Part 7 (1/2)

While all others smiled, her face remained cold and averted. Indeed she took such pains to ignore and avoid him, that it was generally recognized that there was a difference between them, and of course there was an endless amount of gossiping surmise. As the hostility seemed wholly on the lady's side, Van Berg appeared to the better advantage, and Ida was all the more provoked as she recognized the fact.

She now began to wish that she had taken a different course. As Van Berg pursued his present tactics, her feminine intuition was not so dull but that she was led to believe he wished to make her acquaintance. Of course there was, to her mind, but one explanation of this fact--he was becoming fascinated, like so many others.

”If I were only on speaking and flirting terms,” she thought (the two relations were about synonymous in her estimation), ”I might draw him on to a point which would give me a chance of punis.h.i.+ng him far more than is now possible by sullenly keeping aloof. As it is, it looks to these people here as if he had jilted me instead of I him, and that I am sulking over it.”

But she had entangled herself in the snarl of her own previous words and manner. She had charged her mother and cousin to permit no overtures of peace; and once or twice, when mine host, in his good-natured, off-hand manner, had sought to introduce them, she had been so blind and deaf to his purpose as to appear positively rude. Her repugnance to the artist had become a generally recognized fact; and she had built up such a barrier that she could not break it down without asking for more help than was agreeable to her pride. But she chafed inwardly at her false position, and at the increasing popularity of the object of her spite.

Even her mother at last formed his acquaintance; and, as the artist listened to the garrulous lady for half an hour with scarcely an interruption, she p.r.o.nounced him one of the most entertaining of men.

As Mrs. Mayhew was chanting his praises that evening, Ida broke out petulantly:

”Was there ever such a gad-fly as this artist! He pesters me from morning till night.”

”Pesters you! I never saw a lady so severely let alone as you are by him. Whatever is the cause of your spite it seems to harm only yourself, and I should judge from your remark that it disturbs you much more than you would have it appear--certainly far more than it does him.”

There was no soothing balm in these words, as may well be supposed; and yet the impression grew upon Ida that the artist would be friendly if he could; and the belief strengthened with him also that she took far too much pains to manifest what she would have others think to be mere indifference and dislike, and he intercepted besides, with increasing frequency, furtive glances towards himself.

So much ice had acc.u.mulated between them, however that neither knew how it was to be broken.

One day, about the middle of the week, Van Berg found a stranger seated opposite to him at the dinner table. His first impression was, that the lady was not very young and that her features were quite plain; but before the meal was over he concluded that her face was decidedly interesting, and that the suggestion of age had been made by maturity of character and the impress which some real and deep experience gives to the countenance, rather than by the trace of years.

While yet a stranger, the expression of her blue eyes, as she glanced around, was so kindly that she at once won the good-will of all who encountered them. This genial, friendly light in her eyes seemed a marked characteristic. It was so different from the obtrusive, forward manner with which some seek to make acquaintances, that it would not have suggested a departure from modest reserve, even to the most cynical. It rather indicated a heart aglow with gentle feeling and genial good-will, like a maple-wood fire on a hospitality hearth, that warms all who come within the sphere of its influence.

Van Berg was naturally reserved, and slow to make new acquaintances.

But before he had stolen many glances of the face opposite him he began to wish for the privilege of speaking to her--a wish that was increased by the fact that they were alone at the table, the other guests who usually occupied the chairs not having returned from their morning drive. she did not look at him in particular, nor appear to be in the least struck by his ”distingue” air, as Ida had been before she was blinded by prejudice; but she looked out upon the world at large with such a friendly aspect that he was sure she had something pleasant to say. He was therefore well pleased when at last the landlord bustled up in his brusque way and said:

”Mr. Van Berg, permit me to make you acquainted with Miss Burton.

She has had the faith to put herself under my charge for a few weeks, and I shall reward her by sharing the responsibility with you, who seem blessed with the benevolent desire of giving us all a good time,” and then he bustled off to look after some other matter which required his attention during the critical hour of dinner.

Miss Burton acknowledged the young man's bow without a trace of affectation or reserve.

”I shall try not to prove a burden to either of you,” she said, with a smile.

”I have already discovered that you will not be,” said Van Berg, ”and was wis.h.i.+ng for an introduction.”

”I hope your wishes may always find so ready a fulfillment.”

”That's a kindly wish, Miss Burton, but a vain one.”

”Were we misanthropical people, Mr. Van Berg, we might sigh, 'and such are human wishes generally.'”

”One is often tempted to do that anyway, even when not especially p.r.o.ne to look askance at fortune.”

”There is an easy way of escaping that temptation.”

”How?”

”Do not form many wishes.”

”Have you very few wishes?”