St. Elmo Part 57

"I think it will be lunch time before we get home," replied the yawning child.

Sir Roger took her by her shoulders, and shook her gently, saying:

"Come, wake up, little sweetheart! How can you get sleepy or hungry with all these handsome pictures staring at you from the walls?"

The good-natured child laughed; but her brother, who had an unconquerable aversion to Sir Roger's huge whiskers, curled his lips, and exclaimed scornfully:

"Hattie, you ought to be ashamed of yourself! Hungry, indeed! You are almost as bad as that English lady--, who, when her husband was admiring some beautiful lambs, and called her attention to them, answered, 'Yes, lambs are beautiful--boiled!'"

Desirous of conciliating him, Sir Roger replied:

"When you and Hattie come to see me in England, I will show you the most beautiful lambs in the United Kingdom; and your sister shall have boiled lamb three times a day, if she wishes it. Miss Earl, you are so fond of paintings that you would enjoy a European tour more than any lady whom I have met in this country. I have seen miles of canvas in Boston, New York and Philadelphia, but very few good pictures."

"And yet, sir, when on exhibition in Europe this great work here before us received most extravagant praise from transatlantic critics, who are very loath to accord merit to American artists. If I am ever so fortunate as to be able to visit Europe, and cultivate and improve my taste, I think I shall still be very proud of the names of Allston, West, Church, Bierstadt, Kensett and Gifford."

She turned to quit the gallery, and Sir Roger said:

"I leave to-morrow for Canada, and may possibly sail for England without returning to New York. Will you allow me the pleasure of driving you to the park this afternoon? Two months ago you refused a similar request, but since then I flatter myself we have become better friends."

"Thank you, Sir Roger. I presume the children can spare me, and I will go with pleasure."

"I will call at five o'clock."

He handed her and Hattie into the coupe, tenderly a.s.sisted Felix, and saw them driven away.

Presently Felix laughed, and exclaimed:

"Oh! I hope Miss Morton will be in the park this evening. It would be glorious fun to see her meet you and Sir Roger."

"Why, Felix?"

"Oh! because she meddles. I heard Uncle Grey tell mamma that she was making desperate efforts to catch the Englishman; and that she turned up her nose tremendously at the idea of his visiting you.

When Uncle Grey told her how often he came to our house, she bit her lips almost till the blood spouted. Sir Roger drives very fine horses, uncle says, and Miss Morton hints outrageously for him to ask her to ride, but she can't manage to get the invitation. So she will be furious when she sees you this afternoon. Yonder is Goupil's; let us stop and have a look at those new engravings mamma told us about yesterday. Hattie, you can curl up in your corner, and go to sleep and dream of boiled lamb till we come back."

Later in the day Mrs. Andrews went up to Edna's room, and found her correcting an exercise.

"At work as usual. You are incorrigible. Any other woman would be so charmed with her conquest that her head would be quite turned by a certain pair of brown eyes that are considered irresistible. Come, get ready for your drive; it is almost five o'clock, and you know foreigners are too polite, too thoroughly well-bred not to be punctual. No, no, Miss Earl; not that hat, on the peril of your life! Where is that new one that I ordered sent up to you two days ago? It will match this delicate white shawl of mine, which I brought up for you to wear; and come, no scruples if you please!

Stand up and let me see whether its folds hang properly. You should have heard Madame De G--when she put it around my shoulders for the first time, 'Juste ciel! Madame Andrews, you are a Greek statue!'

Miss Earl, put your hair back a little from the left temple. There, now the veins show! Where are your gloves? You look charmingly, my dear; only too pale, too pale! If you don't contrive to get up some color, people will swear that Sir Roger was airing the ghost of a pretty girl. There is the bell! Just as I told you, he is punctual.

Five o'clock to a minute."

She stepped to the window and looked down at the equipage before the door.

"What superb horses! You will be the envy of the city."

There was something in the appearance and manner of Sir Roger which often reminded Edna of Gordon Leigh; and during the spring he visited her so constantly, sent her so frequently baskets of elegant flowers, that he succeeded in overcoming her reticence, and established himself on an exceedingly friendly footing in Mrs.

Andrews's house.

Now, as they drove along the avenue and entered the park, their spirits rose; and Sir Roger turned very often to look at the fair face of his companion, which he found more and more attractive each day. He saw, too, that under his earnest gaze the faint color deepened, until her cheeks glowed like sea-sh.e.l.ls; and when he spoke he bent his face much nearer to hers than was necessary to make her hear his words. They talked of books, flowers, music, mountain scenery, and the green lanes of "Merry England." Edna was perfectly at ease, and in a mood to enjoy everything.

They dashed on, and the sunlight disappeared, and the gas glittered all over the city before Sir Roger turned his horses' heads homeward. When they reached Mrs. Andrews's door he dismissed his carriage and spent the evening. At eleven o'clock he rose to say good-bye.

"Miss Earl, I hope I shall have the pleasure of renewing our acquaintance at an early day; if not in America in Europe. The brightest reminiscences I shall carry across the ocean are those that cl.u.s.ter about the hours I have spent with you. If I should not return to New York, will you allow me the privilege of hearing from you occasionally?"

His clasp of the girl's hand was close, but she withdrew it, and her face flushed painfully as she answered:

"Will you excuse me, Sir Roger, when I tell you that I am so constantly occupied I have not time to write, even to my old and dearest friends."

Pa.s.sing the door of Felix's room, on her way to her own apartment, to boy called to her: "Miss Earl, are you very tired?"

"Oh, no. Do you want anything?"

"My head aches and I can't go to sleep. Please read to me a little while."

He raised himself on his elbow, and looked up fondly at her.

"Ah! how very pretty you are to-night! Kiss me, won't you?"

She stooped and kissed the poor parched lips, and as she opened a volume of the Waverly Novels, he said:

"Did you see Miss Morton?"

"Yes; she was on horseback, and we pa.s.sed her twice."

"Glad of it! She does not like you. I guess she finds it as hard to get to sleep to-night as I do."

Edna commenced reading, and it was nearly an hour before Felix's eyes closed, and his fingers relaxed their grasp on hers. Softly she put the book back on the shelf, extinguished the light, and stole upstairs to her desk. That night, as Sir Roger tossed restlessly on his pillow, thinking of her, recalling all that she had said during the drive, he would not have been either comforted or flattered by a knowledge of the fact that she was so entirely engrossed by her MS.

that she had no thought of him or his impending departure.

When the clock struck three she laid down her pen; and the mournful expression that crept into her eyes told that memory was busy with the past years. When she fell asleep she dreamed not of Sir Roger but of Le Bocage and its master, of whom she would not permit herself to think in her waking hours.

The influence which Mr. Manning exerted over Edna increased as their acquaintance ripened; and the admiring reverence with which she regarded the editor was exceedingly flattering to him. With curious interest he watched the expansion of her mind, and now and then warned her of some error into which she seemed inclined to plunge, or wisely advised some new branch of research.

So firm was her confidence in his nature and dispa.s.sionate judgment, that she yielded to his opinions a deferential homage, such as she had scarcely paid even to Mr. Hammond.

Gradually and unconsciously she learned to lean upon his strong, clear mind, and to find in his society a quiet but very precious happiness. The antagonism of their characters was doubtless one cause of the attraction which each found in the other, and furnished the balance-wheel which both required.

Edna's intense and dreamy idealism demanded a check, which the positivism of the editor supplied; and his extensive and rigidly accurate information, on almost all scientific topics, const.i.tuted a valuable treasury of knowledge to which he never denied her access.

His faith in Christianity was like his conviction of the truth of mathematics, more an intellectual process and the careful deduction of logic than the result of some emotional impulse; his religion like his dialectics was cold, consistent, irreproachable, unanswerable. Never seeking a controversy on any subject, he never shunned one, and, during its continuance, his demeanor was invariably courteous, but unyielding, and even when severe he was rarely bitter.

Very early in life his intellectual seemed to have swallowed up his emotional nature, as Aaron's rod did those of the magicians of Pharaoh, and only the absence of dogmatism, and the habitual suavity of his manner, atoned for his unbending obstinacy on all points.

Edna's fervid and beautiful enthusiasm surged and chafed and broke over this man's stern, flinty realism, like the warm, blue waters of the Gulf Stream that throw their silvery spray and foam against the glittering walls of sapphire icebergs sailing slowly southward. Her glowing imagery fell upon the bristling points of his close phalanx of arguments, as gorgeous tropical garlands caught and empaled by bayonets until they faded.

Merciless as an anatomical lecturer, he would smilingly take up one of her metaphors and dissect it, and over the pages of her MSS. for "Maga" his gravely spoken criticisms fell withering as h.o.a.r frost.

They differed in all respects, yet daily they felt the need of each other's society. The frozen man of forty sunned himself in the genial presence of the lovely girl of nineteen, and in the dawn of her literary career she felt a sense of security from his proffered guidance, even as a wayward and ambitious child, just learning to walk, totters along with less apprehension when the strong, steady hand it refuses to hold is yet near enough to catch and save from a serious fall.