What Dreams May Come | Page 7

corsage with silver
crescents; and her richly-tinted brown hair was coiled about her head
and held in place by a crescent-shaped comb. She was a tall, slim,
shapely girl, with an extreme grace of carriage and motion, and a neck
and arms whose clear olive was brought out with admirable effect by
the dead white of her gown. Her face, somewhat listless and

preoccupied as she entered, quickly brightened into animation as a
number of men at once surrounded her. Dartmouth continued to watch
her for a few moments, and concluded that he would like to know her,
even if she were a girl and an ingenue. She was fascinating, apart from
her beauty; she looked different from other women, and that was quite
enough to command his interest. It would be too much trouble to
struggle for an introduction at present, however, and he allowed
himself to be taken possession of by his cousin, Margaret Talbot, who,
with the easy skill of a spoiled beauty, dismissed several other cavaliers
upon his approach. They wandered about for a time, and finally entered
a tiny boudoir fitted up to represent a bird's nest in tufted blue satin,
with an infinite number of teacups so arranged as to be cunningly
suggestive of eggs whose parents had been addicted to Decorative Art.
"What do you think of the new beauty?" demanded Mrs. Talbot, as they
established themselves upon an extremely uncomfortable little sofa
upheld between the outstretched wings of the parent bird, which was
much too large for the eggs.
"She does very well," replied Harold, who was wise in his generation.
Mrs. Talbot put her handkerchief suddenly to her face and burst into
tears. Dartmouth turned pale.
"What is it, Margaret?" he said. "Do not cry here; people will notice,
and make remarks."
She made no reply, and he got up and moved restlessly about the room;
then returning he stood looking moodily down upon her.
Some years before, just about the time he was emerging from
knickerbockers, he had been madly in love with this golden-haired,
hazel-eyed cousin of his, and the lady, who had the advantage of him in
years, being unresponsive, he had haunted a very large and very deep
ornamental pond in his grandmother's park for several weeks with
considerable persistency. Had the disease attacked him in summer it is
quite probable that this story would never have been written, for his
nature was essentially a high-strung and tragic one; but fortunately he
met his beautiful cousin in mid-winter, and 'tis a despairing lover
indeed who breaks the ice. Near as their relationship was, he had not
met her again until the present winter, and then he had found that years
had lent her additional fascination. She was extremely unhappy in her
domestic life, and naturally she gave him her confidence and awoke

that sentiment which is so fatally akin to another and sometimes more
disastrous one.
Dartmouth loved her with that love which a man gives to so many
women before the day comes wherein he recognizes the spurious metal
from the real. It was not, as in its first stage, the mad, unreasoning
fancy of an unfledged boy, but that sentiment, half sympathy, half
passion, which a woman may inspire who is not strong enough to call
out the highest and best that lies hidden in a man's nature. This feeling
for his cousin, if not the supremest that a woman can command, bore
one characteristic which distinguished it from any of his previous
passions. For the first time in his life he had resisted a
temptation--principally because she was his cousin. With the instinct of
his caste he acknowledged the obligation to avert dishonor in his own
family where he could. And, aside from family pride, he had a strong
personal regard for his cousin which was quite independent of that
sentiment which, for want of a better name, he called love. She was
young, she was lonely, she was unhappy, and his calmer affection
prompted him to protect her from himself, and not, after a brief period
of doubtful happiness, to leave her to a lifetime of tormenting
memories and regrets. She loved him, of course; and reckless with the
knowledge of her ruined life, her hopeless future, and above all the
certainty that youth and its delicious opportunities were slipping fast,
she would doubtless have gone the way of most women under similar
circumstances, had not Harold, for once in his life, been strong. Perhaps,
if he had really loved her, he would not have been so self-sacrificing.
After her paroxysm of tears had partly subsided, he took her hand.
"What is the matter?" he asked, kindly. "Is there any more trouble?"
"It is the same," she said. "You know how unhappy I am; it