By the Light of the Soul Part 70

When Maria had her hat on she looked, if anything, worse.

"Good land!" said Aunt Maria, when she saw her. "Well, if you are set on making a spectacle of yourself, I suppose you are."

After the girls had gone she went into the other side of the house and told Eunice. "There she has gone and made herself look like a perfect scarecrow," she said. "I wonder if there is any insanity in her father's family?"

"Did she look so bad?" asked Eunice, with a stare of terror at her sister-in-law.

"Look so bad! She looked as old and homely as you and I every bit."

Maria made as much of a sensation on the trolley as she had done at home. The boy who had persecuted her the night before with his attentions bowed to Evelyn, and glanced at her evidently with no recognition. After a while he came to Evelyn and asked where her sister was that morning. Maria laughed, and he looked at her, then he fairly turned pale, and lifted his hat. He mumbled something and returned to his seat. Maria was conscious of his astonished and puzzled gaze at her all the way. When she reached the academy the other teachers--that is, the women--a.s.sailed her openly. One even attempted to loosen by force Maria's tightly strained locks.

"Why, Miss Edgham, you fairly frighten me," she said, when Maria resisted.

Maria realized the amazement of the pupils when they entered her cla.s.s-room, the amazement of incredulity and almost disgust.

Everybody seemed amazed and almost disgusted except Wollaston Lee. He did, indeed, give one slightly surprised glance at her, then he seemed to notice nothing different in her appearance. The man's sense of duty and honor was so strong that in reality his sense of externals was blunted. He had a sort of sublime short-sightedness to everything that was not of the spirit. He had been convinced the night previous that Maria was beginning to regard him with favor, and being convinced of that made him insensible to any mere outward change in her. She looked to him, on the whole, prettier than usual because he seemed to see in her love for himself.

When the noon intermission came he walked into her cla.s.s-room, and invited Maria and Evelyn to go with him to a near-by restaurant and lunch.

"I would ask you to go home with me," he said, apologetically, to Maria, "but mother has a cold."

Maria turned pale. She wondered if he had possibly told his mother.

Then she remembered how he had promised her not to tell without her permission, and was rea.s.sured. Evelyn blushed and smiled and dimpled, and cast one of her sweet, dark glances at him, which he did not notice at all. His attention was fixed upon Maria, who hesitated, regarding him with her pale, pinched face. Evelyn took it for granted that Mr. Lee's invitation was only on her account, and that Maria was asked simply as a chaperon, and because, indeed, he could not very well avoid it. She jumped up and got her hat.

"It will be perfectly lovely," she said, and faced them both, her charming face one glow of delight.

But Maria did not rise. She looked at the basket of luncheon which she had begun to unpack, and replied, coldly, "Thank you, Mr. Lee, but we have our luncheon with us."

Wollaston looked at her in a puzzled way.

"But you could have something hot at the restaurant," he said. The words were not much, but in reality he meant, and Maria so understood him, "Why, what do you mean, after last night? You know how I feel about you. Why do you refuse?"

Maria took another sandwich from her basket. "Thank you for asking us, Mr. Lee," she said, "but we have our luncheon."

Her tone was fairly hostile. The hostility was not directed towards him, but towards the weakness in herself. But that he could not understand.

"Very well," he said, in a hurt manner. "Of course I will not urge you, Miss Edgham." Then he walked out of the room, hollowing his back and holding his head very straight in a way he had had from a boy when he was offended.

Evelyn pulled off her hat with a jerk. She looked at Maria with her eyes brilliant with tears. "I think you were mean, sister," she whispered, "awful mean; so there!"

"I thought it was better not to go," Maria replied. Her tone was at once stern and pitiful. Evelyn noticed only her sternness. She began to weep softly.

"There, he wanted me, too," she said, "and of course he had to ask you, and you knew--I think you might have, sister."

"I thought it was better not," repeated Maria. "Now, dear, you had better eat your luncheon."

"I don't want any luncheon."

Maria began to eat a sandwich herself. There was an odd meekness and dejectedness in her manner. Presently she laid the half-eaten sandwich on the table and took out her handkerchief, and shook all over with helpless and silent sobs.

Then Evelyn looked at her, her pouting expression relaxed gradually.

She looked bewildered.

"Why, what are you crying for?" she asked, in a low voice.

Maria did not answer.

Presently Evelyn rose and went over to her sister, and laid her cheek alongside hers and kissed her.

"Don't, sister," she whispered. "I am sorry. I didn't mean to be cross. I suppose you were right not to go, only I did want to."

Evelyn snivelled a little. "I know he was hurt, too," she said.

Maria raised her head and wiped her eyes. "I did not think it was best," she said yet again. Then she looked at Evelyn and tried to smile. "Don't worry, precious," she said. "Everything will come out all right."

Evelyn gazed wonderingly at her sister's tear-stained face. "I don't see what you cried for, and I don't see why you wouldn't go," she said. "The scholars will see you have been crying, and he will see, too. I don't see why you feel badly. I should think I was the one to feel badly."

"Everything will come out all right," repeated Maria. "Don't worry, sister's own darling."

"Everybody will see that you have been crying," said Evelyn, who was in the greatest bewilderment. "What did make you cry, Maria?"

"Nothing, dear. Don't think any more about it," said Maria rising.

She took a tumbler from the lunch-basket. "Go and fill this with water for me, that is a dear," she said. "Then I will bathe my eyes.

n.o.body would know that you have been crying."

"That is because I am not so fair-skinned," said Evelyn; "but I don't see."

She went out with the tumbler, shaking her head in a puzzled way.

When she returned, Maria had the luncheon all spread out on the table, and looked quite cheerful in spite of her swollen eyes. The sisters ate together, and Evelyn was very sweet in spite of her disappointment. She was in reality very sweet and docile before all her negatives of life, and always would be. Her heart was always in leading-strings of love. She looked affectionately at Maria as they ate the luncheon.

"I am so sorry I was cross," she said. "I suppose you thought that it would look particular if we went out to lunch with Mr. Lee."

"Yes, I think it might have," replied Maria.

"Well, I suppose it would," said Evelyn with a sigh, "and I know all the other girls are simply dying for him, but he asked us, after all." Evelyn said the last with an indescribable air of sweet triumph. It was quite evident that she regarded the invitation as meant for herself alone, and that she took ineffable delight in it in spite of the fact that it had been refused. She kept glancing out of the window as she ate. Presently she looked at her sister and laughed. "There he is coming now," she said, "and he is all alone. He didn't take anybody else to luncheon."

Chapter x.x.xIV

Wollaston Lee, approaching the academy on his return from his solitary lunch, was quite conscious of being commanded by the windows of Maria's cla.s.s-room. He was so conscious that his stately walk became almost a strut. He felt resentment at Maria. He could not help it. He had not been, in fact, so much in love with her, as in that att.i.tude of receptivity which invites love. He felt that she ought to be in love, and he wooed not only the girl but love itself. Therefore resentment came more readily than if he had actually loved. He had been saying to himself, while he was eating his luncheon which mortified pride had rendered tasteless, that if it had not been for the fact of his absurd alliance with Maria she was the last girl in the world to whom he would have voluntarily turned, now that he was fully grown, and capable of estimating his own character and hers. He said to himself that she was pretty, attractive, and of undeniable strength of character, and yet that very strength of character would have repelled him. He was not a man who needed a wife of great strength of character, of consistent will. He himself had sufficient.

His chances of happiness would have been greater with a wife in whom the affections and emotions were predominant; there would have been less danger of friction. Then, too, his wife would necessarily have to live with his mother, and his mother was very like himself. He said to himself that there would certainly be friction, and yet he also said that he could not abandon his att.i.tude of readiness to reciprocate should Maria wish for his allegiance.

Now, for the first time, Wollaston had Evelyn in his mind. Of course he had noticed her beauty, and admired her. The contrary would not have been possible, but now he was conscious of a distinct sensation of soothed pride, when he remembered how she had smiled and dimpled at his invitation, and jumped up to get her hat.

"That pretty little thing wanted to come, anyhow. It is a shame," he thought. Then insensibly he fell to wondering how he should feel if it were Evelyn to whom he were bound instead of her sister. It did not seem possible to him that the younger sister, with her ready grat.i.tude and her evident ardor of temperament, could smile upon him at night and frown the next morning as Maria had done. He considered, also, how Evelyn would get on better with his mother. Then he resolutely put the thought out of his mind.

"It is not Evelyn, but Maria," he said to himself, and shut his mouth hard. He resumed his att.i.tude of obedience to duty, but one who is driven by duty alone almost involuntarily balks in spirit.

Wollaston was conscious of balking, although he would not retreat.