Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v108.djvu/929

Rh cealed by the long cloak which hung from her shoulders, was a glittering, shimmering thing to his perceptions—a light evening gown. A gentleman was holding open the door for her, and at her side was a little, mild-faced, elderly lady, resembling her just enough to be the ghost of her beauty. Dane stepped back to make way, and almost unconsciously spoke her name.

For an instant she looked at him with the inquiring politeness she would have shown to a stranger. Then she put out her hand.

"Dr. Dane!" she said, in a voice which blended surprise and pleasure and old associations of sorrow. The cordiality of her hand-clasp seemed to welcome him with all that his coming might stand for. Her manner had no reserves. It even blotted out her brief failure to recognize him, and the smile which her face had held for another man when the door opened.

Afterwards, as he walked away, he remembered the smile, and lost a part of the elation with which he had stood beside her, answering her rapid questions, greeting her mother and friend, and promising to return the next evening, when she would be at home.

When the time came and he presented himself, he found that her "at home" was not only literal but social in its significance, and although there was nothing formal in the little company which he entered, his desire to see her and no one else made him feel misplaced among her guests. It was a gay little party, and she was its life. The joyousness of her manner threw him back into the bewilderment with which he had recognized her the night before, and when she tried to draw him into the circle of good-fellowship he felt subtly and unjustifiably resentful. He would have liked to reproach her for not telling him that she was not to be alone.

Mrs. Carew, Mrs. Petrie's shadowy little mother, a waif from other days and associations, sat in one corner of the room talking with a youth whose eyes wandered from her at times. Dane had spoken with her when he first came, but had been carried away by Mrs. Petrie to meet her friends. At times, as he chatted perfunctorily with one and another, he was aware that from her corner Mrs. Carew kept timid watch of him, and in time he made his way back to her, relieving the youth who had been keeping faith with his sense of duty for so long.

He could see that she was eager and tremulous as he took his place beside her, yet he had to do all the talking at first, and now, instead of dwelling on him, her eyes followed her daughter. Suddenly she turned to him with the abruptness which all shy people have when they force themselves to touch a real interest.

"Don't you think her greatly changed?" she asked.

They had not been speaking of Mrs. Petrie, but the pronoun was sufficient.

"Greatly," he assented. "But the change is natural. I knew her when she was worn with care and very sad."

"Of course it's natural for the first sharpness of grief to wear away," Mrs. Carew admitted, with a certain glibness, as if she had struck upon a phrase worn smooth by frequent use in her mind. Her small, time-worn hands were clasped in her lap. She looked down at them in embarrassment, and then her fluttered gaze reached Dane again, and she went on hurriedly. "It's in the last two years that she has changed so. Before that time I couldn't have believed—" She paused, and her half-apologetic, wholly timid and nervous, manner told with what an effort she was goading herself to some irretrievable plunge. She made it at last, with her eyes turned away. "You don't know how painful it is to see any one you love closing her heart to a sacred past."

He hesitated an instant before allowing her to draw him further into such an unexpected confidence. "But if the past is too sad to dwell upon?" he suggested, finally.

"Nothing that is sacred is too sad," Mrs. Carew returned, with an insistent note in her voice. "There are few such perfect marriages as hers and Donald's. You must have seen that it was perfect."

Dane inclined his head. The mild, ruthless lady was entangling him in a discussion as awkward to the time and place, even in their sequestered corner, as it was to his own hopes.

In his silence Mrs. Carew sat nervously clasping and unclasping her hands.