Hope Mills: or, Between Friend and Sweetheart. Douglas Amanda M.
Barry entered the room, and joined in the pleasant chat: then a rumble of carriage-wheels was heard.
"It has stopped raining," said Sylvie, going to the window. "A few soft, melancholy stars have come out."
"You have been very obliging, Sylvie," said Miss Lawrence. "Miss Barry, I shall send the carriage over to-morrow. Good-night."
Jack Darcy handed her out, pushing aside a trailing rose that it might not catch her shawl. Then she half turned, and said "Good-night" in a softer tone.
Sylvie was standing on the porch. "It has been as good as a play, Jack," she said with her gay-humored laugh. "I don't believe she ever thought" —
"That I worked in her father's mill!" and Jack laughed; but it was a rather pained, jarring sound.
"Jack – why do you? You are a puzzle to me!" and Sylvie's voice sharpened unconsciously. "You do not like it. Why did you not go on at the academy, or" —
"Raise myself in the social scale? That's what you mean, Sylvie; although we pass just as pleasant hours as if I were a prince, and you the lady of high degree. Well, we have gone over the ground a good many times, and it is always the same thing. I have no fancy for a profession; I have no genius for art, though Miss Lawrence suggests that I might become a man-milliner – is that what you call it? You know, I am staying here because mother and grandmother will not go anywhere else. And I dare say I make as much money as young Dr. Romer or Ned Remington. And somehow, now that I'm in it, I go on with a stubborn, plucky feeling. Some day I'll be a great manufacturer."
This time his laugh was cheerful and ringing.
"You see, Sylvie, your good-nature places you on the debatable ground. You and your aunt could be hand-in-glove with all these great people, and yet you open your generous heart to take in everybody."
"No, not everybody, Jack. And what a little coward I am just this minute! No, it is not that either. Jack, you do know that I should never be a bit ashamed of you before any one. I feel vexed when I think that you could take the high places, and yet you let people put you down, – people not half as worthy or half as good as you. There's Horace Eastman. He came here a comparatively poor man; and now he owns half Yerbury, and talks of the mill-hands as if they were – well, a flock of sheep."
"An apt comparison, Sylvie. To my mind, they are shorn pretty close to make broadcloth for their masters."
"And there is Fred – have you seen him since his return?"
"Not to speak to him, of course." And then Jack flushed deeply, with a little hurt feeling.
"And what friends you were! Is it the way of the world? Then it is a mean, hateful world!"
"Sylvie, you are talking wildly. Don't you see there is no point of union in our lives? Now, I do not feel so badly over an outgrown friendship. When I was a little boy, I remember having a wonderful fancy for Tom Deane. We traded jack-knives; we told each other of the best nut-trees; we hunted squirrels; we coasted together; and, I dare say, he was as much of a hero in my childish eyes as I used to be in Fred's. But think of any friendship between us now! There isn't a greater loafer in all Yerbury than Tom Deane. Why, we have not a feeling in common."
"Still I think it is rather different," and a shade of annoyance passed over her face. If Jack only would not call up these people below him, if he would not identify himself so strongly with that common brotherhood! He had so many nice tastes, such a clean, pure, honest soul. And, young as Sylvie was, she knew this was not always the result of culture or wealth or ambition.
Jack guessed what was passing in her mind. From his father he had inherited a kind of womanish intuition. A pleasant-tempered man Bernard Darcy had always been called, but it was that delicate tact, the intuitive knowledge of what would be pleasant to others.
"What else can I do here, Sylvie?" Jack cried with sudden heat. "If the chance ever comes, I shall be fitted for a good business man. You may think there is no worthy ambition in that, but wait. Do not judge me too hastily."
"I am impatient at times, I know; but it is because I see your capabilities, and I can't bear to think of your going through the world unappreciated."
"Do not worry about that. Good-night!" rather abruptly. "Miss Barry, I have forgotten myself. Pleasant dreams!"
"And we did not have our old hymn, after all," said Sylvie regretfully.
Jack took the short cut across the garden. There was a dim light in the sitting-room; and his mother lay in the hammock on the latticed porch, her favorite evening resort. She came in now, and Jack bolted the doors. Then, with a good-night kiss, he went to his room, and in ten minutes was asleep. Sylvie, on the other hand, girl-like, tossed and tumbled. Why was the world so queer and awry and obstinate? After all, you could do so little with it. Your plans came to nought so easily. Lizzie Wise, in her Sunday-school class, preferred going in the mill, and buying herself cheap finery, because the other girls did it. And so all through. You tried to train some one, and he or she followed the ignis fatuus more readily than any high, ennobling truth. It was hard lifting people out of their old grooves.
How bright and entertaining Jack had been this evening! Of course Irene had not remembered him. Would she be vexed, Sylvie wondered, – she who held herself up so high, and believed in a separate world as it were?
CHAPTER IV
The garden-party was a success, and Miss Lawrence the acknowledged belle of the evening. No one else could have carried off the peculiar style of dress. She knew that she was radiant; and triumphs were a necessary sweet incense, that she always kept alive on her shrine. There was no need of making a hurried election: indeed, her chief aim now was pleasure and conquest.
They were sitting over their dainty lunch, Mrs. Eastman having dropped in; and, after the party had been pretty thoroughly discussed, a little lull ensued. Fred toyed with some luscious cherries, in his usual indolent manner. Nothing in this world was worth a hurry or a worry, according to this young man's creed. He had dawdled through the party, waltzing with a languid grace that most girls considered the essence of high-breeding. It was all one to him. His "set" affected to think life something of a bore. Intense emotion of any kind was vulgar.
"By the by, Rene," said Mrs. Eastman, "do you suppose Sylvie Barry is engaged to that Darcy fellow? It was odd that she should go off on a picnic with him, instead of the party. She has the queerest, mixed-up tastes."
"What Darcy fellow?" asked Irene in surprise.
"Sylvie Barry! Jack Darcy!" exclaimed Fred, in as much amazement as his superfine breeding would allow.
Mrs. Eastman gave a mellifluous laugh.
"Don't you remember? but you were such a child! Fred does. The Damon to his Pythias."
"Oh!"
A vivid scarlet ran up to the edge of Irene's white brow. So that was Jack Darcy. What a blind fool she had been, not to think! She had laughed and chatted with him, smiled on him, worn the costume of his designing, – a common workingman! For a moment she could have torn her hair, or beaten her slender white hands against the table. What had possessed her?
"I do recall some green and salad days," rejoined Fred with a laugh.
"How Agatha and I used to badger you! We were little fools to think such a thing ever went on when one came to years of discretion. Only I believe we were afraid the elder and idiotic Darcy might foist his son on some college. I must say Yerbury has become quite endurable now that party lines have been set up;" and Mrs. Eastman crumbed her cake, watching her diamond sparkle.
"How do you know Sylvie went on a picnic?" asked Rene, with an angry glitter in her eyes.
"Didn't the dear confess? Rene, you do not keep your penitent in very good order."
Mrs. Eastman had a faculty of putting something extremely irritating in her voice. It was honey smooth, and yet it rasped.
"Really," answered Irene indifferently, "I do not see that Miss Barry's selection of friends need affect me much, so long as she keeps the distasteful ones out of my way. I may wonder at her choice of pleasures, but I suppose she suits herself."
"My