A Face Illumined Part 4

"The ice isn't broken at all. He has begged my pardon as he ought to do a hundred times; but I haven't granted it, and I never will.

What's more, I'll never speak to him in all my life; never, never!"

"Swear it by the 'inconstant moon'!"

"Hush, here he comes. Ah, 'peste!' his table is right opposite ours."

"Who is that tall and rather distinguished-looking gentleman that just entered?" asked Mrs. Mayhew, suddenly emerging from a pre-occupation with her supper which a good appet.i.te had induced.

"He IS distinguished, or will be. He's a particular friend of Ida's, and is as rich as Croesus."

"Three items in his favor," said Mrs. Mayhew complacently; "but Ida has so many friends, or beaux, rather, that I can't keep track of them. Her friends speedily become furnace-like lovers, or else escape for their lives into the dim and remote region of mere bowing acquaintances.h.i.+p. I once tried to keep a list of the various and variegated gentlemen with red whiskers and black whiskers, with whiskers sandy, brown, and occasionally almost white, but borrowing a golden hue from their purses, that appeared and disappeared so rapidly, as to almost make me dizzy. I was about as bewildered as the poor Indian who sought to take the census of London by notching a stick for every pa.s.ser-by he met. And now before we are through supper on the first evening of our arrival, another appears, who is evidently an eligible 'parti' and twice as good as the minx deserves; but in a few days he, too, will vanish into thin air, and another and different style of man will take his place. Mark my words, Ida, you will be through the woods before long, and I expect you will take up with the crookedest of crooked sticks on the farther side," and the voluble Mrs. Mayhew resumed her supper with a zest which this dismal prospect did not by any means impair.

"If I were in search of a crabbed, crooked stick, I would not have to look farther than yonder table," said the young lady, petulantly.

"What you suppose about that dabbler in paint is about as far from the truth as your sketch of those who are my friends. That man never was my friend, and never shall be. I don't want you to get acquainted with him or speak to him. You must not introduce him to me, for if you do, I shall be rude to him."

"Hoity-toity! what's the matter?"

"I don't like him. Only Ik thinks he's wonderful. He has probably blinded our cousin to his faults by painting a flattering likeness of the vain youth here."

"But in suggesting another portrait that was not altogether pleasing, he sinned beyond hope," whispered Stanton.

Ida bit her lip and frowned, recalling the obnoxious artist's portrait of herself as giggling and flirting through one of Beethoven's symphonies; and she said spitefully:

"He can never hope for anything from me."

"Poor, hopeless wretch!" groaned Stanton. "How can he sip his tea yonder so complacently oblivious of his doom?"

"Mother, I'm in earnest," resumed the daughter. "I have reasons for disliking that man, and I do not wish the annoyance of his acquaintance."

"Well, well," said Mrs. Mayhew; "as long as the wind blows from that cool quarter, we can keep cool till it changes. If I mistake not, he is the same gentleman who met us in the corridor. I'm sure he has fine manners."

"If it is fine manners in a man to nearly run over two ladies, he is perfect. But I am sick of hearing about him, and especially of seeing him. I insist, Ik, that you have our table changed to yonder corner, and then arrange it so that I can sit with my back towards him."

"I am your Caliban, but would hint, my amiable Coz, that you should not bite off your own pretty nose in spite. Must all your kin join in this bitter feud? May I not smoke with my ancient familiar?"

"Oh, be off, and if you and your friend disappear like your cigars, the world will survive."

"I fear it is because my friend will never dissolve in sighs that you are so willing he should end in smoke."

Having winged this Parthian arrow over his shoulder, Stanton strolled out on the piazza whither Van Berg had preceded him.

Chapter V. Spite.

Miss Mayhew apparently had not given a single glance to the artist, as he sat opposite to her and but a little out of earshot. Indeed, so well did she simulate unconsciousness of his presence, that were if not for an occasional glance from Mrs. Mayhew he might have thought himself unnoticed; but something in that lady's manner, as caught by occasional glances, led him to suspect that he was the subject of their conversation.

But Ida's indifference was, in truth, only seeming; for although she never looked directly at him, she subjected his image, which was constantly flitting across the retina of her eye, to the closest scrutiny, and no act or expression of his escaped her. She was piqued by the fact that he showed no disturbed consciousness of her presence, and that his glance was occasionally as free and natural towards her as towards any other guest of the house. His bearing annoyed her excessively, for it seemed an easy and quiet a.s.sertion of indifference and superiority--two manifestations that were to her as objectionable as unusual. Neither in looks nor manner did she appear very agreeable during the brief time she spent in the public parlors. The guests of the house, even to the ladies who foresaw an eclipse of their own charms, were compelled to admit that she was very pretty; but it was a general remark that her face did not make or leave a pleasant impression.

Van Berg surmised that Stanton's disposition to teaze and banter would lead him to repeat and, perhaps, distort, anything he might say concerning the young lady, so he made no reference whatever to the Mayhews, but took pains to give the impression that he was deeply interested in the scenery.

"I shall probably be off with my sketch-book before you are up," he said; "for if I remember correctly, you are up with the lark only when you have been up over-night."

"You are the greater sinner of the two," yawned Stanton; "for if I occasionally keep unseasonable hours at night, you do so habitually in the morning. Either you are not as brilliant as usual this evening, or else the country air makes me drowsy. Good-night. We will take a ride to-morrow, and you can sketch five miles of fence if you find that you cannot resist your mania for work."

Perhaps Stanton HAD found his friend slightly preoccupied, for, in spite of the constraint he had put upon himself to appear as usual, this second and closer view of the face which had taken so strong a hold upon his fancy did not dissipate his first impressions.

Indeed, they were deepened rather, for he saw again and more clearly the same marvellous capabilities in the features, and also their exasperating failure to make a beautiful face.

He dreamed over his project some little time after his friend had retired, and the conclusion of his revery was:

"I must soon make some progress in my experiment or else decamp, for that girl's contradictory face is a constant incentive to profanity."

After seeing Mrs. Mayhew, however, he felt that justice required him to admit that the daughter was a natural and logical sequence; and in the mother he saw an element more hopelessly inartistic and disheartening than anything in the girl herself; for even if the latter could be changed, would not the shadow of the stout and dressy mother ever fall athwart the picture?

Van Berg retired with the feeling that his project of illuminating a face by awakening a mind that, as yet, had slept, did not promise very brilliantly.

Miss Mayhew tried to persuade herself that it was a relief not to see the critical artist at breakfast, nor to meet him as she strolled from the parlors to the piazza and thence to the croquet-ground, where she listlessly declined to take part in a game.

There was, in truth, great need that her mind should be awakened and her whole nature radically changed, if it were a possible thing,--a need shown by the fact the fair June morning, with its fragrance and beauty, could not light up her face with its own freshness and gladness. The various notes of the birds were only sounds; the landscape, seen for the first time, was like the map of Switzerland, that, in the days of her geography lessons, gave her as vivid an idea of the country as a dry sermon does of heaven.

Although her ears and eyes were so pretty, she was, in the deepest and truest sense of the word, deaf and blind. The lack of some petty and congenial excitement made time hang heavily on her hands and clouded her face with 'ennui.'"

Even her cousin had failed her, for he was down at the stables, making arrangements for the care of his bays and his carriage. Thus from very idleness she fell to nursing her small spite against the man whose voice had made such harsh discord with the honeyed chorus of flattery to which she was accustomed. She wished that he would appear, and that in some way she might show how little she cared for him or his opinion; but as he did not, she at last lounged to her room and sought to kill a few hours with a novel.

Her wounded pride, however, induced her to dress quite elaborately for dinner; for she had faith in no better way of a.s.serting her personality than that afforded by the toilet. She would teach him, by the admiration she excited in others, how mistaken he had been in his estimate, and her vanity whispered that even he could not look upon her beauty for any length of time without being won by it as so many others had been.

The change of seats having been effected, she scarcely thought it necessary to turn her back upon him while sitting at such a dim distance. Indeed she was inclined to regret the change, for now her toilet and little airs, which she imagined to be so pretty, would be lost upon him.

It would seem that they were, for Van Berg ate his dinner as quietly, and chatted as unconcernedly to those about him as if she had no existence. Never had a man ignored her so completely before, and she felt that she could never forgive him.

After the event of the day was over, and the guests were circling and eddying through the halls and parlors and out on the piazza, Ida still had the annoyance of observing that Van Berg was utterly oblivious of her as far as she could perceive. He spoke here and there with the ease and freedom of one familiar with society, and she saw more eyes following his tall form approvingly than were turned towards herself. Few gentlemen remained at the house during the week, and Miss Mayhew was not a favorite with her own s.e.x.

Those who most closely resembled her in character envied rather than admired her, and those who were better endowed and developed found fault even with her beauty from a moral point of view, as Van Berg had on artistic grounds. She consoled herself, however, with the thought that it was Sat.u.r.day, and that the evening boat and trains would bring a number of gentlemen, among whom she told Stanton, exultantly, that she had "some friends"--moths rather whose wings were in danger of being singed.

As the afternoon was not sultry, Stanton had said to his friend that they could enjoy their cigars and a ride at the same time, and that he would drive around for him in a few minutes. Ida overheard the remark, and, quietly slipping off to her room, returned with her hat and shawl. As her cousin approached she hastened down the steps, past Van Berg, exclaiming:

"Oh, thank you, Ik! How good of you! I was dying for a ride.

Don't trouble yourself. I can get in without aid," and she sprang lightly into the buggy before her cousin could utter a word.

He turned with a look of comic dismay and deprecation to his friend, who stood laughing on the steps. Ida, also, could not resist her inclination to catch a glimpse of the artist's chagrin and disappointment, but she was provoked beyond measure to find him acting as if Stanton were the victim rather than himself. As the sweep of the road again brought them in view of the piazza, this impression was confirmed by seeing Van Berg stroll carelessly away, complacently puffing his cigar as if he had already dismissed her from his mind.

"Really," grumbled Stanton, "I never had beauty and happiness thrust upon me so unexpectedly before."

"Very well then," retorted Ida; "stop your horses and thrust me out into the road. I'd rather go back, even if I have to walk."

"Oh, no! there is to be no going back for two hours or more. I once cured a horse of running away by making him run long after he wanted to stop."