"I have been foolish," she thought; "I wish I had not promised to marry Earle. Who knows but there might have been a chance for me to win this handsome lord. Lady Doris Vivianne! – I like the sound of that name; what a difference between that and Mrs. Earle Moray. How foolish I was to be in such a hurry."
So that evening, when poor Earle came, impatient to see her, longing for one kind word, thirsting to talk to her, he was received with great coldness by her. Ah, heaven! how pitiful it was to see the handsome face droop and sadden, the lips tremble, the eyes grow dim with tears. He might be master of the English language, that he certainly was; he might be master of the heart of poesy, but he was a slave to her, to her whims, her caprices, her humor. It was the first time she had been cold to him, the first time her face had not brightened for him. She did not even smile when he entered the room. He hastened up to her, and bending down he kissed the beautiful face.
"My darling Doris," he said, "I thought the day would never come to an end. I have been longing to see you."
Another time the sweet face would have been raised to his; she would have given kiss for kiss; she would have welcomed him as he loved best to be welcomed; but to-day she merely turned impatiently aside.
"I wish you would be more careful, Earle," she said. "You make my hair so untidy."
"I am very sorry, dear," he said, gently. "It is such beautiful hair, Doris, and I think it looks even more beautiful when it is what you call untidy."
"There is no reason why you should make it so," she retorted.
Then he looked with wondering eyes into her face.
"You are not well, or are you tired; which is it?"
"I am tired," she replied; "tired to death, Earle. Do not tease me."
"I ought to have remembered your long journey – of course you are tired. You ought to lie down, and I will read to you. That will rest you."
"Pray, do not be fussy, Earle. Other people get tired, but no one likes a fuss made over them."
Again he looked at her. Could this girl, who received him so coldly, so indifferently, be his own beautiful, bright Doris? It seemed incredible. Perhaps he had been so unfortunate as to offend her. He bent over her again.
"Doris," he said, gently, "have I been so unfortunate as to displease you?"
"No," she replied. "I do not remember that you have."
"You're so changed, I can hardly imagine that this is you."
The pain in his voice touched her. She looked at him; his face had grown very pale, and there was a cloud in his clear, loving eyes. She laughed a low, impatient laugh.
"Pray do not be so unhappy because I am cross," she said. "I never pretended to have a good temper. I am always impatient over something or other."
"But why with me? You know that your smile makes heaven to me: your frown, despair. Why be cross with me, darling? I would give all I have on earth to save you from one unhappy moment."
"I am tired," she said, "and I cannot forget the Castle, Earle. I wish so much that I had been born to live in such a place; I should have been quite at home and happy there."
"Are you not at home and happy here?" he asked.
"No," she replied. "Happy in a lonely, dreary farm-house!"
"With the kindest of parents, the sweetest of sisters, the most devoted of lovers, it seems to me, Doris, that you have all the elements of happiness."
She did not even hear him; she was thinking of the grandeur she had seen.
"I call that something like life," she continued – "luxury and gayety. I would sooner never have been born at all than be condemned to spend all my life here."
"But it will not be spent here, my darling; it will be spent with me."
His face glowed; the rapture of content came over it. There was no response in hers.
"I shall change Brackenside for Lindenholm," she said. "I cannot see that it will make much difference. It is only exchanging one farm-house for another."
"But I who love you am in the other," he said, gently. "Oh, Doris, you pain me so greatly! I know that you do not mean what you say, but you wound me to death."
Again she hardly heard him.
"I should very much like to know," Doris continued, "if it is fair to place me, with a keen, passionate longing for life, gayety, and pleasure, here, where I have none of the three."
"None of the three!" he repeated, sadly, "and I find heaven with you." He knelt down in front of her, where he could see her face, and he drew it gently down to his own. "I will not believe you mean this, my darling; if I did believe it I should go mad. Your beauty-loving, artistic nature has been aroused by what you have seen, and it makes you slightly discontented with us all. You ought to reign in a palace, my darling, because you are so beautiful and brilliant; but the palace shall be of my winning. You shall have every luxury that you have seen and envied."
"When?" she asked, briefly, bringing his castle in the air suddenly to the ground.
"Soon, my darling – you do not know how hard I am working – soon as I can possibly accomplish it."
"Work!" she replied. "A man may work for a lifetime and yet never earn sufficient to build a house, much less a castle. Look at my father, how hard he works, yet he is not rich, and never will be."
"But my work is different from his, Doris. There have been poets who have made large fortunes."
"And there have been poets who starved in a garret," she replied.
"But I have not that intention," cried Earle, with a look of power. "I will win wealth for you – the thought of you gives me skill, nerve, and courage for anything. Have patience, my darling!"
"Oh, Earle, it was so beautiful!" she cried, pitilessly interrupting him; "and that Lady Estelle wore such a beautiful dress! She has a strange way of moving – it produces a strange effect – so slowly and so gracefully, as though she were moving to the rhythm of some hidden music. And those rooms – I can never forget them! To think that people should live and move in the midst of such luxury!"
He raised the white hand to his lip.
"They are not all happy, Doris. Oh, believe me, darling! money, luxury, magnificence cannot bring happiness. Sooner or later one wearies of them."
"I never should," she answered, gently. "If I could live twenty lives, instead of one, I should never weary. I should like every hour of each of them to be filled with pleasure."
"That is because you have had so little," he said, wistfully. "You shall have a bright future."
Just at that moment Mattie Brace entered the room, and Doris looked at her with a smile.
"A little brown mouse, like Mattie," she said, "can easily be content. You are happy as the day is long, are you not, Mattie?"
The quiet brown eyes, with their look of wistful pain, rested for one moment upon Earle, then the young girl said, calmly:
"Certainly I am happy and content. Why should I not be? I always think that the same good God who made me knew how and where to place me, and knew best what I was fitted for."
"There," said Doris, "that is the kind of material your model women are made of. I shall never be a model woman – Mattie will never be anything else."
"Mattie is quite right," said Earle. "There is nothing so vain and so useless as longing for that which we can never attain. Come, Doris, you look better and brighter than you did when I first came in. Tell me all about your day at the Castle."
She told him of the duke's kind reception, of Lady Estelle's condescension, of all the beautiful things she had seen, and how the duke's daughter had given her some flowers, and talked to her. But not one word did she say of Lord Charles Vivianne. It was better, she thought, not even to mention that.