“‘Tis better to laugh than be sighing,?
and Charlie burst forth in that bacchanalian melody at the top of
his voice, waving an allumette holder over his head to represent
Randal’s inverted wineglass.
“Hush! You’ll wake Aunty,” cried Rose in a tone so commanding
that he broke off in the middle of a roulade to stare at her with a
blank look as he said apologetically, “I was merely showing how it
should be done. Don’t be angry, dearest look at me as you did this
morning, and I’ll swear never to sing another note if you say so. I’m
only a little gay we drank your health handsomely, and they all
congratulated me. Told ’em it wasn’t out yet. Stop, though I didn’t
mean to mention that. No matter I’m always in a scrape, but you
always forgive me in the sweetest way. Do it now, and don’t be
angry, little darling.” And, dropping the vase, he went toward her
with a sudden excitement that made her shrink behind the chair.
She was not angry, but shocked and frightened, for she knew now
what the matter was and grew so pale, he saw it and asked pardon
before she could utter a rebuke.
“We’ll talk of that tomorrow. It is very late. Go home now, please,
before Uncle comes,” she said, trying to speak naturally yet
betraying her distress by the tremor of her voice and the sad
anxiety in her eyes.
“Yes, yes, I will go you are tired I’ll make it all right tomorrow.”
And as if the sound of his uncle’s name steadied him for an instant,
Charlie made for the door with an unevenness of gait which would
have told the shameful truth if his words had not already done so.
Before he reached it, however, the sound of wheels arrested him
and, leaning against the wall, he listened with a look of dismay
mingled with amusement creeping over his face. “Brutus has
bolted now I am in a fix. Can’t walk home with this horrid
dizziness in my head. It’s the cold, Rose, nothing else, I do assure
you, and a chill yes, a chill. See here! Let one of those fellows
there lend me an arm no use to go after that brute. Won’t Mother
be frightened though when he gets home?” And with that empty
laugh again, he fumbled for the door handle.
“No, no don’t let them see you! Don’t let anyone know! Stay here
till Uncle comes, and he’ll take care of you. Oh, Charlie! How
could you do it! How could you when you promised?” And,
forgetting fear in the sudden sense of shame and anguish that came
over her, Rose ran to him, caught his hand from the lock, and
turned the key; then, as if she could not bear to see him standing
there with that vacant smile on his lips, she dropped into a chair
and covered up her face.
The cry, the act, and, more than all, the sight of the bowed head
would have sobered poor Charlie if it had not been too late. He
looked about the room with a vague, despairing look, as if to find
reason fast slipping from his control, but heat and cold, excitement
and reckless pledging of many healths had done their work too
well to make instant sobriety possible, and owning his defeat with
a groan, he turned away and threw himself face-downward on the
sofa, one of the saddest sights the new year looked upon as it came
in.
As she sat there with hidden eyes, Rose felt that something dear to
her was dead forever. The ideal, which all women cherish, look
for, and too often think they have found when love glorifies a
mortal man, is hard to give up, especially when it comes in the
likeness of the first lover who touches a young girl’s heart. Rose
had just begun to feel that perhaps this cousin, despite his faults,
might yet become the hero that he sometimes looked, and the
thought that she might be his inspiration was growing sweet to her,
although she had not entertained it until very lately. Alas, how
short the tender dream had been, how rude the awakening! How