Chapter XXIX: True Love Is Eternal

She thought she could soon get rid of him outdoors.

They would be sure to see people they knew, so that they would become mixed up in general conversation, to the exclusion of the sad subject that engrossed his mind--the anniversary of Maisie’s supposed death.

Then presently she could feign weariness and ask him to take her back to the house. She could bid him good-by at the door, and all would be over, for it would be easy enough to persuade the Warrens to leave here to-morrow.

But Barrington paid no attention to other people; he devoted himself to his lovely companion.

“I beg your pardon for choosing so sad a subject for conversation,” he said. “I will try to make amends now. Will you come with me for a row on the lake? Or are you afraid, after your accident?”

“Oh, no; I am not afraid,” she replied, and they were soon skimming over the blue lake together, beneath the beautiful Italian sky.

As they sauntered down to the shore a man had nodded and asked him:

“How is the lieutenant feeling to-day?”

Barrington nodded back and replied:

“Thank you; he is a little more cheerful than yesterday, and his wound not so painful.”

Maisie quickly guessed that it was the invalid who had come with Barrington, but, engrossed in her own troubles, she took no notice, and Barrington, who had felt a sudden impulse to tell her the story of his brother, forebore to do so, thinking:

“She has already chided me for harping on sad themes, so I will try to be cheerful.”

And as he handed her into the boat he resolved to put away his sad thoughts, and bent himself to the task of amusing the lovely girl. It was impossible to forget Maisie, indeed, in the presence of one so like her; but his new acquaintance was charming enough to lull grief into forgetfulness after a while.

She responded eagerly to his efforts at being amusing. The smiles came readily to her lips, the brightness to her eyes. He chose impersonal subjects, drew her out, and made her talk of her short stage career. He soon found that her heart was not in it; that she had adopted it merely as a means to make a livelihood.

“And I’m not a star, you know. I play only simple parts, and my salary is very small. I shall never get rich by my theatrical talents, more’s the pity, for I covet riches,” she admitted frankly.

“You will be sure to marry rich,” he assured her confidently.

Maisie shook her head.

“Never!”

“Why not?”

“I should only marry for love, if I ever married!--and--somehow--the rich suitor is usually the one you cannot love!”

She was thinking of Kingwood, but she saw Barrington wince, and knew that the chance shot had pierced his thin armor.

A great remorse instantly seized upon her at sight of his rueful face, and she exclaimed:

“I take that back! It is not wholly true, after all!”

He regarded her attentively, and his hurt look made her go on:

“I’ll let you read a leaf of my secret history. Once upon a time I--I--was tenderly beloved by a very rich man.”

“Well?” he cried eagerly, and she continued:

“I refused his hand as well, because I fancied I was in love with another--but soon afterward I found that the object of my love was quite unworthy, while the rich man I had refused appeared to me in quite a new light, grand and noble, and worthy of all love, so that my heart went out to him--caught in the rebound, as it were--and I made up my mind to win him back!”

“Well?” Barrington cried again with interest; and she answered heavily:

“But when I returned to the place where he lived he had forgotten me--and married another!”

He gave a great start.

“Impossible!”

“I assure you that it is perfectly true!”

“Then he could never have really loved you!” he exclaimed.

But Maisie answered pensively:

“I should hate to believe that, for I find a sorrowful pleasure now in believing that he loved me once.”

“My dear Miss Summers, there is no such thing as ‘loved once.’ The heart once really given can never be taken back. Even after death it must love on truly as before, and anything less is but the base counterfeit of love.”

“Then he never loved me at first. I have not even that poor comfort,” she sighed, and her beautiful eyes seemed to look through him with a keen reproach.

He colored vividly and said:

“You are angry with me for suggesting such a thing. I am sorry, but even to propitiate you, I cannot give up my theory. I will put it in another form. The man who married another probably did so from pique, and very probably loves you still.”

Who could know better than himself how it was, she thought, and crimsoned warmly as she answered:

“At least, that is more soothing to my pride, though very unfortunate for his wife.”

“Yes, very,” he returned, quite seriously, adding: “Love in itself is a great misfortune, is it not?--though it may easily, when mutual, become the crown and joy of life. For me, I have known only its bitterness!”

“How strangely he is talking! He forgets Josephine, his beautiful bride; or has he already found out the little cat, and learned to despise her?” Maisie thought, as he continued:

“Love, from your own showing, has been a misfortune to you, also, and I know a man--a sick man, who is very likely going to die because his wife, whom he adores, neglects him and flirts with others.

“It is wicked, shameful!” cried Maisie indignantly; but she had no more idea of whom he was talking than the man in the moon.

But it struck her suddenly as rather odd that they had not got very far away from the subject she had run away from in the house. With a brief digression they had come back to love--a subject on which it seemed the grave Byrd Barrington could wax eloquent.

At her exclamation he gave her an approving smile.

“You agree with me that flirtation is wicked, especially for a married woman,” he said.

“Most decidedly,” she answered; but she could not keep back a slightly cynical smile from the corners of her lips as she thought:

“If flirtation is bad for a married woman, what about a married man? He must think differently on that subject, for some people might accuse him of trying to flirt with me. Some of his glances are very expressive.”

And with this thought she began to grow frightened at herself, and suggested that she had better go in--Mrs. Warren might be uneasy.

“But you will go boating with me again to-morrow--promise me,” entreated this daring married man, whom in her heart she accused of trying to flirt.

It was really her duty to say no under the circumstances, but she hesitated--and the woman who hesitates is lost.

“Promise me,” entreated Barrington again, in a distinctly thrilling voice, with a tender glance.

“Yes,” she faltered, forgetting all about her resolve to persuade the Warrens to take her away to-morrow.