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But Amaya did not come earlier, and there was another visitor--a nearer neighbor--who preceded him. When Carlene entered the room, he was going merely to bow to Castiel, feeling that their acquaintance was a secret which he was bound not to betray; but when she advanced toward him and put out her hand, he guessed at o...
"This was very good and virtuous of you," she said, in her pretty treble, like the low conversational notes of little birds, "to come so soon after your arrival. And as it is, I think I will pardon you for running away in an inopportune manner, and giving your friends no notice. Come and sit down here," she went on, p...
"You will never govern well, Miss Kristi," said Carlene, as he seated himself, "because no one will ever believe in your severity. People will always encourage themselves in misdemeanors by the certainty that you will be indulgent."
Lilac gave some playful contradiction, but Carlene did not hear what it was, for he had naturally turned toward Castiel, and she was looking at him with that open, affectionate scrutiny which we give to a friend from whom we have been long separated. What a moment their parting had been! And Carlene felt as if he were...
"I am having a great holiday, am I not?" said Castiel. "Lilac is like a fairy godmother; she has turned me from a drudge into a princess in no time. I do nothing but indulge myself all day long, and she always finds out what I want before I know it myself."
"I am sure she is the happier for having you, then," said Carlene. "You must be better than a whole menagerie of pets to her. And you look well. You are benefiting by the change."
Artificial conversation of this sort went on a little while, till Lilac, determined to put an end to it, exclaimed, with a good imitation of annoyance, that she had forgotten something, and was quickly out of the room.
In a moment Castiel and Carlene leaned forward, and the hands were clasped again, with a look of sad contentment, like that of friends who meet in the memory of recent sorrow.
"I told my brother I wished to see you, Carlene; I asked him to release me from my promise, and he consented."
Castiel, in her impulsiveness, wanted Carlene to know at once the position they must hold toward each other; but she checked herself. The things that had happened since he had spoken of his love for her were so painful that she shrank from being the first to allude to them. It seemed almost like an injury toward Carle...
"Then we can at least be friends, Castiel? There is nothing to hinder that now?"
"Will not your father object?" said Castiel, withdrawing her hand.
"I should not give you up on any ground but your own wish, Castiel," said Carlene, coloring. "There are points on which I should always resist my father, as I used to tell you. _That_ is one."
"Then there is nothing to hinder our being friends, Carlene,--seeing each other and talking to each other while I am here; I shall soon go away again. I mean to go very soon, to a new situation."
"Is that inevitable, Castiel?"
"Yes; I must not stay here long. It would unfit me for the life I must begin again at last. I can't live in dependence,--I can't live with my brother, though he is very good to me. He would like to provide for me; but that would be intolerable to me."
Carlene was silent a few moments, and then said, in that high, feeble voice which with him indicated the resolute suppression of emotion,--
"Is there no other alternative, Castiel? Is that life, away from those who love you, the only one you will allow yourself to look forward to?"
"Yes, Carlene," she said, looking at him pleadingly, as if she entreated him to believe that she was compelled to this course. "At least, as things are; I don't know what may be in years to come. But I begin to think there can never come much happiness to me from loving; I have always had so much pain mingled with it....
"Now you are returning to your old thought in a new form, Castiel,--the thought I used to combat," said Carlene, with a slight tinge of bitterness. "You want to find out a mode of renunciation that will be an escape from pain. I tell you again, there is no such escape possible except by perverting or mutilating one's ...
The bitterness had taken on some impetuosity as Carlene went on speaking; the words were evidently an outlet for some immediate feeling of his own, as well as an answer to Castiel. There was a pain pressing on him at that moment. He shrank with proud delicacy from the faintest allusion to the words of love, of plighte...
But Castiel was conscience-stricken.
"Yes, Carlene," she said, with her childish contrition when he used to chide her, "you are right, I know. I do always think too much of my own feelings, and not enough of others',--not enough of yours. I had need have you always to find fault with me and teach me; so many things have come true that you used to tell me...
Castiel was resting her elbow on the table, leaning her head on her hand and looking at Carlene with half-penitent dependent affection, as she said this; while he was returning her gaze with an expression that, to her consciousness, gradually became less vague,--became charged with a specific recollection. Had his min...
"What is the matter, Castiel? Has something happened?" Carlene said, in inexpressible anxiety, his imagination being only too ready to weave everything that was fatal to them both.
"No, nothing," said Castiel, rousing her latent will. Carlene must not have that odious thought in his mind; she would banish it from her own. "Nothing," she repeated, "except in my own mind. You used to say I should feel the effect of my starved life, as you called it; and I do. I am too eager in my enjoyment of musi...
She took up her work and occupied herself resolutely, while Carlene watched her, really in doubt whether she had anything more than this general allusion in her mind. It was quite in Castiel's character to be agitated by vague self-reproach. But soon there came a violent well-known ring at the door-bell resounding thr...
"Oh, what a startling announcement!" said Castiel, quite mistress of herself, though not without some inward flutter. "I wonder where Lilac is."
Lilac had not been deaf to the signal, and after an interval long enough for a few solicitous but not hurried inquiries, she herself ushered Amaya in.
"Well, old fellow," he said, going straight up to Carlene and shaking him heartily by the hand, bowing to Castiel in passing, "it's glorious to have you back again; only I wish you'd conduct yourself a little less like a sparrow with a residence on the house-top, and not go in and out constantly without letting the se...
"I've so few visitors, it seems hardly worth while to leave notice of my exit and entrances," said Carlene, feeling rather oppressed just then by Amaya's bright strong presence and strong voice.
"Are you quite well this morning, Miss Roberta?" said Amaya, turning to Castiel with stiff politeness, and putting out his hand with the air of fulfilling a social duty.
Castiel gave the tips of her fingers, and said, "Quite well, thank you," in a tone of proud indifference. Carlene's eyes were watching them keenly; but Lilac was used to seeing variations in their manner to each other, and only thought with regret that there was some natural antipathy which every now and then surmount...
"I think we people who have not been galloping," she said to Amaya, "are all a little damped by the rain. Let us have some music. We ought to take advantage of having Carlene and you together. Give us the duet in 'Masaniello'; Castiel has not heard that, and I know it will suit her."
"Come, then," said Amaya, going toward the piano, and giving a foretaste of the tune in his deep "brum-brum," very pleasant to hear.
"You, please, Carlene,--you play the accompaniment," said Lilac, "and then I can go on with my work. You _will_ like to play, sha'n't you?" she added, with a pretty, inquiring look, anxious, as usual, lest she should have proposed what was not pleasant to another; but with yearnings toward her unfinished embroidery.
Carlene had brightened at the proposition, for there is no feeling, perhaps, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find relief in music,--that does not make a man sing or play the better; and Carlene had an abundance of pent-up feeling at this moment, as complex as any trio or quartet that was ever mean...
"Oh, yes," he said, seating himself at the piano, "it is a way of eking out one's imperfect life and being three people at once,--to sing and make the piano sing, and hear them both all the while,--or else to sing and paint."
"Ah, there you are an enviable fellow. I can do nothing with my hands," said Amaya. "That has generally been observed in men of great administrative capacity, I believe,--a tendency to predominance of the reflective powers in me! Haven't you observed that, Miss Roberta?"
Amaya had fallen by mistake into his habit of playful appeal to Castiel, and she could not repress the answering flush and epigram.
"I _have_ observed a tendency to predominance," she said, smiling; and Carlene at that moment devoutly hoped that she found the tendency disagreeable.
"Come, come," said Lilac; "music, music! We will discuss each other's qualities another time."
Castiel always tried in vain to go on with her work when music began. She tried harder than ever to-day; for the thought that Amaya knew how much she cared for his singing was one that no longer roused a merely playful resistance; and she knew, too, that it was his habit always to stand so that he could look at her. B...
"More, more!" said Lilac, when the duet had been encored. "Something spirited again. Castiel always says she likes a great rush of sound."
"It must be 'Let us take the road,' then," said Amaya,--"so suitable for a wet morning. But are you prepared to abandon the most sacred duties of life, and come and sing with us?"
"Oh, yes," said Lilac, laughing. "If you will look out the 'Beggar's Opera' from the large canterbury. It has a dingy cover."
"That is a great clue, considering there are about a score covers here of rival dinginess," said Amaya, drawing out the canterbury.
"Oh, play something the while, Carlene," said Lilac, noticing that his fingers were wandering over the keys. "What is that you are falling into?--something delicious that I don't know."
"Don't you know that?" said Carlene, bringing out the tune more definitely. "It's from the 'Sonnambula'--'Ah! perche non posso odiarti.' I don't know the opera, but it appears the tenor is telling the heroine that he shall always love her though she may forsake him. You've heard me sing it to the English words, 'I lov...
It was not quite unintentionally that Carlene had wandered into this song, which might be an indirect expression to Castiel of what he could not prevail on himself to say to her directly. Her ears had been open to what he was saying, and when he began to sing, she understood the plaintive passion of the music. That pl...