LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2241, 8 June 1881, Page 4

LITERATURE.

AN ENTR’ACTE. {Continued,) * Do you remember,’ she said, turning to him, ‘ our talk that first day of Alceste and Calimene ? My song agrees with your view of the matter.” * Tea; yet Alceste needed pity as it was.’ * I thought you hold that Oelimene was not worth winning.’ ’ Better care for aome object unworthy love than not care for any one.’ Nora shrugged her shoulders. ‘ Very well,’ she said ; ‘ and in real life Alceste would have|carried it out by marrying the first girl he met, and consoled himself for Oalimene’a weakness by being weaker himself.’

Vincent turned quickly on her. ' You don’t believe that!’ he aaid, 4 Why should you say it?’ She laughed. 4 I have only caught your own tone of talk. Yon should be glad to have so apt a pupil.’ 4 My pupil! Heaven save you from such a master !’ he answered bitterly ; then in a gentler, though not less earnest, voice, he said, 4 That first_ day we met you reproved me for cheap cynicism, and you were right; though perhaps If you knew my life yon would say I had some cause for despising myself, and so a poor cause—a very poor one, I own—for railing at the world.’ Her eyes sought his pityingly and tenderly. 4 There Is no reason I should tell you this,’ ho said. 4 Except that, since I have known you, your freshness of heart and your faith in the world have been a constant lovely rebnke to me, making me feel my bitternesses fades and alight. I don’t like to hoar the echo of my own empty words from your lips. Don’t apeak so again.’ 4 1 never will,’ she said. The low tremble of her voice made his pulses beat faster ; but he constrained himself by an effort and said, 4 Thank you. You know in 4< Fanst,”it is the woman saves the man from the mocking devil of disbelief ; the woman who draws him by the influence to the heavon of her own faith, to whom the charge of his soul is given ; not the man who drags her down to be degraded with him by the sneering spirit who believes in nothing. 4 4 That time Is dead,’ she answered, In a sudden fierce Impulse of honesty, alien to her osnol mcod. * Now we women are like yon men! We, too, have lost all yon ■ought when you came to us; so how con

we tell yon,where to find them —thise lost treasures of faith and hope ?' *By a greater than these. By Charity, by hove ; and through that, both will find what are lost. But you are speaking of other women, not of yourself. Do noth; so bitter. You do not know how much you have taught me, or how different the world looks to me now. I believe in the ideal of womanhood I have learnt through you, even against yourself. Her head drooped, her voice was sad a*d true, as tho answered, ‘ I can do nothing. A worldly woman, leading a worldly life.’ Against her own will, something moved her to speak the trnth to this man; but it was hardly a trnth he was likely to accept as such. * Why will you slander yourself to-night ?’ he said. ‘“ A worldly woman ” ! Well, if all worldly women were like you, the world would bo very fair. Good-night.’ He left her, afraid lest he had said too much ; she stood motionless, with a look on her face of mingled joy and sadness, touched with self-reproach. ‘lf all men were like you. ’ she thought. ‘ there would be no worldly women. If I ’

A quick delicious shame, a sudden and Intense ecstasy, made her cover her face with her hands, as though to hide it even from the night. ‘Ho does love me, I am sure of it,’ she thought, when again she looked up at the brightening moon. 1 And I—yes, Ido love him. I never knew before what it meant, but now— O, if he wished it, why did he not speak now ? I should have yielded and been happy ; and yet— Could I really ? I might regret. I should if I had to give up my artist life ; and I have fancied poor Cyril was right in his song. No, lam not afraid ; just now I feel 1 would give up everything for love, the love I have wanted all my life. I know I should be happy. ’ She stood with her face raised to the stars, and full of a rapt sweetness it had never worn before. Now, in the very fulness of her womanhood, Love’s mystic chrisim was laid on her brow. Was she worthy to receive this haptism into the world of self-sacrifice and holiest duty, without which love is naught P to take up the burden which should bo boroo proudly as a crown for Love’s dear sake, or never lifted at all ? Meanwhile Vincent Norman was passing across the fresh grass, hoary with dew, towards the house, with his whole heart passionate with a great love, an intense tenderness and longing to perfect the life of the woman he loved. He thought sometimes that a shadow of weariness and discontent troubled the fairness of her face, that she needed something. Was it love ? and could ho give her what she wanted ? Would his love suffice 1 It was strong enough, if that were all. Yet he feared himself—feared lest he should only ho asking her to enter into a harder life in being his wife. Knowing how much she wonld be to him, he dreaded lest he should be but selfish in asking her. Marriage for a woman must always be renunciation of mnch of the ease and pleasantness of her life ; bo knew this, and wondered If he were sure love wonld make amends to her ; sure that if Nora Dnnoombe trusted herself to him she would never repent it, or he have to feel he had dealt unjustly by her whom he loved so much. Ho must put his fate to the touch, whether he won or lost it all. His heart pulsed still quicker as ho thought of her loveliness and sweetness, of her soft eyes, so melancholy in their beauty. ‘ A worldly woman ! ’ He langhed to himself at the words. Even when he had met her in a London drawing room he bad fancied there was a deep, tender nature under the careless charm of her outward seeming, and now ho knew it. Whether she loved him or not, she wonld still be to him the one woman of the world. Strangely, or rather naturally enough, Mias Dnncombe avoided meeting Major Norman for one or two days after that evening. 1 Climb high, feel high, no matter ; still Feet, feelings must descend the bill An hour's perfection can’t recur/ And Nora felt very differently the morning that followed the night when she had stood by Vincent’s side under the trees by the stream. £he had been moved out of herself by mingled influences, and had taken the reflection of Vincent Norman’s strong passion for the same feeling in her own heart; bnt the next day she had returned to herself, and half-wondered if she were the same,woman who had lifted up her face to the sky In a rapture and thonkfulnesa for the great gift of love, A strange shyness at the idea of meeting Major Norman overpowered her ; the truth was, she dreaded lest he should ask her the question to whiofa she was not prepared to give an answer. For she did love him. If she gave herself up to her thought, she experienced a luxury of rest in the Idea of his love and oare, as in the dream of the shadow of a great rook in a weary land;he suited her, too, better than any man she had ever met; she knew she would not tire of him, hnt—There were so many 4 huts.’ She could not bear to give up her freedom, she said to herself, thus glibly sliding over the tangible and intangible objeotions, which, it fairly stated to herself, wonld have had a somewhat small and selfish aspect. And if she gave up her freedom, she had always determined in her own mind, ever since poor Cyril Elmore’s death, that it should be for something worth the exchange, a social position that should fitly crown her triumphs. She knew that snob a position was ready to her hand If she chose to take with it a baronet of old name, large fortune, and musical and aesthetic tastes, with lank hair and a retreating ohln; bat she wonld forfeit all chance of it if she married Major Norman. Nevertheless this morning, the third since she had seen him, she was conscious of a longing for bis presence, for the restrained warmth of- his greeting, the sudden light in his brave eyes. She rose from the breakfast table, pushed away from her some music she had been studying, and, going to the tarnished glass let into the pannelling of the room above the mantelpiece, she inspected the reflection of herself therein with a questioning gaze, as thongh seeking help. * I am looking better,’ she thought, ■ * than when I camejdown hero.’ The conclusion was right; her face was fresher than it bad been a month ago; it seemed as though she might have been bathing it in the May dew which had lain thick of mornings on the grass. Her eyes just now were restless, bat they shone darkly soft under the white line of her even brows, which had lost the weariness they had worn when she had first come to Peumcutb. Her dress was dark chocola.te cashmere, made •very plainly, its only ornament a gold brooch, ‘ Rome work, ’ made ‘ by Castellani’s imitative oraft, fastening the dress jnat below the narrow lino of white collar. The bright waves of her hair were smooth and shining, closely coiled at the back of her head. Ste looked exquisitely fresh, that moat potent charm in a woman to a man’s eyes. She put on a round hat the same color as her dress, with a jay’s wing in front, then stood irresolutely by the window, as doubtful what to do. ‘I think I’ll go down to the shore,’ was her final determination. Now it was just half-past ten, and Miss Dnncombe might have remembered that Major Norman always returned after his morning swim and walk about this time, so that she was nearly certain to fall in with him on her way towards the sea. But as she would have indignantly scented the idea that she had any thought of meetiog him, it 1s but fair to suppose that this had escaped her memory. She did meet him, after all. His face was graver than usual, and after they had said good morning, he added abruptly, ‘I see you are going away.’ * You saw yesterday’s paper ?’ 4 Yes, the advertisement of Miss Clement’s disappearance— ’ 4 And consequent disappearance from Penmonth of Nora Dnncombe.’ ‘Our holiday is at an end.' She felt as thongh the ‘onr’ in his sentence had touched some re sponaive nerve in her, but only answered lightly, ‘ We sha'l meet in London, though ? ’ • Yes.’ He spoke hesitatingly, then looked at her, as though he would fain read her thoughts ; bat she had been an aotresa too long not to bo able to conceal them when It pleased her, and it pleased her now. • When do you leave ? ’ he asked at last. He had turned back, and was walking with her towards the sea. She had the feeling of having been through all this before, of knowing the end.

1 On Tuesday, ’ she said. Then they walked on In silence till they reached the esplanade. They leant over the railing and watched the tossing play of the waves, each touched with white, and laughing in the sunlight. The sea was shot with green and dark purple; but though the breeze was fresh, the sun shone royally, throwing the line of the coast out vividly, and showing each gray rook and patch of dry turf of a little island about a'milo out in front of where Major Norman and Miss Dnncombe were leaning over the rail. ‘ Do you know,’ Nora said at last, for the sake of saying something, 4 I have never yet been to that island. ’ ‘ Neither have I,’ Vincent Norman answered ; * I never thought about it. It is a sitfi? qua non we should go out there and pay our respects to the gulls. If so, let’s make the call in company.

(To he continued.)