Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 23, February, 1873

"How?"

"Why, in not helping me to entertain my friend."

"Getting tired of him?"

"No, he isn't one of that kind; but, to tell the truth, I am too busy just now to give him the whole of my time."

"Too busy turning your own cakes. Yes, I see."

"Which is no more than my sister is doing; which reminds me to say that J.B. will call this morning, he desired me to inform you. But, dear sis, we must not be so absorbed in our own love-matters as to give my friend only a moiety of our attention, for, poor fellow! he has one of his own."

"So I am to bore him for the sake of relieving you? Is that my role?"

"Now stop! He simply wants a lady confidante."

I broke away from my brother's hold, and ran up to my room to see if all was right for my expected caller, giving my right ear a pull, by way of saying to that victimized organ, "You are needed."

And what think you I did next? Got out my embroidery-material bag, and put it in order for action at a moment's warning. I was prepared for a reasonable amount of martyrdom pertaining to my profession, but I was always an economist of time, and not another unemployed hour would I yield to the selfish demands of my forthcoming job.

The next day was one of November drizzle, the house confinement of which, my adroit brother declared, could only be mitigated by my presence in the sitting-room until the improved state of the weather allowed their escape from it.

I was in the habit of appropriating such weather to my piano, and I had not touched it for a month. Whether Mr. Tennent Tremont's nerves were in a sound state or not, I was determined to practice until twelve. But when he came in from the library and assisted me in opening the instrument, I was obliged to ask him what he would have. They were my first direct words to him, our three weeks' guest.

"Oh, 'Summer Night' is a favorite," he said.

I gave him the song, and then executed the long variations; then, dropping my tired hands in my lap, inquired whether he liked vocal or instrumental best.

"Not any more of either, just now, thanking you kindly for what you have given me," he said. "Have you ever been a confidante, Miss –?"

"That is my vocation, Mr. Tremont," I replied, grasping my bag.

"Which? your embroidery or—"

"Both combined," I tried to say pleasantly, "as on this occasion. I am at Mr. Tremont's service;" and I threaded my tapestry-needle.

Without a prefatory word he began: "Years before your young heart was awakened to 'the sweetest joy, the wildest woe,' I loved."

"And single yet!" I exclaimed as I let my hands drop and glanced up at his brown hair, to see if all those years had left their silver footprints there.

"And single yet," he repeated slowly, "and still worshiping at the same shrine; and to no other will I ever bow until this head is silvered o'er, and this strong arm palsied with the infirmities of age—if a long life is indeed to be mine."

His ardor startled me, but I managed to stitch away composedly, and he went on:

"I know it is in the highest degree selfish to inflict on you a recital of what may not interest you; but I have tried to keep my secret buried from human eyes, from all but hers, and you are now the only being on earth to whom I have ever said, 'I love.' As intimate as I have been with your brother, if he knows it, it is by his penetration, for no word of acknowledgment has ever passed my lips before. May I go on?" he asked.

"Oh yes," I answered, taken by surprise. "I suppose so. It is a relief to talk, and to listen, I have told you, is my vocation."

"How long can you listen?" he questioned in delighted eagerness.

I fancied he would have to be allowanced, and I held up my paper pattern before me: "This bouquet of flowers is to be transferred. I will give you all the time it will take to do it. Remember, the catastrophe must be reached by that time. Some one else will probably want my ear."

"But," said he, "listening is not the only duty of a confidante: you must aid me by your counsel. Only a woman may say how a woman may be won."

"You have my sympathies, Mr. Tremont, on the score of your being a very dear brother's friend. I know nothing of her—next to nothing of you. I can neither counsel nor aid you."

"That brother is familiar with every page of my outward life-history. It was in our family he spent his vacation, while you and your father were traveling in Europe."

"Well, then, that will do about yourself. Now about her?"

The door-bell was rung: the waiter announced—well, my obliging brother has already given enough of his name—"Mr. J.B." My confessor withdrew.

The next morning, as I was bringing the freshened flower-vases into the sitting-room, he brought me my bag, saying, "Now about her."

I opened the piano, repeated his favorite, kept my seat and cultivated my roses vigorously.

"Miss – ," he began, "I would not knowingly give pain to a human creature. Yesterday, when your visitor found me by your side, I observed a frown on his face. I detest obtrusiveness, but if there is anything in the relation in which you stand to each other which will make my attentions objectionable to either of you, they shall cease this moment. You are at perfect liberty to repeat to him every word I have said to you."

"I thank you sincerely for your considerateness," I said. "I am under no obligations of the kind to him or any other gentleman."

He introduced his topic by saying: "I am glad that I shall have to say little more of myself. Oh, what a strange joy it is to be able to speak unreservedly of her, and of the long pent-up hopes and fears of the past years! And now, if you will assist me in interpreting her conduct toward me—if you will inspire me with even faint hope of success—if you will advise me as you would a brother how to proceed,—gratitude will be too weak a word for my feeling toward you for the remainder of my life."

"I have not yet sufficient light on her part of the affair to aid you by advice," I answered. "In these slowly-developing love-affairs there is usually but one great hindering cause. Do you know," I said, laughing as much as I dared, looking into his woebegone face, "that you have not told me what has passed between you?"

His moment or two of death silence made me almost regret my last words.

"In the first of our acquaintance I was ever tortured by her indifference. My first attentions were quietly received, never encouraged. Then came the still more torturing fear—agony let me call it—lest she was pre-engaged. Thank God! that burden was lifted from my poor heart, but only, it seemed, to make room for the very one of all in the catalogue of causes by which a lover's hope dies beyond the possibility of a resurrection. It is the rock—no, I fear the placid waters of friendship into which my freighted bark is now drifting—which may lie between it and the bright isle of love, the safe harbor" (he shuddered), "not the blissful possession."

Reader, the roses were not growing under my needle: my sympathies were at last fully enlisted.

"You have well said," I answered. "Friendship is the 'nine notch' in which a lover makes 'no count' in the game of hearts. But steer bravely past these dark gulfs of despair. Have you ever had recourse to jealousy in your desperation?" I queried.

"I scorn such a base ally. Your brother can tell you I am here partly because I would avoid increasing an affection in another which I cannot return."

"Does she know of that?" I asked, not at all prepared in my own mind to yield the potency of the ally in my sincere desire to aid him by this test of a woman's affection.

"Yes: I have no reason, however, for thinking that the fact has raised her estimate of the article," he said, making a poor attempt to smile.

I felt ashamed of my suggestion, and said quickly, "You correspond, of course: how are her letters?" Now I was sure of my safest clue in finding her out.

"It was through the medium of her letters that I first obtained my knowledge of her mind, her temperament, her disposition, her admirable domestic virtues; for they were written without reserve. They excited my highest admiration; they stimulated my desire to know more of her; but they contain no word of love for me."

His want of boldness almost excited my contempt. My skill was baffled on every side, and, not caring much to conceal my impatience, I said, "You have asked me to advise you as I would my brother. She is cold and selfish: give her up."

"Give her up!" he said with measured and emphatic slowness—"give her up, when I have sought her beneath every clime on which the sun shines—not for months, but for years? Give her up, when her presence gives me all I have ever known of happiness? Give her up!" and he leaned his head on the back of his chair and closed his eyes.

I had imagined him gifted with wonderful self-control, but when I looked up from my work all color had faded from his cheeks, the lips seemed ready to yield the little blood left there by the clinch of the white-teeth upon them, while every muscle of the face quivered with spasmodic effort to control emotion. When the eyes were opened and fixed on the ceiling, I saw no trace in them of anger, revenge, or even of wounded pride. They were full of tears, ready to gush in one last flood-tide of feeling over a subdued, chastened, but breaking heart.

It was very evident that my treatment was not adding much comfort to my patient, however salutary it might prove in the end. I knew of his intention to leave the next day: there was little time left me to aid him, and I had come to regard the unknown woman's mysterious nature or strategic warfare as pitted against my superior penetration. That he might be victorious she must be vanquished. She was, then, my antagonist.