She obeyed as might an automaton. Was it the tone of his voice that chilled her, or the studied aspect of his fixed and solemn countenance? He did not speak at once, but when he did, there was no faltering in his voice, that was lower than common, but deep, like still waters that have run into dark channels far from the light of day.
“Paula, I want to ask you a question. What would you think of a man that, with deliberate selfishness, went into the king’s garden, and plucking up by the roots the most beautiful flower he could find there, carried it into a dungeon to pant out its exquisite life amid chill and darkness?”
“I should think,” replied she, after the first startled moment of silence, “that the man did well, if by its one breath of sweetness, the flower could comfort the heart of him who sat in the dungeon.”
The glance with which Mr. Sylvester regarded her, suddenly faltered; he turned with quickness towards the fire. “A moment’s joy is, then, excuse for a murder,” exclaimed he. “God and the angels would not agree with you, Paula.”
There was a quivering in his tone, made all the more apparent by its studied self-possession of a moment before. She trembled where she sat, and opened her lips to speak, but closed them again, awed by his steady and abstracted gaze, now fixed before him in gloomy reverie. A moment passed. The clock ticking away on the mantelpiece seemed to echo the inevitable “Forever! never!” of Longfellow’s old song. Neither of them moved. At length, in a low and trembling voice, Paula spoke:
“Is it murder, when the flower loves the dark of the dungeon more than it does the light of day?”
With a subdued but passionate cry he rose hastily to his feet. “Yes,” said he, and drew back as if he could not bear the sight of her face or the glance of her eye. “Sunshine is the breath of flowers; sweet wooing gales, their natural atmosphere. He who meddles with a treasure so choice does it at his peril.” Then as she hurriedly rose in turn, softened his whole tone, and assuming his usual air of kindly fatherhood, asked her in the most natural way in the world, what he could do to make her happy that day.
“Nothing,” replied she, with a droop of her head; “I think I will go and see Cicely.”
A short sigh escaped him. “The carriage shall be ready for you,” said he. “I hope your friend’s happiness will overflow into your own gentle bosom, and make the day a very pleasant one. God bless your young sweet heart, my Paula!”
Her breast heaved, her large, dark, mellow eyes flashed with one quick glance towards his face, then she drew back, and in another moment left his side and quietly glided from the room. His very life seemed to go with her, yet he did not stir; but he sighed deeply when, upon turning towards the library-table, he found that she had carried away with her the silent testimonial of another and more fortunate man’s love and devotion.
XXXII
Full Tide
“A skirmish of wit between them.”
Much Ado About Nothing
Man thinks he is strong, and lays his foundations, raises his walls, and dreams of his completed turrets, without reckoning the force of the gales or the insidious inundating of the waters that may bring low the mounting structure before its time. When with a firm hand, Mr. Sylvester thrust back from his heart the one delight which of all the world could afford, seemed to him at that moment the dearest and the best, he thought the struggle was over and the victory won. It had not even commenced. He was made startlingly alive to this fact at the very next interview he had with Paula. She had just come from Miss Stuyvesant, and the reflection of her friend’s scarcely comprehended joy was on her countenance, together with a look he could not comprehend, but which stirred and haunted him, until he felt forced to ask if she had seen any other of her old friends, in the short visit she had paid.
“Yes,” said she, with a distressed blush. “Mr. Ensign was unexpectedly there.”
It is comparatively easy to restrain your own hand from snatching at a treasure you greatly covet, but it is much more difficult to behold another and a lesser one grasp and carry it away before your eyes. He succeeded in hiding the shadow that oppressed him, but he was constrained to recognize the sharpness of the conflict that was about to be waged in the recesses of his own breast. A conflict, because he knew that a lift of his finger, or a glance of his eye would decide the matter then, while in a week, perhaps, the glamour of a young sunshiny love, would have worked its inevitable result, and the happiness that had so unexpectedly startled upon him in his monotonous and sombre path, would have wandered forever out of his reach. How did he meet its unexpected rush. Sternly at first, but with greater and greater wavering as the days went by, each one revealing fresh beauties of character and deeper springs of feeling in the enchanting girl thus brought in all her varied charm before his eyes. Why should he not be happy? If there were dark pages in his life, had they not long ago been closed and sealed, and was not the future bright with promise? A man of his years was not through with life. He felt at times as he gazed upon her face with its indescribable power of awakening far-reaching thoughts and feelings in callous breasts long unused to the holy influence of either, that he had just begun to live; that the golden country, with its enticing vistas, lay all before him, and that the youth,
