Part 10 (2/2)
She did not smile; she did not even look up at him, but sat gazing at nothing, with countenance as solemn and imperturbable as that of a Sphinx.
”How am I ever to understand you, Dorothy, you seem such a riddle?”
said Paul presently.
”You will never understand me,” she answered with a sigh, ”No one ever has understood me, and you will be just like the rest!”
”But you will never let me be afraid of you, like the others, will you?” he exclaimed half in earnest.
”I don't know; others are; why should not you be?”
She was still staring into vacancy, with her hands clasped, and Paul thought he detected a little, just a little, of the same expression he had seen in the portrait. He started, and Dorothy saw him.
”What is the matter?” she inquired, looking around at him for the first time.
”Nothing; only you looked so dreadfully in earnest, you startled me.”
”But surely you would not be startled by so simple a thing as that!”
”Why not? I am only human,” he answered.
”Yes, but I am sure there was something else. Now tell me, was there not?”
”Why, how strangely you talk!” he replied, searching her face for an explanation. ”Of course there wasn't; why should there be?”
She leaned back, apparently still in doubt as to his a.s.sertion, while her countenance grew even more grave than before. Henley was puzzled, and while Dorothy had not ceased to charm him, he was conscious of a very slight uneasiness in her presence. This, however, wore off a little later when they went together for a stroll in the forest. The girl's extreme delicacy of appearance, her abstracted, melancholy manner, and sincerity of expression, both attracted and perplexed Paul, and kept him constantly at work endeavoring to solve her character and form some conception of the mystery of her life. He had not yet had even the courage to ask her if Ah Ben were her father, dreading to expose himself as an impostor and be ordered from the place, which, despite his discovery of the previous night, he could only regard as an unmitigated hards.h.i.+p in the present state of his feelings; and so he had let the hours slip by, constantly hoping that something would occur to explain the whole situation to him. And yet nothing had occurred, and now upon the third day he was as grossly ignorant of the causes which had produced his strange environment as at the moment of his arrival.
”One thing I do not understand,” Paul observed, as they wandered over the vari-colored leaves, side by side; ”it is why you should be so anxious to leave this ideal spot.”
”Have I not told you that it is because I am out of my element; because I am avoided; because I have not a friend far nor near! Oh, Paul, you do not know what it is to be alone in the world!”
”And do you believe that a simple change of locality would alter all this?” he asked.
She paused for a moment before answering, and then, looking down upon the ground, said as if with some effort:
”No, not that alone.”
”What then, Dorothy?” he asked with solicitude.
”I have already told you,” she replied without looking up. ”Oh, Paul, what a short memory you must have!”
”Of course I understand that we are to be married,” he responded hastily, ”but how can that alter the situation? Dorothy, if we have not found congenial friends in that position in life in which G.o.d or nature has placed us, how can we hope to make them in another? Do you not think there may be some deeper reason than simple locality and single blessedness? Would it not be natural to look for the cause in the individual?”
”Undoubtedly you are right,” she answered, ”but your premises do not apply to my case, for neither G.o.d nor nature ever intended that I should live this life. Oh, Paul, believe me when I tell you that I know whereof I speak. Do not judge me as you would another; some day you may know, but I can not tell you now.”
She spoke pleadingly, as imploring to be released from some awful incubus which it was impossible to explain. Paul listened in deep perplexity, and swore that the powers of heaven and earth should never come between them. So different was she from any girl that he had ever seen, that her very eccentricity bound him to her with a magic spell. When he had again asked her if Ah Ben would oppose their marriage, or indeed if any one else would, she declared that no human being would raise a voice against it.
”Then what is to hinder us?” he asked; ”I am poor, but I can support you; not perhaps in such luxury as you are accustomed to, but I can give you a home; and if you are so unhappy here, why submit to unnecessary delay?”
He had become impa.s.sioned and enthused by the girl's strange influence over him.
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