Addie's Husband; or, Through clouds to sunshine

have put her hands into my pocket and spent my money with the freedom and _insouciance_ of esteemed wifehood, would never have disturbed my equanimity by one of those piteous pleading looks, half pain, half defiance, that thrill through me with a foreboding of coming tragedy. I wonder how it will all end! Why will she not accept the inevitable, and give me peace at least? Peace is all I ask from her. If she would take things as her sisters and her brothers do, I should in time become reconciled to my fate, should learn to feel toward her as I feel toward them; but she will not--she will not. She will go her own way, and keep my heart in a ferment, watching her every movement, straining my ears to catch every tone of her ever-changeful voice." He looks with a sort of admiring impatience at her, as she sits by his side, her eyes closed, the trace of tears staining her flushed cheeks, and something tells him that it will always be so between them, that she will never harden, never learn to eat his bread with the easy unconsciousness of her kindred, never suffer him to despise her, and thus emancipate himself. Armstrong is an epicure in sexual sentiment. He can love no woman whom he cannot esteem. The loveliest face shielding a venal soul has no attraction for him; and women for the possession of whose frail fairness men in his rank of life have bartered the hard-earned wages of years, have abandoned home, wife, and children, to him are as innocuous as the homeliest-featured crone. Having always been a comparatively successful man, in his many wanderings he has been waylaid by harpies of various nationalities, experienced in attack; but honeyed speech or melting glance has never charmed a guinea from his pocket or a responsive smile from his granite lips--and this through no sense of moral or religious rectitude, but simply because he can not value the favoring of any woman in whom self-respect does not govern every other feeling, sway every action of her life. The woman he loves shall be a lady to the core, pure-minded, dainty, sensitive, and proud. In his wife he recognizes these qualities, and worships them accordingly; and yet, with the perverse selfishness innate even in the best of mankind, he would fain see her stripped of them all in order to shake himself free from her thralldom and heal up the wound she has unwittingly dealt his pride and self-esteem. He knows, if she can but lower herself in his eyes by some act of meanness, folly, or ingratitude, her downfall will be permanent, and he will regain the even tenor of his life, and be his own master again. * * * * * "Here we are at last, Addie; wake up--wake up! How lovely the house looks blazing with light! Listen to the music; they must have begun dancing. Oh, Tom, get out quick!" However, when they appear on the gay and crowded scene, Miss Pauline's effervescence somewhat subsides. A feeling of diffidence, of timidity almost, seizes her. She half shrinks behind her brother-in-law's broad shoulders when one of their hostess's sons appears, a smiling partner in tow. However, it is Mrs. Armstrong who is borne off first; and then Pauline steps a little forward and sends her roving eye round the room with success. A little later Addie returns breathless, with eyes sparkling with excitement and pleasure. "I've had such a lovely dance, Tom; I never thought I should like it so much or keep in step as I did! Where's Polly? How is she getting on?" Armstrong points across the room, where Miss Lefroy, with her deer-like head erect, stands surrounded by a group of young men eagerly seeking to inscribe her name on their cards. "She's getting on fairly for a beginner, isn't she? I don't fancy she'll trouble us much more with her society to-night." He is right. Miss Pauline, whether ignorant of or regardless of the etiquette of ball-room proprieties, returns no more to the corner she left in maiden trepidation at the request of a dapper little squire, fair-haired and blue-eyed, whose heart she stormed the first moment she entered the room. "Tom," says Addie, two hours later, when she returns again, a little exhausted with the unusual exercise, to the spot where he stands so patiently propped up against the wall watching the _élite_ of Nutshire taking their pleasure, "look at Pauline; she is dancing again with that blue-eyed boy--the fourth time, I think. I tried to attract her attention two or three times; but she either did not or would not see me. I don't know much about the proprieties; but don't you think--" "I know even less about them than you, my dear. I think I have not been to half a dozen balls in my life, and never before as the guardian of a young lady's morals; so I won't presume to advise you. It seems to me she is enjoying herself in a very innocent and above-board manner. I wouldn't try to stop her." "Do you know her partner, Tom?" "Oh, yes. Jack Everard of Broom Hill, a thorough little gentleman and a general favorite in the county, I believe, but not much of a lady's man. I'm surprised to see him here." "Horsy?" "Yes, and doggy; he keeps a famous breed of greyhounds. Pauline seems to have made quite a conquest." "I wonder what they are talking about so earnestly? Dogs, I suppose; Pauline loves dogs, you know, better almost than human beings." "Hem!" "You think she is flirting? Oh, there you make a mistake! There is nothing Pauline despises so much as flirting and love-making and nonsense. I wouldn't be the man to make a soft speech to her, I know!" "Everard is a plucky little fellow." "Pauline's snubs are hard to get over." "I say, Addie--look! There's an engagement going on now; the tall cavalryman seems to be getting the worst of it. I suppose it's about a disputed dance; they're referring to their cards. How red Everard is! the quiver of his nostrils indicates bloodshed, nothing else." "He just looks like an angry turkey-cock." "And, by Jove, look at your sister, Addie! Look at the supreme indifference of her attitude, the queenly wave of her fan! Wouldn't you say she was the heroine of half a dozen London seasons at the least? Bravo, Polly, bravo! You'll get on, my dear." Miss Lefroy is the acknowledged belle of the evening; every man in the room seeks to be introduced to her, and people who for the last twelve years have sat in the pew next to hers at church, who have never taken the trouble of noticing her presence during her long Cinderellahood, now load her with fulsome compliments and attentions when they see the tide of popular favor turning her way; and she receives it all with the dignity and gracious indifference of one bred in the purple and fed on adulations from her cradle. Poor Jack Everard never suspects that the few hot words so gravely yet soothingly suppressed by his lovely partner, that escaped him after supper, are the first whispers of love that have ever tickled her cold ear, that this is the first night any one has told her she is fair in the eyes of men. "Miss Lefroy," exclaims that young gentleman in a stealthy whisper when the night is far advanced and the ball-room thinning visibly, "there's a plot against you; they want to take you home. Your brother-in-law is skirmishing for you briskly in all the passages. Unless you deliver yourself into my hands at once, you can not fail to be caught." "They want to go? Oh, impossible," she cried in dismay, "when I'm engaged for half a dozen dances yet! It's quite early; they couldn't be so selfish!" "Couldn't they! Your sister says that Mr. Armstrong is very tired and has to be up early in the morning to go to his business, and that she won't wait another minute. She commissioned me to bring you to her at once; allow me." She puts her hand mechanically on his arm, and he leads her off in the opposite direction to that where Addie, sleepy and impatient, sits waiting, knowing that her husband's thoroughbreds have been pawing the gravel for the last half hour in the frosty night, and that he himself, somewhat weary, is longing for a few hours' rest before the busy day begins. The culprits are passing through a distant conservatory, when a tall handsome girl with masses of golden hair stops them, unceremoniously and holds up her card for Everard's inspection. "Yes, Jack; indeed you may blush! To three dances you scribbled your name, and never came up for one. If we moved in a different sphere of life I think my feelings would find rather strong expression." Pauline crimsons to the roots of her hair, and, scenting an insult, draws away haughtily; but her suspicions are speedily allayed. The young lady cuts Everard's excuses short. "There, there! I'll forgive you, on condition that you present me to your partner, whom I am anxious to know. Our mothers were friends long ago, before either of us was born." He speedily complies with her request. "Miss Lefroy, will you allow me to introduce you to my cousin, Miss Wynyard, who is anxious to make your acquaintance?" The girls bow. Miss Wynyard puts out her hand and says, with a frank laugh-- "Miss Lefroy, do you know that this is a very generous overture on my part, considering the attitude that you and I must henceforth assume toward each other?" "I don't understand. What attitude?" asks Pauline, puzzled, yet interested. "That of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth; of Mrs. Clive and Mrs. Oldfield--the rival queens, in fact. You've deposed me to-night; for three years since I came out I have been the undisputed belle of Nutshire society--haven't I, Jack, haven't I? You know you can't deny it, sir!"--impatiently to her cousin, who receives her bold statement with a contemptuous chuckle. "I don't deny that you have been pretty popular, Flo," he answers quietly; "but let me tell you, my dear, that you did not go down with lots of fellows I know. They thought you a good deal too free and fast. They may have liked to talk with you and have enjoyed your society for the time; but afterward--afterward--I've heard them--heard them--" Miss Wynyard's face flushes; her bold eyes droop for a second. "Isn't a cousin a detestable institution, Miss Lefroy?" she says, with a vexed laugh. "Don't you believe a word he says; you can get my character from any one you like but him, and you'll hear there is nothing very reprehensible in me." "I'll take your character from yourself," answers Pauline, who finds herself taking a sudden fancy to this outspoken young person. "Thank you. Then you must learn that my bark is worse than my bite, and that, though I'm fast and speak out plainly, I'm not a bad person at bottom, and not a bit of a sneak. What I have to say I say to your face, and you know the worst of me at once. Will you take me as you find me and strike up a friendship with me? Half the men and all the old women of the place will swear that I shall hate you like poison for being younger and handsomer and fresher than myself. Suppose you and I strike up a defensive alliance in the cause of common womanhood, and refute their slanders with an eternal friendship?" "Don't, Miss Lefroy, don't!" puts in Everard aggravatingly. "You don't know what her bark is when she's in full cry. Her style is as bad--" "Be quiet, Jack, do! I'm not speaking to you." "And I'm not listening to him in the least, Miss Wynyard," says Pauline quickly; "and I'm quite ready to enter an alliance with you on the spot." "Done! We'll never let a man or the pattern of a frock come between us--never." "Certainly not." "The last friend I had--for whom I'd have sacrificed my very life--broke from me because I happened to copy her Ascot dress and look better in it than she did."