still Van Morris’s eagerness to test the issue of his own tactics was too keen to let him leave their rooms. He had even resisted the temptations of a gossip at the club, and was smoking his fifth cigar – a thought-amused smile wreathing his lips – when the chime of six startled him suddenly to his feet.
“How time flies!” he exclaimed. “And we are to dine at the Allmand’s at seven.”
He tossed away his cigar, turned into his own apartment, and made an unusually careful toilet. Then he looked into Browne’s still vacant room once more.
“Where can he be?” he muttered. “By George! he must have bungled fearfully if he did not pull through. He certainly had his lesson by heart! But she must not be kept waiting,” and his face softened greatly, and the deep, strong light came back into his eyes. “How ceaselessly that old verse comes back to me! And now ‘to put it to the test’ myself.”
He turned to his escritoire, and took a small Russia case from the drawer; then to the mantel, and carefully shook the dampness from the two flowers he had placed there that morning. Putting case and flowers carefully in his vest pocket, Van paused at the door, gave a long, sweeping glance – with a sort of farewell in it – to the rooms; then shut himself outside, still repeating sotto voce,
“He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small.”
Metropolitan Christmas was abroad in the streets. Young and old, grandsire and maiden, beggar and parvenu jostled one another on the pavements. Rough men, laden with loosely-wrapped, brown-papered packages, strode happily homeward; wan women skurried along leading eager children from unwonted shopping for dainties; carriages rolled by, with the gas-light glimpsing on occupants in evening dress, driven Christmas dinnerward.
Van Morris recked little of all this, as he strode rapidly over the very spot where his coolness had saved an ugly misadventure twelve hours before. His brain was going faster than his body; one goal only had he in view; one refrain ever sounded in his memory: “To gain, or lose, it all!”
A quick turn of the corner, and he stood at the door he had quietly escaped from during the ball. The servant replied to his inquiry that Miss Blanche was in the library; and thither he turned, with the freedom of long intimacy.
Only the warm glow of fire-light filled the room; there was a rustle, as of a retreating silk dress. There was also a man’s figure, backed by the fire, with that not infrequent expression all over it that tells he would really be at his ease if he only knew how.
“Why, Andy! And in your driving suit!”
“Van, dearest old boy,” cried the other, irrelevantly, “congratulate me! I’m the luckiest dog alive!”
“With all my heart,” Van answered, shaking the proffered hand heartily. “I was sure it would come out all right.”
“You were?” Andy fairly beamed. “She said so!”
“What? she said so? Did Rose Wood expect you to break off, then?”
“No, no! Not that. She said she knew you’d be glad of the match.”
“Glad of – the match!” Van stared at his friend, with growing suspicion in his mind.
“Yes, you dear old Van! I’m engaged, and just the happiest of – ”
“Engaged?” and Van seized Andy by the shoulders with both hands.
“Yes, all fixed! And Rose Wood is just the dearest, best girl after all! I’d never have known happiness but for her!”
Van Morris turned the speaker full to the firelight, and stared hard in his face.
“I wouldn’t have believed it, Andy,” he said, contemptuously. “You have come here drunk again!”
“No, indeed! I have pledged my word to her never to touch a drop!” protested Andy, with imperturbable good nature. “And, Van, she has accepted me.”
“She?”
“Yes. Rose said, ‘Morris has his heart set on the match;’ I went straight on that hint, and Blanche Allmand will be Mrs. Andrew Browne next Easter.”
Morris answered no word.
With a deep, hard breath, he turned abruptly, strode to the alcove window, and peered through the curtains into the black night beyond. A great surge of regret swept over him that shook the strong man with pain pitiful to see. He pressed his forehead against the cold glass; and the contrast, so strong, to the hope with which he had looked out thus at the gray dawn, sickened him with its weight. There was a boom in his ears, as of the distant surf; and his brain mechanically groped after a lost refrain, finding only the fragment: “To lose it all! lose it all!”
But heart-sickness, like sea-sickness, is never mortal, and it has the inestimable call over the latter of being far less tenacious. And Van Morris was mentally as healthy as he was physically sound. He made a strong effort of a strong will; and turned to face his friend and his – fate. In his hand he held a wilted camellia bud and a crushed cactus flower.
Moving quickly to the fire, he tossed them on the glowing coals; watching as they curled, shrivelled, and disappeared in the heat’s maw. Then he moved quietly to the window and looked into the night once more.
Wholly wrapped up in his new-found joy, Andy Browne saw nothing odd in his friend’s manner or actions. He moved softly about the room, and once more hummed, “Il segreto per esser felice;” very low and very tenderly this time.
Suddenly the rustle of silk again sounded on Morris’s ear.
He turned quickly, and looked long, but steadily, into the beautiful face. It was very quiet and gentle; glorified by the deeper content in the eyes and the modest flush upon the cheek. His face, too, was very quiet; but it was pale and grave. His manner was gentle; but he retained the little hand Blanche held out to him, in fingers that were steadier than her own.
“I reminded you last night,” he said, very gravely, “how long we had been friends, Blanche. It is meet, then, that I should be the first to wish you that perfect happiness which only a pure girl’s heart may know.”
Then, without a pause, he turned to Andy, and placed the little Russia case in his hand. As it opened, the eye of a dazzling solitaire flashed from its satin pillow.
“Andy, old friend,” he added, “Rose Wood told you only the truth. I had set my heart on Blanche’s happiness; and only this morning I got that for her engagement ring. Put it on her finger with the feeling that Van Morris loves you both – better than a nature like Rose Wood’s can ever comprehend.”
FROM THE WINDOWS OF A GREAT LIBRARY
“The dead alive and busy.” – Henry Vaughan.
Without, wind-lifted, lo! a little rose
(From the great Summer’s heart its life-blood flows),
For some fond spirit to reach and kiss and bless,
Climbs to the casement, brings the joyous wraith
Of the sun’s quick world, without, of joyousness
Into this still world of enchanted breath.
And, far away, behold the dust arise,
From streets white-hot, into the sunny skies!
The city murmurs: in the sunshine beats,
Through all its giant veins of throbbing streets,
The heart of Business, on whose sweltering brow
The dew shall sleep to-night (forgotten now).
There rush the many, toiling as but one;
There swarm the living myriads in the sun;
There all the mighty troubled day is loud
(Business,