Читать книгу The Young Seigneur - W. D. Lighthall - Страница 27

During the next few days I could do nothing of interest to me but make prudent enquiries about Alexandra Grant. I remember an answer of Little Steele's "Ah—That is a beautiful girl!"

"You were beautiful, Alexandra!"

I caught glimpses of her on the street and in her carriage; memory marks the spots by a glow of light; they are my holy places. I saw her open her purse for a blind man begging on a church step. I watched her turn and speak politely to a ragged newsgirl. One day, when Quinet and I, coming down from College and seeing a little boy fall on the path, threw away our books and set him on his feet, it was her face of approval that beamed out of a carriage window on the opposite side of the street.

I was introduced to her at the Mackenzie's, at a toboggan party given for Lockhart, the son, my friend.

Shall I ever forget our slide on the toboggan hill and my emotions in that simple question, "Will you slide with me?"

I was already far into a grande passion—foolish and desperate.

She assented, stepped over to my toboggan kindly, sat down and placed her feet under its curled front. The crown of the hill about us was illumined by a circle of Chinese lanterns, and the moon, rising in the East, reflected a dim light on the fields of snow. I lifted the toboggan, gave the little run and leaped on at the end of the cushion, with my foot out behind to steer. Immediately we shot down the first descent, and as I straightened the course of the quick-flying leaf of maple wood, I felt it correspond as if intelligently. The second descent spurred our rate to an electric speed. As I bent forward, the snow flying against my face, the sound of sliding growing louder and shriller, and my foot demanding a sterner pressure to steer, a surge of exhilarating emotions suddenly rushed over me, and a thought cried "This is Alexandra! Alexandra whom you love."

"Alexandra!" my heart returned, "I am so near you!" Her two thick golden plaits of hair fell just before my eyes. She was sitting calm and straight. The toboggan shot on like a flash, and the drift beat fiercely in my eyes. But why should I heed? Away! Away! Leave everything behind us and speed thou out with me, love, into some region where I can reveal to thee alone this earnest soul which thou has awakened into such devotion!

Yet lo, our race slackening, the moment was even then over, and having carried us straight as an arrow, the toboggan undulated gracefully like a serpent over a little rising in the path and came to a stand. She rose. The light of the rising moon just enabled me to still catch the threaded yellow of her hair and the translucent complexion.

One had been following us closely. "Permit me—this next is ours, Miss

Grant," he said, hastening eagerly forward to her, and I saw it was

Quinet.

I marked the deference which every one, old and young, paid to her, and at the house afterwards I looked on while a boisterous knot were teaching her euchre.

"Change your ace," whispered Annie Lockhart, that pretty gambler.

"But," she replied aloud in her frank, innocent manner, "Wouldn't that be wrong?"

The words came to me with the force of an oracle.

"Let me bow my head," I thought, "My patron! My angel!" and as I looked upon her, passionate reverence overpowered me.

"What am I that I dare to love you and raise my eyes towards your pure light? I am not worthy to love you!"

"And you are so beautiful!"

As my meditations were pouring along in this absorbed way, a friend of ours, Grace Carter, a girl of the light, subtly graceful English type and a gay confidence of leadership, came across the room.

"O Mr. Haviland," she cried, "I've been watching your dolorous expression till I determined to learn how you do it!"

I half smiled at her, helplessly.

"It is thoroughly fifth-act. The young man looks that way when he marches around in the limelight moonlight contemplating the approach of the catastrophe. But what have you to do with catastrophes? Off the stage men only have that desperate look when they are in love. I trust you are safe, Mr. Haviland."

She looked so arch that I could not help a laugh, though the effect jarred on my mood.

"You will find me dull, I am afraid," I answered.

"That's of no consequence. Self-education is my mission. Believe me, I thirst for this knack of lugubriousness."

I would have resented the trifling at that moment from almost any person but Grace. She divined my discomfort, veered her questioning to College affairs, and detailed to me some amusing information on dances and engagements, to which I listened with what attention I could. But my eyes persisted in resting oftener and oftener on Alexandra, and some bread baked by her and Annie—a triumph of amateur housekeeping—being passed by the latter in pieces among the cake, I imagined that it tasted like the sacrament, and utterly lost track of what the merry girl was saying. She left me to flood out her spirits on a friend who was rising to go; whereupon I recollected myself.

Behold Quinet, poor fellow, Quinet is too earnest for Society. Some supercilious young creature has cut him to the quick for commencing a historical remark. Smarting under his rebuke he withdraws a step or two. A kind voice accosts him; it is Alexandra. "Come here and speak to me, Mr. Quinet. You always talk what is worth while." "To talk of what is worth while makes enemies," he answered bitterly: "I am thinking of giving it up." "You should not do that," she said. "If I were a man I would think of nothing but the highest things."

The night's sleep was broken by visions of her, as I had just seen her, so near, so fair. I tried to force my imagination into snatches of remembrance of her face as colored and clear-outlined as the reality—bearing the noble expression it had worn when she said "Would not that be wrong?"

How I sank into self-contempt by comparison!

I wonder if Englishmen feel the passion of love as we French do.

"I love her, I love her," was my burning ejaculation. "Yet how dare I love her! I am unworthy to stand in her presence! There is only left for me to purify and burn and subdue my heart until it is completely worthy of her holy sight. Worthy of her! And what is worthy of her?"

Again her presence passed before me and a voice seemed to cry "The highest things!"

Thenceforth "The highest things" should be my search, and nothing less.

My ambitions had advanced a second step.