The Second Fiddle Part 26

"Why not?" asked Eurydice, fiercely. "He's wonderful. He isn't like you--he works. He's like Napoleon, only he's always right, and _he_ hasn't asked her to be his permanent trained nurse!"

Julian had a theory that you cannot swear at women; so he caught the words back, and wondered what would happen if Eurydice said anything worse.

"Don't you think," he said after a pause, "that if you insulted me once every five minutes, and then took a little rest, we might finish quicker? I will admit that there is no reason why Stella shouldn't be in love with Mr. Travers except the reason that I have for thinking she's in love with me."

"Well, she isn't," a.s.serted Eurydice. "She's awfully fond of you, but it all started with her finding out that you were unhappier than she was.

She came to you to get over what she felt about Mr. Travers, and to free him to care for me; but he doesn't. That's how I found out; I asked him."

"The deuce you did!" exclaimed Julian. "Poor old Travers!"

Eurydice ignored this flagrant impertinence. She repeated Mr. Travers's exact words: "I cared for your sister, Miss Waring; I am not a changeable man."

"But I notice," said Julian, politely, "that this profession of Mr.

Travers's feelings which you succeeded in wringing from him does not include your sister's. I had already inferred from my slight knowledge of your sister that Mr. Travers was attached to her. The inference was easy."

"I hoped that myself," said Eurydice--"I mean, that she didn't care. I wrote and asked Cicely. She's my other sister; she hates me, but she's just. She doesn't know about you, of course. Would you like to see her letter?"

"It seems a fairly caddish thing to do, doesn't it?" asked Julian, pleasantly. "However, perhaps this is hardly the moment for being too particular. Yes, you can hand me over the letter." Julian read:

My dear Eurydice:

You ask if I think Stella cared for Mr. Travers. I dislike this kind of question very much. However, as you seem to have some qualms of conscience at last, you may as well know that I think she did. She's never had anything for herself. You've always taken all there was to take, and I dare say she thought Mr. Travers ought to be included. She never told me that she cared for him, but of course even you must know that Stella wouldn't do such a thing as that. She spoke during her illness of him once in a way that made me suspect what she was feeling, added to which I was sure that she was struggling against great mental pain, as well as physical. She evidently wanted to get away from the town hall and leave Mr.

Travers to you. You can draw your own inferences from these facts.

Stella would rather be dragged to pieces by wild horses than tell you any more; so, if I were you, I would avoid asking her.

Your affectionate sister,

CICELY.

"You did ask her, of course," said Julian, handing Eurydice the letter; "and as we are both acting in a thoroughly underhand way, perhaps you will not mind repeating to me Stella's reply."

"At first she didn't answer at all," said Eurydice, slowly, "and then when I asked her again she said; 'I'm not going to tell you anything at all about Mr. Travers. I came here to tell you about Julian, only you won't listen to me.' Then," said Eurydice, "she cried."

"Please don't tell me any more," said Julian, quickly, shading his eyes with his hand. "I should be awfully obliged if you'd go. I think you've said enough."

Eurydice also thought that she had said enough; so she returned with the satisfaction of one who has accomplished a mission, on the rest of Stella's pound.

CHAPTER XXVI

This is going to be my last love-letter to you, Stella. I wonder if you will know it is a love-letter. It won't sound particularly like one. It's to tell you that I can't go through with our marriage. I can't give you my reasons, and I can't face you without giving them to you. You must try to take my word for it that I am doing what I think best for both of us.

You see, I trust you to do what I want, though I know I am acting in a way that you'll despise. If you will think of what it means for me to act in such a way, you'll realize that I am pretty certain that I am right.

You are the best friend I ever had, man or woman, and I know you value my friends.h.i.+p, so that it seems uncommonly mean to take it away from you; and yet I'm afraid I can't be satisfied with your friends.h.i.+p.

It would honestly make me happier to hear that you were married; but I couldn't meet you afterward, and if you don't marry, I couldn't let you alone.

You see, I tried that plan when I didn't know you'd let me do anything else, and it can't be said to have worked very well, can it? It would be quite impossible now. There are two things I'd like you to remember. One is, if you set out, as I think you did, to heal a broken man, you've succeeded, and nothing can take away from your success. You put in a new mainspring. I am going to work now. Some day I'll finish the book, but not yet. The second thing is something I want you to do for me. I know I have no right to ask you! I'm only appealing to your mercy. Will you let my mother help you a little? I know you won't let me, but you would have let me, Stella. Think what that means to me--to know that you would have taken my help, and that by freeing you I am also, in a sense, deserting you. If you still want to make a man happier who has only been a nuisance to you, you can't say I haven't shown you the way.

I should like to give you Ostrog, but I suppose he'd be out of place in a town hall.

I'm not going to ask you to forgive me; for I'm not really sorry for anything except that there wasn't more of it and I'm never going to forget anything.

Good-by.

Your lover,

JULIAN.

Stella was in the middle of ironing the curtains when she received Julian's letter. Everything else was ready for his visit except the curtains.

Mrs. Waring was dressed. It had taken several hours, a needle and cotton, and all the pins in the house, and now she was sitting in a drawing-room which was tidier than any she had sat in since her early married life. She thought that it looked a little bare.

Professor Waring was in the Museum. He had become so restless after breakfast that it had seemed best to despatch him there, and retrieve him after Julian arrived.

Eurydice had not asked Mr. Travers for a morning off; she had merely conceded that she would allow Stella to arrange a subsequent meeting with Julian on Sunday, if it was really necessary.

Eurydice kissed Stella tenderly before she left the house to go to the town hall. She knew that she had saved her sister, but she foresaw for the victim of salvation a few painful moments. Even a kindly Providence may have its twinges of remorse.

Stella let the iron get cold while she was reading Julian's letter; but when she had finished it, she heated the iron again and went on with the curtains. They could not be hung up rough dried.

Mrs. Waring was relieved to hear that Julian was not coming. Stella told her at once, while she was slipping the rings on the curtains, which she had brought up-stairs. She added a little quickly, but in her ordinary voice:

"And we aren't going to be married, after all."

"Dear me!" said Mrs. Waring, trying not to appear more relieved still.

"Then there won't have to be any new arrangements. Marriage is very unreliable, too--it turns out so curiously unlike what it begins, and it even begins unlike what one had expected. I often wish there could be more mystical unions. I can't agree with dear Eurydice about the drawback of Julian's being rich. We are told that money is the root of all evil, but there is no doubt that it is more peaceful and refres.h.i.+ng to have it, as it were, growing under one's hand; and, after all, evil is only seeming. I think I'll just go up-stairs and take off these constricting clothes, unless, dear, you'd like me to help you in any way. You'll remember, won't you, that sensation is but the petal of a flower?"

Stella said that she thought, if she had the step-ladder, she would be all right.

The only moment of the day (it was curiously made up of moments prolonged to seem like years) when Stella wasn't sure whether she was really all right or not was when she heard Lady Verny's voice in the hall. Lady Verny's voice was singularly like Julian's.

Something happened to Stella's heart when she heard it; it had an impulse to get outside of her. She had to sit down on the top of the stairs until her heart had gone back where it belonged.

The drawing-room had gone to pieces again. The kitten's saucer was in the middle of the floor, and the plate-basket came half in and half out of the sofa-cover. Lady Verny was looking at it with fascinated eyes.

She had never seen a plate-basket under a sofa-cover before. Mrs.

Waring, exhausted by her hours of dressing, had gone to lie down. So there was only Stella. She came in a little waveringly, and looked at Lady Verny without speaking.

Lady Verny shot a quick, penetrating glance at her, and then held out her arms.

"My dear! what has he done? What has he done?" she murmured.

Stella led Lady Verny carefully away from the saucer of milk into the only safe arm-chair; then she sat down on a footstool at her feet.

"I thought," she said in a very quiet voice, "that you'd come, but I didn't think you'd come so soon. I don't know what he's done."