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Page 8
She made this little speech with dignity. Did both women know it for the
farce it was? To do Miss Dallas justice,--I am not sure. She was not a
bad-hearted woman. She was a handsome woman. She had come to Lime to
enjoy herself. Those September days and nights were fair there by the
dreamy sea. On the whole I am inclined to think that she did not know
exactly what she was about.
"_My_ perfumery never lasts," said Harrie, once, stooping to pick up
Pauline's fine handkerchief, to which a faint scent like unseen
heliotrope clung; it clung to everything of Pauline's; you would never
see a heliotrope without thinking of her, as Dr. Sharpe had often said.
"Myron used to like good cologne, but I can't afford to buy it, so I
make it myself, and use it Sundays, and it's all blown away by the time
I get to church. Myron says he is glad of it, for it is more like Mrs.
Allen's Hair Restorer than anything else. What do you use, Pauline?"
"Sachet powder of course," said Miss Dallas, smiling.
That evening Harrie stole away by herself to the village apothecary's.
Myron should not know for what she went. If it were the breath of a
heliotrope, thought foolish Harrie, which made it so pleasant for people
to be near Pauline, that was a matter easily remedied. But sachet
powder, you should know, is a dollar an ounce, and Harrie must needs
content herself with "the American," which could be had for fifty cents;
and so, of course, after she had spent her money, and made her little
silk bags, and put them away into her bureau drawers, Myron never told
_her,_ for all her pains, that she reminded him of a heliotrope with the
dew on it. One day a pink silk bag fell out from under her dress, where
she had tucked it.
"What's all this nonsense, Harrie?" said her husband, in a sharp tone.
At another time, the Doctor and Pauline were driving upon the beach at
sunset, when, turning a sudden corner, Miss Dallas cried out, in real
delight,--
"See! That beautiful creature! Who can it be?"
And there was Harrie, out on a rock in the opal surf,--a little scarlet
mermaid, combing her hair with her thin fingers, from which the water
almost washed the wedding ring. It was--who knew how long, since the
pretty bathing-suit had been taken down from the garret nails? What
sudden yearning for the wash of waves, and the spring of girlhood, and
the consciousness that one is fair to see, had overtaken her? She
watched through her hair and her fingers for the love in her husband's
eyes.
But he waded out to her, ill-pleased.
"Harrie, this is very imprudent,--very! I don't see what could have
possessed you!"
Myron Sharpe loved his wife. Of course he did. He began, about this
time, to state the fact to himself several times a day. Had she not been
all the world to him when he wooed and won her in her rosy, ripening
days? Was she not all the world to him now that a bit of searness had
crept upon her, in a married life of eight hard-working years?
That she _had_ grown a little sear, he felt somewhat keenly of late. She
had a dreary, draggled look at breakfast, after the children had cried
at night,--and the nights when Mrs. Sharpe's children did not cry were
like angels' visits. It was perhaps the more noticeable, because Miss
Dallas had a peculiar color and coolness and sparkle in the morning,
like that of opening flowers. _She_ had not been up till midnight with a
sick baby.
Harrie was apt to be too busy in the kitchen to run and meet him when he
came home at dusk. Or, if she came, it was with her sleeves rolled up
and an apron on. Miss Dallas sat at the window; the lace curtain waved
about her; she nodded and smiled as he walked up the path. In the
evening Harrie talked of Rocko, or the price of butter; she did not
venture beyond, poor thing! since her experience with Tennessee.
Miss Dallas quoted Browning, and discussed Goethe, and talked Parepa;
and they had no lights, and the September moon shone in. Sometimes Mrs.
Sharpe had mending to do, and, as she could not sew on her husband's
buttons satisfactorily by moonlight, would slip into the dining-room
with kerosene and mosquitoes for company. The Doctor may have noticed,
or he may not, how comfortably he could, if he made the proper effort,
pass the evening without her.
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