Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 12, No. 30, September, 1873

Now, however comfortable a man may be, if he is bidden to rise by a pretty woman who stands imperiously over him, the chances are that he obeys. So it was with Clare. He most assuredly did not want to go with Mrs. Lancaster, and quite as assuredly he did want to stay just where he was, with the hem of Eleanor Milbourne's dress touching him and a pervading sense of her presence near, even when she encouraged stupid people to expose their ignorance on the Egyptian question. Yet he found himself walking away with the pretty widow before five minutes had passed.

"I know you are not obliged to me," she said when they had gone some distance. "But your divinity is talking commonplaces, or listening to them, which amounts to the same thing; so I fancied you might spare me ten minutes. I want to know if that was a mere assertion for effect a minute ago, or if you are in earnest in thinking of going to Egypt?"

"I never talk for effect," said Victor with a hauteur that was spoilt by a slight touch of petulance. "I always mean what I say, and I certainly am in earnest in thinking of going to Egypt."

"May I ask why?"

"I am surprised that you should need to ask. One's friends usually know one's affairs at least as well as one's self—sometimes much better. Everybody who knows me knows that I am a poor man."

"Not so poor that you need go to Egypt in search of a fortune, however," said she, stopping short and looking at him keenly. "Confess," she added, "that you are about to expatriate yourself in this absurd fashion because Eleanor Milbourne means to marry Marston Brent."

"Your acuteness has carried you too far," said he laughing, but not quite naturally. "Miss Milbourne's matrimonial choice is nothing to me. I have thought of this step for some time. General –'s letter is a reply to my application forwarded months ago. Yet now that the answer has come," he went on, "I scarcely care to grasp the advantage it offers. Indifference has infected me like a poison. I feel more inclined to rust out on the old place than to sound 'Boots and saddle' again."

"But why rust out?" she asked impetuously. "Are there not careers enough open to you?" Then, after a minute, "Are there not other women in the world besides Eleanor Milbourne?"

"Perhaps so," a little doggedly. "There are other stars in the heavens besides Venus, but who sees them when she is above the horizon?"

"How kind and complimentary you are!" said Mrs. Lancaster with a slight tone of bitterness in her voice.

"Forgive me," said he after a minute. "I am a fool on this subject, and, like a fool, I always say more than I mean. No doubt there are other women in the world even more beautiful and more charming than Eleanor Milbourne, but they are nothing to me."

"In other words, you are determined to believe that the grapes above your reach, instead of being sour, are the sweetest in existence."

"At least I harm only myself by such an hallucination, if it is an hallucination."

"But you may harm yourself more than you imagine," said she with a nervous cadence, in her voice. "For the sake of a hopeless passion for a woman who has no more heart than my fan you will sacrifice more than you are aware of—more, perhaps, than you can ever regain."

She laid her hand—a pretty, white hand, gleaming with jewels—on his arm at the last words, and it was fortunate, perhaps, that she could not tell with what an effort he restrained himself from shaking it impatiently off. A quick feeling of repulsion came over him like an electric shock. Hitherto he had been somewhat flattered, somewhat amused, and only occasionally a little bored, by the favor which the beautiful and wealthy young widow had so openly accorded him; but now in a second he felt that thrill of disgust which always comes to a sensitive man when he sees a woman step beyond the pale of delicate womanhood. If he had been one shade less of a gentleman, he would have said something which Mrs. Lancaster could never have forgotten. As it was, he had sufficient command of himself to speak carelessly. "I was never quick at reading riddles," he said. "I am unable to imagine what sacrifice I should make by indulging the 'hopeless passion' for Miss Milbourne with which you are kind enough to credit me."

"With which I credit you?" she repeated eagerly. "Am I wrong, then? If you can tell me that, Victor—"

But he interrupted her quickly: "You ought to know, Mrs. Lancaster, that this is a thing which a sensible man only tells to one woman; but, since you seem to take an interest in the subject, there is nothing which I need hesitate to acknowledge in the fact that, however hopeless my passion for Eleanor Milbourne may be, it is the very essence of my life, and can only end with my life."

"We all think that when we are young and foolish, and very much in love," said Mrs. Lancaster coolly—whatever stab his words gave the kindly darkness hid—"but I think you are more than usually mad. If she is not already engaged to Marston Brent, she will be as soon as he returns. I know that her family confidently expect the match, and in any case" (emphatically) "Eleanor Milbourne is the last woman in the world whom a penniless man need hope to win."

"I know that as well as you do," said Clare. "I have no hope of winning her, and I am going to Egypt next month."

He uttered the last words as if he meant them to end the subject, but it is doubtful whether they would have done so if they had not at that moment found themselves close upon the house, having paid little attention to the path which they were following. As they emerged from the shrubbery they were both a little surprised to see a carriage standing in the full glow of the light from the open hall door.

"Who can have arrived?" said Mrs. Lancaster, not sorry, perhaps, for a diversion. "I did not know that Mrs. Brantley was expecting any one."

"Who has come, Ellis?" Victor said carelessly to a young man who emerged from the house as they approached.

"Marston Brent," was the answer. "It seems the Clytie made a very quick trip, and came into port yesterday; so of course her owner has come at once to report his safe arrival at head-quarters."

Mrs. Lancaster, whose hand was still on Clare's arm, felt the quick start which he gave at this information, but she was a discreet woman, and she said nothing until they were standing on the verandah steps and he had bidden her good-night, saying that he must ride back to Claremont.

"I understand why you will not remain," she said; "but do not make any rash resolution about Egypt—above all, do not commit yourself to anything." Then she bent forward and touched his hand lightly. "Tell me when you come again that you will join my party for the White Sulphur," she said softly. "It will be the wisest thing you can do."

The result of this disinterested advice was, that as soon as he reached home, after a lonely, starlit ride of six miles, Clare sat down and wrote to General –, accepting the position he had offered, and promising to report in Cairo as soon as possible.

After this it was several days before the future Egyptian soldier was seen again at The Willows. What went on in that gay abode during this interval he neither knew nor sought to know. He endeavored to banish all memory of the place and the people whom it contained from his mind. They were nothing to him, he told himself. It was impossible to say whether he shrank most from the pain of meeting Eleanor Milbourne with her accepted lover by her side, or from the thrill of disgust with which the mere thought of Mrs. Lancaster inspired him. He buried himself in listless idleness at Claremont for some time: then ordered his horse one day, rode to a neighboring town and made arrangements for the sale of his property with much the same feeling as if he had ordered the execution of his mother. It was when he returned weary and depressed from this excursion that he found a note from Mrs. Brantley awaiting him.

"DEAR MAJOR CLARE" (it ran), "why have you forsaken us? We have looked for you, wished for you and talked of you for days, but you seem to have determined that we shall learn the full meaning of the verb 'to disappoint.' Will you not come over to dinner to-day? I think you have played hermit quite long enough.

"Truly yours, L.M.B."

To say that Clare declined this invitation would be equivalent to saying that a moth of its own accord kept at a safe distance from the glowing flame which enticed it. As he read the note his heart gave a leap. He began to wonder and ask himself why he had remained away so long. Was it not the sheerest folly and absurdity? What was Eleanor Milbourne to him that he should banish himself on her account from the only pleasant house within a radius of twenty miles? A man should have some self-respect, he thought. He should not let every inquisitive fool see when and how and where a shaft has wounded him. Why should he not go? A heartache or two additional would not matter in Egypt. As for Mrs. Lancaster, he could certainly keep at a safe distance from her, even if she had not gone to the White Sulphur, as he hoped to heaven she had.

This devout hope was destined to disappointment. The first person whom he saw when he entered the well-filled drawing-room of The Willows was the pretty widow, in radiant looks and radiant spirits, not to mention a radiant toilette of the lightest possible and most becoming mourning. Despite his previous resolutions, Clare found himself gravitating to her side as soon as his respects had been paid to Mrs. Brantley—a fact which may serve as a small proof of the weakness of man's resolve, and his general inability to fight against fate, especially when it is embodied in a woman's bright eyes.

"What have you been doing with yourself?" she asked after the first salutations were over. "Have you been taking counsel with solitude on the Egyptian question? Or have you decided like a sensible man to go to the White Sulphur? Whatever has been the cause of your absence, you have at least been charitable in furnishing us with a topic of conversation. I scarcely know what we should have done without the 'Victor Clare disappearance,' as Mr. Ellis has called it, during the last week."

"I am sure you ought to be obliged to me, then," Clare said, flushing and laughing. "Assuredly I could not have furnished you with a topic of conversation for a whole week if I had been present."

"Opinion has been divided concerning the mystery of your fate," she went on. "One party has maintained that, rushing away in desperation when you heard of Mr. Brent's arrival, you started the next day for Suez; the other, that you were hanging about the grounds, armed to the teeth, and only waiting an opportunity to dare your rival to deadly combat."

"How kind one's friends are, to be sure, especially when they are in the country, and have nothing in particular with which to amuse themselves!"

"But what have you been doing? I should like to know, if you do not object to telling me."

"I have been very busy making my final arrangements for leaving the country," answered he, stretching a point, it must be owned.

"You are really going, then?" she asked after a minute's silence—a minute during which she was horribly conscious that her changing countenance might readily have betrayed to any looker-on how deeply she felt this unexpected blow.

"I wrote to General – on the night I saw you last, accepting his offer," Clare answered. "Of course I am in duty bound, therefore, to report in Cairo as soon as possible."

"And you will sell Claremont?"

"I have no alternative."

She said nothing more, but he saw her hand—the same white jeweled hand that had gleamed on his arm in the starlight—go to her throat with a quick, convulsive movement. Instead of the thrill of repulsion which he had felt before, a sudden sense of pity and regret came over him now. He was not enough of a puppy to feel a certain keen enjoyment and gratified vanity in the realization of this woman's folly. He appreciated, on the contrary, how entirely she had been a spoiled child of fortune all her life—a queen-regnant, to whom all things must submit themselves—and he felt how bitter must be this first sharp proof of her own impotence to secure the toy on which she had set her heart. It was these thoughts which made his voice almost gentle when he spoke again: "You must not think that I am ungrateful for your kind interest in my behalf. You can imagine, perhaps, how much I hate to part with Claremont, which has been the seat of my family for generations; but when a thing must be done there is no use in making a moan over it. I cannot sacrifice my life to a tradition of the past; and that would be what I should do if I clung to the old place, instead of cutting loose with one sharp stroke and swimming boldly out to sea."

"But you might stay if you would," said she with that tremulous accent which the French call "tears in the voice."

"No, I could not stay," said Clare resolutely. "I have no money, nor any means of making any in America."

This ended the discussion. Even Mrs. Lancaster, fast and daring and willful as she was, could not say, "I have money—more than I know what to do with: take it." Her eyes said as much, but Clare did not look at her eyes. A minute longer passed in embarrassed silence. Then somebody came up, and Victor was able to walk away. As he crossed the room he saw Eleanor Milbourne for the first time since his arrival. He had not even inquired if she was still at The Willows, and her unexpected appearance, for he had begun to fear that she was gone, filled him with a rush of feelings of which the first and most prominent was delight. After all, did it matter whether or not she was engaged to Marston Brent? Simply to look at her was enough to fill a man's soul with pleasure, to steep him in that "dewlight of repose" which only a few rare things on this earth of ours are capable of inspiring. Did any sane person ever fly from the sight of Venus when she held her court all alone in the lovely summer heaven, because he could not possess her magic lustre for his own? The comparison was not at all highflown to Clare, whatever it may seem to anybody else. He had always entertained as much hope of winning the star as of winning the woman; and as for an abstract question of beauty, he would have held that Venus herself could not have surpassed Eleanor Milbourne. She was an adorable goddess whom any man might be content to worship from a distance, he thought; and he was preparing to go and sun himself in the glance of her eyes, which seemed like bits of heaven in their blueness and their fairness, when Mrs. Brantley touched his arm and bade him take a newly-arrived piece of white muslin in to dinner. Clare looked a little crestfallen, but against the decision of his hostess on this important subject what civilized man was ever known to revolt? He took the white muslin in to dinner, and had the satisfaction of finding himself separated by the length of the table from Miss Milbourne.

After dinner Mrs. Brantley claimed his attention. It seemed that there was a plan under discussion for showing the sole lion of the neighborhood—a hill of considerable eminence known as Farley's Mount—to the guests of The Willows. But it was distant twelve miles, What did Major Clare think of their starting early, breaking the ride by rest and luncheon at Claremont, then going on to the mountain, making the ascent, and returning by moonlight?

"It will not do at all," said Victor. "Twenty-four miles is too much to be undertaken on a July day by a mere party of pleasure. You would break yourselves down and see nothing. I propose an amendment: Take two days instead of one, and spend a night on the mountain. If you have never camped on a mountain, the novelty is well worth experiencing, and these midsummer nights have scarcely any length, you know. Then the sunrise is magnificent."

"That is exactly what we will do," cried Mrs. Brantley, clapping her hands with childish glee. And the proposal, being submitted to the company, was unanimously carried.

Meanwhile, Eleanor Milbourne was walking with Mr. Brent in the soft summer twilight on the lawn.

"You should not press me so hard," she said as they paced slowly to and fro. "I fear I can never give you what you desire, but I cannot tell yet. Grant me a little time."