Part 43 (2/2)

”Oh, it was good taste itself, I a.s.sure you, sir. It seemed the natural expression of your interest in that which interests your good friends here.”

When I came down to dinner I saw that there was an unwonted fire in Miss Warren's eyes and unusual color in her cheeks. Moreover, I imagined that her replies to the few remarks that I addressed to her were brief and constrained. ”She is no dissembler,” I thought; ”something has gone wrong.”

After dinner I went to my room for a book, and as I came out I met her in the hall.

”Mr. Morton,” she said, with characteristic directness, ”if you had given a sum toward a good object in a quiet country place, would you have been pleased to see the fact paraded before those having no natural interest in the matter?”

”I have never had the power to be munificent, Miss Warren,” I replied, with some embarra.s.sment.

”Please answer me,” she insisted, with a little impatient tap of the floor with her foot.

”No,” I said bluntly.

”Did you think it would be pleasing to me?”

”Pardon me,” I began, ”that I did not sufficiently identify you with Mr. Hearn--”

”What!” she interrupted, blus.h.i.+ng hotly, ”have I given any reason for not being identified with him?”

”Not at all--not in one sense,” I said bitterly. ”Of course you are loyalty itself.”

She turned away so abruptly as to surprise me a little.

”You had no more right to think it would be pleasing to him than to me,” she resumed coldly.

”Miss Warren,” I said, after a moment, ”don't turn your back on me. I won't quarrel with you, and I promise to do nothing of the kind again;”

and I spoke gravely and a little sadly.

”When you speak in that way you disarm me completely,” she said, with one of the sudden illuminations of her face that I so loved to see; but I also noted that she had become very pale, and as my eyes met hers I thought I detected the old frightened look that I had seen when I had revealed my feelings too clearly after my illness.

”She fears that I may again speak as I ought not,” I thought; and therefore I bowed quietly and pa.s.sed on. Mr. Hearn was reading the paper on the piazza. I took a chair and went out under the elm, not far away. In a few moments Miss Warren joined her affianced, and sat down with some light work.

”Emily,” I heard the banker say, as if the topic were uppermost in his mind, ”I'd like to call your attention to this paragraph. I think our friend has written it with unusual good taste and grace, and I've taken pains to tell him so.”

I could not help hearing his words; but I would not look up to see her humiliation, and turned a leaf, as if intent on my author.

After a moment she said, with slight but clear emphasis:

”I can't agree with you.”

A little later she went to the piano; but I never heard her play so badly. A glance at Mr. Hearn revealed that his dignity and complacency had received a wound that he was inclined to resent. I strolled away muttering:

”She has idealized him as she did Old Plod, but after all it's not a very serious foible in a man of millions.”

Before the day pa.s.sed she found an opportunity to ask:

”Why did you not tell me that Mr. Hearn had spoken to you approvingly of that paragraph?”

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