Sepia smiled, with her face to the gla.s.s, in which she saw the face of her cousin with her eyes on the fire; but she made no answer. Hesper went on.

"Ah!" she said, "your story is not mine. You are free; I am a slave.

You are alive; I am in my coffin."

"That's marriage," said Sepia, dryly.

"It would not matter much," continued Hesper, "if you could have your coffin to yourself; but when you have to share it--ugh!"

"If I were you, then," said Sepia, "I would not lie still; I would get up and bite--I mean, be a vampire."

Hesper did not answer. Sepia turned from the mirror, looked at her, and burst into a laugh--at least, the sound she made had all the elements of a laugh--except the merriment.

"Now really, Hesper, you ought to be ashamed of yourself," she cried.

"You to put on the pelican and the sparrow, with all the world before you, and all the men in it at your feet!"

"A pack of fools!" remarked Hesper, with a calmness which in itself was scorn. "I don't deny it--but amusing fools--you must allow that!"

"They don't amuse me."

"That's your fault: you won't be amused. The more foolish they are, the more amusing I find them."

"I am sick of it all. Nothing amuses me. How can it, when there is nothing behind it? You can't live on amus.e.m.e.nt. It is the froth on water an inch deep, and then the mud!"

"I declare, misery makes a poetess of you! But as to the mud, I don't mind a little mud. It is only dirt, and has its part in the inevitable peck, I hope."

"_I_ don't mind mud so long as you can keep out of it. But when one is over head and ears in it, I should like to know what life is worth,"

said Hesper, heedless that the mud was of her own making. "I declare, Sepia," she went on, drawling the declaration, "if I were to be asked whether I would go on or not--"

"You would ask a little time to make up your mind, Hesper, I fancy,"

suggested Sepia, for Hesper had paused. As she did not reply, Sepia resumed.

"Which is your favorite poison, Hesper?" she said.

"When I choose, it will be to use," replied Hesper.

"Rhyming, at last!" said Sepia.

But Hesper would not laugh, and her perfect calmness checked the laughter which would have been Sepia's natural response: she was careful not to go too far.

"Do you know, Hesper," she said, with seriousness, "what is the matter with you?"

"Tolerably well," answered Hesper.

"You do not--let me tell you. You are nothing but a baby yet. You have no heart."

"If you mean that I have never been in love, you are right. But you talk foolishly; for you know that love is no more within my reach than if I were the corpse I feel."

Sepia pressed her lips together, and nodded knowingly; then, after a moment's pause, said:

"When your hour is come, you will understand. Every woman's hour comes, one time or another--whether she will or not."

"Sepia, if you think that, because I hate my husband, I would allow another man to make love to me, you do not know me yet."

"I know you very well; you do not know yourself, Hesper; you do not know the heart of a woman--because your own has never come awake yet."

"G.o.d forbid it ever should, then--so long as--as the man I hate is alive!"

Sepia laughed.

"A good prayer," she said; "for who can tell what you might do to him!"

"Sepia, I sometimes think you are a devil."

"And I sometimes think you are a saint."

"What do you take me for the other times?"

"A hypocrite. What do _you_ take _me_ for the other times?"

"No hypocrite," answered Hesper.

With a light, mocking laugh, Sepia turned away, and left the room.

Hesper did not move. If stillness indicates thought, then Hesper was thinking; and surely of late she had suffered what might have waked something like thought in what would then have been something like a mind: all the machinery of thought was there--sorely clogged, and rusty; but for a woman to hate her husband is hardly enough to make a thinking creature of her. True as it was, there was no little affectation in her saying what she did about the worthlessness of her life. She was plump and fresh; her eye was clear, her hand firm and cool; suffering would have to go a good deal deeper before it touched in her the issues of life, or the love of it. What set her talking so, was in great part the _ennui_ of endeavor after enjoyment, and the reaction from success in the pursuit. Her low moods were, however, far more frequent than, even with such fatigue and reaction to explain them, belonged to her years, her health, or her temperament.

The fire grew hot. Hesper thought of her complexion, and pushed her chair back. Then she rose, and, having taken a hand-screen from the chimney-piece, was fanning herself with it, when the door opened, and a servant asked if she were at home to Mr. Helmer. She hesitated a moment: what an unearthly hour for a caller!

"Show him up," she answered: anything was better than her own company.

Tom Helmer entered--much the same--a little paler and thinner. He made his approach with a certain loose grace natural to him, and seated himself on the chair, at some distance from her own, to which Mrs.

Redmain motioned him.

Tom seldom failed of pleasing. He was well dressed, and not too much; and, to the natural confidence of his shallow character, added the a.s.surance born of a certain small degree of success in his profession, which he took for the pledge of approaching supremacy. He carried himself better than he used, and his legs therefore did not look so long. His hair continued to curl soft and silky about his head, for he protested against the fashionable convict-style. His hat was new, and he bore it in front of him like a ready apology.

It was to no presentableness of person, however, any more than to previous acquaintance, that Tom now owed his admittance. True, he had been to Durnmelling not unfrequently, but that was in the other world of the country, and even there Hesper had taken no interest in the self-satisfied though not ill-bred youth who went galloping about the country, showing off to rustic girls. It was merely, as I have said, that she could no longer endure a _tete-a-tete_ with one she knew so little as herself, and whose acquaintance she was so little desirous of cultivating.

Tom had been to a small party at the house a few evenings before, brought thither by the well-known leader of a certain literary clique, who, in return for homage, not seldom, took younger aspirants under a wing destined never to be itself more than half-fledged. It was, notwithstanding, broad enough already so to cover Tom with its shadow that under it he was able to creep into several houses of a sort of distinction, and among them into Mrs. Redmain's.

Nothing of less potency than the presumption attendant on self-satisfaction could have emboldened him to call thus early, and that in the hope not merely of finding Mrs. Redmain at home, but of finding her alone; and, with the not unusual reward of unworthy daring, he had succeeded. He was ambitious of making himself acceptable to ladies of social influence, and of being known to stand well with such.

In the case of Mrs. Redmain he was the more anxious, because she had not received him on any footing of former acquaintance.

At the gathering to which I have referred, a certain song was sung by a lady, not without previous manoeuvre on the part of Tom, with which Mrs. Redmain had languidly expressed herself pleased; that song he had now brought her--for, concerning words and music both, he might have said with Touchstone, "An ill-favored thing, but mine own." He did not quote Touchstone because he believed both words and music superexcellent, the former being in truth not quite bad, and the latter nearly as good. Appreciation was the very hunger of Tom's small life, and here was a chance!

"I ought to apologize," he said, airily, "and I will, if you will allow me."

Mrs. Redmain said nothing, only waited with her eyes. They were calm, reposeful eyes, not fixed, scarcely lying upon Tom. It was chilling, but he was not easily chilled when self was in the question--as it generally was with Tom. He felt, however, that he must talk or be lost.

"I have taken the liberty," he said, "of bringing you the song I had the pleasure--a greater pleasure than you will readily imagine--of hearing you admire the other evening."