Doris

“ I love you with all my heart—with all my soul. No one ever has been— no one ever can be—what you have become. Doris, do you care ever so little for me? Could you love me? Could you be mine—my own!—my very own? ”

“ He saw—Doris; Doris, mold of beauty; naiad in grace; innocence in her startled eyes; face of an angel; mien of a wood nymph. He began to believe in the gods of old. He said to himself, "Maid or spirit? Mortal or vision?"
"Forgive me for startling you," he said; "but I have been watching you as you stood under this tree——"
"I hate to be watched," interrupted Doris.
"As a man I was guilty; as an artist, guiltless, for an artist, above all things, loves and serves his art, and considers all he sees as subservient to it. I came to Downsbury in quest of studies in still life. ”

“ Doris wondered that anybody could grumble, with such an outlook.
She had been up herself since six o'clock; and from her little balcony, facing another way, had watched the goats of the village, starting for their day upon the alps; gathered together by the goatherd with his horn; each small beast coming composedly from its own stable at the sound. Already Doris had had one ramble, and now she was more than ready for breakfast. It was all too delicious—except Mrs. Brutt. The girl was in dancing spirits with the air, the views, the novelty, the freedom. ”

“ If Doris succeeded, Maurice did not.
Reaching the small blue-grey piece of water, with its framework of jagged rocks and slender pines, they climbed to a shady spot, and sat long in silence, which neither was in haste to interrupt. Upon each stole a strong consciousness that, shared with the other, life offered the best that it had to give, little besides being essential for happiness. But, while this consciousness pervaded the whole being of the man, dominating his every faculty, it rested rather as a ray of brightness upon the surface of the girl's mind; not less genuine, but less deep. ”

“ Doris, my golden-haired love, whom I have been loving, believing her to be some helpless waif or stray. Doris, belonging to the Studleighs and the proud Duke of Downsbury—what will she say? Great heavens! what will she say when she learns this?"
Then the task before him might well have dismayed a braver man. He had to find her. The whole world lay before him, and he had to search all over it. Was she in Italy, Spain, or France? or had she even gone further away? He thought of the proud lady's words—"love has keen instincts; you will find her because you love her." ”

“ Are we not one already in mind and heart? If you love—would you consent to separation for life, only for this?—only that yours is bluer blood than mine! You shall make of me what you will! My people shall not trouble you—that I can promise. It is you and I who love—just you and I! What has the rest of the world to do with us? Just you and I!—my Doris!—my darling! ”

“ Next morning Doris had us all up, bathed as well as we could in her tiny bath, fed and ready to set out long before the first streak of dawn appeared in the east. Agathemer, on his gem-selling expedition, had bought all we needed to line our wallets except food, and that Doris supplied in abundance and variety and of a sort calculated to be palatable two or three days out at sea.
Doris was a creature no man could forget. She was buxom and buoyant and completely content with her home, her way of life, her friends and her prospects; and as capable and competent a human being as I ever met. ”

“ Doris, all life and glow and high spirits; Katherine, colourless, still, and impassive.
Nobody noticed Katherine's look. She had much self-control; and one who is always pale may easily be a little paler than usual, without causing comment. Doris's vividness absorbed attention. She had not expected to find Hamilton here; and the encounter, just after Mrs. Winton's unwise suggestion, threw her off her balance. Whatever she really felt about him—and no one knew this less than the girl herself—she was flattered by his attentions. ”

“ Doris swayed and enchanted her old preceptor. Mattie, quietly studying French, drawing, and English literature, was left far behind by her foster-sister, who was speedily learning all that the tutor could teach.
"You should have been born a princess, ma belle!" the old man would say, delighted with some flash of wit, some piquant performance. "What will you do with all your beauty here on a farm?"
"Am I very beautiful?" demanded Doris.
"More beautiful than Helen, for whom thousands died; than Cleopatra, who had the world's conquerors at her feet! What will you do with so much beauty?" ”

“ 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! ”

“ There had always been the most perfect harmony and sympathy of taste between the earl and his daughter, they resembled each other so closely. Lady Doris felt half inclined to dislike the duchess; her exclusiveness, her hauteur, awed her after a fashion that was rather disagreeable than otherwise. As usual, she went to the earl for sympathy.
"Papa," she said, "the worst enemy her grace ever had could not call her lively."
"She is no longer young; liveliness is one of the attributes of youth, you know, Doris." ”

“ He would follow her as soon as he possibly could. Dear little Doris! How glad she would be that he had not taken her at her word, if indeed she had sent him that cruel message! How devoted she would think him to follow her at once! How much comforted she would be to receive the protestations of unchanging, nay, more, increasing love!
Time seemed to drag with leaden wings, until what he thought a decent hour for calling upon Doris began to approach. Then he took a hansom in a hurry, bidding the cabman drive to Earl's Court Square as fast as he could. ”

“ Winton have realised it, she might at any time have controlled this daughter of hers by the slightest of silken threads. Stern opposition, severe management, always stiffened the young back; but Doris would succumb at once to the touch of love and gentleness.
Those clasping arms meant to her what she had known, but often had not realised, the strength of mother-love! She knew that the firm grip meant more than love. ”

“ Whether Doris agreed tacitly that my admiration of Gertrude's slender flanks and charm of manner and taste in dress justified me in agreeing to go away with her, I don't know; she did not trouble me with the embarrassing question I had anticipated. Isn't it strange that people never ask the embarrassing questions one foresees? She asked me instead with whom I had been in love during the past five years, and this too embarrassed me, though not to the extent the other question would have done. To say that since I had seen Doris I had led a chaste life would be at once incredible and ridiculous. ”

“ It is delightful to be here with you, Doris, but the sunlight is not sufficient for me. Doris, dear, I am very unhappy. I have lain awake all night thinking of you, and now I must tell you that yesterday I was sorely tempted to go down to that bay and join the nymphs there. Don't ask me if I believe that I should find a nymph to love me; one doesn't know what one believes, I only know that I am unhappy. ”

“ NOT a word about Dick Maurice was spoken that first evening.
Twice Doris tried to bring him forward, and was rebuffed,—very kindly, yet decidedly. She could not resolve to do it again. She seemed to be under a spell; able only to bask in the sunshine of home, in the loving welcome from all sides.
And though she thought of her lover continually, yet in a manner he was pushed to the background of her mind. Switzerland already began to look far off. Her feelings had become mixed and indefinite. She had almost the sensations of a naughty child, come back to be good. ”

“ We should both say things that would hurt each other and that we should regret all our lives. I have written him a long letter, but I wanted to tell someone. I thought of Betty first, and Madam Royall, but no one can comfort him like you. Then I wanted you to feel, Doris, that I was not an ungrateful, disobedient son. I wish we could think alike about the war, but it seems that we cannot. And because you are here,—and, Doris, you are a very sweet little girl, and you will love him always, I know,—I give him in your charge. ”

“ Doris's reception of him and his offerings varied, as of old. Sometimes she was submissively sweet. Sometimes she contradicted and laughed at him. Sometimes she was dignified and indifferent. Sometimes she felt that she never, never could, never, never would, marry any man living except Dick Maurice. Sometimes she felt that in the future— not too soon!—Hamilton might really do quite nicely.
Though she did not know her own mind, she knew her mother's mind. Every power that Mrs. Winton possessed was bent to the furtherance of Hamilton's suit. ”

“ When Hamilton asked her what she thought, she always knew that he only wanted to prove her to be in the wrong. This stranger treated her as if she were a reasonable being; not an empty-pated and ignorant person, with no right to differ from him.
It is remarkable how many subjects may be skated over, in the course of one lengthy meal. Doris had no conception of the attention drawn by her own animated face,—the real charm of which few present had discovered earlier. ”

“ Doris was warm-hearted, impressionable, easily swayed; and the elder lady knew how to manipulate such materials.
Not that she meant to do harm. Few people do. All she wanted was to bring about her own ends; to amuse herself, to make time pass pleasantly. She was kind-hearted, and by fits and starts she would go out of her way to help others. ”

“ She knew that he objected to rapid bicycling for women; and she was bent still on crossing him. Mrs. Winton had seemed to take it for granted—or so Doris imagined—that he only had to speak to be accepted. Her pride was up in arms. Nobody should suppose that she sat meekly, with folded hands, awaiting permission to be his.
She might marry some day. She might even marry Hamilton Stirling. It was not an impossibility. All things considered, she rather favoured the notion, as a dim and distant prospect. She enjoyed feeling herself the object of somebody's attentions. ”

“ She was not so clear-sighted as she imagined. "Nothing ever escapes me!" was a pet phrase with her; yet a good deal did escape her. Once aroused, however, she could be sagacious enough.
On the return of the two that evening, towards the close of table d'hôte, fresh from their day of intercourse, he must indeed have been nonobservant who should have seen nothing unusual in Maurice's look, however carefully repressed,—who should not have detected an unwonted brightness in Doris's eyes, and noted her soft brilliancy of colouring. ”

“ They would want for their only child a husband of unexceptionable parentage; and who could wonder? Not Maurice!—who saw the objections to himself almost as clearly as Mrs. Winton did. Like most people without "descent," he valued it less than do those who rejoice in a pedigree; yet he could estimate their side of the question.
But with regard to Doris herself he had no shadow of doubt. He loved her; she loved him; and, as he had said, they together might face a world in opposition. ”

“ Still free of the rope, he moved some paces away, munching chocolate, and scanning the rocks which frowned grimly above. Maurice came back to his seat by Doris.
They had the world to themselves. Pressford, always aloof and preoccupied, hardly counted.
From their very feet the snow-slope fell away. Behind rose the stern rock-rampart, calling to be climbed. But their eyes were turned to the wide sweep of mountain pastures far below, and downward thence to valleys shepherding cloudlets of morning mist.
Like birds they were perched aloft; away from common life; cut off from human habitations. ”

“ Good-bye, Doris." He held out his hand to her. The Nun interlaced her hands on the table in front of her.
"I won't!" she said. "I won't shake hands with you to-night, Harry Belfield. You've broken the heart of the sweetest girl I ever met. You've brought shame and misery on her—you who aren't fit to black her shoes! You've brought shame on your people. I suppose you've pretty well done for yourself in Meriton. And all for what? Because you must philander, must have your conquests, must always be proving to yourself that nobody can resist you!" ”

“ There was one hour in the week when Doris felt she could lean back and sigh aloud in relief and contentment, with every member of her little family before her and mischief out of the question—the hour of the Sabbath morning worship. Father was in the pulpit, Rosalie was at her side in the choir loft—and Rosalie in the choir loft was a changed being, for some inner, inherent sense of fineness restrained the naughty fairies in her witching eyes for that one hour only. And down in the eighth pew to the right sat Treasure and Zee, very respectable, very reverent, very austere. ”

“ Things are interesting in proportion to the amount of ourselves we put into them; Doris had clearly put all her life into this story; a sordid one it may seem to some, a story of deception and lies, for of course Albert was deceived as cruelly as many another good man. But Doris must have suffered deeply, for at the memory of her sufferings her face streamed with tears. ”