Louisiana

"Who is that sitting with the driver?" she asked, as the second vehicle passed them. "Isn't that – "

"To be sure it is!" exclaimed Miss Ferrol.

She would have left her seat, but she found herself detained. Her companion had grasped her wrist.

"Wait a minute!" she said. "Don't leave me! Oh – I wish I had not done it!"

Miss Ferrol turned and stared at her in amazement.

She spoke in her old, uncontrolled, childish fashion. She was pale, and her eyes were dilated.

"What is the matter?" said Miss Ferrol, hurriedly, when she found her voice. "Is it that you really don't like the idea? If you don't, there is no need of our carrying it out. It was only nonsense – I beg your pardon for not seeing that it disturbed you. Perhaps, after all, it was very bad taste in me – "

But she was not allowed to finish her sentence. As suddenly as it had altered before, Louisiana's expression altered again. She rose to her feet with a strange little smile. She looked into Miss Ferrol's astonished face steadily and calmly.

"Your brother has seen you and is coming toward us," she said. "I will leave you. We shall see each other again at supper."

And with a little bow she moved away with an air of composure which left her instructress stunned. She could scarcely recover her equilibrium sufficiently to greet her brother decently when he reached her side. She had never been so thoroughly at sea in her life.

After she had gone to her room that night, her brother came and knocked at the door.

When she opened it and let him in he walked to a chair and threw himself into it, wearing a rather excited look.

"Olivia," he began at once, "what a bewildering girl!"

Olivia sat down opposite to him, with a composed smile.

"Miss Rogers, of course?" she said.

"Of course," he echoed. And then, after a pause of two or three seconds, he added, in the tone he had used before: "What a delightfully mysterious girl!"

"Mysterious!" repeated Olivia.

"There is no other word for it! She has such an adorable face, she looks so young, and she says so little." And then, with serious delight, he added: "It is a new type!"

Olivia began to laugh.

"Why are you laughing?" he demanded.

"Because I was so sure you would say that," she answered. "I was waiting for it."

"But it is true," he replied, quite vehemently. "I never saw anything like her before. I look at her great soft eyes and I catch glimpses of expression which don't seem to belong to the rest of her. When I see her eyes I could fancy for a moment that she had been brought up in a convent or had lived a very simple, isolated life, but when she speaks and moves I am bewildered. I want to hear her talk, but she says so little. She does not even dance. I suppose her relatives are serious people. I dare say you have not heard much of them from her. Her reserve is so extraordinary in a girl. I wonder how old she is?"

"Nineteen, I think."

"I thought so. I never saw anything prettier than her quiet way when I asked her to dance with me. She said, simply, 'I do not dance. I have never learned.' It was as if she had never thought of it as being an unusual thing."

He talked of her all the time he remained in the room. Olivia had never seen him so interested before.

"The fascination is that she seems to be two creatures at once," he said. "And one of them is stronger than the other and will break out and reveal itself one day. I begin by feeling I do not understand her, and that is the most interesting of all beginnings, I long to discover which of the two creatures is the real one."

When he was going away he stopped suddenly to say:

"How was it you never mentioned her in your letters? I can't understand that."

"I wanted you to see her for yourself," Olivia answered. "I thought I would wait."

"Well," he said, after thinking a moment, "I am glad, after all, that you did."

CHAPTER V.

"I HAVE HURT YOU."

From the day of his arrival a new life began for Louisiana. She was no longer an obscure and unconsidered young person. Suddenly, and for the first time in her life, she found herself vested with a marvellous power. It was a power girls of a different class from her own are vested with from the beginning of their lives. They are used to it and regard it as their birthright. Louisiana was not used to it. There had been nothing like it attending her position as "that purty gal o' Rogerses." She was accustomed to the admiration of men she was indifferent to – men who wore short-waisted blue-jean coats, and turned upon their elbows to stare at her as she sat in the little white frame church. After making an effort to cultivate her acquaintance, they generally went away disconcerted. "She's mighty still," they said. "She haint got nothin' to say. Seems like thar aint much to her – but she's powerful purty though."

This was nothing like her present experience. She began slowly to realize that she was a little like a young queen now. Here was a man such as she had never spoken to before, who was always ready to endeavor to his utmost to please her: who, without any tendency toward sentimental nonsense, was plainly the happier for her presence and favor. What could be more assiduous and gallant than the every-day behavior of the well-bred, thoroughly experienced young man of the period toward the young beauty who for the moment reigns over his fancy! It need only be over his fancy; there is no necessity that the impression should be any deeper. His suavity, his chivalric air, his ready wit in her service, are all that could be desired.

When Louisiana awakened to the fact that all this homage was rendered to her as being only the natural result of her girlish beauty – as if it was the simplest thing in the world, and a state of affairs which must have existed from the first – she experienced a sense of terror. Just at the very first she would have been glad to escape from it and sink into her old obscurity.

"It does not belong to me," she said to herself. "It belongs to some one else – to the girl he thinks I am. I am not that girl, though; I will remember that."

But in a few days she calmed down. She told herself that she always did remember, but she ceased to feel frightened and was more at ease. She never talked very much, but she became more familiar with the subjects she heard discussed. One morning she went to Olivia's room and asked her for the address of a bookseller.

"I want to send for some books and – and magazines," she said, confusedly. "I wish you – if you would tell me what to send for. Father will give me the money if I ask him for it."

Olivia sat down and made a list. It was along list, comprising the best periodicals of the day and several standard books.

When she handed it to her she regarded her with curiosity.

"You mean to read them all?" she asked.

"Isn't it time that I should?" replied her pupil.

"Well – it is a good plan," returned Olivia, rather absently.

Truth to tell, she was more puzzled every day. She had begun to be quite sure that something had happened. It seemed as if a slight coldness existed between herself and her whilom adorer. The simplicity of her enthusiasm was gone. Her affection had changed as her outward bearing. It was a better regulated and less noticeable emotion. Once or twice Olivia fancied she had seen the girl looking at her even sadly, as if she felt, for the moment, a sense of some loss.

"Perhaps it was very clumsy in me," she used to say to herself. "Perhaps I don't understand her, after all."

But she could not help looking on with interest. She had never before seen Laurence enjoy himself so thoroughly. He had been working very hard during the past year, and was ready for his holiday. He found the utter idleness, which was the chief feature of the place, a good thing. There was no town or village within twenty miles, newspapers were a day or two old when they arrived, there were very few books to be found, and there was absolutely no excitement. At night the band brayed in the empty-looking ball-room, and a few very young couples danced, in a desultory fashion and without any ceremony. The primitive, domesticated slowness of the place was charming. Most of the guests had come from the far South at the beginning of the season and would remain until the close of it; so they had had time to become familiar with each other and to throw aside restraint.

"There is nothing to distract one," Ferrol said, "nothing to rouse one, nothing to inspire one – nothing! It is delicious! Why didn't I know of it before?"

He had plenty of time to study his sister's friend. She rode and walked with him and Olivia when they made their excursions, she listened while he read aloud to them as he lay on the grass in a quiet corner of the grounds. He thought her natural reserve held her from expressing her opinion on what he read very freely; it certainly did not occur to him that she was beginning her literary education under his guidance. He could see that the things which pleased him most were not lost upon her. Her face told him that. One moonlight night, as they sat on an upper gallery, he began to speak of the novelty of the aspect of the country as it presented itself to an outsider who saw it for the first time.

"It is a new life, and a new people," he said. "And, by the way, Olivia, where is the new species of young woman I was to see – the daughter of the people who does not belong to her sphere?"

He turned to Louisiana.