Hope Mills by Amanda Minnie Douglas (lightweight ebook reader txt) 📕

were a necessary sweet incense, that she always kept alive on her shrine. There was no need of making a hurried election: indeed, her chief aim now was pleasure and conquest.

They were sitting over their dainty lunch, Mrs. Eastman having dropped in; and, after the party had been pretty thoroughly discussed, a little lull ensued. Fred toyed with some luscious cherries, in his usual indolent manner. Nothing in this world was worth a hurry or a worry, according to this young man's creed. He had dawdled through the party, waltzing with a languid grace that most girls considered the essence of high-breeding. It was all one to him. His "set" affected to think life something of a bore. Intense emotion of any kind was vulgar.

"By the by, Rene," said Mrs. Eastman, "do you suppose Sylvie Barry is engaged to that Darcy fellow? It was odd that she should go off on a picnic with him, instead of the party. She has the queerest, mixed-up tastes."

"What Darcy fellow?" asked Irene in surprise.

"Sylvie Barry! Jack Darcy!" exclaimed Fred, in as much amazement as his superfine breeding would allow.

Mrs. Eastman gave a mellifluous laugh.

"Don't you remember? but you were such a child! Fred does. The Damon to his Pythias."

"Oh!"

A vivid scarlet ran up to the edge of Irene's white brow. So that was Jack Darcy. What a blind fool she had been, _not_ to think! She had laughed and chatted with him, smiled on him, worn the costume of his designing,--a common workingman! For a moment she could have torn her hair, or beaten her slender white hands against the table. What had possessed her?

"I do recall some green and salad days," rejoined Fred with a laugh.

"How Agatha and I used to badger you! We were little fools to think such a thing ever went on when one came to years of discretion. Only I believe we were afraid the elder and idiotic Darcy might foist his son on some college. I must say Yerbury has become quite endurable now that party lines have been set up;" and Mrs. Eastman crumbed her cake, watching her diamond sparkle.

"How do you know Sylvie went on a picnic?" asked Rene, with an angry glitter in her eyes.

"Didn't the dear confess? Rene, you do not keep your penitent in very good order."

Mrs. Eastman had a faculty of putting something extremely irritating in her voice. It was honey smooth, and yet it rasped.

"Really," answered Irene indifferently, "I do not see that Miss Barry's selection of friends need affect me much, so long as she keeps the distasteful ones out of my way. I may wonder at her choice of pleasures, but I suppose she suits herself."

"My nursery-girl belongs to the mission-school. It was very good of Lissette to let her off for a whole day, I thought. I left her to settle it. What Sylvie sees in such people, I cannot imagine. I own I was a trifle surprised when I found this remarkable Mr. Darcy was our old _bete noir_, Jack. Is he still in the mill, I wonder?"

"Apply to papa," laughed Irene.

"I don't believe papa could tell you the names of five workmen. As if he troubled his head about that!"

"Sylvie is a nice little thing," remarked Fred patronizingly.

"I have no patience with her!" declared Mrs. Eastman. "As if it was not necessary to have a line drawn somewhere! These people are all well enough in their way: they are a necessary factor,"--picking the words slowly to give them weight,--"and society establishes schools and homes for them, trains teachers, provides employment: what more do they want? A holiday now and then, of course; but why not go off by themselves as a class, as the French do? This maudlin, morbid sympathy we Americans give, spoils them. There is no keeping a servant in her place here. Before you know it she studies and graduates at some school, teaches for a while, goes abroad, and paints a picture, likely as not."

"Do not excite yourself, Gerty," and Fred pulled the ends of his silky moustache.

"Well, it does annoy me to see a young girl like Sylvie Barry with no better sense. Some day we shall have all these people rising up against us, as they did in the French Revolution. I hate socialism and all that; and I took good care to say to Mrs. Langton that Miss Barry had been casting in her lot that day with a parcel of charity-children, and would no doubt be too tired to enjoy the exquisite pleasure of her fete."

"I do not think Sylvie cares a penny!" said Irene with a touch of scorn, anxious to return her sister's little stab. "I suppose she comforts herself with the remembrance of her old blue blood, while Mr. Langton made his fortune as an army-contractor."

"The Wylies were a very good family, Irene."

"If you are through eating, I will have a cigar," said the young man, sauntering over to the bay-window.

What was there in this simple announcement of Sylvie having gone on a charity-school picnic with Jack Darcy that should so rouse the art-cultured pulses of Fred Lawrence? He had always liked Sylvie: her freshness and piquancy stirred him like a whiff of mountain air,--a sure sign that all healthy tone had not been cultivated out of him. It would be very foolish for Sylvie to commit a _mesalliance_ with this young man, who was no doubt good enough in his way,--a rather rough, awkward, clownish fellow, with a coarsely generous heart. Sylvie so delicate and refined, with her pretty ways, her genius,--yes, she really did have a genius! In Paris or Rome she might make herself quite a name. He must see a little more of her: he must--well, did he want to marry any one?

Irene and Gertrude retired to the room of the former, and discussed Newport and Saratoga.

"I do hope we shall have a cottage at Newport another summer," said Mrs. Eastman.

"It gives you tone, of course," was Irene's response; "but honest, now, Gerty, don't you think it a little poky? I do not want to go anywhere for a whole summer: I like the fun of all. Agatha is to spend a month at Long Branch, and I am going down just for a little dazzle and to give my gowns an airing."

Their siesta was passed in this kind of small talk. Late in the afternoon she drove Mrs. Eastman home, and then went for Sylvie in her pretty pony-phaeton. As Sylvie was about nothing more important than a pale-blue zephyr "fascinator," she accepted the invitation.

What a delicious drive it was! A dappled under-roof of cloud with the sun just behind it, a golden-gray haze filming the air, and fragrant breezes suggestive of roses and honeysuckle. All the way was starred with daisies. Sylvie drew in long breaths of delight, for she never wearied of nature.

They turned homeward early. The bells were ringing for six, and the mills and factories began to empty out their swarm of human beings.

"Why do you go through here?" asked Sylvie in surprise. "I thought you hated all this."

"So I do," briefly.

She let the pony walk now. These shrill sounds jarred on the summer air. Groups of girls in procession in faded gear or tawdry finery; brawny men with an old-country, heavy cast of feature, in blue flannel, with arms bared to the elbow, and throats exposed; pale stripling youths of the American type, boys with the rough fun not yet knocked out of them by hard work or the harder blows of fate,--a motley crowd indeed.

It thinned a little just here. Two or three men came along leisurely,--one tall and compact, with a slow, firm step, the face grave, the eyes glancing over beyond the hills. Irene Lawrence shut her lips with a touch of displeasure. Was she to miss the satisfaction that had been brooding in her mind for the last hour, for the accomplishment of which she had driven through this dusty, ill-smelling street?

The pedestrian raised his head. A sudden warm, smiling glow overspread the face, no longer grave, but brightening like an April sky. The outlook of the eyes was so frank and clear; the half-smile playing about the parted lips had the honesty of a child. He touched his hat, and bowed with an almost stately deference.

Sylvie nodded and smiled, leaning forward a bit. What sent the glad light so quickly out of his countenance? The girl glanced at Irene.

Miss Lawrence had stared coolly, haughtily, decisively. This man might look at her hundreds of times in the days to come, but he would never again expect a social recognition from her. And, oh, perfection of cruelty! Sylvie, his fellow-sinner in these social laws, had witnessed his pain and discomfiture.

She turned with her face at white heat, one of those inward flashes of indignation that transcend any scarlet blaze of anger. Her eyes glowed with a fiery ray, and the curves of mouth and chin seemed as if frozen.

"It was a deliberate insult, Irene! How dared you"--

"How dared I pass one of my father's workmen? Well, Miss Barry, I happen not to be hand-in-glove with them. I can relegate them to their proper place when an ill-judged vanity brings them unduly forward."

"You met him at _my_ house: he is _my_ friend, and the friend of my aunt. His birth is as good as yours, or mine."

"Oh, I dare say!" with a satirical laugh. "Are you really going to marry him, Sylvie? Have you the courage to throw yourself quite away?"

"Stop!" and she caught at the reins. The next moment she was on the sidewalk. "Good-evening," she exclaimed with the dignity of a queen.

"The little spitfire!" laughed Miss Lawrence.

Sylvie's displeasure mattered very little to her. A few days later she was on her way to Long Branch, and the episode was soon danced out of mind.

As for Sylvie Barry, she made up her mind never to go to Hope Terrace again. The friendship was not of her seeking, and now it should end. Friendship, indeed! It disgraced the word to use it in connection with Irene Lawrence.

That very evening she went around to the Darcys. Neither she nor Jack mentioned the rencontre, but there was an indescribable something in her manner that told Jack the insult had been as much to her as to him.

Hardly a fortnight later the Lawrence carriage stood at the gate of the pretty court-yard, and the liveried driver brought a note to the door.


DEAR SYLVIE,--[in a tremulous, uncertain hand] I
am wretched and lonely. Fred and Irene are away,
and Mr. Lawrence has gone West on business. Will
you not, out of the generosity of your heart, come
and cheer me up a bit? I was in bed all day
yesterday with a frightful headache, and can just
crawl to-day. Do not disappoint me. I have set my
heart on hearing you read, and have some nice new
books.

Ever your obliged friend, A. L.


"You must go," was her aunt's comment in a sympathizing tone. "I have promised all the afternoon to the School Club, you know, and you would only be home alone. Poor Mrs. Lawrence! What an invalid she has become! And