Part 18

"It is amazing," said Jack; "but you can see as well in one place as another. Would you kindly push the other way?"

"They're a-hunchin' us on this side too," explained the man; then continued to gape, oblivious of his surroundings.

The trainer placed a white and gold chair in the centre of the cage, and made one of the lions spring into it. The creature placed its powerful forepaws on the chair-back, and waved its graceful tail from side to side. Another of the beasts reared on its hind legs high above the trainer's head, resting its paws against the iron bars; and its roar resounded through the crowded street.

The trainer motioned the sitting lion from the chair, shot a revolver twice into the air, left the cage, and lo! the wondering spectators were gazing into blank darkness.

"Another dream over," said Jack into the ear so close to him.

The tightly hemmed-in mass of humanity slowly dissolved into its integral parts.

"They ought to have a packed house after that," remarked Mildred.

"Shall we swell the number?"

"Not unless you wish it."

"I don't. I wish something else very much. Will you answer as meekly and civilly when I ask it?"

They had begun again their walk eastward.

"I don't know."

"Oh, that is not encouraging."

"It is wise, though. I was brought up never to be afraid to confess that I didn't know a thing."

"I want you to go with me in a gondola. Compare my humility with Robert Page's _sang-froid_."

"A gondola will be even more difficult to catch by this time than a horse-car," suggested the girl.

Jack looked at her, but her piquant smiling face taught him renewed patience.

"Then you will not run much risk in promising," he answered. "Shall we leave it to Fate to decide? If we find a gondola easily, will you go?"

"Yes, indeed."

As they left the Plaisance and came around the Woman's Building, a sun-burst of fire in the east illuminated the sky.

"A salute to royalty," said Jack. "Queen Mildred has arrived."

The white light faded, to be followed by dazzling green, ruby, and gold, as one bomb followed another, to burst above the lake and cast abroad in the heavens fountains of jewels that rained down in glittering showers.

"Now, let us see if Fate is good-natured," said Van Tassel, leading his companion toward the nearest gondola-landing. A graceful willow hung above and obscured it.

"I must laugh at you, Jack," said the girl, suiting the action to the word. "The idea of expecting to find a gondola now, way over here."

"Stranger things have happened. Suppose," suddenly standing still and looking down into her eyes,--"suppose you should say that you wish it. Just for luck, you know."

"I never wish for impossibilities."

"Do you expect me to believe that?"

"Well, I try not to."

"But wish for this. You know it is possible to have strawberries in January."

"What a great boy you are still, Jack. Very well, I wish that two gondoliers may have been attacked by an unusual access of laziness this evening, have denied their craft to all applicants, and skulked over here away from the crowd, and that they may be waiting for us now in the shadow of the willow. Any more midsummer madness you would like me to indulge in?"

Van Tassel led her down the bank. "Behold!" he said. "Mildred, what a witch you are! This is necromancy."

The girl stood with lips parted, for the waiting gondoliers sent their graceful craft to her feet. She put her hand in Jack's and stepped within. In a moment Van Tassel was beside her, and they had glided away.

The lagoon rippled in a light breeze. Along the edge of Wooded Island the sedges dipped in the waves. Here and there on the bank a group of water-birds showed white, as a neighboring electric light touched the soft plumage beneath which their heads nestled.

Jack wanted his companion to speak first, but she kept silence long.

"Is the sorceress enjoying herself?" he asked gently, at last.

Mildred returned his gaze as she leaned back in her cushioned corner.

"I am a philosopher," she answered. "I am being kidnapped, but I might as well enjoy it."

"Well, that is pretty good. I should say"--

"I don't want to hear anything you have to say. I am convinced that you are the most designing creature alive. Ask your minions to sing, please."

Jack longed that he might know the thoughts that flitted white-winged through his companion's mind as their boat glided on, to the gondoliers' song.

This ceased as they entered the Court of Honor, grown dusk now in preparation for the second playing of the electric fountains. Half the weary sightseers had gone home; no black crowd lined the railings around the Grand Basin.

The rainbow jets sprang triumphant skyward. An invisible orchestra lent their colors richer meaning and beauty.

"Do you remember the song that Clover sang last night?" asked Jack, leaning a little toward his companion. "It suddenly came to my mind then as the water shot up. Those lines,--

'I share the skylark's transport fine, I know the fountain's wayward yearning, I love--and the world is mine!'

Clover says that is a man's song. I don't agree with her. A woman may be angel enough to feel divine fullness of content simply in loving; but a man who loves must be loved again, or else feel that nothing is his,--nothing; there is no beggar so poor as he. Isn't it so?"

The earnest tone thrilled close to Mildred's cheek. She caught her breath quickly. "I--I don't know," she said, nervously surprised.

"Still true to your bringing up," remarked her companion, controlling himself with a strong will as he felt her shrink, and leaning back with a short laugh. "Not afraid to say you don't know, when such is the case. Well, I can only speak for myself. When I love and am loved I will agree with the poet,--I would even sing with her if I could:

'For soft the hours repeat one story, Sings the sea one strain divine, My clouds arise, all flushed with glory, I love--and the world is mine!'"

Mildred was startled. What a lover Jack would make! He was not Clover's. She was sure of it now, but the thought brought no elation, rather a new, timid humility, which made her seem strange to herself.

She felt her companion's dark eyes upon her, and her usually ready tongue was mute.

Van Tassel did not know whether to gather courage or alarm from her silence as they sat there side by side. The gondoliers slowly propelled the boat, keeping in view of the fountains' tossing banners of liquid light.

"Tell me what you are thinking, Mildred," he urged, at last.

"I am not thinking. Do you ever come to such times? I do always in this spot. Perhaps it is because I have no thoughts to match such unearthly beauty. At all events I never think, here. I feel. I absorb."

"Yes, that is it," answered Jack simply.

"Give me the Peristyle," said Mildred, "and what I can see from it, and sweep all the rest of the Fair away if you like. I don't love many things in this world beside Mildred Bryant, but the Peristyle is one of them."

It was a novel speech from her, and in a novel tone. The low cadence of her voice had lost the laughter or imperiousness which usually characterized it.

Jack was silent for a time. "Are you warm enough?" he asked at last.

"Yes; but I think we had better go home."

"Aren't you comfortable?"

"Oh, certainly, and it was very kind of you, Jack, to take so much trouble."

This gentleness alarmed Van Tassel more than any amount of coldness or impertinence would have done; but he fought off dejection.

"I have given you one thing, then, that you can't hand on to Clover," he said lightly.

The fountains leaped a last time and fell, dropping lower and lower, till only the white sea foaming about Columbia's barge was left. Soft radiance again lit up water and sculpture.

Mildred longed to be at home; and soon she and Jack entered a wagonette at the Park gate and were driven to the house. When they arrived, the orchestra at the hotel was playing the music of Carmen.

"There is a delicate compliment to you, Jack," she suggested, as they ascended the steps.

"Yes; but must you go right in?" for she showed symptoms of leaving him.

"It has been a long day," she answered, lingering with an unusual gentle compliance from which he gathered no hope.

"You are tired," he said, with tender contrition. "I have had you so long, and yet--when should I be ready to let you go! Oh, Mildred,--is it any use?" he burst forth suddenly, in a low tone, seizing both her hands and holding them with painful tightness.

A fluttering and wild, loud peeping came from the tangle of vines near which they stood, and a small dark object half fell, half flew down past their heads to the grass below.

Mildred started. "It is Electra,--a falling star." She laughed nervously. "I am glad she fell, else I might be crying now instead of laughing. It would be such a serious unhappiness to me if I should cause you pain, Jack," she added brokenly. "You are so different from anybody else."

"I am answered," he said briefly and steadily; but he did not loosen her hands. "I am going to ask a great deal of you now, Mildred. Can you forget what I have said?"

"I--I am afraid not."

"Please try to; I will help you."

"Help me?" repeated the girl, bewildered.

"Yes, for everything between us shall be the same as before. To-morrow morning you will say to yourself that you had a dream. That is all."

"Very well." The girl regarded him questioningly. "I hope you are not--are not thinking that I might--might speak of it?"

Jack threw his head back and gave an excited laugh before suddenly growing grave and gazing ardently into her eyes.

"Speak of it? What would it be to me, my darling, if every one knew," he said with swift ardor. "I love--but the world is not mine. That is the whole story, and the only peace for you is to forget it."

Her head drooped under his look.

"I am dreadfully tired, Jack," she said faintly.

"Yes, dear, go, and forgive me." He kissed her hands passionately and released them. She passed into the house, her head and heart pulsing. Bewilderment was her chief sensation. The finality with which Jack seemed to accept defeat was so at variance with his manner.

She stole upstairs silently to her room, closed the door, and turned up the light. Then she went to her mirror and questioned her own pale face with wistful eyes.

"I haven't expected it. I didn't know it was coming this time," she said, answering some thought. "Is Jack really so unselfish as that? Can he care for me enough to--and then cover his disappointment with gayety to save me pain?"

His loving words rang in her ears, her hands still felt the wild pressure of his, and the warmth of his kisses. No one had ever received failure so before. No man had ever dared to call her "darling." A look that was almost fear came into the eyes that gazed back from the mirror. How had Jack contrived to make himself seem victor instead of vanquished?

He had not even pressed his suit; he had not begged her to try to love him. How nobly he had spared her,--but how audaciously he had treated her!

The color was flowing back to her cheeks. Mildred could no longer study that face in the glass. She turned away, weary, perplexed, troubled by the restless beating of her heart.

"I will get to sleep as quickly as possible. He told me to believe it a dream. I must try to take it all as Clover would."

The thought of her sister was like calling up the image of a saint. She had not been the object of Jack's adoration, after all. How strange, strange! How much better it would have been for him. Not that Clover would have married him, but it would have been good for him merely to love her. Fevers, perplexities, could not come where Clover was; and with this thought came a great longing to breathe Clover's cool, wholesome atmosphere. Mildred slipped into a wrapper, and without pausing to think further, crossed to her door. There was but a dim light within.

She spoke her sister's name very softly, not to wake her if possibly she might be asleep; but Clover herself in an instant opened the door.

"I thought I heard you come in, Milly."

"Why, what are you doing here, all dressed, in the dark?" asked the younger, entering.

"Thinking." Clover laughed. "It sounds amusing, doesn't it; but the music was pleasant and my window especially enticing. I felt rather tired when I reached home a little while before you, and meant to be asleep by this time, but here I am, you see."

"Let me come and think too," said Mildred; "or rather, let me come where I can't think."

The two sisters sat down in the large bay window overlooking the lake.

"Haven't you had a pleasant day?" asked Clover.

"I've had all sorts of a day. How has yours been?"

"Delightful."

"You are my despair, Clover. Things are always delightful to you."

Clover heard the depression in her sister's voice, and wondered; her thoughts flew to Jack too, and she questioned what mood the day might have left him in. "Oh no," she answered, "but those nut-brown maids in the Javanese theatre would put any one into good humor. When they dance, you can no more help laughing than if you were being tickled with a feather. Such dear, cunning, absurd motions as they make, their little bits of mouths looking so serious all the time."

"You take such an interest in everything," said Mildred wistfully. "It is because you have 'a heart at leisure from itself.' I have never longed for that sort of a heart as I have to-day. For quite a while it has been slowly dawning upon me that I am more self-centred than most people; but to-day Gorham Page gave me the final blow."

"Mr. Page? Why, you astonish me. He has a high opinion of you. He was saying to-day how much deeper and more earnest you were"--

"For mercy's sake," exclaimed Mildred, flushing to her ears, "don't tell me what he said!"

"Why? Are you too conscientious to accept a compliment when you haven't a 'trade'?"

"I have plenty of 'trades.' Jack never talks about you without using superlatives."

"Dear Jack. He is far too appreciative," returned Clover, wishing it were light enough to see how her sister accepted this; "but you haven't told me how Mr. Page hurt you."

"No, it was the truth that hurt me."

"Mr. Page is a very good representative of that," smiled Clover.

"We were coming out of Old Vienna, and you and Jack fell behind to speak to one another, and I addressed Mr. Page. He looked at me vaguely, and answered at random. Well, it was the way that trifle affected me that made me see Mildred Bryant as I had never seen her before. I was deeply offended, yes, angry, that the important favor of a remark from my lips should be disregarded. Oh, Clover, the disgrace of it!"

The speaker's voice was unsteady, and she suddenly covered her face with her hands.

Clover leaned forward and put a hand on her knee.

"Isn't it beautiful," she said earnestly, "to find yourself shrinking from sin? It is so safe to condemn it in ourselves. Hatred of evil is only treacherous when we feel it for the mistakes of others."

"The worst of it was that I knew I should have felt less injured had it not been that another woman was what was preoccupying his attention. He was thinking of you, and I resented it. I couldn't live if I didn't tell you. It proved to me that I was growing into a regular--oh, a regular octopus. Everything must be absorbed to feed my vanity, and especially every man."

"Why, Mildred, I am so glad for you," said Clover simply, her cool tones falling on the other's scornful heat and extinguishing its fire. "We have to come to these places, you know, for we mustn't be left in our badness, and a little light is let in at a time as we can bear it."

"But I can't bear it," exclaimed Mildred wildly, "for it is second nature to me to be vain and exacting."

"You won't indulge it now."

"Yes, I shall."

"Not so carelessly as before. All this is what comes into the battle of life. One part of our dual nature loves our evils and the other hates them. You can have God's help if you ask it, you know, and you will find how little and how deceptive the progress will be that you make without Him."

"Your battle seems won, Clover."

"I am in one of the peaceful places now, and I am very happy and grateful. I wasn't given your tempestuous nature, dear, so our experiences always are and will be different. The Father in mercy lets us develop as irresponsibly as the plants until we get such a glimpse into our souls as you had to-day; but then responsibility begins. It is sinning against light that warps and distorts us."

"I wonder if it would be good for me to be married," said Mildred musingly. "When girls are married, they haven't much time to think about themselves."

"It is good for every girl to marry when she truly loves a man who is unexceptionable," returned Clover, smiling at her own triteness. "But you remember the girl must ask herself, not Can I live with this man? but Can I live without him?"

"Then I should certainly never marry. You didn't do that, Clover."

Clover looked musingly out at the window. "No; I didn't do that. I often think of that little ignorant girl who married dear Mr. Van Tassel. I don't know whether I did right or not; but at the time I thought I did, and that is all I have any concern with; but I was not in freedom. You are in freedom. The Can I live without him? ought to mean Can we be more useful together than we could apart?"

"Why, you don't leave a girl any comfort in thinking about herself at all," complained Mildred, half in tears.

"There isn't much comfort in it, that is a fact," returned Clover, smiling. "You are tired, dear; go to bed now."

They rose, and Mildred took the smaller woman in her arms and their cheeks clung together. "I am unhappy, Clover," she said, with plaintive surprise at the fact.

"It is so restful," replied the other, "to think you have all eternity before you. Even if we only make a beginning here, it will be all right."

"I like your arms around me," said Mildred. "Let me sleep with you to-night."

*CHAPTER XXIII.*

*THE HOTEL DANCE.*

It was Gorham Page's habit to drop in at the Van Tassel house before making his nearly daily visit to the Fair.

One morning, as he ascended the steps, his sister met him. "I hoped you would come," she said. "I want to be condoled with. Robert's foot has descended. We are going home."

"Oh, I am sorry," replied Gorham, taking the chair she offered him; "but can't some arrangement be made?"

"No. Robert has said 'positively;' and when he says 'positively,' I never waste any more nervous force. Poor, dear boy, he wants to stay as badly as I do, but we have been here longer than we expected already, and after all I would rather go back than to give up the apartment and go to the poorhouse, which he says is the alternative."

"I must go to Boston before long," said Page. "Wouldn't you like to stay and go back with me?"

"Let Robert go home alone?"

"Yes."

"No, I thank you," with a firm shake of the head. "I shouldn't care for the Fair without Robert."

"That is nice," remarked Gorham, regarding her attentively. "I think I should like my wife to feel like that."

Hilda laughed. "Oh, that vague and shadowy wife of yours! Once I believed in her. Too bad that such a good-natured match-maker as I would have been should be burdened with such an impossible brother as you. I have lost all my interest in you, and have transferred it to Jack."

Gorham smiled pensively, and struck the palm of one of his hands with the knuckles of the other. "You think yourself very clever about Jack, don't you?"

"It goes without saying that I am clever, of course, but this occasion does not demand much insight. If they were a trifle more secret in their chats in corners and their exchange of masonic signals, I should think, perhaps, I was a treacherous guest to mention them; but they enjoy their little comedy, and are perfectly willing others should. I think it is unkind in them not to come out openly and allow me to give them my blessing before I go."

"I must say, Hilda, I don't enjoy hearing you use that tone about Mrs. Van Tassel."

"What is the matter with my tone?" asked Hilda.

"It is light," answered Page, with grave simplicity.

His sister stared a moment, then burst into laughter. "What crotchet have you taken now?" she asked. "Doesn't the match please you?"

"It is not a match. You are laboring under a false idea. If Mrs. Van Tassel should ever distinguish a man in the way you are speaking of, it will come to our knowledge in a different manner from the one you describe. We are talking in low tones in a corner now; but we are not sentimentally interested in one another."

"An unanswerable argument," said Hilda good-naturedly. "You needn't take the matter _au grand serieux_. I am profoundly grateful to Mrs. Van Tassel, and think her one of the most charming women I ever knew."

Page's countenance, which had been grave to sternness, relaxed until, slowly smiling, he looked into his companion's eyes and beamed mutely upon her.

Hilda noted the change with private astonishment, and determined to experiment.

"She is so refined," she added after a pause.

"The perfection of refinement," said Page.

"And very graceful."

Gorham nodded. "It is a pleasure to see her move, is it not?"

"She has plenty of spirit too, and wit."

"Yes, indeed. In whatever company she is, she makes her mark."

"And it is never a black and blue one either," responded Hilda, passing her handkerchief over her lips as she returned the rapt gaze of the earnest face drinking in her words. "There is so much in that. Her wit could never hurt. Her uniform, considerate kindness is her most prominent trait."

"Yes," responded Page, faithfully antiphonal. "Only a pure, true heart like hers could prompt such behavior."

"There is a subtle charm and stimulus in her society."

"And a restfulness, a satisfaction. It is hard to word it, but you have felt it; you recognize it. One can only say, it is good to be in her presence."

Hilda pushed back her chair so suddenly that her companion started. "Gorham Page," she said, gazing at him with sparkling eyes, and rising, "don't you see what has happened?"

"No," he answered, removing his fixed gaze and pushing aside the vines, the better to peer about.

"Not out there!" exclaimed his sister.

"Oh," he answered mildly. "I thought perhaps Blitzen had killed Electra."

Mrs. Page burst into laughter. Peal after peal broke from her, and she clasped her hand to her side.

Robert appeared on the scene.

"It is time you arrived," said Gorham, vaguely smiling. "I haven't the least idea what ails Hilda."

Mrs. Page dropped her head on her husband's shoulder.

"Gorham thought--thought that--that perhaps Blitzen--had killed Electra," she gasped.

"How intensely amusing," remarked Robert. "This girl is tired to death, Gorham," he went on, patting his wife's convulsed shoulder. "She thinks she doesn't want to go home, but I know it is time. Mrs. Van Tassel urges our remaining. What a spirit of sunshine she is! If ever there was an angel in a house, she is one."

Hilda lifted her head, to look at Gorham's face. She found it beaming upon his brother with tender delight, and falling back she relapsed into another spasm of laughter.

"Stop this, stop this," said her husband, giving her a little shake.

"I am really afraid Hilda isn't well," said Gorham with concern. "I am sorry if she is too tired, for I wanted to see if you all wouldn't like to come over to the dance at the hotel to-night."

"That is sensible, profoundly sensible," remarked his brother. "What could finish off a day at the Fair more appropriately than a dancing party!"

"You've got to go, Robert," said Hilda, wiping her eyes. "It will be lovely. We will smoke on the piazza, and watch the others through the windows."