Read Ebook: The strength of love by Miller Alex McVeigh Mrs

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 1833 lines and 81624 words, and 37 pages

What a careless encounter it seemed, yet one fraught with fate!

"Couldn't you both see that the bold thing was just posing for your benefit?" she exclaimed, in jealous alarm; and Royall had answered as above recorded, winking significantly at his friend; but Dallas said not a word, but gazed, with his heart in his eyes, at the beauty till she was out of sight.

Then he drew a long breath that was mingled delight and pain, and cried eagerly:

"But who is she, Mrs. Fleming?"

"Yes, who is she, and why haven't we met her at your receptions, Lutie?" added Royall.

Tossing her head and curling a scornful lip, the lady returned maliciously:

"Oh, she isn't in our set at all--only a poor relation of some people here; a teacher, or shop girl from New York, who comes here every summer to visit her kin and rest from work. And they're all poor, as you can see from the back street and the five-roomed cottage."

She thought that this explanation ought to settle the subject forever; but Royall persisted:

"Lutie, why don't you tell us her name?"

"Well, then," snappishly, "it is Daisie Bell."

"Well, she is a daisy, and no mistake, and a belle, too--the rarest beauty I ever saw; and I'm bound to know her soon. I'm in love at first sight."

His cousin frowned, and cried sharply:

"Royall, you shan't turn that simple girl's head with your flatteries."

"I tell you, Lutie, I'm in dead earnest!"

"Nonsense!"

Dallas Bain said nothing, but his deep eyes gleamed with a subtle fire, and he resolved that he, too, would make the acquaintance of the lovely girl whose single earnest glance had thrilled him so deeply that it seemed to him already that she must be his fate.

It was strange how much business the two young men had on Temple Street the next few days, either riding or walking, and always watching eagerly for another glimpse of the fair face that had charmed them so.

Once they saw her again on the porch, and twice at the upper window, and finally they met her coming out of her gate, apparently going for a morning call.

She blushed brightly at their admiring glances, and stepped briskly in front of them, walking along for about two blocks, setting them wild with her graceful carriage, like a young princess, then stopped and went into a house whose occupants they knew as acquaintances of Mrs. Fleming.

They nudged each other, and Royall exclaimed eagerly:

"Let us go in and call on that pretty little Miss Janowitz. Then she will introduce us to the beauty."

But Dallas Bain hesitated, though his heart was following the girl inside.

He said tentatively:

"It does not look quite fair to force an acquaintance. Let us try for an introduction in a more proper way."

"A fig for the proprieties! I'm bound to get up a flirtation with that beautiful creature," vowed Royall recklessly, opening the gate and going in while nodding a gay farewell to his friend, who turned away with a jealous pang at his heart, though muttering to himself:

"If she would flirt with him, she is not worth my winning."

Royall Sherwood was cordially welcomed by Miss Annette Janowitz, a charming little brunette, as brilliant and restless as a humming bird.

"I have seen you passing several times this week, and I wondered if you were looking for me," she said gayly. "But let me introduce you to my friend, Miss Bell."

"The impudence!" she thought resentfully, while Annette continued to chatter gayly, flashing her dangerous black eyes at him.

"I saw Mr. Bain leaving you at the gate. Why didn't he come in, also?"

"Dallas Bain? Oh, I asked him to come in, but he refused, and went back to Sea View alone. Fact is, he has no eyes for any woman but my cousin, Lutie Fleming. Most absorbing flirtation I ever saw, really," returned Royall, trying thus early to make a clever move in the game of love, and checkmate Dallas, whom he knew might prove a dangerous rival for Daisie's heart.

Miss Bell was very quiet. She sat with downcast eyes, playing with a rose in her belt, the seashell glow coming and going on her cheeks with some secret excitement. Royall wondered if it were emotion at his presence or pique that Dallas had not cared for her society. He decided that it must be the latter, for she soon brought her call to an end without having spoken a dozen words to him, and he did not dare offer to walk home with her, as he longed to do.

He felt a jealous certainty that she was vexed at Dallas, and decided that it would take some scheming to divert her thoughts from his handsome friend.

"But I'll do it, for my heart's gone, and I'm almost tempted to ask her to marry me already, even if she is poor and not in our set, as Lutie says. But, Jove! She's the grandest beauty in the world! And wouldn't she make a sensation as my bride, covered with diamonds! Yes, I'll win her if I can, and I must manage to keep Dallas out of the running, for she could not help showing disappointment when I said that about his flirting with Lutie; but I'll make her forget him directly, and all the better for her, too, since I'm the better match of the two," cogitated Royall, who, though he knew that his effeminate blond beauty, so like his cousin's, could not compare with the dark splendor of tall and striking Dallas Bain, still considered that his golden charms more than counterbalanced the difference.

"All is fair in love or war," he said coolly; and, pursuant of his scheme to keep Dallas away from Daisie, he said to him that evening:

"Just as well that you didn't go in to see Miss Bell to-day. She is disappointing, really. Pretty as a picture, of course, but so bread-and-butterish and schoolgirly, you know. Always posing for effect, as my cousin said, but not much to her, after all, but simpers and giggles."

Dallas felt a keen thrill of disappointment and disgust, for Daisie's face had haunted him for many days, and it gave him a shock to think that she was like what Royall said--simpering and giggling like a silly schoolgirl. The young widow had treated him to enough of that, trying to pose as girlish, despite her three years of wifehood and two of widowhood, and he decided that he did not care to know Daisie now, since even the careless Royall was no longer interested.

THE OTHER ONE.

When Daisie Bell sat reading on the porch next day, a messenger brought her a basket of rare flowers and a note from Royall Sherwood, asking permission to call on her that evening.

She went in to her aunt, asking demurely what she ought to answer.

"Why, let him come, of course! Daisie Bell, you're a lucky girl. This Royall Sherwood is a millionaire, they tell me, and your face is pretty enough to win him, or any other man."

"Then I wish it had been the other man," thought Daisie sadly, as she went to answer the note.

"The other man" meant Dallas Bain, whose dark, manly beauty and earnest glance into her eyes had made a deep impression on her heart.

His face was haunting her just as hers haunted him. It was a case of mutual attraction--of love at first sight.

Heaven had made these two for each other, but adverse forces were busy driving them apart.

Yet he could not have helped being glad if he could have seen how she read and reread it in blushing solitude, with an unerring conviction that he had sent it--her hero of the brilliant dark eyes and winning smile.

But now, when told that he loved another, she cherished painful doubts.

"I must be mistaken, since he did not care to know me, and went past when Mr. Sherwood came in. Oh, why do I care? I do not even know him, unless our souls spoke to each other in our glances when he passed me by. And, of course, he is in love with that lovely little Lutie Fleming. Yet I hoped--and was vain enough to fancy--that he sent me these sweet verses," half sobbed the girl, yet still reading them over with a thrill at her heart.

Sweet girl, though only once we met, That meeting I can ne'er forget; And though we never meet again, Remembrance will thy form retain.

What though we never silence broke, Our eyes a sweeter language spoke; And soul's interpreters, the eyes, Spurn cold restraints and scorn disguise.

Now as on thee my memory ponders, Perchance to me thine also wanders; This for myself at least I'll say: Thy form appears through night, through day.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet