“What is the use of a fellow falling in love with a girl that every other fellow is sure to fall in love with too, you know?”
Mrs. Simonson, good soul, quite swelled with pride in her lodger, and by her behavior created the impression in the minds of people sitting near, that she was the singer’s mother.
And Jo—unsentimental Jo—was entirely carried away. With the music, of course, for music was art, and art, only in another branch, was his life and work; and was not Cyn a beautiful work of Nature, the mother of all art?
“He will be a very lucky man who shall call our Cyn his,” whispered Clem to Jo, as she came out in answer to an encore.
“What!” ejaculated Jo, so savagely that everyone turned to look at him, and Clem opened his eyes wide with surprise. “Bah! Nonsense!”
And some way or other, after this, the music sounded very dismal to Jo, and the close air of the room made his head ache; but he had been working very hard all day, and was tired, so this was quite natural.
Was Clem presuming on his good looks, and thinking of making Cyn his, he wondered? If he was, she certainly would not be fool enough to—Jo stopped here in his meditations, because he would like to have been a little surer that she would not. Very strongly he felt just then that “things of a doubtful nature were sometimes very uncertain!”
It was, of course, no sentiment on his part that caused these emotions. He did not wish Cyn to throw herself away in matrimony, that was all; and so strong were his feelings on this point that he could not banish the idea from his mind all the rest of the evening, and was noticeably thoughtful.
But he was very gay; even unusually, wildly gay on the way home, and kept Mrs. Simonson, whom he escorted, in such a state of laughter that she burst three buttons, and was all “wheezed up” when they reached the hotel.
“Why are you so thoughtful tonight?” Clem asked Nattie, as they walked down their street behind the rest, in the wake of Jo’s gayety and Celeste’s meaningless giggle. Celeste was clinging to the arm of the unwilling, but helpless Quimby, and chatting of the handsome tenor.
With a slight start, Nattie replied to Clem’s question,
“I do not know. Am I?”
“Yes; you have hardly spoken a word all the way. Is anything the trouble?” asked Clem, and she, looking moodily oh the ground, did not see the anxiety in his eyes as he spoke.
“Nothing!” she replied; then startled him by bursting out passionately,
“I am tired of living with no object; with nothing but a daily routine. Can it be there is no better place in the world for me? That my life must be always thus? I cannot be contented!”
Clem stopped short and stared at her agitated face.
“I never knew you were not happy, Nattie,” he said, gently.
“Oh! I am not unhappy; I am only discontented,” Nattie replied.
“You are somewhat contradictory in your statements,” said Clem, as they went on again, for she also had stopped. “Is it office troubles that annoy you? Poor little girl, it is a monotonous life!”
Nattie flushed at the tenderness in his voice.
“That is one thing,” she replied, a little tremblingly, “but I want something to work for, as Cyn has. I am ambitious; my present position can never content me; I am haunted all the time by an uneasy consciousness that if I was smart I should be doing something to get ahead; and yet, I don’t know what to do!”
“I remember you once said something about becoming a writer; why not try that?” suggested Clem.
They had reached their own landing at the hotel, and paused. The remainder of the party had disappeared.
“It seems so hopeless,” Nattie answered, dispiritedly; “there is no opening anywhere.”
“But it will never do to wait for that, you know. If the world is a closed oyster, we must open it. Isn’t that the way Cyn did?” said Clem, half surmising the realization of the difference between Cyn’s brilliant success and her own plodding along that had caused her dejection; and as he spoke, he took her hand in his, but Nattie snatched it quickly away.
“Ah! Cyn!” she said in sudden and uncontrollable jealousy, “of course you could never expect me to compare with her!”
Clem looked at her a moment, then some emotion flushed his face, and he would have spoken had not Miss Kling, disgusted with her inability to catch a word from inside, opened her door, saying sharply,
“Are you coming in, Miss Rogers?”
“Certainly,” Nattie replied quickly, and already ashamed of her jealous outburst. “Good night, Clem.”
“But will you not come over and congratulate Cyn on her success?” he asked, detaining her. “I heard a carriage just stop, and think she is in it.”
“Not tonight; tomorrow,” said Nattie, hastily, and left him before he could again urge the request.
“Oh!” said Miss Kling, as Nattie closed the door behind her, “was that Mr. Stanwood who came home with you?”
“Yes,” Nattie answered, briefly.
“I should hardly have thought Miss Archer would have allowed it!” remarked Miss Kling, with a sneeze.
“I don’t know why she should have forbidden it!” replied Nattie, coldly, yet looking somewhat startled. Poor Nattie’s nerves were decidedly unstrung tonight.
“You do not mean to say that you are ignorant of what everyone else knows?” queried Miss Kling, with a malicious sparkle in her eyes; “that they are just the same as engaged.”
Nattie turned a very pale face towards her.
“I—I think you are mistaken,” she faltered.
“Mistaken! no indeed!” said Miss Kling, positively; “I should think your own eyes might tell you that! Why, Mrs. Simonson says, Miss Archer has thought of nobody but him since he came into the house, and that anybody can tell he is in love with her, from his actions and the attentions he pays her, and Celeste told me the same thing, long ago. But I suppose Miss Archer is
