Arms and the Woman | Page 5

had arrived. I patted my gloves for a moment, then I drew a long breath.
"Phyllis!" said I. There was a quaver in my voice. Perhaps I had not spoken loud enough. "Phyllis!" said I again.
She turned quickly and gave me an inquiring and at the same time nervous glance.
"What is it?"
"I want to tell you something I have never dared to tell you till now," I said earnestly. The voice on the stage soared heavenward. "I love you. Will you be my wife?"
Ah, me! where were those drooping eyelids, that flush, that shy, sweet glance of which I had so often dreamt? Phyllis was frowning.
"Jack, I have been afraid of this," she said. "I am so sorry, but it cannot be."
"Oh, do not say that now," I cried, crushing my gloves. "Wait awhile; perhaps you may learn to love me."
"Jack, I have always been frank to you because I like you. Do you suppose it will take me five years to find out what my heart says to any man? No. Had I loved you I should not have asked you to wait; I should have said yes. I do not love you in the way you wish. Indeed, I like you better than any man I know, but that is all I can offer you. I should be unkind if I held out any false hopes. I have often asked myself why I do not love you, but there is something lacking in you, something I cannot define. Some other woman will find what I have failed to find in you to love."
I was twisting my gloves out of all recognition. There was a singing in my ears which did not come from the stage.
"Look at it as I do, Jack. There is a man in this world whom I shall love, and who will love me. We may never meet. Then he shall be an ideal to me, and I to him. You believe you love me, but the love you offer is not complete."
"Not complete?" I echoed.
"No. It would be if I returned it. Do you understand? There is in this world a woman you will truly love and who will return your love in its fulness. Will you meet? That is in the hands of your destinies. Shall I meet my ideal? Who knows? But till I do, I shall remain an old maid."
I nodded wearily. A dissertation on affinities seemed ill-timed.
"And now," she said, "this beautiful friendship of ours must come to an end." And there were tears in her eyes.
"Yes," said I, twisting and untwisting the shreds of my gloves. It seemed as though the world had slipped from under my feet and I was whirling into nothingness. "My heart is very heavy."
"Jack, if you talk like that," hastily, "you will have me crying before all these people."
Unfortunately Ethel turned and saw the tears in her cousin's eyes.
"Mercy! what is the matter?" she asked.
"Jack has been telling me a very pathetic story," said Phyllis, with a pity in her eyes.
"Yes; something that happened to-night," said I, staring at the programme, but seeing nothing, nothing.
"Well," said Ethel, "this is not the place for them," turning her eyes to the stage again.
The concluding acts of the opera were a jangle of chords and discords, and the hum of voices was like the murmur of a far-off sea. My eyes remained fixed upon the stage. It was like looking through a broken kaleidoscope. I wanted to be alone, alone with my pipe. I was glad when we at last entered the carriage. Mrs. Wentworth immediately began to extol the singers, and Phyllis, with that tact which is given only to kind-hearted women, answered most of the indirect questions put to me. She was giving me time to recover. The direct questions I could not avoid. Occasionally I looked out of the window. It had begun to rain again. It was very dreary.
"And what a finale, Mr. Winthrop!" cried Mrs. Wentworth,
"Yes, indeed," I replied. To have loved and lost, and such a woman, was my thought.
"The new tenor is an improvement. Do you not think so?"
"Yes, indeed." No more to touch her hand, to hear her voice, to wait upon her wishes.
"It was the most brilliant audience of the season."
"Yes, indeed," I murmured. Those were the only words I could articulate.
The carriage rumbled on.
"Does Patti return in the fall?"
"Yes." Five years of dreaming, and then to awake!
And then the carriage mercifully stopped.
Mrs. Wentworth insisted that I should enter and have some coffee. I had so few words at my command that I could not invent even a flimsy excuse. So I went in. The coffee was tasteless. I put in four lumps of sugar. I stirred and stirred and stirred. Finally, I swallowed the contents of the cup.