Part 19 (2/2)

Morison. A feeling of well-being, of content, saturated him. Behind his thought of his hostess and his denial to himself that the presence under the same roof of Berenice was the true source of his happiness, lay the consciousness that the latter regarded him as her preserver. He resolutely thrust the thought down deep into his heart, but he could not forget it.

Before he was ready to leave his chamber Mehitabel brought him a telegram from Mrs. Staggchase, to whom he had sent a line announcing his safety. It was merely a friendly word with an offer to come to him if he needed her; but it changed the whole current of his thoughts. He seemed to see the mocking smile of his cousin as she read that he was staying with the Morisons, and to hear again her words about his period of temptation. He resolved, however, to put the whole question of the future out of his mind. Somehow there must be a way to steer safely between his duty and his inclination. He failed to reflect that he who decides to compromise between duty and desire has already sacrificed the former.

Berenice greeted him on his appearance in the library, whither he descended rather shakily. She held in her hand a telegram when he entered under the escort of Mehitabel, and her cheeks were flushed.

Instantly into his mind came the feeling that her color was connected with the message which the yellow paper brought, and he became jealous in a flash. There was no possible reason why he should scent a rival in the mere presence in his lady's hand of a telegram, unless there were an intangible shade of self-consciousness in her manner. He had come downstairs eager to see her and to a.s.sure himself that she was really no worse for the accident, but the sight of the paper instantly changed his mood. In crossing the half-dozen steps from the door to the fire Maurice s.h.i.+fted from frank eagerness to aggrieved distrust. He said good-morning as he entered in the tone of a lover; he spoke as he reached the hearth with the formality of an acquaintance.

He was too keenly alive to the change in his feelings not to know that he showed it. He endeavored to hide his perturbation under an appearance of simple politeness, but he was sure that she watched him and that she was puzzled.

”Well,” she said, as she arranged a cus.h.i.+on in the big easy-chair beside the crackling wood fire, ”you have the genuine scarred veteran air.”

”Please don't bother to wait on me, Miss Morison,” he answered, trying to speak naturally, and painfully aware that he did not succeed. ”I'm all right, except for the scratch on my arm.”

”Scratch, indeed,” she returned with a smile which almost disarmed him.

”How many st.i.tches did the doctor have to put in?”

”'Bout enough for a week's mending,” interpolated Mehitabel, putting him into the chair with an air of authority, and preparing to retire.

”There, now stay there till you want to go upstairs again, and then send for me.”

”Indeed,” he protested, laughing, ”I am not helpless. You can't make a baby of me just for a disabled arm.”

”I suppose,” Berenice said, ”that I ought to be willing to say that I had rather the wound were in my back, where it would have been but for you; only as a matter of fact I shouldn't be telling the truth. I am sorry for you, Mr. Wynne; but I can't help being glad for myself.”

She seemed to be setting herself to win him from his ill-humor, and he had to look into the fire away from her lips and eyes to prevent himself from yielding. He fortified his resistance, which he felt to be weakening, by the reflection that it was his duty not to be carried away by her charm. He called upon his religious scruples to aid him in holding to his pa.s.sion-born jealousy.

”There,” Miss Morison said, when he had been properly ensconced and Mehitabel had departed, ”now it is my duty to entertain you. What shall I do? My accomplishments are at your service. I can read, without stopping to spell out any except the very longest words. I can play two tunes on the mandolin, only that I've forgotten the middle of one and the other has a run in it that I always have to skip. The piano is too far off across the hall to be available; so that the little I can do in that way doesn't count. I can--let me see, I can teach you three solitaires, or play cribbage, or--I beg your pardon, I forgot.”

”You forgot what?” he asked, so intent upon watching the sunlight filtering through her hair that he had hardly noticed what she said.

She looked at him questioningly.

”You don't play cards, perhaps?” she said tentatively.

”No,” he answered. ”In the country in my boyhood they weren't held in high repute, to say the least; and naturally we don't play at the Clergy House.”

There was a brief interval of silence, during which he watched her, while she in her turn looked into the fire. When she spoke again it was in a different tone.

”I know,” said she, ”that you must think me frivolous, and that I can't be anything else; but”--

”Oh, no,” he interrupted, ”I never thought you frivolous.”

She made an impulsive little gesture with one of her hands.

”Oh, you wouldn't put it in that way, I dare say. You'd call it being worldly, I suppose; but it comes to much the same thing.”

Wynne could not understand what was the direction of her thoughts, and he was taken entirely by surprise when she leaned forward impulsively and took in hers his free hand.

”At least,” she said, quickly and eagerly, ”I can't forget that you saved my life, and I thank you from my heart if I don't know just how to do it in words.”

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