The Reckoning. Chambers Robert William
circumstance and many a stiff-backed bow conducted me to the door, where I stood a moment, snuff-box in hand, as though testing some new and most delicious brand just purchased from the Silver Box.
There were many respectable folk abroad in Hanover Square, thronging the foot-paths, crowding along the gay shop-windows, officers lagging by the jeweler's show, sober gentlemen clustering about the book-stalls, ladies returning from their shopping or the hair-dresser's, young bucks, arm in arm, swaggering in and out of coffee-house and tavern.
As I stood there, making pretense to take snuff, I noticed a sedan-chair standing before Mrs. Ballin's millinery-shop, and seeing that the bearers were Lady Coleville's men, I crossed the street.
As I came up they touched their hats, and at the same moment the shop-door opened and out tripped, not Lady Coleville at all, but the Hon. Elsin Grey in the freshest of flowered gowns, wearing a piquant chip hat à la Gunning, with pink ribbons tied under her dainty chin.
"You!" she cried. "Of all men, to be caught a-raking in Hanover Square like some mincing macaroni, peeping into strange sedan-chairs!"
"I knew it was Lady Coleville's chair," I said, laughing, yet a little vexed, too.
"It isn't; it's Mrs. Barry's," she said. "Our chairs are all at the varnishers. Now what excuse can you trump up?"
"The bearers are Lady Coleville's," I said. "Don't be disagreeable. I came to walk with you."
"Expecting to meet Rosamund Barry! Thank you, Carus. And I may add that I have seen little of you since Friday; not that I had noticed your absence, but meeting you on your favorite promenade reminded me how recreant are men. Heigho! and alas! You may hand me to my chair before you leave me to go ogling Broad Street for your Sacharissa."
I conducted her to the curb in silence, tucking her perfumed skirts in as she seated herself. The bearers resumed the bars, and I, hat under one arm and stick at a fashionable angle, strolled along beside the chair as it proceeded up Wall Street. It was but a step to Broadway. I opened the chair door and aided her to descend, then dismissed the bearers and walked slowly with her toward the stoop.
"This silence is truly soothing," she observed, nose in the air, "but one can not expect everything, Mr. Renault."
"What is it that you lack?" I asked.
"A man to talk to," she said disdainfully. "For goodness sake, Carus, change that sulky face for a brighter mask and find a civil word for me. I do not aspire to a compliment, but, for mercy's sake, say something!"
"Will you walk with me a little way?" I inquired stiffly.
"Walk with you? Oh, what pleasure! Where? On Broadway? On Crown Street? On Queen Street? Or do you prefer Front Street and Old Slip? I wish to be perfectly agreeable, Carus, and I'll do anything to please you, even to running away with you in an Italian chaise!"
"I may ask you to do that, too," I said.
"Ask me, then! Mercy on the man! was there ever so willing a maid? Give me a moment to fetch a sun-mask and I'm off with you to any revel you please—short of the Coq d'Or," she added, with a daring laugh—"and I might be persuaded to that—as far as the cherry-trees—with you, Carus, and let my reputation go hang!"
We had walked on into Broadway and along the foot-path under the lime-trees where the robins were singing that quaint evening melody I love, and the pleasant scent of grass and salt breeze mingled in exquisite freshness.
"I had a dish of tea with some very agreeable people in Queen Street," she remarked. "Lady Coleville is there still. I took Mrs. Barry's chair to buy me a hat—and how does it become me?" she ended, tipping her head on one side for my inspection.
"It is modish," I replied indifferently.
"Certainly it is modish," she said dryly—"a Gunning hat, and cost a penny, too. Oh, Carus, when I think what that husband of mine must pay to maintain me–"
"What husband?" I said, startled.
"Why, any husband!" She made a vague gesture. "Did I say that I had picked him out yet, silly? But there must be one some day, I suppose."
We had strolled as far as St. Paul's and had now returned as far as Trinity. The graves along the north transept of the ruined church were green and starred with wild flowers, and we turned into the churchyard, walking very slowly side by side.
"Elsin," I began.
"Ah! the gentleman has found his tongue," she exclaimed softly. "Speak, Sir Frippon; thy Sacharissa listens."
"I have only this to ask. Dance with me once to-night, will you?—nay, twice, Elsin?"
She seated herself upon a green mound and looked up at me from under her chip hat. "I have not at all made up my mind," she said. "Captain Butler is to be there. He may claim every dance that Sir Henry does not claim."
"Have you seen him?" I asked sullenly.
"Mercy, yes! He came at noon while you and Sir Peter were gambling away your guineas at the Coq d'Or."
"He waited upon you?"
"He waited on Lady Coleville. I was there."
"Were you not surprised to see him in New York?"
"Not very"—she considered me with a far-away smile—"not very greatly nor very—agreeably surprised. I have told you his sentiments regarding me."
"I can not understand," I said, "what you see in him to fascinate you."
"Nor I," she replied so angrily that she startled me. "I thought to-day when I met him, Oh, dear! Now I'm to be harrowed with melancholy and passion, when I was having such an agreeable time! But, Carus, even while I pouted I felt the subtle charm of that very sadness, the strange, compelling influence of those melancholy eyes." She sighed and plucked a late violet, drawing the stem slowly between her white teeth and staring at the ruined church.
After a while I said: "Do you regret that you are so soon to leave us?"
"Regret it?" She looked at me thoughtfully. "Carus," she said, "you are wonderfully attractive to me. I wish you had acquired that air of gentle melancholy—that poet's pallor which becomes a noble sadness—and I might love you, if you asked me."
"I'm sad enough at your going," I said lightly.
"Truly, are you sorry? And when I am gone will you forget la belle Canadienne? Ah, monsieur, l'amitié est une chose si rare, que, n'eut-elle duré qu'un jour, on doit en respecter jusqu'au souvenir."
"It is not I who shall forget to respect it, madam, jusqu'au souvenir."
"Nor I, mon ami. Had I not known that love is at best a painful pleasure I might have mistaken my happiness with you for something very like it."
"You babble of love," I blurted out, "and you know nothing of it! What foolish whim possesses you to think that fascination Walter Butler has for you is love?"
"What is it, then?" she asked, with a little shudder.
"How do I know? He has the devil's own tenacity, bold black eyes and a well-cut head, and a certain grace of limb and bearing nowise remarkable. But"—I waved my hand helplessly—"how can a sane man understand a woman's preference?—nay, Elsin, I do not even pretend to understand you. All I know is that our friendship began in an instant, opened to full sweetness like a flower overnight, and, like a flower, is nearly ended now—nearly ended."
"Not ended; I shall remember."
"Well, and if we both remember—to what purpose?"
"To what purpose is friendship, Carus, if not to remember when alone?"
I listened, head bent. Then, pursuing my own thoughts aloud: "It is not wise for a maid to plight her troth in secret, I care not for what reasons. I know something of men; it is a thing no honest man should ask of any woman. Why do you fear to tell Sir Frederick Haldimand?"
"Captain Butler begged me not to."
"Why?" I asked sharply.
"He is poor. You must surely know what the rebels have done—how their commissioners of sequestration seized