Prince Fortunatus by William Black (ebook reader with highlighter TXT) 📖

to do that. She takes her ideal from some one she knows--from the finest type of character she has met; so that it is not an impossible standard, for one person, at least, has attained to it."

"And, for the sake of that one, she discards all those unfortunates who, by their age or appearance or lack of position or lack of distinction, cannot hope to come near," he said, rather absently. "Isn't that hard? It makes all sorts of things so hopeless, so impossible. You put your one chosen friend on this pedestal; and then all the others, who might wish to win your regard, they know what the result of comparison would be, and they go away home and hide their heads."

"I don't see, Mr. Mangan," she said, in a somewhat low voice, and yet a little proudly too, "why you should fear comparison with any one--no, not with any one; or imagine that anything could--could displace you in the regard of your friends."

He hesitated again--anxious, eager, and yet afraid. At last he said, rather sadly,

"I wish I knew something of your ideals, and how far away beyond human possibility they are."

"Oh, I can tell you," she said, plucking up heart of grace, for here was an easy way out of an embarrassing position. "My ideal woman is Sister Alexandra, of the East London Hospital. She was down here last Sunday--sweeter, more angelic than ever. That is the noblest type of woman I know. And I was so glad she enjoyed her rare holiday; and when she went away in the evening we had her just loaded with flowers for her ward."

"And the ideal man?"

"Oh," said Miss Francie, hurriedly, "I hardly know about that. Of course, when I--when I spoke of Linn a little while ago, I did not wish to say anything against him--certainly not--no one admires his better qualities more than I do--but--but there may be other qualities--"

They were come to the wooden gate opening on to the highway; he paused ere he lifted the latch.

"Francie," said he, "do you think that some day you might be induced to put aside all your high standards and ideals, and--and--in short, accept a battered old journalist, without money, position, distinction, without any graces, except this, that gratitude might add something to his affection for you?"

Tears sprang into her eyes, and yet there was a smile there, too; she was not wholly frightened--perhaps she had known all along.

"Ah, and you don't understand yet, Maurice!" she said, and she frankly gave him her hand, and her eyes were kind even through her tears. "You don't understand what I have been saying to you, that a girl's ideal is one particular person--her ideal is the man or woman whom she admires and loves the most. Can you not guess?"

"Francie, you will be my wife?" he said to her, drawing her closer to him, his hands clasped round her head.

She did not answer. She was silent for a second or two. And then she said, with averted eyes,

"You spoke of gratitude, Maurice. I know who has the most reason to be grateful--and who will try the hardest to show it."

So that betrothal was completed; and when they passed out from the coppice into the whiter air, behold! the wild March skies had parted somewhat, and there was a shimmer of silver sunlight along the broad highway between the hedges. It was an auspicious omen--or, at least, their full hearts may have thought so; and then, again, there was a wedding chorus all around them from the birds--from the bright-eyed robin perched on the crimson bramble-spray; from the speckled thrush on the swaying elm; from the lark far-hovering over a field of young corn. But in their own happiness they had thought of others; Francie soon came back to Lionel again and his grievous misfortunes; and she was listening with meekness to this tall, clear-eyed man, who could now claim a certain gentle authority over her. They were a long time before they got to the doctor's house.

That same evening Miss Kate Burgoyne invited Lionel to come to her room for a cup of tea when he had dressed for the last act; and accordingly, when he was ready, he strolled along the corridor, rapped with his knuckles, and entered. It turned out that the prima-donna had other visitors: a young lady whom he had never seen before and Mr. Percival Miles. The young gentleman, in faultless evening dress, seemed a little surprised at the easy manner in which Lionel had lounged into the place; and perhaps Lionel was also a little surprised--for this was Mr. Miles's first appearance in the room; but each man merely nodded to the other, in a formal-acquaintance style, as they were in the habit of doing at the Garden Club. At the same moment Miss Burgoyne opened a portion of the curtain, so that she could address her guests.

"Mr. Moore, let me introduce you to my friend, Miss Ingram. Mr. Miles I think you know."

And Lionel was glad enough to turn to the young lady and enter into conversation with her, for the pale young man with the slight yellow moustache was defiantly silent, and had even something fierce about his demeanor. It was no business of Lionel's to provoke a quarrel with this truculent fire-eater, especially in Miss Burgoyne's room. To quarrel about Kate Burgoyne?--the irony of events could go no further than that.

And of course, as the most immediate topic, they spoke of the gale that had been blowing across London all the afternoon and evening; for the southerly winds that had prevailed in the morning had freshened up and increased in violence until a veritable hurricane was now raging, threatening roofs, chimneys, and lamp-posts, to say nothing of the whirled and driven and bewildered foot-passengers.

"I hear there has been a bad accident in Oxford Street," Lionel said to the young lady. "Some scaffolding has fallen--a lot of people hurt. I'm afraid there will be a sad tale to tell from the sea; even now, while we are secure in this big building, thinking only of amusement, I suppose there is many a ship laboring in the gale, or going headlong on to the rocks. Have you far to get home?" he asked.

"Oh, I am going home with Miss Burgoyne," the young lady answered.

But here Miss Burgoyne herself appeared, coming forth in the full splendor of Grace Mainwaring's bridal attire and with all her radiant witcheries of make-up, and the poor lad sitting there, who had never before been so near this vision of delight, seemed quite entranced by its (strictly speaking) superhuman loveliness. He could not take his eyes away from her. He did not think of joining in the conversation. He watched her at the mirror; he watched her making tea; he watched her munching a tiny piece of bread and butter (which was imprudent on her part, after the care she had bestowed on her lips); and always he was silent and spellbound. Miss Burgoyne, on the other hand, was talkative enough.

"Isn't it an awful night!" she exclaimed. "I thought the cab I came down in would be blown over. And they say it's getting worse and worse. I hear there has been a dreadful accident; some of the men were telling Jane about it; have you heard, Mr. Moore?--something about a scaffold. I suppose this theatre is safe enough; I don't feel any shaking. But I know I shall be so nervous going home to-night--I dread it already--"

"Miss Ingram says she is going home with you," Lionel pointed out, carelessly.

"But that is worse!" the prima-donna cried. "Two women are worse than one--they make each other nervous; no, what you want is a man's bluntness of perception--his indifference--and the sense of security you get from his being there. Two frightened women; how are they going to keep each other's courage up?"

It was clearly an invitation; almost a challenge. Lionel only said,

"Why, what have you to fear! The blowing over of a cab is about the last thing likely to happen. If you were walking along the pavement, you might be struck by a falling slate; but you are out in the middle of the road. If you go home in a four-wheeled cab, you will be as safe as you are at this minute in this room."

She turned away from him; at the same moment the pale young gentleman said, rather breathlessly,

"Miss Burgoyne, if you would permit me to accompany you and Miss Ingram home, I should esteem it a great honor--and--and pleasure."

She whipped round in an instant.

"Oh, thank you, Percy--Mr. Miles, I mean," she added, in pretty confusion. "That will be so kind of you. We shall be delighted, I'm sure--very kind of you indeed."

No more was said at the moment, for Miss Burgoyne had been called; and Lionel, as he wended his way to the wings, could only ask himself,

"What is she up to now? She calls me Mr. Moore before her friends, and him Percy, and she contrives to put him into the position of rescuing two distressed damsels. Well, what does it matter? I suppose women are like that."

But Mr. Percival Miles's accompanying those two young ladies through the storm did matter to him, in another way, and seriously. When, the performance being over, he got into evening dress and drove along in a hansom to the Garden Club, he found there two or three of the young gentlemen who were in the habit of lounging about the supper-room, glancing at illustrated papers or chewing toothpicks, until the time for poker had arrived.

"Johnny," he said to one of them, "somehow I feel awfully down in the mouth to-night."

"That's unusual with you, then," was the cheerful reply. "For you are the pluckiest loser I ever saw. But I must say your luck of late has been just something frightful."

"Well, I'm down altogether--in luck, in finances, and spirits; and I'm going to pull myself up a peg. Come and keep me company. I'm going to order a magnum of Perrier Jouet of '74, and I only want a glass or two; you must help me out, or some of those other fellows."

"That's a pretty piece of extravagance!" the other exclaimed. "A magnum--to get a couple of glasses out of it; like an otter taking a single bite from a salmon's shoulder. Never mind, old chap; I'm in. I hate champagne at this time of night; but I don't want you to kill yourself."

As they sat at supper, with this big bottle before them, Lionel said,

"It will be a bad thing for me if young Miles doesn't show up to-night."

"I should have thought it would have been an excellent thing for you if Miles had never entered this club," his companion observed.

"That's true," said Lionel, rather gloomily. "But my only chance now is to get some of my property back, and I can only get it back from him. You fellows are no use to me--not if I were winning all along the line."

"Look here, Moore," said the young man, in a more serious tone, "you may say it's none of my business; but the way you and that fellow Miles have been going on is perfectly awful. If the committee should hear about it, there will be a row, and no mistake!"

"My dear boy," Lionel protested, as he pushed the unnecessary bottle to his neighbor, "the committee have nothing to do with understandings