"You are very good to bother with a tyro. I'd like to be able to play a good game. Father is so fond of it, and Lynde seldom comes in nowadays--family cares;" laughingly.

They led off very well. Saltonstall was wise enough to try his best, though out of one eye he watched the dainty fingers threading in and out among the colored beads, and could not help thinking he would rather be holding them and pressing kisses on the soft white hand. Then he made a wrong play.

"We may as well turn back," said Mr. Leverett, "since the question at stake is not winning, but improving."

"You are very good," returned the young man meekly.

This time they went on a little further, but the result was the same. So with the third game.

"Of course, I could let you win," Mr. Leverett began, "but that wouldn't conduce to the real science of the game which a good player desires. But you do very well for a young man. I should keep on, if I were you."

"And annoy you with my shortcomings?"

"Oh, it will not be annoyance, truly. Come in when you feel like it."

"Thank you." Then he said good-night in a friendly, gentlemanly manner, and Cynthia rose and bowed.

After that she gathered up her work and said good-night. Chilian sat and thought. Edward Saltonstall was a nice, steady young fellow; that is, he neither gamed, nor drank, nor went roystering round in the taverns jollying with the sailors, as some of the sons of really good families did. He would not have all his fortune to make, and his father's business was well established. The sons would take it. The two daughters were well married. What more could he ask for Cynthia? She was not so young now and would know her own mind.

Yet it gave his heart a sharp, mysterious wrench, a longing for what he was putting away, the essence of the solemn ideals of love that run through the intricate meshes of the human soul. He knew that he loved her, that he wanted her for his very own, and his conscience told him it was not right. Of all her admirers he liked this one the best. Under other circ.u.mstances he would have considered him an admirable young man.

Saltonstall dropped in now and then, not too often. He did not mean to startle any one with his purpose, but to let it grow gradually. Still, at the last a.s.sembly of the season, his attentions were somewhat p.r.o.nounced. It was partly her doings, she was sheltering herself from other rather warm indications.

A few days later she went over to Polly Loring's with her work. Polly's bag had somehow gone wrong. Cynthia had to cut the thread and ravel out a round. The baby was to be admired as well as the chair seat Polly had begun in worsted work, which was the new accomplishment. And they talked over various matters: who had new gowns, new lovers, and new babies. But every time she came almost to the subject so near her heart, Cynthia made an elusive detour. Then she ventured out straight with her question.

"Cynthia, are you going to take Ed Saltonstall?"

Cynthia's face was scarlet.

"He hasn't asked me, he hasn't even asked Cousin Chilian," but her voice was not quite steady.

"How do you know? It was talked of at the a.s.sembly--the two men were a good deal together. And if you don't mean anything, Cynthia, you'll get yourself gossiped about, and you'll spoil some lives," declared Polly spiritedly. This thing had been seething in her mind, and she was going to have it out at the risk of breaking friendship.

"I don't want to spoil any one's life. And I've never really kept company with any one."

The keeping company was the great test. When the young man came steady one night in the week, to Sunday tea, and went to church with the girl alone, the matter was as good as declared.

"But--well, I don't know how you've done it, but they hang about you and it does upset them. First it's one, then it's another. You ought to know. You ought to settle upon one and let the others alone."

Polly had acquired a good deal of married wisdom, and she really did love Cynthia. Ben loved her, too.

"But suppose I didn't want any of them?" and Cynthia tried to laugh, but it was a poor shadowy attempt.

"Oh, nonsense! You don't mean to be an old maid. No girl does. But it is time you stopped playing fast and loose with hearts. Now there's Ben.

You know he's loved you this long while. And we all like you so. Last fall he quite gave up and went to see Jenny Willing. She'll make a good wife and she's a nice girl, though she hasn't your fortune. Mother's been trying to make him believe that you are looking higher."

"Oh, Polly--I never scarcely think of my fortune," Cynthia interrupted, her face full of distressful color.

"Well, I'm not saying that you do. Ben's getting along first-rate. He has a college degree and father isn't poor. I know several girls who would jump at a chance for him. Of course, we would _all_ rather have you. Then at Avis Manning's party you gave him the sweetest of your smiles, and lured him back."

Oh, she recalled it with a kind of shame. It was to keep off Archie Turner and Mr. Saltonstall. And then for a while he had grown troublesome. If they could be merely friends!

"The thing is just here, Cynthia. I know I'm speaking plainly and you may get angry. If you don't want Ben, let him alone. A young man begins to think of a home and a wife of his own, and when he likes a girl very much--yes, I will say it, she can make or mar. She can take him away from some other nice girl. And people now are beginning to say you are a flirt. I think Jenny will make Ben a nice wife, and if you don't want him----"

"Oh, Polly, I don't want any of them. You can't think how delightful life is with Cousin Chilian. I couldn't be as happy anywhere else, or with any other person. I can't make myself fall in love as all of you girls have, and think this one or that one perfect. Something must be wrong with me. And I'm very sorry. I'm not a bit jealous when they take to other girls. Why, I'd be glad to be Jenny's bridesmaid if she wanted me to."

Cynthia paused and mopped the tears from her cheeks. Polly was a little subdued. Cynthia was taking this so meekly. But she said rather spitefully, "You had better marry Mr. Leverett."

Ah, Polly, it was a dangerous seed to fling at a young girl. And it dropped on a bit of out of the way fruitful soil.

Cynthia rose quietly. She was very pale. She began to roll up her work.

"Now I think you can go on with it," she said. "If you get in trouble again, let me know."

Then the two friends looked at each other until the tears came into their eyes.

"I'm very sorry," murmured Cynthia in a broken voice.

"But you see----"

"Yes. I understand. I hope Ben will be very happy."

Afterward Polly sat down and cried. She knew Ben loved Cynthia so. They had counted on having her in the family. But she felt quite certain now that Ed Saltonstall would get her. And he was a flirt, going with every pretty girl, every new girl for a little while.

Cynthia went home in a very sober mood. Why had they all cared so much about her? They had nice attractive qualities, but why could they not look at her just as she looked at them! She did not know very much about men and that with them pursuit often merged into the strong desire for possession, which she did not understand. But she did not want to be blamed. She would have none of them. Cousin Chilian was more to her. If he seldom danced and was never very gay, there were so many other requirements to life; there was something in his nature to which hers responded readily.

Then suddenly she seemed to have lost the clue. She experienced a season of bewilderment. Was Cousin Chilian meaning she should take Mr.

Saltonstall for a lover? He surely gave him opportunities he had given no other. Sometimes he excused himself and went out. There were some difficulties with the mother country that men were discussing. She really felt a little awkward at being left alone with Mr. Saltonstall.

Not only that, but it awoke a strange terror in her soul that he should come so near; it was as if her whole being rose in arms.

Occasionally Chilian spoke of her marriage--he had always said she was too young, in a protesting manner. So on one occasion she gained courage.

"Do you mean--that is--you would like to--have me married, Cousin Chilian?"

Married! It was as if she had given him a stab. And yet was not that just the thing he had been thinking of?

"Why, you see, Cynthia," he made his voice purposely cold, "I am much older than you. I may die some day. Cousin Eunice will no doubt go before me, and you would not like to go on alone. Then Giles is older even than I. One has to think of these things. Yes, it would be nice to know you were happily settled."

"And why couldn't a woman live alone as well as a man? I could have Miss Winn, and a housekeeper, and a man----"

"It's a lonely life for a woman."

"But why not for a man?"

"Oh, well, that is different. Only a few men do. And they grow queer and opinionated."

A fortnight ago she would have protested and said, "You are not old, you are not opinionated," in her eager, girlish manner. Now she was hurt, and she could not tell why; so she kept silent.

And she began to note a change in him. The delightful harmony in which they had lived fell below the major key into minors, that touched and pierced her. He did not come so often to listen to her music, to ask her for a song, to watch while she painted some pretty flower, to go around with her training roses, or cutting them for the house. She put a few of them everywhere; she did not like great bunches, only such things as grew in cl.u.s.ters, lilacs and syringas and long sprays of clematis. She missed the little walks around, and the dear talks they used to have.