Portia by Margaret Wolfe Hungerford (great novels .TXT) 📕

I am as wretched as ever I can be. Forgive me, if you can."

He pulls his hat over his eyes and sighs deeply. At this moment his whole appearance is so decidedly suicidal that no true woman could look at him unmoved. Miss Blount is a true woman, her _hauteur_ of a moment since vanishes like snow, and compassion takes its place.

"What is making you wretched?" she asks, in a tone meant to be severe, but which is only friendly.

"When I remember what a fool I have been," begins Roger, rather as if he is following out a train of thought than answering her.

"Oh, no; not that," says Dulce, very kindly; "don't call yourself that."

"There is no other name for me," persists Roger, with increasing melancholy. "Of course, at _that time_--I knew you didn't particularly care for me, but," disconsolately, "it never occurred to me you might care for any other fellow!"

"I didn't!" said Miss Blount, suddenly; and then, as suddenly, she remembers everything, her engagement to Stephen, her horror of that engagement, all that her last words have admitted, and, growing as red as a rose, she seeks to hide her confusion by burying her rounded chin as deep as she can in her soft furs. At the same time she lowers her lids over her shamed eyes and gazes at her boots as if she never saw small twos before.

Roger, I need hardly say, is too much of a gentleman to take any notice of this impulsive admission on her part. Besides, he hardly gets as much consolation out of it as he should. He is in that stage when to pile up the agony becomes a melancholy satisfaction, and when the possibility of comfort in any form takes the shape of a deliberate insult.

"Did you ever once think of me all the time I was away?" he asks, presently, in a low tone that distinctly gives her to understand he believes she didn't. That in fact he would--in in his present frame of mind--_rather_ believe she didn't. His voice is growing absolutely tragic, and, altogether, he is as deplorably unhappy as any young woman could desire.

"I wish," says poor Dulce, her voice quivering, "that you would not speak to me like this now, or--or that you had spoken like it long ago!"

"I wish I had, with all my soul," says Roger, fervently. "However," with a heavy sigh, "you are engaged to _him_ now, you know, so I suppose there is no use in talking about it."

"If I do know it, why tell me again about it?" says Dulce reproachfully, her eyes full of tears. "Just like you to remind me--of--my _misfortune_!"

It is out. She has been dying to tell him for the last half-hour of this trouble that has been pressing upon her for months, of this most distasteful engagement, and now that she has told him, though frightened, yet she would hardly recall her words. Her lashes linger on her cheeks, and she looks very much as if she would like to cry but for the disgrace of the thing.

"Your misfortune!" repeats Roger, in a strange tone. "Are you not happy, then?"

He has risen to his feet in his surprise and agitation, and is looking down on her as she sits trembling before him, her hands tightly clasped together.

"Do you mean to tell me he is not good to you?" asks Roger, seeing she either cannot or will not speak.

"He is too good to me; you must not think that," exclaims she, earnestly. "It is only--that I don't care about his goodness--I don't care," desperately, "for anything connected with him."

"You have made a second mistake, then?"

"Not a _second_," in a very low tone.

"Then let us say, you have again changed your mind?"

"No."

"You liked him once?" impatiently.

"No."

"You might as well say you _did_ like me," says Roger, with angry warmth; "and I know I was actually abhorrent in your sight."

"Oh, no, _no_," says Dulce for the third time, in a tone so low now that he can hardly hear it; yet he does.

"Dulce! do you know what you are implying?" asks he, in deep agitation. "It is one of two things now: either that you never liked Stephen, and always lov--liked me, or else you are trying to make a fool of me for the second time. Which is it?"

To this Miss Blount declines to make any reply.

"I won't leave this spot to-day until you answer me," says Roger, fell determination on his brow; "Which--is--it?"

"I'm sure, at least, that I never liked Stephen in _that_ way," confesses she, faintly.

"And you did like me?"

Silence again.

"Then," says Mr. Dare, wrathfully, "for the sake of a mere whim, a caprice, you flung me over and condemned me to months of misery? Did you know what you were doing? Did _you_ feel unhappy? I hope to goodness you _did_," says Roger, indignantly; "if you endured even one quarter of what I have suffered, it would be punishment sufficient for you."

"Had you nothing to do with it?" asks she, nervously.

"No; it was entirely your own fault," replies he, hastily. Whereupon she very properly bursts into tears.

"Every woman," says some one, "is in the wrong till she cries; then, instantly, she is in the right."

So it is with Dulce. No sooner does Roger see "her tears down fa'" than, metaphorically speaking, he is on his knees before her. I am sure but for the people on the lake, who might find an unpleasant amount of amusement in the tableau, he would have done so literally.

"Don't do that," he entreats, earnestly. "Don't Dulce. I have behaved abominably to you. It was _not_ your fault; it was all mine. But for my detestable temper--"

"And the chocolate creams," puts in Dulce, sobbing.

"It would never have occurred. Forgive me," implores he, distractedly, seeing her tears are rather on the increase than otherwise. "I must be a brute to speak to you as I have done."

"I won't contradict you," says Miss Blount, politely, still sobbing. There is plainly a great deal of indignation mingled with her grief. To say it was all _her_ fault, indeed, when he knows.

"Don't cry any more," says Roger, coaxingly, trying to draw her hands down from her eyes; "don't, now, you have got to go back to the others, you know, and they will be wondering what is the matter with you. They will think you had a bad fall."

This rouses her; she wipes her eyes hastily and looks up.

"How shall I explain to them?" she asks, anxiously.

"We won't explain at all. Let me take off your skates, and we will walk up and down here until your eyes are all right again. Why, really," stooping to look at them, "they are by no means bad; they will be as good as ever in five minutes."

Inexpressibly consoled, she lets him take off her skates, and commences a gentle promenade with him up and down the brown and stunted grass that lies upon the path.

"There was a time," says Roger, after a pause, "when I might have dared to kiss away your tears, but I suppose that time is gone forever."

"I suppose so," dismally; tears are still wetting the sweet eyes she turns up to his.

"Dulce! let me understand you," says Roger, gravely. "You are quite sure you don't care for him?"

"Quite," says Dulce, without a second's hesitation.

"Then ask him to give you up--to release you from your promise," says Roger, brightly.

"I--I'd be afraid," replies Miss Blount, drooping her head.

"Nonsense!" says Roger (of course it is not _he_ who has to do it). "Why should you feel nervous about a thing like that? You don't want to marry him, therefore say so. Nothing can be simpler."

"It doesn't sound simple to me," says Dulce, dolefully.

Just at this moment a young man, dressed in gray, emerges from the group of alders that line the south edge of the lake, very near to where Dulce and Roger are standing. He is so situated that he is still concealed from view, though quite near enough to the cousins to hear what they are saying. The last two sentences having fallen on his ears, he stands as if spell-bound, and waits eagerly for what may come next.

"He can't possibly want to marry you if you don't want to marry him," says Roger, logically, "and you _don't_?" a little doubtfully still.

"I don't, indeed," says Dulce, with a sad sigh and a shake of her auburn head.

At this the young man in the gray suit, with a bitter curse, turns away, and, retracing his steps, gets to the other side of the lake without being seen by either Dulce or his companion.

Here he declines to stay or converse with anyone. Passing by Portia and the two men who are still attending to her, he bows slightly, and pretends not to hear Dicky's voice as it calls to him to stop.

"He is like that contemptible idiot who went round with the 'banner with the strange device,'" says Dicky Browne, looking after him; "nothing will stop him."

"What's up with him now?" asks Sir Mark, squeezing his glass into his eye, the better to watch Stephen's figure, as it hurriedly disappears.

"I expect he has eaten something that has disagreed with him," says Dicky, cheerfully.

"Well, really, he looked like it," says Gore. "A more vinegary aspect it has seldom been my lot to gaze upon, for which I acknowledge my gratitude. My dear Portia, unless you intend to go in for rheumatics before your time, you will get up from that damp grass and come home with me."


CHAPTER XXIV.


"Never morning wore
To evening, but some heart did break."
--_In Memoriam._


"DID _he_--I mean did _you_--ever--; Dulce, will you be very angry with me if I ask you a question?"

"No. But I hope it won't be a disagreeable one," says Dulce, glancing at him cautiously.

"That is just as you may look at it," says Roger. "But I suppose I may say it--after all, we are like brother and sister are we not?"

"Ye-es. _Quite_ like brother and sister," says Dulce, but somehow this thought seems to give her no pleasure.

"Only we are _not_, you know," puts in Roger, rather hastily.

"No, of course we are _not_," replies she, with equal haste.

"Well, then, look here--"

But even now that he has got so far, he hesitates again, looks earnestly at her, and pulls his mustache uncertainly, as if half afraid to go any further.

It is the afternoon of the next day, and as the sun has come out in great force, and the mildness of the day almost resembles Spring in its earliest stages; they are all about the place, strolling hither and thither, whithersoever pleasant fancy guides them.

Roger and Dulce, after lingering for some time in the Winter garden looking at the snowdrops, and such poor foster-babes as have thrust their pallid faces above