He closed the fan, and, leaning back in his chair, shaded his eyes with
his hand. "When the lights are out," he said; "when forever and a night
the actor bids the stage farewell; when, stripped of mask and tinsel, he
goes home to that Auditor who set him his part, then perhaps he will be
told what manner of man he is. The glass that now he dresses before tells
him not; but he thinks a truer glass would show a shrunken figure."
He sat in silence for a moment; then laughed, and gave her back her fan.
"Am I to come to Westover, Evelyn?" he asked. "Your father presses, and I
have not known what answer to make him."
"You will give us pleasure by your coming," she said gently and at once.
"My father wishes your advice as to the ordering of his library; and you
know that my pretty stepmother likes you well."
"Will it please you to have me come?" he asked, with his eyes upon her
face.
She met his gaze very quietly. "Why not?" she answered simply. "You will
help me in my flower garden, and sing with me in the evening, as of old."
"Evelyn," he said, "if what I am about to say to you distresses you, lift
your hand, and I will cease to speak. Since a day and an hour in the woods
yonder, I have been thinking much. I wish to wipe that hour from your
memory as I wipe it from mine, and to begin afresh. You are the fairest
woman that I know, and the best. I beg you to accept my reverence, homage,
love; not the boy's love, perhaps; perhaps not the love that some men have
to squander, but my love. A quiet love, a lasting trust, deep pride and
pleasure"-At her gesture he broke off, sat in silence for a moment, then rising went
to the window, and with slightly contracted brows stood looking out at the
sunshine that was slipping away. Presently he was aware that she stood
beside him.
She was holding out her hand. "It is that of a friend," she said. "No, do
not kiss it, for that is the act of a lover. And you are not my
lover,--oh, not yet, not yet!" A soft, exquisite blush stole over her face
and neck, but she did not lower her lovely candid eyes. "Perhaps some day,
some summer day at Westover, it will all be different," she breathed, and
turned away.
Haward caught her hand, and bending pressed his lips upon it. "It is
different now!" he cried. "Next week I shall come to Westover!"
He led her back to the great chair, and presently she asked some question
as to the house at Fair View. He plunged into an account of the cases of
goods which had followed him from England by the Falcon, and which now lay
in the rooms that were yet to be swept and garnished; then spoke lightly
and whimsically of the solitary state in which he must live, and of the
entertainments which, to be in the Virginia fashion, he must give. While
he talked she sat and watched him, with the faint smile upon her lips. The
sunshine left the floor and the wall, and a dankness from the long grass
and the closing flowers and the heavy trees in the adjacent churchyard
stole into the room. With the coming of the dusk conversation languished,
and the two sat in silence until the return of the Colonel.