Pauline

“ Enjoy your midsummer night's dream while you may, Pauline, and be ready for the awakening that must come.”
“Not to her, madame, for our honeymoon shall last till the golden wedding day comes round. Shall it not, cariña?”
“There is no sign of waning yet, Manuel,” and Pauline looked up into her husband's face with a genuine affection which made her own more beautiful and filled his with a visible content. Gilbert read the glance, and in that instant suffered the first pang of regret that Pauline had foretold. ”

“ Harry sat in grim silence, watching Pauline like a protecting dragon. Lucille was sick at heart and repentant of coming. The others chatted merrily among themselves. But by common consent Pauline seemed to have been surrendered to the attentions of the evening pest, who had become a midnight host.
He leaned toward her with an ardor that he did not even attempt to disguise. "You are the most wonderful woman in—"
"Please make it the universe," pleaded Pauline. "There are so many most wonderful women in the world." ”

“ Fast and fervently he spoke, and very winsome was the glad abandonment of this young lover, half boy, half man, possessing the simplicity of the one, the fervor of the other. Pauline looked and listened with a soothing sense of consolation in the knowledge that this loyal heart was all her own, a sweet foretaste of the devotion which henceforth was to shelter her from poverty, neglect, and wrong, and turn life’s sunniest side to one who had so long seen only its most bleak and barren. ”

“ Pauline enjoyed her triumphs like a girl, in all the effervescence of youthful spirits, thinking less of her beauty and more of her pleasure than her mother, who sat and followed her with her eyes, watching every movement, and absorbed almost to the exclusion of every other perception, in the surpassing loveliness of her daughter, and the admiration that flashed from every eye that turned upon her. And let not wise ones say that this was folly, and Mrs. Grey a weak woman for yielding to it, for it is human nature, which is too strong to be ruled by saws, be they ever so wise. ”

“ Pauline. Oh, as the bee upon the flower, I hang Upon the honey of thy eloquent tongue! Am I not blest? And if I love too wildly, Who would not love thee like Pauline? Mel. [bitterly.] Oh, false one! It is the prince thou lovest, not the man If in the stead of luxury, pomp, and power, I had painted poverty, and toil, and care, Thou hadst found no honey on my tongue;—Pauline, That is not love! Pauline. Thou wrong’st me, cruel Prince! At first, in truth, I might not have been won, Save through the weakness of a flatter’d pride; But now,—oh! trust me,—couldst thou fall from power And sink— Mel. ”

“ In the candle-light her new ring sparkled; and when her mother was gone she put beside it the crystal ring, and it seemed to sparkle still more. Pauline was in such a mood of tenderness to everything that she petted even her pillow with a kind of affection, and she had the contentment of knowing she was going to meet sleep as if it were a great benignant figure that was bending to hear her tale of happy love. ”

“ Pauline asked. The house seemed to be whirling away like a leaf, such a shattering of her love were these words of her mother.
"How can I speak to Guy about it?" Mrs. Grey demanded irritably. "How can I, Pauline? It has nearly choked me to speak to you."
"I think Monica and Margaret are almost wicked," Pauline cried in flames. "They are trying to destroy everything. They are, they are. No, Mother, you shan't defend them. I knew they felt guilty when they went out of the room like that. How dare they put horrible thoughts in your mind? How dare they? They're cruel to me. ”

“ Never had Pauline looked so beautiful. The emotions called up by the occasion softened without dimming the brilliancy of her usual beauty. The veil of finest lace, the wreath of fresh and rare exotics, the jeweled arms, all lent their aid to render her surpassingly lovely.
"Pray God it turn out better than we can hope!" was all Mr. Grey could say, to which his wife replied by a sigh, which seemed the fitting response to a prayer uttered with so little hope. ”

“ Pauline—look up, Pauline! thou art safe.
Beau. [levelling his pistol] . Dare you thus insult a man of my birth, ruffian?
Pauline. Oh, spare him—spare my husband!—Beauseant—Claude—no—no [faints] .
Mel. Miserable trickster! shame upon you! brave devices to terrify a woman! Coward!—you tremble—you have outraged the laws—you know that your weapon is harmless—you have the courage of the mountebank, not the bravo!—Pauline, there is no danger.
Beau. I wish thou wert a gentleman—as it is, thou art beneath me.— Good day, and a happy honeymoon.— [Aside.] I will not die till I am avenged. ”

“ I have been once deceived, but faith still endures, and I believe that I may yet earn this crowning gift of a woman's life for the man who shall make my happiness as I make his—who shall find me the prouder for past coldness, the humbler for past pride—whose life shall pass serenely loving. And that beloved is—my husband.” If she had lifted her white hand and stabbed him, with that smile upon her face, it would not have shocked him with a more pale dismay than did those two words as Pauline shook him off and rose up, beautiful and stern as an avenging angel. ”

“ The least success would justify his getting married, and Pauline would enjoy two years spent high in some London attic within the sound of chirping sparrows and the distant whispers of humanity. They would perhaps be able to afford to fly for magic weeks to Plashers Mead, pastoral interludes in that crowded life which lay ahead. ”

“ I lived with dear Pauline in perfect harmony, feeling my love for her increase daily, and daily inspiring her with tenderer feelings towards myself. But as my love increased in strength, I grew thin and feeble; I could not sleep nor eat. I should have languished away if I had not succeeded in gratifying my passion. On the other hand, Pauline grew plumper and prettier every day.
“If my sufferings serve to increase your charms,” said I, “you ought not to let me die, for a dead man has no suffering.” ”

“ Though she had wired Owen, the motor did not meet her, and feeling more than ever forlorn and forsaken, Pauline got into a taxi. Never had the old place looked so beautiful as today when she felt that it could never be her home again—she must tell Harry that her mother was an Egyptian and then even if he could forgive her this last adventure he would never marry her. ”

“ In a balcony like a hanging garden, sheltered from the sun by blossoming shrubs and vines that curtained the green nook with odorous shade, Pauline lay indolently swinging in a gaily fringed hammock as she had been wont to do in Cuba, then finding only pleasure in the luxury of motion which now failed to quiet her unrest. Manuel had put down the book to which she no longer listened and, leaning his head upon his hand, sat watching her as she swayed to and fro with thoughtful eyes intent upon the sea, whose murmurous voice possessed a charm more powerful than his own. ”

“ Pauline had just succeeded in stamping these unpleasant questions deep down into the subconscious parts of her mind when the young man whisked up in the runabout.
Pauline's wrath melted rapidly. Harry drove, as he did everything out in the open air, magnificently. His judgment of distances and openings was precise, and his skill in weaving his way through heavy traffic was startling. A good looking young man is seldom seen to better advantage, especially by a girl, than when driving a powerful car. Pauline loved to drive with Harry. ”

“ August THE wedding of Richard and Margaret dreamed of for so long strung Pauline to a pitch of excitement that made her seem never more positively herself. She was conscious as she gazed in the mirror on that Lammas morning that the tired look at the back of her eyes had gone and that in her muslin dress sown with rosebuds she appeared exactly as she ought to have appeared in any prefiguration of herself in bridesmaid's attire. ”

“ Alas for Pauline that she had roused the sleeping devil, and was glad to see it!
“Yes, it is weak, wicked, and unwomanly; yet I persist as relentlessly as any Indian on a war trail. See me as I am, not the gay girl you have known, but a revengeful woman with but one tender spot now left in her heart, the place you fill. I have been wronged, and I long to right myself at once. Time is too slow; I cannot wait, for that man must be taught that two can play at the game of hearts, taught soon and sharply. ”

“ Pauline was a great lover of the picturesque. With a single flower, a solitary knot of ribbon, she could produce an effect which many women would give all their jewels to achieve. Whatever she wore took a kind of royal grace from herself which no other person could impart. Though her dress might be made of the same material as that of others, it never looked the same. On her it appeared like the robes of a queen.
As Pauline was passing through the corridor, Miss Hastings met her. The governess looked scrutinizingly at the plain evening dress ”

“ Manuel spoke bitterly, for his high spirit chafed at the task assigned him; womanly wiles seemed more degrading than the masculine method of retaliation, in which strength replaces subtlety and speedier vengeance brings speedier satisfaction. But Pauline, fast learning to play upon that mysterious instrument, the human heart, knew when to stimulate and when to soothe. ”

“ At times a shadow would flit over the delicate features, but it would soon be replaced by a glamor of serenity, until finally her whole demeanor settled into an air of prayerful content. Her hands joined upon her knee, her brow was bent, and her lips murmured words of gratitude. Beautiful Pauline! Sitting there with inclined body, and her whole being divided between her love on the earth and her duty to heaven, she was the true type of the loveable woman.
It was eleven o'clock at the small ivory clock over the mantel, when a scratch was heard at the door. ”

“ He asked to see his sister, but when they met, Pauline showed no recollection of him. He called often, and she watched him, I noticed, with an eager, troubled look. One night, after dinner, as he described how, in a battle, he had killed a white-coated Austrian, he seized a knife from the table, and illustrated the downward blow with which he had saved his own life. I heard a deep sigh behind me, and turning, I saw Pauline in a dead faint. ”

“ He remembered how in reading of Christina Rossetti's renunciation of a lover who did not believe as she believed, he had thought of the incident as a poet's exaggeration. And it might well have happened. Now indeed he could see why she was so much the greatest poetess of them all: her faith had been real. Lines from that Sonnet of sonnets came back to him, broken lines but full of dread:
I love ... God the most;
Would lose not Him but you, must one be lost:
And if Pauline should speak so to him, if Pauline should disown him at the bidding of her phantom gods? ”

“ Amuse, console this poor girl, and show her husband what he should be; I have no fear of losing your heart nor need you fear for hers; she is one of those spaniel-like creatures who love the hand that strikes them and fawn upon the foot that spurns them.”
“Am I to be the sole actor in the drama of deceit? While I woo Babie, what will you do, Pauline?”
“Let Gilbert woo me—have patience till you understand my meaning; he still loves me and believes I still return that love. ”

“ Manuel, am I beautiful tonight?”
“How can you be otherwise to me?”
“That is not enough. I must look my fairest to others, brilliant and blithe, a happy-hearted bride whose honeymoon is not yet over.”
“For his sake, Pauline?”
“For yours. I want him to envy you your youth, your comeliness, your content; to see the man he once sneered at the husband of the woman he once loved; to recall impotent regret. I know his nature, and can stir him to his heart's core with a look, revenge myself with a word, and read the secrets of his life with a skill he cannot fathom.” ”

“ I hardly know now by what road I arrived at the certainty that some women, Pauline for instance, were able to face this looming terror of childbearing by making terms with it. Life, it appeared, waited at their doors with respect, modified the edge of its inevitableness to their convenience. If Pauline had been accessible—but she was living in Chicago with Henry Mills, going out a great deal, and writing me infrequent letters of bright complacency. ”

“ It is my shame, Pauline, to have to tell you that at such times I could weep with you, but that nothing could make me smile.
"A woman can always conceal her troubles; for her child, or for the man she loves, she can laugh in the midst of suffering. And could not I, for you, Pauline, imitate the exquisite reserve of a woman? ”

“ Has he ever uttered reproach, warning, or command to you, although he knows I was and am your lover? Can you deny these proofs, or pause to ask if he will refuse to break the tie that binds him to a woman, whose superiority in all things keeps him a subject where he would be a king? You do not know the heart of man if you believe he will not bless you for his freedom.”
Like the cloud which just then swept across the valley, blotting out its sunshine with a gloomy shadow, a troubled look flitted over Pauline's face. ”

“ Twelve o'clock clanged from the belfry, and Pauline opened her bedroom door to listen. She had put on her white frieze coat, for although the night was warm the wearing of such outdoor garb gave a queer kind of propriety to the whole business, and at the far end of the long corridor she saw herself in the dim candlelight mirrored like a ghost in the Venetian glass. ”