Part 38 (1/2)
”You are very good to bother with a tyro. I'd like to be able to play a good game. Father is so fond of it, and Lynde seldom comes in nowadays--family cares;” laughingly.
They led off very well. Saltonstall was wise enough to try his best, though out of one eye he watched the dainty fingers threading in and out among the colored beads, and could not help thinking he would rather be holding them and pressing kisses on the soft white hand. Then he made a wrong play.
”We may as well turn back,” said Mr. Leverett, ”since the question at stake is not winning, but improving.”
”You are very good,” returned the young man meekly.
This time they went on a little further, but the result was the same. So with the third game.
”Of course, I could let you win,” Mr. Leverett began, ”but that wouldn't conduce to the real science of the game which a good player desires. But you do very well for a young man. I should keep on, if I were you.”
”And annoy you with my shortcomings?”
”Oh, it will not be annoyance, truly. Come in when you feel like it.”
”Thank you.” Then he said good-night in a friendly, gentlemanly manner, and Cynthia rose and bowed.
After that she gathered up her work and said good-night. Chilian sat and thought. Edward Saltonstall was a nice, steady young fellow; that is, he neither gamed, nor drank, nor went roystering round in the taverns jollying with the sailors, as some of the sons of really good families did. He would not have all his fortune to make, and his father's business was well established. The sons would take it. The two daughters were well married. What more could he ask for Cynthia? She was not so young now and would know her own mind.
Yet it gave his heart a sharp, mysterious wrench, a longing for what he was putting away, the essence of the solemn ideals of love that run through the intricate meshes of the human soul. He knew that he loved her, that he wanted her for his very own, and his conscience told him it was not right. Of all her admirers he liked this one the best. Under other circ.u.mstances he would have considered him an admirable young man.
Saltonstall dropped in now and then, not too often. He did not mean to startle any one with his purpose, but to let it grow gradually. Still, at the last a.s.sembly of the season, his attentions were somewhat p.r.o.nounced. It was partly her doings, she was sheltering herself from other rather warm indications.
A few days later she went over to Polly Loring's with her work. Polly's bag had somehow gone wrong. Cynthia had to cut the thread and ravel out a round. The baby was to be admired as well as the chair seat Polly had begun in worsted work, which was the new accomplishment. And they talked over various matters: who had new gowns, new lovers, and new babies. But every time she came almost to the subject so near her heart, Cynthia made an elusive detour. Then she ventured out straight with her question.
”Cynthia, are you going to take Ed Saltonstall?”
Cynthia's face was scarlet.
”He hasn't asked me, he hasn't even asked Cousin Chilian,” but her voice was not quite steady.
”How do you know? It was talked of at the a.s.sembly--the two men were a good deal together. And if you don't mean anything, Cynthia, you'll get yourself gossiped about, and you'll spoil some lives,” declared Polly spiritedly. This thing had been seething in her mind, and she was going to have it out at the risk of breaking friends.h.i.+p.
”I don't want to spoil any one's life. And I've never really kept company with any one.”
The keeping company was the great test. When the young man came steady one night in the week, to Sunday tea, and went to church with the girl alone, the matter was as good as declared.
”But--well, I don't know how you've done it, but they hang about you and it does upset them. First it's one, then it's another. You ought to know. You ought to settle upon one and let the others alone.”
Polly had acquired a good deal of married wisdom, and she really did love Cynthia. Ben loved her, too.
”But suppose I didn't want any of them?” and Cynthia tried to laugh, but it was a poor shadowy attempt.
”Oh, nonsense! You don't mean to be an old maid. No girl does. But it is time you stopped playing fast and loose with hearts. Now there's Ben.
You know he's loved you this long while. And we all like you so. Last fall he quite gave up and went to see Jenny Willing. She'll make a good wife and she's a nice girl, though she hasn't your fortune. Mother's been trying to make him believe that you are looking higher.”
”Oh, Polly--I never scarcely think of my fortune,” Cynthia interrupted, her face full of distressful color.
”Well, I'm not saying that you do. Ben's getting along first-rate. He has a college degree and father isn't poor. I know several girls who would jump at a chance for him. Of course, we would _all_ rather have you. Then at Avis Manning's party you gave him the sweetest of your smiles, and lured him back.”
Oh, she recalled it with a kind of shame. It was to keep off Archie Turner and Mr. Saltonstall. And then for a while he had grown troublesome. If they could be merely friends!