a satisfied air.
The carriage came around again; and with the assistance of a maid, Sylvie, and her son, Mrs. Lawrence walked down stairs. He handed both ladies in, and seated himself opposite with the air of a prince.
Sylvie looked so bright and gay this morning, her velvety eyes full of tender light, her cheek all abloom with youth and health, the sweet scarlet lips half smiling, and her attire far enough removed from the rigor of fashion to have a kind of originality about it. She always wore something that added tone and brightness, – a bit of colored ribbon or a flower, or a bow that flashed out unexpectedly, as if greeting you with laughing surprise.
"What do you do to mother, Sylvie?" Fred asked, with a touch of complimentary curiosity in his voice. "Yesterday she was dull and moping. I could not persuade her to drive."
"It was so warm, no wonder. I felt dull and drowsy myself. But to-day is the perfection of loveliness."
"And you have a charm, Sylvie. I do not know but it is your perfect, buoyant health. You seem to lift one up. I only wish I could keep you all the time," remarked Mrs. Lawrence with a touch of longing.
Sylvie colored, and averted her eyes: then she gave herself a kind of mental shaking, and resolutely glanced back, uttering some rather trite remark. She would not suspect or understand.
They came home again, and had lunch: then, while Mrs. Lawrence was taking her siesta, Fred carried off Sylvie to his study. It was luxuriously beautiful. Several gems of pictures adorned the wall, which had been newly frescoed to suit his fancy. Easy chairs lured one to test their capacious depth, some exquisitely-bound books were arranged in a carved and polished case, and the table was daintily littered with papers. He had an idea that a man's surroundings were a very fair index to his character and tastes, quite forgetting that it implied length of purse as well.
He made spasmodic attempts at literary work. Abstruse essays were begun under the impression that he had something brilliant and original to say, but before they were finished a new train of thought led him captive. He dreamed delicately sensuous dreams, lapped in luxurious idleness, the rooms stifling with odorous hot-house flowers. He went clothed in soft raiment, he sunned himself in languid seas of imagination, and was too indifferent to concentrate his powers upon any great faith or belief, or even emotion. He had a contempt for cheap and plain belongings, as leaning insensibly to vitiation of taste. Nothing modern met his approbation. The old-time philosophies won him with their subtile flavor. He could propound his theories eloquently, but they did not touch him deeply enough to rouse him into action of any kind. All that his education and culture had done for him so far was to develop an incapacity for any regular, wholesome work that would be of the slightest use to any human being.
Something of this passed through Sylvie's mind as she sat there. This handsome and stalwart lily of the valley, with no desire for toiling, and no ability for spinning, would be content to drift and dawdle through life on his father's money. At that moment he was more contemptible to her than Irene, winning lovers by the score, and casting them aside with no more compunction than if they were the litter of faded flowers.
After all, why should she care if he did not reach her standard of moral and intellectual excellence, of that knightly chivalry whose rallying-cry was, "God and my fellow-men!" Why should she desire to rouse him from that complacent ease and fastidiousness, brought about by wealth, and the certainty of no need of effort on his part? Surely she was no modern apostle carrying around the watchword of work.
Yet somehow – if all the subtile forces running to waste in both him and Jack could be galvanized into earnest, active life; if the sturdy, wholesome thought of the one could be mated with the clear, crisp training of the other; if both could have the wide outlook beyond material wants and comforts! It fretted her.
Yet these two, sitting here on this peerless summer day, skimmed over wide fields like gay butterflies. She could not be in earnest with him. Just when she was roused and warm, he seemed to lift her by some flight of eloquence, and waft her to his realm of fancy. It annoyed her to find he had that much power over her.
It must be admitted that when Fred Lawrence willed, he could be extremely fascinating. Women yielded gracefully, nay, eagerly, to his sway; and much delicate flattery had their eyes and lips fed him upon. Sylvie piqued him a trifle by her utter unconcern – or was it the fine instinct of coquetry inherent in feminine nature?
There was no telling what this queer, bright, unconventional little thing might do if left to herself. A good marriage would prove her salvation. She had many womanly possibilities: yet, with all due deference to Miss Barry and her old blue blood, Sylvie might overstep the bounds, and take up some of the reforming projects so dear to elderly spinsters. As Mrs. Fred Lawrence she would be held regally above them, and could depute her charitable work to her aunt.
In justice to the man, it must be confessed that Sylvie's dainty, piquant loveliness stirred his soul; and, if self had not been so intense a centre, he might have been ardently in love, or clearer-sighted. Much of the time her demeanor toward him was coldly indifferent: yet the misfortune was, her interest in all things kindled so easily that she could not, at a moment, change to him. Her moods of reticence and shy evasion added a flavor to the cup. With a man's egregious vanity, he jumped at the conclusion that these little intangible things signified love.
One day Sylvie stumbled over Irene. She came flying up stairs with some choice nectarines for Mrs. Lawrence, a kind that seemed only to reach perfection in Miss Barry's old-fashioned garden. There sat Irene, superb, nonchalant.
"Oh, you little darling!" clasping her, and pinching the peach-bloom cheek. "I am so glad to have a glimpse of you; for mamma has sung your praises until I ought to be jealous, but out of my boundless generosity I still smile upon you. No need to ask how you are, but one may inquire after your aunt?"
"Miss Barry is quite well," Sylvie said with some constraint, remembering their last parting.
Irene had honestly forgotten it. She laughed now, a low, ringing, melodious laugh.
"Why, it is quite a treat to see you open wide your sunrise eyes. I have taken everybody by surprise, and enjoy it immensely. Gerty and I are off to fresh fields and pastures new, and home came right in my way. Sylvie, you are a good little creature to come and amuse mamma when her own lovely and amiable daughter is racing after the pomps and vanities of this naughty world. Sit down;" and she made room on the sofa beside herself. "Don't let such a frivolous creature as I turn you from the post of duty."
"I did not come to stay," Sylvie answered rather stiffly.
"As if the intention were cast in adamant! Oh! why is not Fred here to use his persuasive tongue?"
There was a peculiar laughing light in Irene's eye that annoyed Sylvie, for it seemed to indicate a secret knowledge.
"I can stay just half an hour," was the reply in a decisive tone. "At eleven I take my lesson in painting. – Aunt wanted you to have these, Mrs. Lawrence, in their first bloom of ripeness."
"They are delightful. A thousand thanks to both of you, my dear."
"And you really manage to exist in this dull place, Sylvie! You are a miracle of content," interposed Irene.
"I have not come near dying yet," was the rather dry rejoinder.
"You need not be so curt and sharply sweet, my dear. Here I have been listening to marvellous accounts of your amiability and devotion" —
"Don't, Rene!" implored her mother. "Sylvie is good to me."
"And it might make the sweetness weak if she stretched it out to me! Keep it intact for those who
