Volume I Part 7 (1/2)

Verena was conscious of the approach of the Charles Street car, as well as of the fact that Miss Chancellor was in pain; but she lingered long enough to remark that she could see he had the old-fas.h.i.+oned ideas--he regarded woman as the toy of man.

”Don't say the toy--say the joy!” Ransom exclaimed. ”There is one statement I will venture to advance; I am quite as fond of you as you are of each other!”

”Much he knows about that!” said Verena, with a side-long smile at Olive Chancellor.

For Olive, it made her more beautiful than ever; still, there was no trace of this mere personal elation in the splendid sententiousness with which, turning to Mr. Ransom, she remarked: ”What women may be, or may not be, to each other, I won't attempt just now to say; but what _the truth_ may be to a human soul, I think perhaps even a woman may faintly suspect!”

”The truth? My dear cousin, your truth is a most vain thing!”

”Gracious me!” cried Verena Tarrant; and the gay vibration of her voice as she uttered this simple e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n was the last that Ransom heard of her. Miss Chancellor swept her out of the room, leaving the young man to extract a relish from the ineffable irony with which she uttered the words ”even a woman.” It was to be supposed, on general grounds, that she would reappear, but there was nothing in the glance she gave him, as she turned her back, that was an earnest of this. He stood there a moment, wondering; then his wonder spent itself on the page of a book which, according to his habit at such times, he had mechanically taken up, and in which he speedily became interested. He read it for five minutes in an uncomfortable-looking att.i.tude, and quite forgot that he had been forsaken. He was recalled to this fact by the entrance of Mrs.

Luna, arrayed as if for the street, and putting on her gloves again--she seemed always to be putting on her gloves. She wanted to know what in the world he was doing there alone--whether her sister had not been notified.

”Oh yes,” said Ransom, ”she has just been with me, but she has gone downstairs with Miss Tarrant.”

”And who in the world is Miss Tarrant?”

Ransom was surprised that Mrs. Luna should not know of the intimacy of the two young ladies, in spite of the brevity of their acquaintance, being already so great. But, apparently, Miss Olive had not mentioned her new friend. ”Well, she is an inspirational speaker--the most charming creature in the world!”

Mrs. Luna paused in her manipulations, gave an amazed, amused stare, then caused the room to ring with her laughter. ”You don't mean to say you are converted--already?”

”Converted to Miss Tarrant, decidedly.”

”You are not to belong to any Miss Tarrant; you are to belong to me,”

Mrs. Luna said, having thought over her Southern kinsman during the twenty-four hours, and made up her mind that he would be a good man for a lone woman to know. Then she added: ”Did you come here to meet her--the inspirational speaker?”

”No; I came to bid your sister good-bye.”

”Are you really going? I haven't made you promise half the things I want yet. But we will settle that in New York. How do you get on with Olive Chancellor?” Mrs. Luna continued, making her points, as she always did, with eagerness, though her roundness and her dimples had hitherto prevented her from being accused of that vice. It was her practice to speak of her sister by her whole name, and you would have supposed, from her usual manner of alluding to her, that Olive was much the older, instead of having been born ten years later than Adeline. She had as many ways as possible of marking the gulf that divided them; but she bridged it over lightly now by saying to Basil Ransom; ”Isn't she a dear old thing?”

This bridge, he saw, would not bear his weight, and her question seemed to him to have more audacity than sense. Why should she be so insincere?

She might know that a man couldn't recognise Miss Chancellor in such a description as that. She was not old--she was sharply young; and it was inconceivable to him, though he had just seen the little prophetess kiss her, that she should ever become any one's ”dear.” Least of all was she a ”thing”; she was intensely, fearfully, a person. He hesitated a moment, and then he replied: ”She's a very remarkable woman.”

”Take care--don't be reckless!” cried Mrs. Luna. ”Do you think she is very dreadful?”

”Don't say anything against my cousin,” Basil answered; and at that moment Miss Chancellor re-entered the room. She murmured some request that he would excuse her absence, but her sister interrupted her with an inquiry about Miss Tarrant.

”Mr. Ransom thinks her wonderfully charming. Why didn't you show her to me? Do you want to keep her all to yourself?”

Olive rested her eyes for some moments upon Mrs. Luna, without speaking.

Then she said: ”Your veil is not put on straight, Adeline.”

”I look like a monster--that, evidently, is what you mean!” Adeline exclaimed, going to the mirror to rearrange the peccant tissue.

Miss Chancellor did not again ask Ransom to be seated; she appeared to take it for granted that he would leave her now. But instead of this he returned to the subject of Verena; he asked her whether she supposed the girl would come out in public--would go about like Mrs. Farrinder?

”Come out in public!” Olive repeated; ”in public? Why, you don't imagine that pure voice is to be hushed?”

”Oh, hushed, no! it's too sweet for that. But not raised to a scream; not forced and cracked and ruined. She oughtn't to become like the others. She ought to remain apart.”