Vashti Part 45

Miss Jane listened to her brother's homily with a half-smile lurking about the puckered corners of her eyes and mouth, and putting her finger in the b.u.t.ton-hole of his coat, drew him closer to her, as they sat together on the sofa.

"How long since you took the tribe of widows under your special protection?"

"Since the moment, that, owing to some inexplicable freak, my dear Janet suffered 'evil communications to corrupt' her 'good manners,'

and absolutely forgot to be just and generous."

He kissed his sister and rose, but the troubled look that settled once more on his countenance did not escape her observation.

"Ulpian, is Mrs. Gerome very ill?"

"Yes, I am exceedingly unhappy about her. She is dangerously ill with a low, nervous, fever that baffles all my remedies."

Dr. Grey walked up and down the room, and Miss Jane pressed her spectacles closer to her nose, and watched him.

"If the poor woman leads such a lonely, miserable life, I should think that death would prove a blessed release to her. Of course it is natural and reasonable that you should desire to save all your patients, but why are you so very unhappy about her?"

He did not answer immediately, and when he spoke his deep tone was tremulous with fervent feeling.

"Because I find that she is dearer to me than all the other women in the world, except my sister; and her death would grieve me more than any trial that has yet overtaken me--more than you can realize, or than I can express."

He took Miss Jane's face in his hands, kissed her, and left the room.

Meeting Muriel and Salome in the hall, the former seized his arm, and exclaimed,--

"You shall not leave home again! Let me tell Elbert to put up your buggy. If you continue to work yourself down, as you are now doing, you will be prematurely old, and gray, and decrepit. Come into the parlor, and let me play you to sleep."

"I heartily wish I could follow your pleasant prescription, but duty is inexorable, and knows no law but that of obedience."

"Must you sit up to-night? Is that poor lady no better?"

"I can see no improvement, and must remain until I do."

"You are afraid that she will die?"

"I hope that G.o.d will spare her life."

His serious tone awed Muriel, who raised his hand to her lips, and murmured,--

"My dear doctor, I wish I could help you. I wish I could do something to make you look less troubled."

"You can help me, little one, by being happy yourself, and by aiding Salome in cheering my sister, while I am forced to spend so much time away from her. Good evening. Take care of yourselves till I come home."

Humming a bar of a Genoese barcarole, Muriel ran up stairs to join her governess; but Salome turned and followed the master of the house to the front door.

"Dr. Grey, can I render you any a.s.sistance at 'Solitude'?"

"Thank you,--the time has pa.s.sed when you might have aided me. Two weeks ago, when I requested you to go with me, Mrs. Gerome was rational and would have yielded to your influence, but now she is delirious and you could accomplish nothing. The servants are faithful and attentive, and can be trusted during my absence to execute my orders."

A bright flush rose to Salome's temples, and her eyes drooped beneath his, so anxious and yet so calmly sad.

"At the time you spoke to me I could not go, but now I really should be glad to accompany you. Will you take me?"

"No, Salome."

"Your reason, Dr. Grey?"

"Is one whose utterance would pain you, consequently I trust you will pardon me for withholding it."

"At my own peril, I demand it."

"The motive which prompts your offer precludes the possibility of my acceptance."

"How dare you sit in judgment on my motives? You who prate and homilize of charity! charity! and who quote the 'golden rule' solely for the edification and guidance of those around you. Example is more potent than precept, and we are creatures of imitation. Suppose I should question the disinterestedness of your motives in allowing one patient to monopolize your attention to the detriment of the remainder? Of course you would be shocked and think me presumptuous, for one's sins and follies often play hide and seek, and sometimes we insult our own pet fault when we find it housed in some other piece of flesh."

"Good night, Salome. I shall endeavor to forget all this, since I am too sincerely your friend to desire to set your hasty words in the storehouse of memory."

He looked down pityingly, sorrowfully, into her angry imperious eyes, and sudden shame smote her, making her cheeks glow and tingle as if from the stroke of an open hand.

"Dr. Grey, wait one moment! Let me say something, that will show,--that will--"

"Only make matters worse. No, Salome, I have little time for trifling, still less for recrimination, none at all for dissimulation; and, in your present mood, the least we can say will prove the most powerful for good."

He went down to his buggy, but stopped and reflected; and fearing that he might have been too harsh, he turned and approached her, as she stood leaning against one of the columns of the gallery.

"Do not think me rude. I am not less your friend than formerly, though I am anxious, and doubtless appear preoccupied. Let us shake hands in peace."

He extended his own, but the girl stood motionless, and the remorseful anguish and humiliation of her uplifted face touched his heart.

"Dr. Grey, if you really forgive and forget, prove it by taking me to 'Solitude.'"

"Do not ask what you well know I have quite determined it is best that I should not grant."

The spark leaped up lurid as ever, in her dilating eyes.

"You take this method to punish me for my refusal to comply with your wishes a fortnight since?"

"I have neither the right nor inclination to punish you in any respect, and you must pardon my inability to accede to a request which my judgment does not approve. Good-by."

He put his hand into his pocket, and left her; and while she stood irresolute and disappointed, a servant summoned her to Miss Jane's presence.

"Can I do anything for you?" asked the orphan, observing the cloud on the old lady's brow.

"Yes, dear; sit down here and talk to me. I feel lonely, now that Ulpian is away so constantly. He seems very uneasy about that woman at 'Solitude,' and I never saw him manifest so much anxiety about any one. By the by, Salome, tell me something concerning her."

"I have already told you all I know of her."

"Wherein consists her attractiveness?"