overlooked all that was best and nearest at hand. What need for her to scrape together a reluctant tale of what had been? for was not the future her own? Why rely for assistance upon this or that suspicious and unsatisfactory witness? What more trustworthy one could she find than herself? Suppose Bressant never to have done any thing that could make him unworthy of Sophie, was that a bar against his doing something in the future?
Yes; she had power over him, and would use it. She herself would be the means and the cause for attaining the end at which she aimed. She would be the accomplice of his indiscretion, and thus obtain over him a double advantage. No matter how intrinsically trifling the indiscretion might be, it would be just such a one as would be sure to weigh heavily in the balance of Sophie's pure judgment. So plain would this be to Bressant himself, that Cornelia would be able to rule him (as she argued) merely with the threat of accusation. And, since his desertion of Sophie would appear to her causeless, the indignation she would feel thereat would save her from repining. Cornelia would have him all to herself!
Well! and what would she do with him when she had him? She did not stop to consider. Nor, going on thus from step to step, did she have a sense of the hideousness of the wrong she contemplated.
CHAPTER XXV.
ANOTHER INTERMISSION.
It was something of a surprise to Bressant, after his interview with Cornelia, that she still continued to avoid him. But, after what she had said to him, to set his mind at rest regarding the spirit and manner of their intercourse, she felt an intuition that it would be as well he should believe that she herself was not over-anxious to be on any terms with him whatever.
Still, he often saw her, and always carried away a charming impression of what he saw. Once, she had mounted a chair in the library, and was in the act of reaching down a book from a high shelf, when he entered unexpectedly. She turned, caught his eye, and dimpled into a mischievous smile. All day he could not drive the picture out of his head--the bounteous, graceful form, the heavy, dark, lustreless hair, the fascinating face, and the smile. He had but just left Sophie, yet the fine chords she had struck in him were drowned in Cornelia's sensuous melody.
Again, one day, coming into the house, he chanced to enter the parlor, and there sat Cornelia, in an easy-chair, her feet stretched out upon a stool, fast asleep. He came close up to her, and stood looking. What artist could ever have hoped to reproduce the warmth, glow, and richness of color and outline? He watched her, feeling it to be a stolen pleasure, yet a nameless something, surging up within him, compelled him to remain. In another moment--who can calculate a man's strength and weakness?--he might have stooped to kiss her, with no brother's kiss! But, in that moment, she awoke, and perhaps surprised his half-formed purpose in his eyes.
She was too clear-headed to regret having awaked, for she saw that he regretted it. And, because he did not venture, she being awake, to take the kiss, she knew he was no brother, and knew not what it was to be one. So she put on a look of annoyance, and told him petulantly to go about his business. Off he went, and passed his hour with Sophie, who was as lovely, as fresh, and as purely transparent as ever. But some turbid element had been stirred in Bressant's depths, which spoiled his enjoyment for that day, making him moody and silent.
Such little incidents--there were many of them--were far too simple and natural to be the work of deliberation and forethought. But Cornelia was disposed to use them, when they did occur, to her best possible advantage, and therefore they acquired potency to affect Bressant. She wished that to be, which he had not stamina enough to oppose: thus a subtle bond was established between them, lending a significance to the most ordinary actions, such as could never have been recognized between indifferent persons.
This was all progress for Cornelia, and she well knew it, and yet she was not at ease nor satisfied. She began to find out that it was no such light matter to usurp the place of such a woman as Sophie, though the latter was laboring under the great disadvantage of being ignorant of the plot against her. In most cases, indeed, the attempt would have been wellnigh hopeless, but Cornelia had two exceptionally powerful allies--her own supreme beauty, and Bressant's untrained and ill-regulated animal nature, which he had not yet learned to understand and provide against. And there was another thing in her favor, too, although she knew it not--the demoralizing effect upon the young man's character--of his failure to fulfil his agreement with the professor. The evils that are in us link themselves together to drag us down, their essential quality being identical, whatever their particular application.
Nevertheless, time went on, and November had stalked shivering away before the frosty breath of December, and still Cornelia had accomplished nothing definite; nay, she scarcely felt sufficiently sure of her footing to attempt any thing. And what was it that she was to attempt? On looking this question in the face, at close quarters--it wanted less than four weeks now of that wedding-day which Cornelia had promised herself should see no wedding!--when she found herself pressed so peremptorily as this for an answer, it might be imagined that she turned pale at what was before her. And, indeed, the prospect, viewed in its best light, was discouraging and desperate enough. For at what price to herself must success be bought, and at what sacrifice be enjoyed? She must either lose, or deserve to lose, all that a woman ought to hold most sacred and most dear--home, the esteem and love of friends, the protection of truth, and, above all, and worst of all, her own self-respect. All these in exchange for a baffled, angry, selfish man, at whose mercy she would be, with only one word to speak in self-defense and justification; and it was much to be feared that he would, considering the circumstances, reject and scoff at even that. The one word was--she loved him! and, if there be any redeeming virtue in it, let her, in Heaven's name, have the benefit thereof. She can rely on nothing else.
But Cornelia would not be disheartened. If she saw the rocks ahead, against whose fatal shoulders she was being swept--if she heard, dinning in her ears, the rush and roar of the headlong, irresistible rapids--if her eyes could penetrate the void which opened darkly beyond--she only nerved herself the more resolutely, her glance was all the firmer, her determination the more unfaltering.
The peril in which she stood but kindled in her heart a fiery depth of passion, such as overtopped and tamed the very terrors of her position. Because she must lose the world to gain her end, that end was exalted, in her thought, above a hundred worlds. The faculties of her soul, which, in her time of innocence and indifference, had been dormant--half alive--now sprang at once into an exalted, fierce vitality. The hour of evil found Cornelia a creature of far higher powers and more vigorous development than she could ever, under any other conditions, have attained. She showed most gloriously and greatly, when illuminated by that lurid light whose flame was fed by all that was most gentle, womanly, and sweet within her. She looked nearest to a goddess, when she needed but one step to be transformed into a demon.
In following out her psychological progress, we have necessarily outstripped, to some extent, the sober pace of the narrative. It was about the first of December that rumors began to be circulated in the village of an approaching ball at Abbie's. It was to be the grandest--the most complete in all its appointments--of any that ever had been given there. It was looked upon, in advance, as the great event of the year. Real, formal invitations were to be sent out, printed on a fold of note-paper, with the blank left for the name, and "R.S.V.P."--whatever that might mean--in the lower left-hand corner. There were to be six pieces in the band; dancing was to be from eight to four, instead of from seven to twelve, as heretofore; and the toilets, it was further whispered, were to be exceptionally brilliant and elaborate. Certain it was that dress-making might have been seen in progress through the windows of any farm-house within ten miles; and at the Parsonage no less than elsewhere.
Sophie had an exquisite taste in costume, though her ideas, if allowed full liberty, were apt to produce something too fanciful and eccentric to be fashionably legitimate. But, let a dress once be made up, and happy she whose fortune it was to stand before Sophie
