Part 9 (1/2)

”How beautifully you danced! I didn't know you could.”

”I never did before--I couldn't, with any one but you. As soon as we touched each other, I felt every thing through you.”

”It was very strange, wasn't it? and yet I don't wonder at it, somehow.”

”It would have been stranger not to have been so.”

”Why, how have you been hearing what I said?” suddenly exclaimed Cornelia, looking at him in surprise; ”I've been almost whispering all this time!”

”Have you? It sounded loud enough to me. But I could hear you think to-night, I believe. Will it be so to-morrow, do you suppose?”

”To-morrow!” repeated Cornelia. ”Dear me! to-morrow is my last day here.”

”The last day!” echoed Bressant, in a tone of dismay. ”Shall we find one another the same as to-night when you come back?”

”Why not?” responded she, with a resumption of cheerfulness. ”I sha'n't be gone but three months.”

So the conversation lingered along, until gradually the greater part of it was supported by Bressant, while Cornelia sat quiet and listened--a thing she had never done before. But the young man's way of expressing himself was picturesque and piquant, keeping the attention thoroughly awake. His ideas and topics were original. He plunged into the midst of a subject and talked backward and forward at the same time, yet conveyed a marvelously clear idea of his meaning. Sometimes the last word was the key-note that rendered the whole intelligible. And he had the bearing of a man all unaccustomed to deal with women--ignorant of the traditional arts of entertainment which society practises upon itself. He talked to Cornelia as he might have done to a man, and yet his manner showed a subtle difference--a lack of a.s.surance--a treading in a pleasant garden with fear of trespa.s.sing--the recognition of the woman. To Cornelia it had the effect of the most soothing and delicious flattery; had he been as worldly-wise as other men, he could not have been so delicate.

He, for his part, gave himself wholly up to be fascinated and absorbed by the lovely woman at his side. Did a thought of danger intrude, the whisper, ”Only for to-night, only for to-night!” sufficed to banish it.

Yet another day, and he would return to the old life once more.

CHAPTER XI.

EVERY LITTLE COUNTS.

Mr. William Reynolds arrived late, perhaps because he delayed too long over the niceties of his toilet. He was a country young man, fas.h.i.+oned upon a well-worn last. His occupation for several years past had been to attend to the furnis.h.i.+ng and driving of a milk-cart, and, very likely, it was this which had hindered the proper development of his figure. At all events, he was stoutest where it is generally thought advisable to be lean, and narrow where popular prejudice demands breadth. His knees were more conspicuous than his legs, and his elbows than his arms. His face was striking, chiefly because an accident in early life had prostrated his nose; the expression, though lacking force, was in the main good-natured, the eyes were modestly veiled behind a pair of eye-gla.s.ses, which stayed on, as it were, by accident.

Mr. Reynolds was an admirer of Cornelia's; a fact which was the occasion of much pleasant remark and easy witticism. More serious consequences were not likely to ensue, for such men as he seldom attain to be other than indirectly useful or mildly obnoxious to their fellow-creatures.

But the strongest instincts he had were social; and it was touching to observe the earnestness with which they urged him to lumber the path of fas.h.i.+on and gay life. He nearly broke his own heart, and unseated his instructor's reason, in his efforts to learn dancing; and, to secure elegant apparel for Sundays and parties, he would forswear the butcher's wagon for months at a time. Once in a while he would smoke an Havana cigar from the a.s.sortment to be found at the grocery-store on the corner, and sometimes, when a national holiday or the gloom of unrequited love rendered strong measures a necessity, he would become recklessly convivial over muddy whisky-and-water amid the spittoons and colored prints of the hotel bar-room.

On the present evening he arrived late, and came upon Cornelia and Bressant just as the latter was proposing to obtain the professor's consent to accompanying her home on foot.

Mr. Reynolds advanced, smiling; a polka was being played at the moment, and he playfully contorted his figure and balanced his head from side to side in time with the tune, while with his right forefinger he beckoned winningly to Miss Valeyon to join him in the dance. Bressant gave an involuntary shudder of disgust; it seemed to him a grisly caricature of the inspiration he himself had felt at the beginning of the evening. But Cornelia was equal to the emergency.

”If you'll go and ask papa now,” said she, ”I'll take care of this person meantime. He's known me so long, I don't want to be impolite to him.”

A good deal of harm may be done in this world by what is called a reluctance to be uncivil. There is generally more selfishness than consideration about it. All sincere admiration, no matter from how low a source, is grateful to us. Cornelia knew that Bill Reynolds wors.h.i.+pped her with his whole small capacity, and she was unwilling to deny herself the miserable little incense, and give him plainly to understand that, though it was not distasteful to her, he was. And who could blame her for not wanting to hurt his feelings?

Bressant had no such delicate scruples, and would gladly have a.s.sisted poor Bill through the open bow-window. He departed on his errand, however, with nothing more than a look of intense dissatisfaction, which was entirely lost upon the infatuated Reynolds.

”How lovely you do look to-night, Miss Valeyon! I almost think sometimes it ain't fair anybody should look as lovely as you do. Elegant music they've got to-night, ain't it? Come, now--just one turn. What?”

Cornelia actually had danced with this young gentleman on one or two memorable occasions in the past, but was scarcely in the mood to do so this evening. As she looked at him, now, she wondered how she ever had.

What a difference there is in men I and even more in the way we regard them at different times. Bressant, simply by being himself, had annihilated all such small claims to social life as Bill Reynolds ever possessed.