"love is hurt with jar and fret,
love is made a vague regret,
eyes with idle tears are wet."
—the miller's daughter.
it is evening; the shadows are swiftly gathering. already the dusk—sure herald of night—is here. above in the trees the birds are crooning their last faint songs and ruffling their feathers on their night-perches.
how short the days have grown! even into the very morning of sweet september there has fallen a breath of winter,—a chill, cold breath that tells us summer lies behind.
luttrell, with downcast eyes and embittered heart, tramples through the same green wood (now, alas, fuller of fallen leaves) where first, at herst, he and molly re-met.
with a temperament as warm but less hopeful than hers, he sees the imaginary end that lies before him and his beloved. she has forsaken him, she is the bride of another,—that other is shadwell. she is happy with him. this last thought, strange to say, is the unkindest cut of all.
he has within his hand a stout stick he took from a tree as he walked along; at this point of the proceeding he breaks it in two and flings it to one side. happy! away from him, with perhaps only a jesting recollection of all the sweet words, the tender thoughts he has bestowed upon her! the thought is agony; and, if so, what will the reality be?
at all events he need not witness it. he will throw up his commission, and go abroad,—that universal refuge for broken hearts; though why we must intrude our griefs and low spirits and general unpleasantnesses upon our foreign neighbors is a subject not yet sufficiently canvassed. it seems so unkind toward our foreign neighbors.
a rather shaky but consequently picturesque bridge stretches across a little stream that slowly, lovingly babbles through this part of the wood. leaning upon its parapet, luttrell gives himself up a prey to gloomiest forebodings, and with the utmost industry calls up before him all the most miserable possibilities. he has reached the verge of suicide,—in a moment more (in his "mind's eye") he will be over, when a delicious voice behind him says, demurely:
"may i pass, please?"
it is molly: such a lovely molly!—such a naughty unrepentant, winsome molly, with the daintiest and widest of straw hats, twined with wild flowers, thrown somewhat recklessly toward the back of her head.
"i am sorry to disturb you," says this apparition, gazing at him unflinchingly with big, innocent eyes, "but i do not think there is room on this bridge for two to pass."
luttrell instantly draws his tall, slight, handsome figure to its fullest height, and, without looking at her, literally crushes himself against the frail railing behind him, lest by any means he should touch her as she passes. but she seems in no hurry to pass.
"it is my opinion," she says, in a matter-of-fact tone of warning, "that those wooden railings have seen their best days; and if you try them much harder you will find, if not a watery grave, at all events an exceedingly moist coat."
there is so much truth in this remark that luttrell sees the wisdom of abstaining from further trial of their strength, and, falling into an easier position, makes as though he too would leave the bridge by the side from which she came on it. this brings them nearly face to face.
now, dear reader, were you ever in the middle of a crossing, eager to reach the other side of the street? and did you ever meet anybody coming toward you on that crossing, also anxious to reach his other side of the street? and did you ever find yourself and that person politely dancing before each other for a minute or so, debarring each other's progress, because, unhappily, both your thoughts led you in the same direction? and did you ever feel an irresistible desire to stop short and laugh aloud in that person's face? because now all this happens to molly and luttrell.
each appears full of a dignified haste to quit the other's society. molly steps to the right, so does luttrell to the left, at the very same instant; luttrell, with angry correction of his first movement, steps again to his first position, and so, without pausing, does molly. each essay only leaves them as they began, looking fair into each other's eyes. when this has happened three times, molly stops short and bursts into a hearty laugh.
"do try to stay still for one second," she says, with a smile, "and then perhaps we shall manage it. thank you."
then, being angry with herself, for her mistaken merriment, like a true woman she vents her displeasure upon him.
"i suppose you knew i was coming here this evening," she exclaims, with ridiculous injustice, "and followed to spoil any little peace i might have?"
"i did not know you were coming here. had i known it——"
a pause.
"well,"—imperiously,—"why do you hesitate? say the unkind thing. i hate innuendoes. had you known it——"
"i should certainly have gone the other way." coldly: "meanly as you may think of me, i have not fallen so low that i should seek to annoy you by my presence."
"then without doubt you have come to this quiet place searching for solitude, in which to think out all your hard thoughts of me."
"i never think hardly of you, molly."
"you certainly were not thinking kindly."
now, he might easily have abashed her at this point by asking "where was the necessity to think of her at all?" but there is an innate courtesy, a natural gentleness about luttrell that utterly forbids him.
"and," goes on his tormentor, the more angry that she cannot induce him to revile her, "i do not wish you to call me 'molly' any more. only those who—who love me call me by that name. marcia and my grandfather (two people i detest) call me eleanor. you can follow their example for the future."
"there will not be any future. i have been making up my mind, and—i shall sell out and go abroad immediately."
"indeed!" there was a slight, a very slight, tremble in her saucy tones. "what a sudden determination! well, i hope you will enjoy yourself. it is charming weather for a pleasure-trip."
"it is."
"you shouldn't lose much more time, however. winter will soon be here; and it must be dismal in the extreme traveling in frost and snow."
"i assure you"—bitterly—"there is no occasion to hurry me. i am as anxious to go as ever you could desire."
"may i ask when you are going, and where?"
"no, you may not," cries he, at length fiercely goaded past endurance; "only, be assured of this: i am going as far from you as steam can take me; i am going where your fatal beauty and heartlessness cannot touch me; where i shall not be maddened day by day by your coquetry, and where perhaps—in time—i may learn to forget you."
his indignation has made him appear at least two inches taller than his ordinary six feet. his face is white as death, his lips are compressed beneath his blonde moustache, his dark blue eyes—not unlike molly's own—are flashing fire.
"thank you," says his companion, with exaggerated emphasis and a graceful curtsey; "thank you very much, mr. luttrell. i had no idea, when i lingered here for one little moment, i was going to hear so many home truths. i certainly do not want to hear any more."
"then why don't you go?" puts in luttrell, savagely.
"i would—only—perhaps you may not be aware of it, but you have your foot exactly on the very end of my gown."
luttrell raises his foot and replaces it upon the shaking planks with something that strongly resembles a stamp,—so strongly as to make the treacherous bridge quake and tremble; while molly moves slowly away from him until she reaches the very edge of their uncertain resting-place.
here she pauses, glances backward, and takes another step, only to pause again,—this time with decision.
"teddy," she says, softly.
no answer.
"dear teddy," more softly still.
no answer.
"dearest teddy."
still no answer.
"teddy—darling!" murmurs molly, in the faintest, fondest tone, using toward him for the first time this tenderest of all tender love words.
in another moment his arms are around her, her head is on his breast. he is vanquished,—routed with slaughter.
in the heart of this weak-minded, infatuated young man there lingers not the slightest thought of bitterness toward this girl who has caused him so many hours of torment, and whose cool, soft cheek now rests contentedly against his.
"my love,—my own,—you do care for me a little?" he asks, in tones that tremble with gladness and sorrow, and disbelief.
"of course, foolish boy." with a bright smile that revives him. "that is, at times, when you do not speak to me as though i were the fell destroyer of your peace or the veriest shrew that ever walked the earth. sometimes, you know,"—with a sigh,—"you are a very uncomfortable teddy."
she slips a fond warm arm around his shoulder and caresses the back of his neck with her soft fingers. coquette she may be, flirt she is to her finger-tips, but nothing can take away from her lovableness. to luttrell she is at this moment the most charming thing on which the sun ever shone.
"how can you be so unkind to me," he says, "so cold? don't you know it breaks my heart?"
"i cold!" with reproachful wonder. "i unkind! oh, teddy! and what are you? think of all you said to me yesterday and this morning; and now, now you called me a coquette! what could be worse than that? to say it of me, of all people! ted,"—with much solemnity,—"stare at me,—stare hard,—and see do i look the very least bit in the world like a coquette?"
he does stare hard, and doing so forgets the question in hand, remembering only that her eyes, her lips, her hair are all the most perfect of their kind.
"my beloved," he whispers, caressingly.
"it is all your own fault," goes on circe, strong in argument. "when i provoke you i care nothing for philip shadwell, or your mr. potts, or any of them: but when you are uncivil to me, what am i to do? i am driven into speaking to some one, although i don't in the least care for general admiration, as you well know."
he does not know; common sense forbids him to know; but she is telling her fibs with so much grace of feature and voice that he refuses to see her sin. he tries, therefore, to look as if he agreed with her, and succeeds very fairly.
"then you did not mean anything you said?" he asks, eagerly.
"not a syllable," says molly. "though even if i did you will forgive me, won't you? you always do forgive me, don't you?"
it would be impossible to describe the amount of pleading, sauciness, coaxing she throws into the "won't you?" and "don't you?" holding up her face, too, and looking at him out of half-shut, laughing, violet eyes.
"i suppose so," he says, smiling. "so abject a subject have i become that i can no longer conceal even from myself the fact that you can wind me round your little finger."
he tightens his arm about her, and considering, i dare say, she owes him some return for so humble a speech—stoops as though to put his lips to hers.
"not yet," she says, pressing her fingers against his mouth. "i have many things to say to you yet before—— for one, i am not a coquette?"
"no."
"and you are not going abroad to—forget me? oh, teddy!"
"if i went to the world's end i could not compass that. no, i shall not go abroad now."
"and"—half removing the barring fingers—"i am the dearest, sweetest, best molly to be found anywhere?"
"oh, darling! don't you know i think so?" says luttrell, with passionate fondness.
"and you will never forgive yourself for making me so unhappy?"
"never."
"very well,"—taking away her hand, with a contented sigh,—"now you may kiss me."
so their quarrel ends, as all her quarrels do, by every one being in the wrong except herself. it is their first bad quarrel; and although we are told "the falling out of faithful friends is but the renewal of love," still, believe me, each angry word creates a gap in the chain of love,—a gap that widens and ever widens more and more, until at length comes the terrible day when the cherished chain falls quite asunder. a second coldness is so much easier than a first!
