"I am afraid you will be grieved at mine," he replied gravely. "Look at this in to-day's Moon."
Sobered by his manner, she took the paper. Then her face grew white. She read, in large capitals:
"The Old Maids' Club.
"Interview with the President.
"Sensational3 Stories of Skittish4 Spinsters.
"Wee Winnie and Lillie Dulcimer."
"I called at the Old Maids' Club yesterday," writes a Moon woman, "to get some wrinkles, which ought to be abundant in such a Club, though they are not. Miss Dulcimer, the well-known authoress, is one of the loveliest and jolliest girls of the day. Of course I went as a candidate, with a trumped-up story about my unhappy past, which Miss Dulcimer will, I am sure, forgive me, in view of the fact that it was the only way of making her talk freely for the benefit of my readers."
Lillie's eye glanced rapidly down the collection of distortions. Then she dropped the Moon.
"This is outrageous," she said. "I can never forgive her."
"Why, is this the candidate you were telling me about?" asked Silverdale in deeper concern.
"I am afraid it is!" said Lillie, almost weeping. "I took to her so, we talked ever so long. Even Wee Winnie did not possess the material for all these inaccuracies."
"What is this woman's name?"
"Wilkins—I already called her Diana."
"Diana?" cried Silverdale. "Wilkins? Great heavens, can it be?"
"What is the matter?"
"It must be. Wilkins has married his Diana. It was Mrs. Diana Wilkins who called upon you—not Miss at all."
"What are you talking about? Who are these people?"
"Don't you remember Wilkins, the Moon-man that I was up in a balloon with? He was in a frightful5 quandary6 then about his approaching marriage. He did not know what to do. It tortured him to hear anyone ask a question because he was always interviewing people and he got to hate the very sound of an interrogation.—I told you about it at the time, don't you remember?—and he knew that marriage would bring into his life a person who would be sure to ask him questions after business hours. I was very sorry for the man and tried to think of a way out, but in vain, and I even promised him to bring the Old Maids' Club under the notice of his Diana. Now it seems he has hit on the brilliant solution of making her into a Lady Interviewer, so that her nerves, too, shall be hypersensitive to interrogatives, and husband and wife shall sit at home in a balsamic restfulness permeated7 by none but categorical propositions. Ah me! well, I envy them!"
"You envy them?" said Lillie.
"Why not? They are well matched."
"But you are as happy as Wilkins, surely."
"Query8. It takes two to find happiness."
"What nonsense!" said Lillie.
She had been already so upset by the treachery and loss of the misunderstood Diana, that she felt ready to break down and shed hot tears over these heretical sentiments of Silverdale's. He had been so good, so patient. Why should he show the cloven hoof9 just to-day?
"Miss Dolly Vane," announced Turple the magnificent.
A strange apparition10 presented itself—an ancient lady quaintly11 attired13. Her dress fell in voluminous folds—the curious full skirt was bordered with velvet14, and there were huge lace frills on the elbow-sleeves. Her hair was smoothed over her ears and she wore a Leghorn hat. There were the remains15 of beauty on her withered16 face but her eyes were wild and wandering. She curtseyed to the couple with old-fashioned grace, and took the chair which Lord Silverdale handed her.
Lillie looked at her inquiringly.
"Have I the pleasure of speaking to Miss Dulcimer?" said the old lady. Her tones were cracked and quavering.
"I am Miss Dulcimer," replied Lillie. "What can I do for you?"
"Ah, yes, I have been reading about you in the Moon to-day. Wee Winnie and Lillie Dulcimer! Wee Winnie! It reminds me of myself. They call me Little Dolly, you know." She simpered in a ghastly manner.
Lillie's face was growing pale. She could not speak.
"Yes, yes of course," said Silverdale smiling. "They call you Little Dolly."
"Little Dolly!" she repeated to herself, mumbling18 and chuckling19. "Little Dolly."
"So you have been reading about Miss Dulcimer!" said Silverdale pleasantly.
"Yes, yes," said the old lady, looking up with a start. "Little Lillie Dulcimer. Foundress of the Old Maids' Club. That's the thing for me, I thought to myself. That'll punish Philip. That'll punish him for being away so long. When he comes home and finds Little Dolly is an old maid, won't he be sorry, poor Philip? But I can't help it. I said I would punish him and I will."
All the blood had left Lillie's cheek—she trembled and caught hold of Lord Silverdale's arm.
"I shan't have you now, Philip," the creaking tones of the old lady continued after a pause. "The rules will not allow it, will they, Miss Dulcimer? It is not enough that I am young and beautiful, I must reject somebody—and I have nobody else to reject but you, Philip. You are the only man I have ever loved. Oh my Philip! My poor Philip!"
She began to wring20 her hands. Lillie pressed closer to Lord Silverdale and her grasp on his arm tightened21.
"Very well, we will put your name on the books at once," said the Honorary Trier, in bluff22, hearty23 tones.
Little Dolly looked up smiling. "Then I'm an old maid!" she cried ecstatically. "Already! Little Dolly an old maid! Already! Ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!"
She went off into a burst of uncanny laughter. Lord Silverdale felt Lillie shuddering24 violently. He disengaged himself from her grasp and placed her on the sofa. Then offering his arm to Miss Dolly Vane, who accepted it with a charming smile, and a curtsey to Miss Dulcimer, he led her from the apartment. When he returned Lillie was weeping half-hysterically on the sofa.
"My darling!" he whispered. "Calm yourself." He laid his hand tenderly on her hair. Presently the sobs25 ceased.
"Oh, Lord Silverdale!" she said in a shaken voice. "How good you are! Poor old lady! Poor old lady!"
"Do not distress26 yourself. I have taken care she shall get home safely."
"Little Dolly! how tragic27 it was!" whispered Lillie.
"Yes, it was tragic. Probably it is not now so sad to her as it is to us, but it is tragic enough, heaven knows. Lillie,"—he trembled as he addressed her thus for the first time—"I am not sorry this has happened. The time has come to put an end to all this make-believe. This Old Maids' Club of yours is a hollow mockery. You are playing round the fringes of tragedy—it is like warming your hands at a house on fire, wherein wretched beings are shrieking28 for help. You are young and rich and beautiful—Heaven pity the women who have none of these charms. Life is a cruel tragedy for many—never crueller than when its remorseless laws condemn29 gentle loving women to a crabbed30 and solitary31 old age. To some all the smiles of fortune, the homage32 of all mankind—to others all the frowns of fate and universal neglect, aggravated33 by contumely. You have felt this, I know, and it is as a protest that you conceived your club. Still can it ever be a serious success? I love you, Lillie, and you have known it all along. If I have entered into the joke, believe me, I have sometimes taken it as seriously as you. Come! Say you love me, too, and let us end the tragi-comedy."
Lillie was obstinately34 silent for a moment, then she dried her eyes, and with a wan17 little smile said, in tones which she vainly strove to render those of the usual formula: "What poem have you brought me to-day?"
"To-day I have brought no poem, but I have lived one," said Lord Silverdale, taking her soft unresisting hand. "But, like Lady Clara Vere de Vere, you put strange memories in my head, and I will tell you some verses I made in the country in my callow youth, when the world was new.
"PASTORAL.
"A rich-toned landscape, touched with darkling gold
Of misty35, throbbing36 corn-fields, and with haze37
Of softly-tinted hills and dreaming wold,
Lies warm with raiment of soft summer rays,
And in the magic air there lives a free
And subtle feeling of the distant sea.
"The perfect day slips softly to its end,
The sunset paints the tender evening sky,
The shadows shroud38 the hills with gray, and lend
A softened39 touch of ancient mystery,
And ere the silent change of heaven's light
I feel the coming glory of the night.
"O for the sweet and sacred earnest gaze
Of eyes divine with strange and yearning40 tears
To feel with me the beauty of our days,
The glorious sadness of our mortal years
The noble misery41 of the spirit's strife42,
The joy and splendour of the body's life."
Lillie's hand pressed her lover's with involuntary tenderness, but she had turned her face away. Presently she murmured:
"But think what you are asking me to do? How can I, the President of the Old Maid's Club, be the first recreant43?"
"But you are also the last to leave the ship," he replied, smiling. "Besides, you are not legally elected. You never came before the Honorary Trier. You were never a member at all, so have nothing to undo45. If you had stood your trial fairly, I should have plucked you, my Lillie, plucked you and worn you nearest my heart. It is I who have a position to resign—the Honorary Triership—and I resign it instanter. A nice trying time I have had, to be sure!"
"Now, now! I set my face against punning!" said Lillie, showing it now, for the smiles had come to hide the tears.
"Pardon, Rainbow," he answered.
"Why do you call me Rainbow?"
"Because you look it," he said. "Because your face is made of sunshine and tears. Go and look in the glass. Also because—well, wait and I will fashion my other reason into rhyme and send it you on our wedding morn."
"Poetry made while you wait," said Lillie, laughing. The laugh froze suddenly on her lips, and a look of horror overswept her face.
"What is it, dearest?" cried her lover, in alarm.
"Wee Winnie! How can we face Wee Winnie?"
"There is no need to break the truth to her—we can simply get rid of her by telling her she has never been elected, and never will be."
"Why," said Lillie, with a comic moue, "that would be harder to tell her than the truth. But we must first of all tell father. I am afraid he will be dreadfully disappointed at missing that inaugural soirée after all. You know he has been staying in town expressly for it. We have some bad quarters of an hour before us."
They sought the millionaire in his sanctum but found him not. They inquired of Turple the magnificent, and learned that he was in the garden. As they turned away, the lovers both simultaneously46 remarked something peculiar47 about the face of Turple the magnificent. Moved by a common impulse, they turned back and gazed at it. For some seconds they could not at all grasp the change that had come over it—but at last, and almost at the same instant, they realized what was the matter.
Turple the magnificent was smiling.
Filled with strange
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