One Day | Page 3

still? He didn't want to miss a single note he might have caught of the voice--that other! Why did this nonentity--for one didn't have to see her to be sure that she was that--have to interrupt and rob him of his pleasure?
"I don't understand you, Opal," she was saying. (Of course she didn't, thought the Boy--how could she?) "I am sure that I live. And yet I have never felt that way--thank goodness! It's vulgar to feel too deeply, Mamma used to say, and as I have grown older, I can see that she was right. The best people never show any excess of emotion. That is for tragedy queens, operatic stars, and--the women we do not talk about! Ladies cultivate repose!"
("Repose!--_mon Dieu!_" thought Paul, behind the hedge. He wished that she would!)
"And yet, Alice, you are--married!"
"Married?--of course!--why not?" and the eavesdropper fancied he could see the wide-open gaze of well-bred English surprise that accompanied the words. "One has to marry, of course. That is what we are created for. But one doesn't make a fuss about it. It's only a custom--a ceremony--and doesn't change existence much for most women, if they choose sensibly. Of course there is always the chance of a _mésalliance_! A woman has to risk that."
"And you don't--love?"
The Boy was struck by a note that was almost horror in the opaline voice so near him.
"Love? Why, Opal, of course we do! It's easy to love, you know, when a man is decent and half-way good to one. I am sure I think a great deal of Algernon; but I dare say I should have thought as much of any other man I had happened to marry. That is a wife's duty!"
"_Duty!_--and you call that love?" The horror in the tones had now changed to scorn.
"You have strange ideas of life, Opal. I should be afraid to indulge them if I were you--really I should! You have lived so much in books that you seem to have a very garbled idea of the world. Fiction is apt to be much of a fairy tale, a crazy exaggeration of what living really consists of!"
"_Afraid?_ Why should I be afraid? I am an American girl, remember, and Americans are afraid of nothing--nothing! Come, cousin, tell to me, if you can, why I should be afraid."
"Oh, I don't know! really I don't!" There was a troubled, perplexed note in the English voice now. "Such notions are apt to get girls into trouble, and lead them to some unhappy fate. Too much 'life'--as you call it--must mean suffering, and sorrow, and many tears--and maybe, sin!"
There was a shocked note in the voice of the young English matron as she added the last word, and her voice sank to a whisper. But Paul Zalenska heard, and smiled.
"Suffering, and sorrow, and many tears," repeated the American girl, musingly, "and maybe--sin!" Then she went on, firmly, "Very well, Alice, give me the suffering and sorrow, and many tears--and the sin, too, if it must be, for we are all sinners of greater or less degree--but at any rate, give me life! My life may still be far off in the future, but when the time comes, I shall certainly know, and--I shall live!"
"You are a peculiar girl, Opal, and--we don't say those things in England."
"No, you don't say those things, you cold English women! You do not even feel them! As for sin, Alice, to my mind there can be no worse sin under heaven than you commit when you give yourself to a man whom you do not love better than you could possibly love any other. Oh, it is a sin--it must be--to sell yourself like that! It's no wonder, I think, that your husbands are so often driven to 'the women we do not talk about' for--consolation!"
"Opal! Opal! hush! What are you saying? You really--but see! isn't that Algernon crossing the terrace? He is probably looking for us."
"And like a dutiful English wife, you mustn't fail to obey, I suppose! Lead the way, cousin mine, and I'll promise to follow you with due dignity and decorum."
And the rustle of silken skirts heralded the departure of the ladies away from the hedge and beyond Paul's hearing.
Then he too started at an eager, restless pace for the centre of the crowd. He had quite forgotten the future so carefully arranged for him, and was off in hot pursuit of--what? He did not know! He only knew that he had heard a voice, and--he followed!
As he rejoined the guests, he looked with awakened interest into every face, listened with eager intensity to every voice. But all in vain. It did not occur to him that he might easily learn from his hostess the identity of her American guest; and even if the thought had