"Why did you not go with us this morning?" he said at last, sitting down by the table.

"I didn't want to."

"That is a very good reason; but I think you would have done better to have thwarted your inclination for once. There are two reasons why it would have been wiser to have gone."

"What is one?" I demanded.

"One is that your staying looked unamiable, and as if you could not take a joke."

"Well, it only looked as I felt. I was unamiable, and I didn't like the joke. What is the other?"

"The other, I am pretty sure to make you angry by giving, but I must risk that. Your refusing to go looked very much as if you preferred another tete-a-tete, to the society of us all."

"I cannot see that," I said, looking up flushed and angry. "When I supposed that I was the only member of the party who intended to stay at home, I cannot see how it could be inferred that I remained from any such motive."

"I, for one, had no doubt of it."

"You are kind!" I cried. "It is pleasant to feel I am always sure of one, at least, to put the kindest construction on what I do."

"Is my niece accounting for her willfulness in staying at home this morning?" said the slow, soft voice of Mrs. Churchill, that crept into my senses like a subtle poison, and silenced the angry words on my lips.

"Are you not penitent, _ma chere_," she said, approaching me, and laying her cold hand lightly on my hair. "Do you not begin to see how unwise such tempers are? How often must I entreat you, my love, to be less hasty and suspicious and self-willed? Though I am not discouraged with these childish faults, Mr. Rutledge," turning to him apologetically, "I own they are somewhat trying. Ever since that unlucky night at the Academy of Music, I have felt"----

"Aunt Edith!" I exclaimed, with flashing eyes, averting my head from her touch and springing up. "Aunt Edith, that time has never been mentioned between us since you gave me my reprimand. I cannot understand why you bring it up now, and before a stranger!"

"Mr. Rutledge can hardly be called a stranger," she began.

"If not so to you, remember he is to me," I interrupted.

"However that may be," she went on, "he was unluckily the witness of that evening's errors. He saw the self-will and temper that you took no pains to conceal, and the love of admiration that led you to a most unaccountable act of imprudence."

"I should think," I returned, trembling with pa.s.sion, "that that time would have no more pleasant memories for you than me. I should think we might agree not to stir among its ashes. There may be some smoldering remorse alive in them yet!"

For a moment, my aunt's face grew white, and her eye faltered and sunk; angry as I was, I bitterly repented the stab I had given her. Then she raised her eyes and fixed them on my face with a stern and freezing look. I don't know what she said; it was too cruel to listen to. I don't know what I answered; would that it had no record anywhere!

From that date, there was no disguise between aunt and niece of the sentiments they had mutually inspired. The flimsy gauze that reserve and decorum had raised between them was torn to fragments before that storm, and henceforth there was no pretence of an affection that had never existed. Two natures more utterly discordant and unsympathetic could not well be imagined. There was nothing but some frail bands of duty and convenience, that had kept up the mask of sympathy so far, and then and there they were snapped irrevocably; and the mask fell p.r.o.ne upon the ground and was trampled under foot.

They had better have turned me houseless into the street than have turned me out of their hearts in this way; in one case, I could have sought another shelter, and won myself another home. In this, I was driven out, burning with anger and stung with injustice, from every heart I had had a right to seek a home in, and before me lay a cold and inhospitable world. Was the outcast or the world to blame for the inevitable result? The outcast, no doubt; outcasts always are.

"Look--look, Josephine!" cried Grace, bursting into the library, where most of the party were a.s.sembled that evening. Josephine, with her foot on the sofa, being the nucleus. "Ella, and Phil, and I have just come from rowing on the lake, and see what we found, up by the pine trees at the other end of the lake, floating on the water."

"What is it?" said Josephine, languidly; "a water-lily?"

"Water-lilies used to be white when I studied botany, Joseph, and this, you may observe, is purple."

"And morning-glories, when I studied botany," said Phil, "did not grow on lakes, but in gardens. Now, as this was discovered on the water, the question naturally arises, how, by whom, and under what circ.u.mstances, did it get there?"

"And putting this and that together," said Ella Wynkar, "we think that the young lady who had morning-glories in her dress this morning, must have taken a row on the lake, instead of a walk on the terrace."

"That doesn't follow," said Victor, "any more than it would follow that Miss Wynkar had visited the desert of Sahara, if a straw hat similar to the one she has in her hand, should be found there."

"Mr. Viennet, you are not sufficiently calm for such difficult reasoning. The fact is established; don't attempt to controvert it,"

said Josephine.

"In any case, I am ent.i.tled to the flower, I think," he returned, taking it from the table, and fastening it in his b.u.t.ton-hole.

"No one will dispute it with you, I fancy," said Josephine, with a laugh.

"You seem to have marked your way with morning-glories," said Mr.

Rutledge, who, sitting by the table, was turning over the leaves of a book. There was another, crushed and faded, and staining the leaves with its purple blood.

"One can hardly believe they are contemporaries," said Victor, "mine is so much fresher."

"They are the frailest and shortest-lived of flowers," said Mr.

Rutledge, tossing the flower away. "Hardly worth the pa.s.sing admiration that their beauty excites."

CHAPTER XXVI.

"If hope but deferred causeth sickness of heart, What sorrow, to see it forever depart."

"This rain knocks the pic-nic all in the head," said Phil, lounging into the breakfast-room, "and everybody's sure of being in a bad humor on account of the disappointment. What shall we all do with ourselves?"

"Play billiards, can't we?" said the captain.

"I hate billiards, for my part," said Grace, looking dismally out of the window. "And Josephine's ankle's too bad to play, and Ellerton isn't well enough, and my pretty cousin there never did anything she was asked to yet; and Mr. Viennet consequently will refuse, and Phil's too lazy, and mamma won't take the trouble, and Mr. Rutledge has letters to write; so I think you'll be at a loss for anybody to play with you, Captain McGuffy."

"So it would seem," said the captain, consoling himself with some breakfast. "I can't see anything better to be done than this, then."

"It is rather your vocation, I think," returned Grace. "But with the rest of us, it is an enjoyment that at best cannot last over an hour, and there are twelve to be got rid of before bed-time."

"It _is_ trying," said Josephine. "And I've no more crimson for my sofa-cushion, and no chance of matching it nearer than Norbury. I really don't know what I shall do all day."

"If one only had a good novel!" yawned Ella Wynkar. "But there isn't anything worth reading in the library. I wonder Mr. Rutledge doesn't get some interesting books."

"There he comes; ask him," said Grace, maliciously.

"No, I don't like to. Mr. Rutledge is so odd, there's no knowing how he might take it."

Mr. Rutledge entered at this moment, followed by Tigre, and Miss Wynkar, partly because she was glad of anything to amuse herself with, and partly for the sake of a pretty att.i.tude, sprung forward and caught the dog in her arms.

"Take care! he's just been out in the rain," exclaimed Mr. Rutledge, but not in time to save the pretty morning dress from Tigre's muddy paws; and with an exclamation of disgust she threw down the dog, who, whining piteously from a blow against the table, came limping over to me.