose him. Those dark stern features, that imperious mouth, and a brow like the Olympian Jove. ”

“ I suffer from the lack of poetic phrases with which to embellish the plain reality of my love; but be sure, Angela, that you may travel far through the world, and receive many a flowery compliment to your beauty, yet meet none who will love you as faithfully as I have loved you for this year last past, and as I doubt I shall love you—happy or unfortunate in my wooing—for all the rest of my life. ”

“ It would be a pity to shut out so much loveliness by switching on the electricity, so when Nick came he found Angela, a tall, slim black figure, with a faint gold nimbus round its head, silhouetted against a background of flaming sky. Standing as she did with her back to the window, he could hardly see her face, but the sunset streamed full into his as he crossed the room, holding out his hand.
His dark face and deep-lighted eyes looked almost unearthly to Angela seen in this wonderful light. No man could really be as handsome as he seemed! ”

“ Indeed, Miss Angela herself could not well feel more mortified over those unimagined salutes than he, the New Man, did. And it was as if his humiliation had destroyed all that restraining sense of a bond here, and the brutal Charles was free now for a frank facing of his new reactions.
"Well, I won't marry her! I won't," said he to the calm Citizen. "I'll call myself names for her, yes; I'll send her bonbons—flowers—that sort of thing. I'll land Donald for her—that's a thought! I'll get her invited to the Thursday German. But marry her!... ”

“ After great searchings of heart she had come to admit that Bernard was all the world to her; but she would much have preferred to renounce the world and remain her maiden self. Angela was a little ascetic. Though she loved him truly, it cost her a bitter struggle to admit a man into her life; especially a man such as Bernard, who would gently brush away all her delicate scruples and cobwebs of privacy, and take possession of her, body and soul. She could trust him to be gentle, but would he understand? To Angela, wifehood seemed a strange and terrible thing. ”

“ Stay with us, Monsieur Nigel, and marry Angela! If you search the world through you could find no sweeter wife.”
My hesitation vanished like the morning mist before the rising sun.
“If Angela will be my wife,” I said, “I will be your successor.”
“It is the answer I expected, Monsieur Nigel. I am content to let Angela be the arbiter of your fate and the fate of Quipai. She will be here presently. Put the question yourself. She knows nothing of this; but I have watched you both, and though my eyes are growing dim I am not blind.”
And with that the abbé left me to my thoughts. ”