place; and Van tossed the end of his cigar exultingly into the fire. Then he rose and stretched himself like a veritable son of Anak, when
“Stalwart they court the rapture of the fight.”
“I have it, by George!” he cried. “I’ll get the poor fellow out of this box, if the old girl did induce him to pop, and accepted him out of hand! Andy! I say, Andy, wake up!” and he ran into his chum’s room, dragged him out of bed, and had him at the fire, before he was well awake.
Mr. Andrew Browne was no longer in a mood even approaching the jubilant. He had utterly forgotten the secret per esser felice, during his two hours’ nap. He confessed to a consuming desire for Congress-water, and made use of improper words upon finding only empty bottles, aggravating in reminiscence of it, in the carved ebony sideboard.
Finally he sat down, with his head in his hands, and told his story dismally enough.
Miss Rose Wood’s carriage had been dismissed, as per programme. Andy had led the German with her, and a bottle of champagne at his side. He had walked home with her; had told her – in what wild words he knew not – that he loved her; and had been, as Van had surmised, “accepted out of hand.”
“And, Van, I’m bound, as a man of honor, to marry her!” finished the now thoroughly dejected fiancé. “Yes, I know what you’d say; it is a pretty rum thing to do; but then she mustn’t suffer for my cursed folly!”
“Suffer? Rose Wood suffer for missing fire one time more?”
Surprise struggled with contempt in the exclamation Morris shot out by impulse.
“But, if she loves me well enough to engage – ” Andy began, rather faintly; but his mentor cut him short.
“Love the d —deuce!” he retorted. “Why, she’s a beggar and a husband-trap!”
“But her family? What will they think?” pleaded Andy, but with very little soul in the plea.
“Poor little Blanche!” muttered Morris, half to himself. “Bah! the girl has no heart!”
“Blanche?” echoed Van, in a dazed sort of way. “Why, you don’t suppose Blanche will know it! I never thought of her!” and he rose feebly, and stood shivering in his ghostly attire.
“Why, of course, Rose Wood couldn’t keep such great news. Why, man, you’re the capital prize in the matrimonial lottery; but hang me if Miss Wood shan’t draw another blank this time!”
There was a compound of deadly nausea and effortful dignity in the elbows Mr. Andrew Browne leaned upon the mantel, which hinted volumes for what his face might have said, had it been visible through the fingers latticed over it.
“I am a gentleman,” he half gasped. “It may be a trap; but I’ll keep my word, and —marry her, unless – unless, Van, you get me out of it!”
“Go to bed, you spoon!” laughed his friend. “I have the whole plan cut and dried. I’ll teach you your lesson as soon as you sleep yourself sober.”
Morris stood many minutes by the bedside of his quickly-sleeping friend; but, when he turned into the parlor again, his face was pale and stern.
“The way of the world, always,” he said aloud. “One inanely eager, another stupidly backward. ‘Fools rush in where angels fear to tread!’ Poor boy! he’d give as much to-morrow to unsay his words as I would to have spoken those I nearly said last night!”
The chill gray dawn outside was wrestling at the windows for entrance with the sickly glaring gas-light within. Morris drew aside the heavy curtains and pressed his forehead against the frost-laced pane. Long he looked out into the gray haze with eyes that saw nothing beyond his own thoughts. Then he turned to the fire again. The gray ash was hiding the glow of the spent coals. Then he took up the glass once more and looked earnestly at the contrasted flowers it held. He replaced it almost tenderly, and walked slowly to his own room.
“Yes, I know myself,” he said; “I think I know her. I’ll hesitate no longer; some fool may ‘rush in.’ To-morrow shall settle it. The tough old Scotchman was right:
‘He either fears his fate too much,
Or his deserts are small,
That dares not put it to the touch
To gain or lose it all!’”
That same afternoon, at two o’clock, Mr. Vanderbilt Morris’s stylish dog-cart, drawn by his high-spirited bays, drew up at Miss Rose Wood’s domicile. Holding the reins sat Mr. Andrew Browne, beaming as though Chambertin had never been pressed from the grape; seemingly as fresh as though headache had never slipped with the rest out of Pandora’s box.
But it may have been only seemingly; for, faultlessly attired from scarf-pin to glove tips, Andy was still a trifle more uneasy than the dancing of his restless team might warrant in so noted a whip as he. A queer expression swept over his handsome face from time to time; and, as he came to a halt, he glanced furtively over his shoulder, as though fearing something in pursuit.
“Ask Miss Rose if she will drive with me,” he said hurriedly to the servant. “Say I can’t get down to come in; the horses are too fresh.”
Then the off-horse danced a polka in space, responsive to deft tickling with the whip.
Miss Wood did not stand upon ceremony, nor upon the order of her going, but went at once to get her wraps.
“Better late than never,” she said to herself, as she dived into a drawer and upset her mouchoir case in search for a particular handkerchief. “I really couldn’t comprehend his absence and silence all day – but, poor boy! he’s so young!” And then Miss Rose, as she tied a becoming cardinal bow under her chin, hummed two bars of “The Wedding March” through the pins in her mouth.
Two minutes later saw her seated on the high box beside her future lord in posse; the bays plunging like mad and Andy swinging to the reins as if for life. For, before she could speak one word – and for no reason to her apparent – he had let the limber lash drop stingingly across their backs.
Very keen was the winter wind that swept by her tingling ears; and Miss Wood raised her seal-skin muff and hid her modest blushes from it. For that gentle virgin had ever a familiar demon at her elbow. His name was Experience; and now he whispered to her: “A red nose never reflects sentiment!”
“And he is so particular how one looks,” Miss Rose whispered back to the familiar; and her tip-tilted feature sought deeper protection in the furs.
At length, when well off the paved streets, the mad rush of the brutes cooled down to a swinging trot – ten miles an hour; Browne’s tense arms relaxed a trifle; and he drew a long, deep breath – whether of relief, or anxiety, no listener could have guessed. But he kept his eyes still rooted to that off-horse’s right ear as though destiny herself sat upon its tip.
Then, for the first time, he spoke; and he spoke with unpunctuated rapidity, in a hard, mechanical tone, as though he were a bad model of Edison’s latest triumph, and some tyro hand was grinding at the cylinder.
“Miss Rose,” he began, “we are old friends – never so old; but I can never sufficiently regret – last night!”
He felt, rather than
