IN TWO CHAPTERS.—CHAPTER II.

When Earle arrived at the De Lacys' house next day at eleven o'clock by appointment, he was shewn into the library, where he found Miss Stirling alone, busy at needlework. She looked so particularly feminine both in occupation and expression, that Earle fancied the soft gray homespun and crimson ribbon more becoming even than her evening attire. Both were slightly embarrassed as she rose and gave him her hand.

'Where is my sitter?' Earle asked, retaining the slim hand in his a moment longer than necessary.

'Oh! you might as easily catch quicksilver as Mrs De Lacy,' said Silvia, smiling. 'She is in and out fifty times an hour. I believe she went to get ready for you.'

'Meantime, I want to ask you a favour,' Earle said, busy with his apparatus. 'I want you to be so very good as to let me have a sitting from you too. I have a board on purpose.'

'But how will you get time?' said Silvia, her colour deepening.

'Oh, I shall have plenty, I fancy, while my legitimate sitter is running in and out. I will keep one beside the other on the easel.'

'I do not wish it kept secret from her,' said Silvia, with the proud honesty of her nature.

'Certainly not; but I want to have your face, if you will let me. I will copy it—for your mother, if I may. Will you give me permission?'

'O yes,' she answered confusedly, 'if you care.'

'I do care,' he said in a low voice; and at that moment the little lady darted in, the tÊte-À-tÊte was broken, and Earle, with a sigh, resigned himself to his unpalatable task.

He painted as steadily as the volatile nature of his model permitted, though it is not an easy thing to make a picture, worthy the name, of a once pretty meaningless face that has lost the charm of youth without gaining the dignity of matronhood. But he was rewarded for his penance, for after a while Mrs De Lacy was summoned to some protÉgÉe; and then, with a delightful sense of relief, he put the unsatisfactory labour on one side, and placed instead a clean canvas on the easel.

'Now, Miss Stirling, if you will be so kind, will you take that seat and reward me for the tedious hour I have passed?'

Silvia complied with his request quietly, without any affectation.

The artist became soon deeply absorbed in trying to produce a faithful likeness of the face before him. It was not only the shape of the features, but the expression of the whole, he wished to catch—as much as it could be caught upon canvas.

'I cannot get the mouth to my mind,' said he, dreamily thinking aloud, as artists do. 'What gives it at once that expression, sweet, arch, firm?'

Silvia started up indignantly. 'Mr Earle! if I am to sit here, at least spare me that sort of remark. Do you think any woman in the world could sit still and bear to hear her face analysed?'

'Do forgive me,' he cried, really distressed. 'Indeed, I did not mean to be impertinent, but I feel I was. We get so in the habit of ignoring the personality of the faces before us, through having those stolid paid models to paint from. Please look like yourself again, and forgive me.'

'Well, so I do,' said the 'subject,' with a return of her usual frank sweetness. 'I daresay you think I ought to have got hardened; but I am only a woman, after all, you know.'

'You are indeed,' murmured the artist, as he tenderly touched the curve of the upper lip.

So sped the days Earle spent at the De Lacys', the mistress of the house fondly imagining that he was bent on doing her portrait the fullest justice. At last Earle could not pretend that Mrs De Lacy's portrait required many more touches. One day he said sadly enough, as he and Silvia were alone together: 'It's no use; this must come to an end. I can't keep up the delusion that I want more sittings; so I must bring to a close the happiest hours I ever spent in my life.'

'I am going home to-morrow,' Silvia observed, with her eyes down.

'Going home! are you? And you said I might call; do you remember? Will you ask me again?'

'To be sure you may come; why not?' Miss Stirling answered.

'I will try and look forward to that then, for I do feel dreadfully down in the mouth, I confess, at having come to the last of these pleasant hours—pleasant to me, I mean. I can't hope you have found so much to enjoy in them.'

'O yes,' said Silvia, speaking with frank friendliness; 'we have had a great deal of very interesting talk—when poor Mrs De Lacy was out of the room,' she added with a mischievous smile.

'It is like you and no other woman I ever knew to say so!' he said warmly. 'I want to ask you—I know you will tell me exactly the truth—do you feel now as if I could be a friend of yours?'

'If you care to have a friend in a woman who acts constantly in opposition to your cherished ideas.'

'I have altered many of my ideas since I knew you,' Earle said gravely; 'many, but not all. Still you are better, even when you are doing what I disapprove, than any woman I ever knew.'

'I am glad you tell me the truth,' said Silvia. 'It is the best preparation for friendship. But tell me, what do you disapprove of in me?'

Her face was so gentle and winning as she spoke that he was on the point of saying: 'Nothing in the whole world; only be just yourself;' but Mrs De Lacy came in at that moment, and the words were not spoken.

Wilfred left the house feeling more depressed than there was any reason for. 'What have I made up my mind to do?' he thought. 'I can no longer conceal from myself that I love this woman, who is almost the opposite of all I ever thought to love; and yet I feel a sort of dread in letting this lead me on. Shall we be happy together if she loves me? That is the question I cannot answer. I will wait to see her at home; and then, I suppose I must let "the great river bear me to the main," and take my chance of happiness with the rest.'

Mrs Stirling and three daughters—of whom our friend Silvia was the eldest—lived in a pleasant terrace about a mile from the De Lacys. They were well to do, though not rich, and lived a happy busy life; each having interests both separate and in common. They had many friends, and it was a pleasant sociable house to visit at. Mrs Stirling was still young in mind, and entered into all her daughters' pursuits and interests with active sympathy. One afternoon they were all together in the drawing-room—except the youngest daughter Marian, who had a studio near where she painted every day—when a double-knock was heard; by no means an uncommon sound, and yet somehow, lately, every knock seemed to startle Silvia and bring rather a vivid colour to her face. The servant brought in a card inscribed 'Mr Earle;' and that gentleman followed, with an outward appearance of great coolness, but some inward trepidation.

'Mother,' said Silvia quietly, rising and giving him a cordial hand, 'this is my friend, Mr Earle, of whom I spoke.'

'We are very glad to make your acquaintance, Mr Earle,' said Mrs Stirling, in the same cordial natural way, making room by the fire. 'Silvia told us what a successful portrait you made of her.'

Earle's glance round the room pleased his fastidious taste thoroughly. It was emphatically a lady's room, filled with pretty feminine things; and without being in the least untidy, was evidently a room to be lived in and to have 'good times,' as Silvia's compatriots say. Mrs Stirling too, whose tall elegant figure and frank manner were repeated in her daughter's, was a woman of marked refinement and culture. He found out this much in five minutes.

They had plenty to say to each other; the Stirlings seemed to read everything, and to have thought about most things; but there was nothing in the slightest degree pedantic or 'blue-stocking' in their talk. So the chat went on merrily—for Wilfred too was a man who could think—but without much help from Silvia, who was unusually silent. Tea was brought in presently; and as she took her place at the tray, Earle found his eyes constantly straying that way and watching her pretty graceful movements. The mother's keen eyes soon discovered the secret, and she turned her head to conceal an amused smile.

'I was nearly forgetting one of the objects of my call,' said the artist, after paying an unconscionably long visit. 'I brought a copy of Miss Stirling's portrait to offer for your acceptance. Shall I fetch it? I left it in the hall.'

The picture was brought in; and Mrs Stirling regarded it with exceeding interest.

'It is indeed beautifully done—beautifully!' she said. 'How Marian will enjoy it! It is only much too good for me. You have idealised my Silvia, Mr Earle.'

'Yes; it is shamefully flattered,' said Silvia.

'I don't think so at all!' Earle cried eagerly. 'I am sure it is not in the very least! One tries always of course to catch the best expression, the happiest moment.'

'Well, you must have caught it at a very happy moment,' said Mrs Stirling; and then she was vexed with herself, for she saw that her daughter was vexed. To change the subject, she observed: 'Silvia is going to another Suffrage Meeting on Monday, in ——'

This did very effectually change the subject. Earle felt a revulsion of feeling that was painful to a degree. 'Indeed,' he responded coldly. 'Will you be at home on Sunday?'

This question, uttered under a sudden impulse, took them all by surprise. He addressed the question directly to Silvia, whose confusion made her stammer out some half-formed words; but Wilfred was quite calm and master of the situation. 'I was going to ask—if Mrs Stirling allows Sunday visitors—if I might call on that day. I particularly want to see you before you go to ——. May I come on Sunday afternoon?'

Silvia had never before felt so utterly at a loss for a reply; but her mother came to the rescue with some polite words; and the artist almost immediately took leave.

'Well, my darling,' said the mother, breaking the pause his departure left. 'What do you think of all this?'

'Mother,' said Silvia with gentle decision, 'I want to ask you, to please me, not to allude to this again till after Sunday.'

On Sunday afternoon—a dull, cold, foggy day enough—Wilfred found his way again to Eaglemore Gardens. His mind was made up; and his handsome face looked a little set and stern as he paused at the door and asked quietly this time for Miss Stirling. The American custom seemed to him at that moment to be a most respectable one. What an amount of management and finessing it saved, for of course every one knew it was Silvia, and Silvia only, he wanted to see.

He was shewn into a small study; and in a few moments heard a dress rustle down the stair and rather a timid touch on the door-handle. As Silvia came in, Earle's face by the dull light looked to her hard and strange, which did not tend to quiet her nerves. She was very pale, and there was an appealing wistfulness in her eyes as she lifted them to his which went straight to his heart; but he gave no sign. He took her hand, pressed it, and gently placed her in an armchair, while he remained standing by the mantelpiece with his head down. Neither had yet spoken; both felt they were touching upon a period of their lives with which common forms had nothing to do. Silvia heard her heart thump, and the clock tick, with painful distinctness: she seemed all ear. All around seemed oppressive silence. At last Earle broke the silence: his voice had a deeper tone in it than usual, a resolutely suppressed passion vibrated in it.

'Silvia,' he said, 'I am going to speak the very truth to you—as one speaks not often in one's life—you have taken possession of me—against my will almost—I love you as I never loved woman before—I scarcely know myself how deeply. Speak the truth to me as I have done to you. Whether you love me or love me not, I shall never offer to any living woman what I offer to you, for mine is no boy's love. Speak to me, Silvia.'

'I will tell you nothing but the truth,' she said, forcing her voice to be steady. 'I do return your love, I believe I do—though I hardly seem to have shaped it out to myself yet—but'——

'Yes; there is a "but"—I know it. What is your doubt, Silvia? Do not I care for you enough?'

'I believe you do,' she answered softly. 'I believe you must love me very much, because I know it is against your own judgment. But my doubt is—shall we be happy? I know I am not the woman you would deliberately choose for a wife.'

Earle half laughed, though he was terribly in earnest. 'What man in love ever "deliberately chose" a woman for his wife?'

'But should I, could I indeed make you happy?' she said.

'Yes, darling,' he answered, melting into tenderness, and sinking by her chair. 'If you can love me enough to make some sacrifices for me.'

'I should never hesitate to sacrifice anything but duty to one I love,' she said, as he drew her to him.

'Ah, but people have mistaken ideas of duty, often! I want you now, this minute, to give up something I believe you think your duty.'

'What is that?' she asked, drawing away from him.

'I cannot bear to have the woman I love standing up in public to speak before a crowd of vulgar strangers,' he cried, almost fiercely. 'If you love me, Silvia, give this up for me!'

'You mean on future occasions, after we are—are'——

'No; I mean now, to-morrow: give up this meeting for me, to-morrow!'

'Impossible! I cannot. They are reckoning upon me, and I have promised'——

'You could easily excuse yourself.'

'I will make no false excuses,' cried Silvia with warmth. 'I admit my love for you—but I will never bind myself to what you may choose to demand. If we married, you might trust me to consider your wishes before my own, before everything but conscience; but I will not give way to this exaction—now. I cannot break my promise, and do what I feel to be wrong and cowardly; no, not to be the happiest woman upon earth! And do you think a marriage begun like that would be a happy one? No, no; better be sorry now than then.'

He got up and stood apart from her, gloomily. 'Then you will not? A woman like you is too advanced for the dear old traditions of love!'

'I will never marry a man who is ashamed of what his wife has done,' answered Silvia very low, but calmly.

'My old prejudice was a just one, after all,' said he, with a sigh. 'Good-bye.'

'Need we part so bitterly?' she said tremulously. 'May we not even be friends again?'

'Friends! It is the idlest folly talking of friendship, when one's heart is on fire with love. I could more easily hate you, Silvia, than only be your friend! Good-bye. God bless you, though you have tortured me. God bless you, Silvia.'

In another instant the front-door closed, and Silvia Stirling was alone with a breaking heart.

True to her word, she determined on going to —— the next day. She was looking and feeling wretchedly ill, but she would not give it up, and only stipulated that none but a maid should go with her to the station. It was Silvia's way to suffer in silence and alone. She took her ticket, and sank into a corner of an empty carriage with a heart aching to positive physical pain. To her annoyance a gentleman followed her in, and the train moved out of the station. She raised her listless mournful eyes and saw—Wilfred! She turned so white that he threw himself beside her, and in an instant had his arm about her.

'Why, why have you come?' she murmured with dry trembling lips. 'Cruel of you to torture me again!'

'My darling, it is not now to torture you that I have come—only for this—I can't live without you. I thought I could, but I can't. I have been so vexed with myself ever since we parted. Do you think you can forgive me, my sweet! and trust me with yourself after all?'

'Then you will let me—let me'——

'Let you be your own dear self? Yes, Silvia; I ask for nothing better. As long as we know and trust each other, what does it matter what all the world says? I will trust you, dear one. Can you trust me?'

For answer, Silvia put up her lips and met his in a first kiss. Nothing more was needed.

'I am going to shew you,' he said, after a delicious pause, 'that I can be superior even to my prejudices. I have come to take you to this meeting, and to steel myself, for your sake, to what I dislike as much as ever. I could not bear the thought of you alone and sad. I knew you would be.'

'This shall be the last time I do what you dislike,' she murmured softly.

'Don't promise anything,' he interrupted. 'I leave you absolutely free. We will work together and be, as you said, true friends as well as lovers. Are you happy now?'

The honest tender eyes answered the question for her.

Some months after, Mr Roberts received the following note from his old friend Wilfred Earle: