Audrey

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.