Love, The Fiddler | Page 4

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 and Buenos Ayres. He had grown more reserved and silent than before; fonder of his books; keener in his taste for abstract science. He avoided his old friends and made no new ones. The world seemed to be passing him while he stood still. He wondered how others could laugh when his own heart was so heavy, and he preferred to go his own way, solitary and unnoticed, taking an increasing pleasure in his isolation. He continued to