he left you."
Cissy believed what she said, and meant only kindness, but her frank words quivered like a thorn in Geraldine's heart.
Oh, how could she think of him as an unprincipled flirt, awakening an interest in a young girl's heart only for his own amusement?
But still she knew that such men existed, and that many broken hearts lay at their door.
The dread that Harry Hawthorne might be one of these heartless men awoke to life within her a fierce and burning pride.
"No man shall break my heart. I will forget Harry Hawthorne," she vowed, bitterly, to herself; and when the actor came that night, he found her bright and gay as of yore. She had put on over her tortured heart that mask of smiles which many a woman wears through life to deceive a carping world.
"'I have a smiling face,' she said,
'I have jest for all I meet,
I have a garland for my head,
And all its flowers are sweet,
And so you call me gay,' she said.
"'Behind no prison grate,' she said,
'Which slurs the sunshine half a mile,
Live captives so uncomforted
As souls behind a smile.
God's pity let us pray,' she said."
Clifford Standish was charmed with her new mood. He saw that a reaction had begun.
"I am glad to see you so happy, for I am sure that you have decided to go on the road with us," he exclaimed, coaxingly.
She shook her head, and laughed, gayly:
"Do not be too sure. You know you have given me until Sunday night to decide."
"But that is not far off—only twenty-four hours," he said, with a smile, for he felt sure of victory. As she made no reply, he continued:
"I have made a charming invitation for you for Sunday afternoon. Some of the leading members of our company are going to skate in the park to-morrow—you know this cold snap has frozen the lake beautifully—and they want me to bring you. Will you come?"
"Yes," replied Geraldine, quickly, glad of a diversion for Sunday afternoon, so that she need not mope alone with her miserable thoughts of how Harry Hawthorne had flirted with her for his own amusement.
For she had begun to lose faith in her handsome lover now. The leaven of Cissy's words had worked steadily in her mind.
And a cruel self-shame that she had given her love in vain was at war with the tenderness of her heart.
"Thank you. I am so glad you will go. I know you will like the trip and the company," he said; then, in a changed tone: "By the way, did that fireman ever keep his promise to call on you?"
"No," she answered, carelessly.
"Have you heard anything about him?"
"No, indeed, and I had almost forgotten the man until you recalled him to my mind," she returned, fibbing unblushingly.
"Ah! Then you will not mind what I have to tell you?" deprecatingly.
"Of course not. What is it?" carelessly.
"Well, of course, I thought it rude and strange his not keeping his appointment with you, and thinking something might have happened to the fellow, as you feared, I made some indirect inquiries at the engine-house, and found that he had returned to Newburgh the same day he brought you back to New York."
"Indeed?" she returned, with a paling cheek, whose pallor she could not control.
"Yes, he had gone back, but I did not like to tell you the truth. I waited for developments. But, to-day, I met Mrs. Stansbury on the street, and she told me something—well, see if you can guess?"
"Something very amusing, no doubt," she replied, carelessly.
"She told me she had just returned from Newburgh, and that she had left Hawthorne there, courting her sister, Daisy Odell. It seemed that he had been in love with the pretty little black-eyed thing some time, and fearing that she might get jealous of the attentions he had to pay you the day you were thrown on his care by my accidental desertion, he returned to make his peace with her, and has been lingering by her side ever since. Mrs. Stansbury was vastly amused over it all, and said to me, 'He flirted shockingly with that pretty little salesgirl, didn't he? but I hope she knew it was only fun! Give my love to her when you see her again!'"
Geraldine treated the matter with a seeming careless indifference, but, oh! the tumult of wounded love and pride that raged within her girlish breast!
"I was so fond of that woman, and she was only kind to me for the sake of a little amusement," she thought, with hot and burning cheeks at his tone when he repeated Mrs. Stansbury's contemptuous epithet, "that little salesgirl!"
To herself she said, angrily:
"I will not be a poor salesgirl any longer, to be twitted with my humble position in life. I will become an actress, and my talents will make me famous, so that these people will go to see me act, and be proud to say, 'I knew her once, but she is so rich and grand now that she would not stoop to renew the acquaintance.' As for Harry Hawthorne, who knows but that I may be able to pay him back some day for the slight he put on me! I am no longer grateful to him for saving my life; for why should he have saved it, only to plant a thorn in my heart?"
But she did not tell Cissy what the actor had told her about Harry Hawthorne. She could not bear to confess her humiliation.
But she went with Standish to the park the next day, and while skating on the lake a vision of beauty and grace that attracted the eyes of admiring hundreds, she told him that she had decided to go with the company on the road.
"Although Cissy is very angry with me, and vows that I will repent it in dust and ashes," she added, uneasily.
"Don't listen to her croaking. She only envies your good fortune," he returned, reassuringly. "Why, you will soon be rich and famous, Miss Harding, for your beauty and talent will win you rapid promotion on the boards. Do you see how all those strangers have watched you on the ice to-day? It is because your face has already won you the sobriquet of 'the prettiest salesgirl in New York.' Soon it will be changed to 'the prettiest actress on the stage.' Will not that sound better?"
CHAPTER X.
A CRUEL DISAPPOINTMENT
"Love, dear friend, is a sacred thing!
Love is not tinsel, silver or gold!
Love is a fragment of Heaven's own gate,
Broken in halves by God's hand, Fate,
And given two kindred spirits to hold
Who would colonize in our earth unknown,
'Tis whispered them: 'You may be thrown
Far apart—'"
Harry Hawthorne remained in the Bellevue Hospital ten days only, it having been discovered that his injuries were not internal, as at first feared.
His temporary unconsciousness had resulted from the severe cut on his head, and as this healed nicely, he grew better, and asked for his discharge from the hospital. Indeed, he would have recovered sooner but for a painful suspense and anxiety that augmented fever and restlessness.
The young fireman had been so deeply smitten by the charms of pretty Geraldine, that during his enforced confinement, the thought of her had never been absent from his mind. Love had sprung to life full grown within his breast.
When he was discharged from the hospital, he could not wait until evening to call on her. The ready excuse of the need of a pair of gloves took him to O'Neill's.
He did not wear his fireman's dress, but attired himself in an elegant suit of clothes, such as gentlemen wear to business. Thus arrayed, and looking as much the aristocrat as any Fifth avenue millionaire, he entered the store and went at once to the glove counter, his heart throbbing wildly at thought of seeing