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Page 10
"Don't let me keep you from dancing, Mr. Aldersley."
He seats himself by her side, and feasts his eyes on the lovely
downcast face that dares not turn toward him. He whispers to her:
"Call me Frank."
She longs to call him Frank--she loves him with all her heart.
But Mrs. Crayford's warning words are still in her mind. She
never opens her lips. Her lover moves a little closer, and asks
another favor. Men are all alike on these occasions. Silence
invariably encourages them to try again.
"Clara! have you forgotten what I said at the concert yesterday?
May I say it again?"
"No!"
"We sail to-morrow for the Arctic seas. I may not return for
years. Don't send me away without hope! Think of the long, lonely
time in the dark North! Make it a happy time for _me_."
Though he speaks with the fervor of a man, he is little more than
a lad: he is only twenty years old, and he is going to risk his
young life on the frozen deep! Clara pities him as she never
pitied any human creature before. He gently takes her hand. She
tries to release it.
"What! not even that little favor on the last night?"
Her faithful heart takes his part, in spite of her. Her hand
remains in his, and feels its soft persuasive pressure. She is a
lost woman. It is only a question of time now!
"Clara! do you love me?"
There is a pause. She shrinks from looking at him--she trembles
with strange contradictory sensations of pleasure and pain. His
arm steals round her; he repeats his question in a whisper; his
lips almost touch her little rosy ear as he says it again:
"Do you love me?"
She closes her eyes faintly--she hears nothing but those
words--feels nothing but his arm round her--forgets Mrs.
Crayford's warning--forgets Richard Wardour himself--turns
suddenly, with a loving woman's desperate disregard of everything
but her love--nestles her head on his bosom, and answers him in
that way, at last!
He lifts the beautiful drooping head--their lips meet in their
first kiss--they are both in heaven: it is Clara who brings them
back to earth again with a start--it is Clara who says, "Oh! what
have I done?"--as usual, when it is too late.
Frank answers the question.
"You have made me happy, my angel. Now, when I come back, I come
back to make you my wife."
She shudders. She remembers Richard Wardour again at those words.
"Mind!" she says, "nobody is to know we are engaged till I permit
you to mention it. Remember that!"
He promises to remember it. His arm tries to wind round her once
more. No! She is mistress of herself; she can positively dismiss
him now--after she has let him kiss her!
"Go!" she says. "I want to see Mrs. Crayford. Find her! Say I am
here, waiting to speak to her. Go at once, Frank--for my sake!"
There is no alternative but to obey her. His eyes drink a last
draught of her beauty. He hurries away on his errand--the
happiest man in the room. Five minutes since she was only his
partner in the dance. He has spoken--and she has pledged herself
to be his partner for life!
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