One Day | Page 4

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 presented itself to
him, he would never have acted upon it. The experience was his alone,
and he would have been unwilling to share it with any one.
He was no longer bored as earlier in the afternoon, and he carried the
assurance of enthusiasm and interest in his every glance and motion.
People smiled at the solitary figure, and whispered that he must have
lost Verdayne. But for once in his life, the Boy was not looking for his
friend.
But neither did he find the voice!

Usually among the first to depart on such occasions as these, this time
he remained until almost all the crowd had made their adieux. And it
was with a keen sense of disappointment that he at last entered his
carriage for the home of the Verdaynes. He was hearing again and
again in the words of the voice, as it echoed through his very soul,
"When my time comes, I shall certainly know, and I shall--_live!_"
The letter in his pocket no longer scorched the flesh beneath. He had
forgotten its very existence, nor did he once think of the Princess
Elodie of Austria. What had happened to him?
Had he fallen in love with a--voice?

CHAPTER II
It was May at Verdayne Place, and May at Verdayne Place was
altogether different from May in any other part of the world. The skies
were of a far deeper and richer blue; the flowers reached a higher state
of fragrant and rainbow-hued perfection; the sun shining through the
green of the trees was tempered to just the right degree of shine and
shadow. To an Englishman, home is the beginning and the end of the
world, and Paul Verdayne was a typical Englishman.
To be sure, it had not always been so, but Paul had outlived his
vagabond days and had become thoroughly domesticated; yet there had
been a time in his youth when the wandering spirit had filled his soul,
when the love of adventure had lent wings to his feet, and the glory of
romance had lured him to the lights and shadows of other skies than
these. But Verdayne was older now, very much older! He had lived his
life, he said, and settled down!
In the shade of the tall trees of the park, two men were drinking in the
beauties of the season, in all the glory and splendor of its ever-changing,
yet ever-enduring loveliness. One of them was past forty, the ripeness
of middle age and the general air of a well-spent, well-directed, and
fully-developed life lending to his face and form an unusual

distinction--even in that land of distinguished men. His companion was
a boy of twenty, straight and tall and proud, carrying himself with the
regal grace of a Greek god. He was a strong, handsome, healthy,
well-built, and well-instructed boy, a boy at whom any one who looked
once would be sure to look the second time, even though he could not
tell exactly wherein the peculiar charm lay. Both men were fair of hair
and blue-eyed, with clear, clean skins and well-bred English faces, and
the critical observer could scarcely fail to notice how curiously they
resembled each other. Indeed, the younger of the pair might easily have
been the replica of the elder's youth.
When they spoke, however, the illusion of resemblance disappeared. In
the voice of the Boy was a certain vibrant note that was entirely lacking
in the deeper tones of the man--not an accent, nor yet an inflection, but
still a quality that lent a subtle suggestion of foreign shores. It was an
expressive voice, neither languorous nor unduly forceful, but strangely
magnetic, and adorably rich and full, and musical, thrilling its hearers
with its suggestion of latent physical and spiritual force.
On the afternoon of which I write, those two were facing a crisis that
made them blind to everything of lesser import. Paul Verdayne--the
man --realized this to the full. His companion--the Boy--was dimly but
just as acutely conscious of it. The question had come at last--the
question that Paul Verdayne had been dreading for years.
"Uncle Paul," the Boy was saying, "what relation are you to me? You
are not really my uncle, though I have been taught to call you so after
this quaint English fashion of yours. I know it is something of a secret,
but I know no more! We