Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/569

Rh as she was one of those vehement, quick-blooded little women, who blush even at their own thoughts, the crimson changes of her face seldom attracted particular notice.

"I suppose that Sir James is satisfied, and that he thinks no evil of me, else he would not wish to marry me at all," answered Clementina, in the same quiet way. "If he finds fault with me why does he not tell me so himself?"

"Hush! here he comes!" said Bessie, in a hurried whisper. "Oh, Clementina, how can you be so cold!" she cried, as Clementina, without hastening her step, without a quickened breath, or fuller heart-beat, or deeper tinge upon her marble paleness, went slowly forward, in her usual quiet way, as if he had been a mere acquaintance strolled out to pay an unmeaning call, and not the man who, this day week, was to be her husband.

Yet Sir James was a man whom most women would have loved, and some, too, tenderly. Handsome and good tempered, with generosity and candor in his bright blue eyes and open forehead, frank in manner, blithe in speech—perhaps a little wanting in firmness of will and tenacity of purpose (you saw that in the small, receding chin and the looseness of the full but well-shaped lips)—rich and of high place in his society, he was a man whom the woman he chose might be expected to adore. But Clementina, in her quiet saintliness, adored no one; and seemed rather to suffer than to participate in the coming marriage. Had she been a Catholic, Clementina's vocation would have been assured, and she would have lived and died a saintly nun; as it was, being a portionless Protestant, she had to be married, as the best piece of good luck that could befall her; no one was so insane as to imagine that she did not feel herself specially blessed in her chance. Portionless girls, with no grand friends at their backs, have no business with negatives when the question of good settlements is on the carpet.

"Inseparable, as usual!—the lily and the rose—saintly Adeline and airy fairy Lilian!" cried the young man, in his cheery voice, as he neared the two girls.

"How do you do. Sir James?" was Clementina's quiet greeting, that sounded almost like a reproof in its commonplace courtesy.

"Then, if we are saintly Adeline and airy fairy Lilian, who are you? King Arthur, or Sir Launcelot, or who?" cried Bessie, taking up his words with her usual quickness.

"I? oh! I am the poet whose soul you are not to vex with your shallow wit," he laughed. "Do you hear that, Miss Bessie?" He was always familiar to Bessie; partly because she was Clementina's nearest friend, and also because of a certain kittenish nature in the girl which provoked familiarity—not to say romping. There are some women with whom every one is familiar, yet meaning no harm—women whom men soon learn to call by their Christian names, and soon adopt into the strictest bonds of brotherly love; and others whom their very husbands and the sons of their mothers never approach save in court costumes and company manners—women with whom an extra-official act of familiarity would be simple suicide on the part of any man—a forfeit never to be redeemed.

Bessie laughed and blushed, and put up her small, shapely hands, threatening chastisement; but, kept in check by Clementina, she made no more active demonstrations, and contented herself with eyes and lips, which, however eloquent, were voiceless.

"Have you been to town to-day, Sir James?" asked Clementina, taking no notice of this little episode: do swans regard the summersaults of dabchicks as in any  to themselves?