Chapter IV: “you Are Not My Hero--Never Can Be.”

“Birds in the high hall garden,
They were crying and calling:
‘Come back, my Lord, across the moor--
You are not her darling!’”--TENNYSON.

It falls to Charlton’s lot to meet the girls at the station that afternoon. Mr. Essex elects to stay at home and play the agreeable to Miss Leigh.

He thinks it politic to ignore her slight of the morning--the wisest plan indeed, for, though she is too willful to apologize, she tries to atone by added courtesy to her guest. Her character of semi invalid makes her, too, a little dependent on masculine care. Charlton has served as a convenient crutch until he went to the station--now it is Essex’s turn, and he is most eager to avail himself of the opportunity. He persuades her to lean on his arm and hobble down as far as the river’s picturesque curve. There they take possession of a garden seat and contemplate the scene.

“How beautiful your home is,” the young man says, looking back at the large white stone building now bathed in a flood of sunset radiance that sets all the windows on fire with gold and crimson. “How you must love it, Miss Leigh, and how pleasant it must be to dwell always in such an Arcadia, away from the noise and bustle and sin of the crowded cities.”

Her eyes light up with pride and pleasure.

“You like rural life, then? I thought--or Charlton told me--that you always voted the country a bore.”

He flushes at this reminder, but answers readily:

“That was before I had met you, Miss Leigh. Adam would have been lonely without Eve, even in Paradise.

“‘Oh, woman, dear woman, the life and the soul
Of the pleasures we court, and the paths we pursue,
Whether sunned at the tropics or chilled at the poles,
If woman be there, there is happiness, too!’”

She cannot help blushing as his dark eyes, seeking hers, point the ready application.

“If I am to judge by the specimens I’ve seen,” she remarks severely, “I should say that the chief accomplishment gentlemen acquire at college now is quoting poetry.”

“So poetry is interdicted--you are to be wooed in the plainest of prose?” he queries coolly.

“Yes, in the plainest of prose,” Vivian answers, laughing, but with an earnest gleam in her clear, frank eyes. “I detest you flirting men who deal in meaningless rhymes and flattering words. When my hero comes, he will eschew sentiment and say, sensibly: ‘Vivian, I think you are the dearest girl in the world. Will you marry me?’”

A jealous pang thrills him. Unconsciously to herself the girl has pronounced her own name in just the tone Max Verne always used. Essex notes it, and his heart burns like fire.

“And you will answer----” he begins.

“Oh, I will answer ‘Yes,’” she replies, and she grows suddenly pale and sighs, remembering the words of poor Max’s note. “I meant to have asked you.”

“You are tired,” he says suddenly. “I have brought you too far on that poor little foot. It is too bad you should be lamed just now. I feel like hurling maledictions on Verne’s head for his boorishness.”

“It was hardly that,” she says, gently. “My brother declares that the rudeness was all on my side.”

“Your side! Why, you acted like an angel! No one but a temperance fanatic like Verne could have held out against so much beauty and persuasiveness. A gentleman would have sacrificed his principles for the moment rather than to mortify the sensitive heart of a young girl before all that crowd. You never can forgive him the insult to your pride, and the added injury caused by his carelessness.”

She is silent, but her color rises high, and he continues:

“I thought last summer, when we were here together, that Verne was in love with you; but his rudeness last night convinced me of my mistake. And--forgive me, Miss Leigh, but I was glad of it, for it showed me that I need not fear him as a rival, that----” He pauses for she holds up an imperative finger.

“Hush, Mr. Essex! Not another word!”

“But I must speak, Vivian!” he cries, impetuously. “I have brought you here to speak to you--here where flowers and birds and rippling waters all breathe the sweet language of love! Oh, let me tell you how I love you, for I cannot live without you, and if you send me from you I will perish by my own rash act! Vivian, will you be my wife?”

His face is pale with passion and excitement, his dark eyes gleam as he lifts them imploringly to hers. She trembles and pulls away the hand he has taken, twining it in the taper fingers of the other for safe-keeping.

“Vivian,” he urges, vehemently, “answer me, or if indeed you dislike the language of poetry and passion, which is the natural speech of love, let me woo you in your own words: ‘Vivian, I think you are the dearest little girl in the world! Will you marry me?’”

“No, Mr. Essex, I will not,” the girl answers sharply and coldly.

The blood burns on his dark cheek, his eyes flash. Naturally fiery in temper, and inflamed by heavy potations of wine at dinner, he forgets his assumed gentleness, and retorts bitterly:

“Then my death will lie at your door, proud girl; for unless I win your promise to be mine before I leave Leigh Place this summer, I shall die within your gates by my own suicidal hands.”

“You talk foolishly, madly,” she replies, indignantly. “You cannot force my love from me. Take me back to the house at once, sir, or I will try to crawl there!”

All his vehemence subsides into alarm at her bitter scorn. Falling on his knees before her, he again clasps her hand, and looks at her with despairing eye.

“Oh, forgive my madness!” he pleads. “You do not dream of the passionate strength of the hidden fire and fervor of my love. I worship you; but the madness of disappointment made me show you my desperate heart too plainly. Oh, pardon me, and let me try to win your favor, no matter how long and hard the task!”

Touched by his humility, but firm in her refusal, she answers very gently:

“It is useless to try. I forgive your wild words of just now, but I can never be more to you than a friend.”

“Surely you might learn to love me, Vivian. Oh, give me a little hope. A heart that adores you like mine might almost compel a return.”

“You could not make me love you,” she answers, with blended pain and pity. “You are not like the hero of my fancy. You have few of the attributes I could best love in man.”

“Tell me what your ideal is like, Vivian. Let me try to form myself by your model.”

The color rises over her face, flooding it with crimson, and turning her conscious face aside, she misses his heavy frown as she says low but firmly:

“You cannot. It is worse than vain to try. You are not my hero--never can be.”

He rises with a heavy sigh and gives her his arm. They return to the house. The lingering sunset is fading into twilight, but he notes with alarm the pallor of her lovely face as she sinks wearily into the armchair on the piazza. Hurrying into the house, he brings her a glass of wine.

“Drink this wine and it will revive you. I have wearied you with my passionate love,” he says gently.

Her hand trembles as she puts the glass to her lips. For a moment across the ruby wine she seems to see Max Verne’s face, bright, eager, smiling--then grave, reproachful, troubled, as it looked at her last night when he murmured so sadly, “I cannot,” and the draught leaves a bitter taste in her mouth, a bitter pang in her heart. Her head drops on her folded arms. She never looks up again until the crunching of carriage wheels on the gravel announces the arrival of Charlton Leigh with his “lot of girls.” Then with an effort she summons a smile to greet the two girls who come up the steps with Charlton between them. “A rose between two thorns” as he confides in an audible aside to Essex. One pinches his cheek, the other his arm, then they overwhelm Vivian with kisses and caresses from which she extricates herself with difficulty to present them to Mr. Essex.

But they all smiled mutually before she can speak, and Mr. Essex explains:

“I have had the pleasure of meeting Miss Kingsley and her sister at their home in Richmond last winter.”

And the girls greet him with effusive pleasure, little dreaming that this eligible _parti_ has just been refused by their beautiful cousin, willful Vivian.