Part 6 (1/2)

However, he need not distress himself, it appeared; Vesta Blyth kept her room for several days. At first Geoffrey found it easier not to speak of her; but the third day he pounced on Miss Vesta when she was filling her lamp, and startled her so that she almost dropped her scissors.

”Excuse me, Miss Vesta,” he said; ”what funny scissors! I shouldn't think you could cut anything with them. I was going to ask--how is your niece to-day? I trust the hysterical condition is pa.s.sing away?”

Miss Vesta sighed. ”Yes, Doctor Strong,” she said. ”Vesta is quiet again, oh, yes, very quiet, and sleeping better; we are very grateful for your interest in her.”

A few professional questions and answers followed. There were no acute or alarming symptoms. There was little to do for the girl, except to let her rest and ”come round;” she would recover in time, but it might be a long time. Geoffrey felt somehow younger than he had; neurasthenia was a pretty word on paper, but he did not feel so sure about making a specialty of it.

Miss Vesta fluttered about her lamp; he became conscious that she wanted to say something to him. She began with sundry little plaintive murmurings, which might have been addressed to him or to the lamp.

”Pity! pity! yes, indeed. So bright and young, so full of hope and joy, and darkened so soon. Yes, indeed, very sad!”

Geoffrey helped her. ”What is it, Miss Vesta?” he asked, tenderly. ”You are going to tell me something.”

Miss Vesta looked around her timidly. ”Sister Phoebe did not wish me to mention it,” she said, in a low tone. ”She thinks it--indelicate.

But--you are so kind, Doctor Strong, and you are a physician. Poor little Vesta has had a disappointment, a cruel disappointment.”

Geoffrey murmured something, he hardly knew what. The little lady hurried on. ”It is not that I have any sympathy with--I never liked the object--not at all, I a.s.sure you, Doctor Strong. But her heart was fixed, and she had had every reason to suppose herself--it has been a terrible blow to her. Renunciation--in youth--is a hard thing, my dear young friend, a very hard thing.”

She pressed his hand, and hurried away with her scissors, giving one backward look to make sure that the lamp showed no aspect that did not s.h.i.+ne with the last touch of brilliancy.

Geoffrey Strong went down into the garden--he had not been there since the day of the sobbing--and paced about, never thinking of the pipe in his pocket. He found himself talking to the blue larkspur. ”Beast!” was what he called this beautiful plant. ”Dolt! a.s.s! inhuman brute! If I had the kicking of you--” here he recovered his silence; found pebbles to kick, and pursued them savagely up one path and down another. A mental flash-light showed him the ruffian who had wounded this bright creature; had led her on to love him, and then--either betrayed his brutal nature so that hers rose up in revolt, or--just as likely--that kind of man would do anything--gone off and left her. His picture revealed a smart-looking person with black hair and a waxed moustache, and complexion of feminine red and white (Geoffrey called it beef and suet).

”The extraordinary thing is, what women see in such a fellow!” he told the syringa. The syringa drooped, and looked sympathetic. The hammock was hanging there still--poor little thing! Geoffrey did not mean the hammock. He stood looking at the place, and winced as the sobs struck his ear again; memory's ear this time, but that was hardly less keen.

How terribly she grieved! she must have cared for him; bang! went the pebbles again.

There was a rustle behind the syringa-bush. Geoffrey looked up and saw Vesta Blyth standing before him.

He could not run away. He must not look at her professionally. Despair imparted to his countenance a look of stony vacuity which sat oddly on it.

The girl looked at him, and it seemed as if the shadow of a smile looked out of her shadowy eyes. ”I thought you might be here, Doctor Strong,” she said, quietly. ”I am coming in to tea to-night. I am entirely myself again, I a.s.sure you--and first I wished--I want to apologise to you for my absurd behaviour the other day.”

”Please don't!” said Geoffrey.

”I must; I have to. I am weak, you see, and--I lost hold of myself, that was all. It was purely hysterical, as you of course saw. I have had--a great trouble. Perhaps my aunts may have told you.”

Good G.o.d! she wasn't going to talk about it? Geoffrey thought a subterranean dungeon would be a pleasant place.

”I--yes!” he admitted, feeling the red curling around his ears. ”Miss Vesta did say something--it's an infernal shame! I wish I could tell you how sorry I am.”

”Thank you!” said the girl; and a rich note thrilled in her voice.

Yes--it certainly was like a 'cello. ”I did not know how you would--you are very kind, Doctor Strong. Dear Aunt Vesta; she would try to make the best of it, I know. Aunt Phoebe will not speak of it, she is too much shocked, but Aunt Vesta is angelic.”

”Indeed she is!” said the young doctor, heartily. ”And she is so pretty, too, and so soft and creamy; I never saw any one like her.”

There was a moment of dreadful silence. Geoffrey sought desperately for a subject of conversation, but the frivolous spirit of tragedy refused to suggest anything except boots, and women never understand boots.

The strange thing was, that the girl did not appear to find the silence dreadful. She stood absently curling and uncurling a syringa-leaf between her long white fingers. All the lines of her were long, except the curl of her upper lip, and there was not an ungraceful one among them. Her face was quietly sad, but there was no sign of confusion in it. Good heavens! what were women made of?