Six Girls Part 33

"But I would have been glad," said Olive, who could remember very well the many times she had frozen the little girl's loving advances.

"I'll tell you why I was so unhappy, Jeanie; I thought no body loved me, and that I was in the way."

"Why, Olive! Olive!" cried Jean in greatest amaze. "How could you think so; who made you?"

"I made myself," said Olive. "I was so cross, that I made you all stay away from me, and then I thought it was because no one cared for me, because I was so ugly."

"You wasn't pretty then," was Jean's honest remark. "But you are now, really, and so splendid looking some way. You haven't got rosy cheeks like Miss Foster, nor yellow hair like Ernestine, but somehow I love to look at you, and so does Cousin Roger, 'cause sometimes when you are drawing, he just looks right straight at you all the whole time."

"Does he?" laughed Olive, and then revealed the utter want of romance in her nature, by never giving the complimentary fact another thought.

"I'll tell you something, Jean, if you'll not repeat it."

"Oh, no, Olive, never!"

"Well, I'm drawing Cousin Roger's head."

"You are, and he don't know it?"

"No, I take good looks when he don't see, then go and draw awhile; it's good practise, and he has such a strong, clear face, and splendidly shaped head, that I have to work hard to make my picture good, and I find it is helping me a great deal," said Olive, with never a thought of doing a thing that might be termed romantic.

"How nice, and may I see it?"

"Yes, when it is done."

"And may _I_ see it?" inquired a new voice, that made them both start and turn, to see Roger Congreve coming down the gallery.

"Did you hear?" asked Olive, looking a little vexed; and Jean opened her mouth to say something, then shut it in a hurry.

"No, I didn't except the last two sentences; but from the way you both look, I think it must be something that I ought to hear," answered the gentleman, sitting down on Jean's divan with a laugh.

"Tell him," whispered Jean, and as Olive looked up, and saw his head with gleams of suns.h.i.+ne falling across it, she realized the advantage of having it to look at steadily, and how grand his forehead was.

"Yes, I'd just as soon tell you as not," she said frankly. "I've been taking a sketch of your head."

"Have you indeed," he exclaimed, with a sudden light in his face that Olive could not understand, if indeed, she thought anything about it.

"Yes, it makes a splendid study, but I haven't made much progress, because I've had so few chances."

"Why did you do it on the sly?" he asked, hoping to detect a little confusion in her answer, such as might indicate a little deeper interest than the mere study; but not a bit of it; she answered readily enough:

"I thought you might consider it a bore to sit still, doing nothing, just for the sake of being copied, so I never said anything about it, but studied by piece-meal."

"On the contrary, believe me, nothing would be greater bliss than to sit still doing nothing, by the hour, for the sake of being copied--by you," said Roger with an unmistakable accent.

"It is very kind of you, I am sure," replied Olive, on whom all such things were thrown away; as indeed he had found out long ago, being a little nettled at the discovery. Not that he was given such, to any extreme, but then he was a society man, born and bred, with all of society's pleasing little airs, which might have made him a society fool, if he had not also possessed too much manhood and good common sense. Between his handsome self, and it being known that he was "old Congreve's heir," it's a never ending wonder that he wasn't spoiled; but he had kept clear headed, and also clear hearted so far, and had come to find out that there were but few women who were not susceptible to flattery, and who would not drop into a harmless flirtation with little invitation. Therefore, when Olive came, and never seemed to regard him as any extraordinary being, he decided to make her; so after trying indifference, equal to her own awhile, he was somewhat amazed to find that his was feigned, and hers was too genuine to be complimentary; after which he tried the attentive, which rarely fails to bring a girl around, and was astonished beyond measure, to find that it was in vain.

To be sure, Olive accepted his flowers, sometimes wearing a bud or two in her hair, and seemed to think it very kind in him to remember her in that way. And she went riding day after day with him, with the most hearty enjoyment, for did she not see the most magnificent scenery from the mountain roads, round which they cantered in the lovely days? And they frequently spent evenings together, when at her request he would read aloud from books she might name, and then they would discuss them, when he would find that hers was no ordinary school-girlish mind, that could be bent according to another's ideas. And so, at last, he came to feel a genuine desire to win some feeling from her, since she was rousing so much in him; but the genuine desire seemed as vain as the former idle one, for while Olive undoubtedly enjoyed his society, since he a.s.sisted her in discovering the best sketching points, and was an able conversationalist in what he had read and seen; there was nothing beyond it, and she would have enjoyed the same, just as well, in any one else. Most any girl but Olive, would have come to understand and appreciate, the evident preference he at last professed for her society, above that of the Staunton belles; and most any girl would have been flattered by the attentions which now bore sincerity in their face; but to Olive they seemed only courtesies paid to her as a guest, for which she was grateful, and gave no extra thought. She was wrapped too deeply in her art to have any thought of lovers, besides she was not at all romantic; all her cravings for affection were satisfied in the home circle, and the deeper fountains of her heart, that, once reached, would be a well-spring of deathless unchanged devotion, lay deeply buried now. So it was that Roger Congreve had met the first woman whom he could not attract in some way, who won from him the strongest feelings, and gave him nothing in return but polite friendliness; and that she should be nothing but a seventeen year old girl, was something rather humiliating. When the study on the head began, as it did the next day, it was both a pleasure and almost a pain to him to feel that he might as well have been a piece of statuary as for all the attention she gave him, aside from the long careful looks her thoughtful eyes bestowed on some particular curve to his nose, or expression about his mouth. But then it gave him plenty of time to study the quiet face, with its clear colorlessness, the lowered eyelids with curling lashes, the nose, that was purely aristocratic in its fine outline, and the wavy sweep of brown hair from the high, white brow. The study was always a pleasure to him, and made ten times stronger his resolve to win some feeling and expression thereof from her.

"Are you sleepy?" Olive asked once, when he had fallen into a reverie, and was regarding her with eyes dreamily tender. "I'm ready for your eyes now, and that expression will never do. I've put your head and face in an expression of strong defiance, and those eyes would ruin it. Look real angry for a minute, and let me catch the expression!--no, not that way, it's too fierce; but just steady and earnest, as though you were determined to do something, whether or no."

"Very well; look at me now," he said, turning his eyes on her with a flash of determination, such as set her pencil to work in a hurry. "I want to tell you that I have made up my mind to do a certain thing, which I will tell you about when accomplished."

She was too busy replacing that look on paper to heed the gracious promise; and he had the questionable pleasure of knowing that he was entirely forgotten for the next few minutes, save in the capacity of a model, and that thought accomplished what Olive wanted, for it kept that look of roused defiance in his eyes.

Occasionally old Mr. Congreve would come into the gallery and take a look at the work, on which he would pa.s.s some characteristic comment, and then depart, taking Jean with him, and saying to her with a chuckle, that sounded like intense satisfaction:

"Come along with me, Jeanie, and let's leave the young folks alone with their drawing. I guess they can manage it better alone;" and Jean would go regretfully, and with an innocent wondering how her staying would make any difference.

One evening, towards the latter part of September, Roger came up from the city, and meeting Olive on the lawn, drew two tickets from his pocket, and threw them into her lap.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MR. CONGREVE WOULD COME INTO THE GALLERY.]

"There! The first opera of the season, and pretty early for that, too!

but I hear they are rather good, and they give 'Bohemian Girl' to-night, so I bought tickets. Shall we go?"

"Yes, it was kind of you. I would like to hear it very much," answered Olive with a pleased smile. "Do you know, I never heard an opera in my life."

"Is it possible?" in intense surprise. "Why, we will go every night they are here, if you say so."

"Oh, no," with an air of reproof. "That would be very nice, but too extravagant. I know money is nothing to you, but then it wouldn't seem right to spend so much for mere pleasure when there are so many poor."

He looked at her in surprise for a moment, but was too modest to tell that he gave twice as much to worthy poor as he ever gave to personal pleasure; so the subject dropped, and they were silent until Olive asked, with a sudden recollection of how she had frequently heard him describe ladies' toilets:

"Do they--I will have to ask you because there is no one else--but do the ladies dress much at opera, here?"

"Just as they please. It is not so popular as formerly. Street dress is mostly worn now."

"Well, I don't know as it makes any difference, for I've got just so much to dress in, and would have to wear it anyhow," said Olive, with a composed laugh, which indicated how little she cared for what was popular aside from a polite desire to be becomingly attired in the eyes of her escort.

"Will you wear some flowers if I will send them up to you?"

"Yes, thank you."

"Why do you always thank me for every little thing as if we were perfect strangers?" he exclaimed, with a little impatience, and a sort of vague feeling that if she realized or cared for the devotion accompanying the acts, she would accept them more as a matter of course.

"Why should I not thank you?" with an air of surprise. "Is it any reason that I should not be polite since we are well acquainted?"

"No, to be sure not," with a slight laugh; "but, then--what flowers do you prefer?"

"Make your own selection."

"I shall choose white then. Are you going in?"

"Yes; this is Jean's day to go to the doctor's, and I promised to go with her," and with a little nod, she walked off and left him where he had thrown himself on the gra.s.s at her feet.

That night, many a gla.s.s was turned towards their box for Roger Congreve was too eligible not to be a perfect magnet of interest, and any lady that he might choose to show a slight preference for, became, at once, a target for glances and comments; so, for a while, Olive was conscious of a dazzling battery of eyes and gla.s.ses; but Roger noticed, with some wonder, that the fact did not seem to disturb her more than as though it had been the commonest occurrence in her life. She looked exceedingly well to-night, dressed entirely in black, with lillies-of-the-valley in her hair, and fastened in the lace at her throat, while the pleasing excitement brought a bright flash into her eyes, and more color than usual into the lips that clearly showed their curved outline.

The evening's amus.e.m.e.nt began, and progressed pleasurably through the first act, to which Olive listened attentively, saying with a little sigh of regret when the curtain fell:

"How lovely it all is! Ernestine always wanted to go on the stage! It must be delightful if one can?"