A Beautiful Alien Part 4

"All those people who have admired and praised you so will surely be good to you--" But she was interrupted sharply.

"I am done with them," she said, "and done with fine dressing, and becoming colors." Her voice shook, and Hannah, seeing that she was completely unnerved, succeeded in persuading her to go up to her own room. On the threshold she paused.

"Come into the dressing-room with me," Christine said. "Don't leave me.

He will not wake," she added, seeing her friend glance toward the door between the dressing-room and sleeping-room. "He sleeps like a stone. I shall lie here on the lounge till morning. I often do. I have lain there, night in and out, and almost sobbed my heart away, and no one knew."

Hannah braided the lovely hair, unfastened the exquisite white and gold dress, which fell in a rich ma.s.s on the floor, and out of it Christine stepped, looking more lovely than ever and more childlike. She caught sight of the ornaments she still wore, and hastily taking them off laid them in a heap on the dressing-table.

"They can be sold," she said. "I shall never want to put them on again.

Oh, Hannah, you are so good to me," she went on in the plaintive voice of an unhappy child, as Hannah brought a warm dressing-gown and made her put it on, and little soft-lined slippers for her feet. "I am so cold,"

she said, s.h.i.+vering. "Some day you will know, perhaps, how unhappy I am.

You don't know half of it now, and I cannot tell you. Oh, you have made me so comfortable," she added, as Hannah tucked a warm coverlet over her, on the big, soft lounge. "I haven't had any one to take care of me for so long. Don't leave me, Hannah. Sit in that big chair and hold my hand and let me go to sleep. I am so tired."

Her lids drooped and her voice fell. In another moment she was asleep.

Once only Christine opened her eyes, and finding Hannah still there said piteously, "Oh, I am so unhappy," but the plaintive little tones died away in sleepiness, and in a moment she was drawing in the regular breaths of profound slumber.

By-and-by, without waking her, Hannah drew her hand away, and leaning back in the big chair, threw a great shawl all around her, and worn out by the experiences of the evening, she also fell asleep.

Morning found them so. The rising sun looking in at the window waked them simultaneously, and with a remembering look on both faces, they were clasped in each other's arms. A long embrace and then a kiss. No word was spoken, and when they met at breakfast and were joined by Mr.

Dallas, the manner of all three was as usual. The servant who waited saw nothing to comment upon, except, perhaps, that the unwonted presence of a guest made little difference in the usual silentness of the meal.

VII.

Noel remained abroad a year and a half and came home at last with a new determination, which he promptly put into effect. This was to begin in earnest the practice of his profession. He was tired of travelling, and even his beloved painting was not enough to satisfy the more insistent demands for occupation and interest, which his maturity of mind and character gave rise to.

Not very long after his return he went to call on the Dallases. He was informed, on inquiring at the house, that a family of another name now occupied it, and no one could tell where Mr. and Mrs. Dallas had gone.

He made inquiries at several places in the neighborhood, but in vain.

He walked away, with a sad and tender feeling in his heart for the poor foreign girl, whose beauty, youth and childlike charm had taken a strong hold upon his mind. The annoying thought occurred to him that he had been foolishly prudent and apprehensive of danger. He wondered if it hadn't been a sort of c.o.xcombry in him to think there was any danger to her in free and frequent intercourse with him! As for the danger to himself, that it was cowardly to think about. He wished he had acted differently, and felt unreasonably troubled at having let the girl drift beyond his knowledge. She had looked so young and appealing as he had seen her last, seated on the rug with the kittens on her lap, and so beautiful. No one he had seen before or since was as beautiful. The type seemed almost unique. He knew her to be utterly ignorant of the world, and he hated to think what experience might have taught her of it. He ought to have looked after her more. The reproachful thought stung him.

He said to himself that he'd be a little more careful the next time he felt inclined to occupy this high moral platform and be better than other men! He ought to have seen that common kindness demanded a little more of a man than this. He was completely self-disgusted, and registered a sort of mental vow that if he ever found the young creature again he would befriend her, if she were still in need of a friend, and take the consequences. He was not so irresistible, he told himself, as to be necessarily dangerous to the peace of mind of all the women of his acquaintance. He had acted the part of a prig and he was well punished for it.

Noel had altered in some ways since his former return from Europe. For one thing his appearance had changed. He had now a thick, close-trimmed beard, which made him look older and graver. There were some premature gray hairs, also, in his close-cropped hair.

The weather was very hot, and his mother and sisters had gone at once to their country house, but Noel lingered in town, although, socially, it was almost deserted.

One afternoon of a very hot day, when the neighborhoods of soda fountains alone were populous, and men walked about the streets with umbrellas in one hand and palm-leaf fans in the other, with coats open, hats pushed back and frequent manipulation of their pocket-handkerchiefs, Noel, whose sense of propriety admitted of none of these mitigations of the heat, was standing at a down-town crossing, waiting for a car. He was going to his club to refresh himself with a bath, order a dinner with plenty of ice accompanying it, and then take a drive in the park behind a horse warranted to make a breeze. It was getting intolerable in town, and he had just determined to leave it to-morrow.

As he stood waiting he observed, on the opposite corner, a woman carrying a baby. He had a good heart and it troubled him to see that the child seemed ill. He was struck, too, with the fact that the woman, although closely veiled, had something in her figure and bearing, as well as her dress, which made her present position seem in some way incongruous. His practised eye perceived that her figure was good, and his instinct told him that she was a lady. He looked at her so attentively that his car pa.s.sed without his seeing it until it was too far to hail. As another car, going the opposite way, came along and stopped, the woman got on it, and a resemblance, which some fleeting movement or position suggested to his mind, struck him so powerfully that almost without knowing what he was doing he found himself running to overtake the car, which had started on. It was not difficult to do, and once having undertaken it, it would have looked silly to stop, so he swung himself on to the platform. The car was full and he did not go inside. He saw the figure his eye was following take a seat high up, and turn the child so that it might get the air from the window. He could see the poor, little pinched face, utterly listless and wan, and by reason of its sickness totally bereft of the beauty that belongs to plump, round, rosy babyhood. And yet the child had wonderful eyes--strange, large eyes of a clear, golden-brown color--the like of which he had seen once only before. Memories, speculations and presentments seemed to crowd upon him. He tried to get a view of the mother, but her back was turned to him, and a fat German woman, with a pile of unmade trousers from a clothing establishment, almost hid the sight of that. Usually he could not see these poor sewing-women, with their great, hot burdens of woollen cloth on their knees, without a sentiment of pity, but he did not give this one a thought. His mind was wholly absorbed in scanning curiously, though furtively, the baby's poor, little white face, and all that he could see of the mother's dress and figure. Presently the car came to a halt. The German woman got up and labored down the aisle with her burden and got off, but some one quickly moved into the vacant seat. Still he could see better now, and the better he saw the stronger grew the conviction in his heart.

Gradually the car thinned out, and he might have gone nearer, but something held him back. He kept his position by the conductor, until he rang his bell and called out the name of a landing from which the excursion boats went out daily. Then the woman rose, lifting her baby with gentle carefulness, and came down the aisle and got out. She pa.s.sed directly by Noel, but her thick veil was impenetrable, and yet, from the nearer view of her figure and the pose of her head, the feeling he had was deepened and strengthened. He got out, too, and followed her, and as he walked directly behind her, his eyes fastened on the rich coil of her wavy dark hair, he felt sure that this was Christine Dallas.

"Poor thing!" he said under his breath. The tears were near his eyes, but a feeling of rage surged up and overmastered them. Where was the girl's husband? Where were all the men and women that ought to have protected her and given her support and companions.h.i.+p in this hour?

She toiled on in front of him now, her figure braced to its burden. The baby was light, but she carried in addition to it a shawl and a small bag. He longed to go and help her, but he feared to startle or distress her. If he had been a stranger he would not have hesitated, and he wondered at the cruel indifference of the pa.s.sers-by. They were mostly laborers, draymen and porters, but at least they were men, and it made his blood boil to see them pa.s.sing her carelessly and almost jostling her.

She got on board the boat, which was not crowded, and he followed a little way behind. It gave him a sense of keen distress to see her threading her way through groups of rough men, who ignored or jostled her, to the little window where she bought her ticket, and it angered him to see how indifferently the man sold it to her, and pushed her her change.

For a while he kept at a distance, observing her, however, as she took her way, with an air of familiarity with her surroundings, to a place on deck sheltered alike from observation and from the strong breeze which was already beginning. Here the stewardess brought her a pillow, handing it without speaking and waiting significantly. She took it in silence, then got out her purse, a meagre-looking one, and put a little coin into the woman's hand. As she did so she said, "Thank you," and the least little foreign inflection--a lingering difficulty with the "th"--gave Noel the last a.s.surance that he needed. How unforgotten the voice was!

He believed he would almost have recognized it without any words.

The woman made no reply, but pocketed her fee and walked away. Then Noel, who had seated himself quite near, with his face so turned that he could see her without the appearance of gazing at her directly, set himself to watch what followed. There was no one else near and it was evident that she had not observed him. Indeed, she did not look about her at all, but kept her eyes on the baby, whose apathetic little face did not change. Shaking and smoothing the pillow she laid it on the seat and tenderly placed her baby on it. The boat had started and the breeze, delicious as it was to a strong person, might yet be too much for a sick child, and this the mother plainly feared, for she hastily hung her shawl over the railing beside the pillow. But this she soon discovered kept off too much air. Noel could note her mental processes and comprehend them as he saw her put up her hand to loosen her thick veil.

His pulses quickened. He was sure already, and yet a figure, a pose, a knot of hair, even a voice and accent might deceive him. So he watched intently as she unfastened her veil and took it off. The brim of her hat was narrow and left her face fully exposed.

It was Christine Dallas--a girl no longer, no longer blooming and childlike and wondering--but saddened, matured, mysteriously changed, with more than the old charm for him in her exquisite woman-face. It was turned to him in profile, distinct against the distant sky, and the remembered eyes were veiled by their dark-fringed lids, as she looked down upon her child.

The veil, ingeniously fastened with a few pins, proved a convenient awning. She laid her arm above it on the rail, as she bent her head toward the baby. Although the eyes were hid, the mouth--in her a feature of extreme sensitiveness--told the story of past suffering and present pain.

What a face! No artist had ever had a model such as that before him, and the pale attenuation of the sick child was almost as interesting a subject. But Noel never thought of it. For once the artist in him became subservient, and he looked on with no feeling but a pity so great that it absolutely filled his heart and left no room for any other.

The mother's suffering face put on a smile, and she made a little kissing sound with her lips to try to attract the baby's notice, and rouse it from its apathy.

"Mother's precious little pigeon," she said caressingly, and catching the thin little face between her soft thumb and forefinger and giving it a loving twitch. But, instead of smiling back at her, a piteous little tremor came around the baby's mouth. His thin forehead wrinkled and he began to whimper.

She caught him to her heart with a motion of pa.s.sionate love and pity, and began to rock her body to and fro as she held him there.

"Did mother hurt her baby?" she said, speaking in low tones of keenest self-reproach. "There, then, mother wouldn't trouble him any more!

Mother was bad and naughty to try to make her boy laugh when he was so sick! Mother loves her baby, that she does, and when her little man gets well he'll play and laugh with mother then, won't he?"

The whimper died away, and when the soft crooning and rocking had continued a little while the baby dropped its weary lids and slept. She laid him in her lap, raising her knee to elevate his head, by resting her foot on the round of a chair. He sank into his new position with a tremulous sigh, and slept on. And as he slept she watched him, her great eyes fastened on his thin little face with a look as if she would devour it with love. Afraid to touch him, lest he should wake, she caught the folds of his dress in her hand with a strength that strained its sinews, as if she were afraid he would be s.n.a.t.c.hed away from her.

Noel, who had expected every moment that she would turn, had now ceased to look for it. She was evidently unconscious of everything, herself included, except the child. As she bent her head above it, never taking her eyes from its wan little countenance, the look of hungry love that came to her was stronger than any look he had ever seen expressed upon a face before. Presently, as if unable to resist the impulse, she took one of the little hands, blue-white for lack of blood, and held it in her own. He could divine the fact that it cost her an effort not to squeeze it hard. Her eyes fastened on it hungrily, and then looked into the pinched little face. Evidently this sleep was something coveted, for she made these slight movements with the utmost caution, and did not venture to change her constrained position. And as she so watched the baby, Noel, keeping as profoundly still, watched her. He saw that her plain, gray costume, charmingly fas.h.i.+oned as it was, was yet somewhat worn and shabby, as if from over-long usage; that her round straw hat was shabby, too, and one of her little boots, cut and finished in such a pretty, foreign fas.h.i.+on, had a small hole in it. The long glove on her left hand was ripped at the finger-ends. The right hand was bare, and looked very strong and healthy as it held the little feeble one. With her other hand she was holding a fan between her child's eyes and the sun. She had never ceased a little rocking motion of the knee. Oh, if she could only keep him asleep! her whole att.i.tude and motion seemed to say. Now and then she uttered low, hus.h.i.+ng sounds as a pang of pain would contract the baby's face, and threaten to waken him. These little noises came to Noel faintly, and he felt himself sharing with her this intense desire to keep the child asleep. Suddenly, above the soothing monotone of the vessel's motion, there was a sharp steam-whistle. Christine gave a little smothered cry, and the next instant burst into tears. It was too much for her over-strung nerves. At the same moment the baby waked and began to cry weakly. The sound recalled her to herself and she took the little creature in her arms and rocked and hushed it, at the same time fighting with her own sobs, brus.h.i.+ng away her tears with a fold of the baby's dress and trying to speak to it soothingly. But she was utterly unnerved, and the tears and sobs kept coming back even while she spoke those calming, loving words.

Noel could bear it no longer. He was afraid of increasing her agitation, but he felt he must go to her aid. So he took quietly the few steps that brought him to her and said gently:

"Christine, give the baby to me. Don't mind my seeing you. Don't mind anything, but just try to be quiet and rest a little. I will help you."

She looked at him an instant without recognition, then a gleam of comprehension came into her eyes, and in a confused, weak way she let him take the baby, and falling back upon the seat she hid her face in her hands and fell to sobbing. Noel, for the first time in his life holding a young baby in his arms, was yet skilful with it, since nothing but strength and tenderness were required, and he had both. He soothed the little creature into silence, walking backward and forward a few steps, and watching Christine intently, without speaking to her. It was only a moment or two that she gave way, and he felt it would relieve her. She wiped her eyes and sat up.

"I don't know what made me do it," she said. "I have never done so before. It is so foolish; but I did so want baby to stay asleep, and I was hoping nothing would wake him, and the whistle scared me so. Let me have him now, Mr. Noel. Thank you, oh, thank you. Perhaps he feels better. He has had a nice little sleep."

Noel would have kept the child, but he saw she was not to be prevented from taking it, and when she had got it in her arms she began to look at it and talk to it and walk it about with every appearance of having forgotten Noel altogether. He had called her Christine under impulse, and he now recalled the fact that she had taken it simply and without any protest. On the whole, he was glad. To have called her by the formal name by which he had known her might have struck some chord of pain. He did not even know that she bore it still. Dallas might be dead or worse than dead to her. A score of possibilities suggested themselves to his mind. But he felt he must try, if possible, to make her understand him.

"Poor little ill baby," he said, going close to her side, where she stood by the railing with the baby laid upon her shoulder, her head tilted so as to rest her cheek on his. "I hope he is better. I am so glad I saw you, Christine. You must let me help you, exactly as if I were your brother, for no brother could want to help you more. I really think I forgot I wasn't when I called you by your name just now. But you didn't mind it, did you?"

"Oh, no," she said simply. "But where did you come from?" she asked, as if the question had just occurred to her.

"Let us say from the skies," he answered, smiling. "I think my good angel must have sent me to take care of you. Sit down, if you will hold the baby. Let me make you more comfortable."

He went and brought a large and easy chair from some unknown quarter and made her sit in it. Then, saying he would be back presently, he walked away. Before he returned the stewardess appeared, smiling and obsequious, making a profuse offer of her services to hold the baby, or to do anything desired of her. She brought a comfortable ha.s.sock, which she placed under Christine's feet, and only the latter's determination prevented her from taking possession of the baby. She told her exactly where she was to be found in case she should be wanted, and ended by presenting her with a key which, she told her, would open a stateroom at the head of the stairs. As the woman walked away Noel returned.

Christine told him how kind the stewardess had been, and said that she had never known there were any staterooms on board, this being an excursion boat.

"Oh, there are generally two or three," said Noel carelessly, "for the people to go to when they want to rest. If you'd like to, we'll go now and inspect."

Evidently the prospect pleased her, so they went together, but she refused to allow him to carry the baby, or even to send for the woman.