Short Fiction

looked at it wonderingly, “Why, it is from you,” he exclaimed.

In that second, Eden, with the prescience that is said to visit those that drown, went forward and back, into the past and into the future as well. Amid her scattered yesterdays she groped for a promise. Of the unanswering morrows she called for release, and as her husband stood up, preparing to read what she had written, she felt herself the depository of shame.

The next instant she was at his side. “Give it me,” she murmured. Her voice trembled a little, but she strove to render it assured. “Give it me,” she pleaded.

Usselex turned to her at once. “Certainly, if you wish it,” he said. “What is it about?”

He held the note to her, and she, with an affected air of indifference, took it from him and tossed it into the grate.

“Nothing,” she answered, and then, as though ashamed of the falsehood, she looked him bravely in the face. “It was about your clerk.”

“Adrian?” he asked. And as she nodded, tremulous still and unprepared for further questions, he added, “I hope you like him.”

“You hope I like him?”

“Yes, he is my son.”

Eden’s hands went to her throat and her eyes to the grate. The note was already in a blaze.

“Yes,” Usselex continued, “I have a bit of news for you. He is engaged to Miss Bolton. For a long time her parents objected, but last night they consented. It may be because he was at the opera with you. How small people can be!” he added. “She is a nice girl, though. Adrian told me this morning that he tried to speak to you about her the night I dined with Governor Blanchford, but that you did not seem interested.”

“God in Heaven!” gasped Eden, beneath her breath. “If these are your punishments, what then are your rewards?”

Usselex had led her to a seat and taken her unresisting hand in his. For some little time he talked to her, very gently, as it behooves the strong to address the weak. And as he spoke, Mr. Menemon entered, and seeing them hand-locked and side-by-side, he smiled cheerily to himself with the air of a man who learns that all is well.

Usselex stood up at once, but for a little space Eden sat very still, surprised as February at a violet, then rising, she went forward to the window and looked out at the night. From the square beyond came the beat of drums, and on the breeze was borne to her the shrill treble of retreating fifes. And as she loitered at the window, conscious only of a sense of happiness such as she had never known before, her father called to her. She turned at his bidding. In the opposite doorway a servant stood.

“Dinner is served,” he said.

And presently Mr. Menemon, as was his custom, mumbled a grace and thanksgiving to God.

A Transaction in Hearts3

An Episode

“Pour estre bien aimé,
Il faut aimer bien peu.”

Ronsard

To
Helen.

I

The quiet of the morning was punctuated by a housemaid who, aware that the master was astir, was singing, for his benefit, “Jesus loves me,” in a treble of irritating insistence. Already the carriage had arrived, and as Gonfallon drew on his gloves he wondered by what token he should recognize the sister of his wife. He had the vaguest memory of her, a slip of a girl who years before had sat opposite him at dinner, the eyes lowered, the hair in pendent plaits. And as his thoughts went back to earlier days, Ruth called to him from the floor above, “If you don’t see her at once, ask the captain: she is in his charge.”

Gonfallon was not a whit more unselfish than the best of us, yet that morning, his routine upset, his coffee undigested, the paper barely skimmed, and, paramount of all, Ruth’s neuralgia which forced him to the wharf alone, made him conscious that, momentarily, for all of him, in the captain’s charge the girl might remain.

But he assented smilingly, as was his wont; and when, after a long sweep down the Avenue and a brisk drive through hideous little streets, he caught a sniff of salt water, his equanimity returned, and as the carriage rolled into the domed and creaking peninsula the momentary annoyance was forgot.

Already the Bourgogne was in the offing, and Gonfallon had but a few moments in which to kick his heels before the great ship was moored and the gangplank let down. As the vessel swung round he had gazed up at the faces that lined the rail, trusting to his own intuition to recognize the girl unprompted; but as yet among the passengers he saw no one that in any way resembled the shy little maid whom he had come to meet.

“H’m,” he mused, “I dare say she has recognized me and is too timid to make a sign.” And, reflecting that after all, in view of his cloth, it would be more dignified to make inquiry of someone than to stand staring women out of countenance, he descended in the caverns of memory and recovered a sentence in French.

“Where is the purser to be found?” he asked of an official at his side.

“Le voilà,” the man answered, not over-suavely, and nodded towards an individual bebraided with gold who stood within hailing-distance.

Gonfallon turned to the person thus designated, and presently succeeded in catching his eye. “Would you be good enough⁠—” he began, and, as the purser leaned forward the better to catch his speech, Gonfallon added, “I am looking for Miss Bucholz.”

The purser lifted his arms and assumed an expression of the civilest and most amiable perplexity. “Really, sir, I regret, perhaps⁠—” And as he shrugged his shoulders and bowed, as who should say, “It is a grief that I cannot serve you,” a young man dressed Piccadilly-fashion touched him on the arm.

“I beg pardon: