The Courting of Lady Jane | Page 6

grew more pressing,
woke in him a keen delight in the struggle with his opponents; as he
shook hands triumphantly with his lawyer after a well-earned victory
he felt years younger. He decided that he had moped too long in the
country: "We must move into town this season," he said to himself.
He fairly ran up the cottage steps in the gathering dusk. He longed to
see them, full of plans for the winter. Hannah met him at the door: the
ladies had gone to a dance at the Morrises'; there had been an invitation
for him, so he would not intrude if he followed.
Hastily changing his clothes, he walked up the street. Lights and music
poured out of the open windows of the large house; the full moon made
the grounds about it almost as bright as the rooms. He stepped up on
the piazza and looked in at the swaying couples. Lady Jane, beautiful in
pale blue mull, drifted by in her young host's arms. She was flushed
with dancing; her hair had escaped from its usual calm. He hardly
recognized her. As he looked out toward the old garden, he caught a
glimpse of a flowing white gown, a lace scarf thrown over a head
whose fine poise he could not mistake.

A young man passed him with a filmy crêpe shawl he knew well. The
colonel stepped along with him.
"You are taking this to Mrs. Leroy?"
"Yes, colonel, she feels the air a little."
"Let me relieve you of it," and he walked alone into the garden with the
softly scented cobweb over his arm.
She was standing in an old neglected summer-house, her back to the
door. As he stopped behind her and laid the soft wrap over her firm
white shoulders, she turned her head with a startled prescience of his
personality, and met his eyes full. He looked straight into those soft
gray depths, and as he looked, searching for something there, he knew
not what, troubled strangely by her nearness and the helpless surrender
of her fastened gaze, a great light burst upon him.
"It is you! it is you!" he said hoarsely, and crushing her in his arms, he
kissed her heavily on her yielding mouth.
For a moment she rested against him. The music, piercingly sweet,
drove away thought. Then she drew herself back, pushing him blindly
from her.
"No, no, no!" she gasped, "it is Lady! You are mad--"
"Mad?" he said quickly. "I was never sane till now. When I think of
what I had to offer that dear child, when I realize to what a farce of love
I was sacrificing her--oh, Alice dearest, you are a woman; you must
have known!"
She raised her head; an unquenchable triumph smiled at him.
"I did know!" she cried exultantly. Suddenly her whole expression
changed, her head sank again.
"Oh, Lady, my child, my baby!" she moaned, all mother now, and
brokenhearted.

"You must never tell her, never!" she panted. "You will forget; you--I
will go away--"
"It is you who are mad, Alice," he said sternly. "Listen to me. For all
these weeks it has been your voice I have remembered, your face I have
seen in imagination in my house. It is you I have missed from us
three--never Lady. It is you I have tried to please and hoped to
satisfy--not Lady. Ever since you told me you would not spend the
winter with us I have been discontented. Why, Alice, I have never
kissed her in my life--as I have kissed you."
She grew red to the tips of her little ears, and threw him a quick glance
that tingled to his fingers' ends.
"You would not have me--oh, my dear, it is not possible!" he cried.
She burst into tears. "I don't know--I don't know!" she sobbed. "It will
break her heart! I don't understand her any more; once I could tell what
she would think, but not now."
"Hush! some one is coming," he warned her, and taking her arm he
drew her out through a great gap in the side of the little house, so that
they stood hidden by it.
"Then I will tell him to his face what I think of him!" said a young
man's voice, angry, determined, but shaking with disappointment. "To
hold a girl--"
"He does not hold me--I hold myself!" It was Lady's voice, low and
trembling. "It is all my fault, Jack. I bound myself before I knew
what--what a different thing it really was. I do love him--I love him
dearly, but not--not--No, no; I don't mean what you think--or, if I do, I
must not. Jack, I have promised, don't you see? And when I thought
that perhaps he didn't care so