Love, The Fiddler | Page 4

altered fortunes and the memory of those great New
York shops, where she had ordered right and left, made the bit of lace
seem common and scarce worth possessing. Even as she thanked him
she was mentally presenting it to one of the poor Miss Browns who
sang in the church choir.
They spent an hour in talking together, eluding on either side any
further reference to the subject most in their thoughts and finding safety
in books and the little gossip of the place and the news of the day. It
might have been an ordinary call, though Frank, as a special favour,
was allowed to smoke a cigar, and there was a strained look in
Florence's face that gave the lie to her previous professions of
indifference. She knew she was violating her own heart, but her
character was already corrupting under the breath of wealth, and her
head was turned with dreams of social conquests and of a great and
splendid match in the roseate future. She kept telling herself how lucky
it was that the money had not come too late, and wondering at the same

time whether she would ever again meet a man who had such a
compelling charm for her as Frank Rignold, and whose mellow voice
could move her to the depths. At last, after a decent interval, Frank said
he would have to leave, and she accompanied him to the door, where he
begged her to remember him to her mother and added something
congratulatory about the great good fortune that had befallen her.
"And now good-bye," he said.
"But you will come back, Frank?" she exclaimed anxiously.
"Oh, no!" he said. "I couldn't, Florence, I couldn't."
"I cannot let you go like this," she protested. "Really I can't, Frank. I
won't!"
"I don't see very well how you can help it," he said.
"Surely my wish has still some weight with you," she said.
"Florence," he returned, holding her hand very tight, "you must not
think it pique on my part or anything so petty and unworthy; but I'd
rather stop right here than endure the pain of seeing you get more and
more indifferent to me. It is bound to come, of course, and it would be
less cruel this way than the other."
"You never can have loved me!" she exclaimed. "Didn't I say I wanted
to be friends? Didn't I kiss you?"
"Yes," he said slowly, "as you might a child, to comfort him for a
broken toy. Florence," he went on, "I have wanted you for the last two
years and now I have lost you. I must face up to that. I must meet it
with what fortitude I can. But I cannot bear to feel that every time I
come you will like me less; that others will crowd me out and take my
place; that the gulf will widen and widen until at last it is impassable. I
am going while you still love me a little and will miss me. Good-bye!"
She leaned her head on his shoulder and sobbed. She had but to say one
word to keep him, and yet she would not say it. Her heart seemed
broken in her breast, and yet she let him go, sustained in her resolve by
the thought of her great fortune and of the wonderful days to come.
"Good-bye," she said, and stood looking after him as he walked slowly
away.
"Oh, that money, I hate it!" she exclaimed to herself as she went in. "I
wish he had never left it to me. I didn't want it or expect it or anything,
and I should have been happy, oh, so happy!" Then, with a pang, she
recalled the refrigerating plant, and the life so quiet and poor and

simple and sweet that she and Frank would have led had not her
millions come between them.
"Her millions!"
It was inspiriting to repeat those two words to herself. It strengthened
her resolve and made her feel how wise she had been to break with
Frank. Perhaps, after all, it were better for him not to come back. He
was right about the gulf between them, and even since his departure it
was widening appreciably.
Then she realised what all rich people realise sooner or later.
"I don't own all that money," she said to herself. "IT OWNS ME!" And
with that she went indoors and cried part of the forenoon and spent the
rest of it in trying on her new clothes.
Wealth, if it did not bring happiness, at least brought some pleasant
distractions.
II
It was fully a year before Frank saw her again; a long year to him,
soberly passed in his shipboard duties, with recurring weeks ashore at
New York