"You must be rather late--I don't often meet you!" said she, with a smile which put Bressant traitorously at his ease.
"Early, more than late," responded he, stopping as he saw that she stopped.
"Are you?--well, then--I don't often see you--would you mind walking with me just a little way?" and she touched him lightly on the shoulder with her maple-branch, as with the wand of an enchantress.
He, in obedience rather to the touch than the words, turned about and walked beside her.
"I've a right to a sister's privileges, you know," continued she, slipping her hand beneath his arm, and letting it rest upon it.
How very delightful, as well as simple, to solve the problem of their intercourse on this basis! Bressant did not know how it might feel to have a sister, but he could, at the moment, imagine nothing more delightful than to be Cornelia's brother--unless it were to be Sophie's husband. But to be both!
"Do you know," pursued she, with apparent hesitation, looking up in his face, and then immediately looking down again, "I've had a notion, since coming back from New York, that you don't like me so well as you did?"
This might be either audacity or delicacy, as one chose to take it. Bressant, feeling himself put rather on the defensive, answered hastily and without premeditation:
"I like you more!"
"Oh! I'm so glad to hear you say so!" exclaimed she warmly, and as she spoke he felt her hand a little more perceptibly on his arm. "It takes such a load off my heart! seeing you and Sophie love one another so much, I couldn't help loving you, too, in my way; and it made me so unhappy to think I was disagreeable to you."
Bressant was quite unprepared for all this. Whatever had been his speculations as to the future footing upon which he and Cornelia should stand, it had been nothing like that she was now furnishing. It did not seem at all in the vein which she had opened on the day of her return. He was puzzled: had he been more used to ladies' society, he would have mistrusted her sincerity.
"You could never be disagreeable to me!" was his answer: and he looked down at her oval cheek, with his first attempt at fraternal admiration. It turned out badly. She looked unexpectedly up: his glance fell through her tawny eyes, and sank down, burning deliciously, into her heart. She turned pale with the pain and the pleasure: but it was such pain and pleasure that she sought, and wanted more of.
"Well, then! it's all clear between us again--is it?" resumed she, drawing a long breath, which sounded more like the irrepressible out-come of a tumultuous heart, than a sigh of relieved suspense upon the point in question. "No more misunderstandings, or any thing? and you won't get out of the way ally more, as if I were poison--will you?"
"I never did!" protested he, laughing awkwardly. In the last few minutes he had developed a sentiment hitherto unknown to him--pique! He had been imagining Cornelia in love with him, and angry at his preference for Sophie; whereas, it would now seem that the only reason she cared for him at all, was because he was Sophie's lover: a most correct spirit in her, no doubt; but, instead of being gratified, as was his duty, he felt provoked.
"Oh! yes, you behaved shockingly!" rejoined Cornelia, laughing with him. "Mind! I don't care how devoted you are to Sophie--the more the better; but, when you do notice me, I want you to do it kindly--won't you?"
"I'll be sure to, now that I know you care any thing about it."
"And what made you think I didn't care about it, if you please, sir?"
"Why," stammered he, quite at a loss what to say, and so coming out with the truth, "I thought you were offended at my being engaged to Sophie!"
"But what should there be in that to offend me?" demanded Cornelia, with the mouth and eyes of Innocence.
"I don't know:--well--I knew you first!" he blurted forth, beginning to wish he had been satisfied to hold his tongue.
Cornelia took her breath once or twice, and then bit it off on her under lip, as if about to say something, and afterward hesitating about it.
"I don't quite understand you," she managed to get out at last; "do you--forgive me if I'm wrong--but perhaps you're thinking of that time--when--just before I went away?"
Saying this, she drooped her eyes in a confusion, which, because more than half of it was genuine, made her look very fascinating. Nothing is more seductive than a little truth. As Bressant looked at her, and thought of what lie had done at that last interview, soft thrills crept sweetly through his blood, and he felt a most extraordinary tenderness for her.
"I've often thought of it," answered he, in a tone which did not belie his words.
"Well--so have I, to tell the truth!" rejoined Cornelia, looking up for a moment with glowing candor. "But we won't either of us think of it any more, will we? It seems very long ago, now; and it'll never be again, and we ought to forget it ever was at all. But, oh! most of all, you must forget it if it will ever be a reason for your disliking me, or wishing not to see me! I know how disagreeable it must be to you to think of it now."
Did Cornelia know what she was about? had she netted beforehand all the meshes of this web she was throwing over him? the admirable mixture of frankness and subtlety, nature and art--must it not have been planned and calculated beforehand, to bewilder and mislead?--It may well be doubted. No preconceived and elaborated programme can come up to the inspiration of the moment, which is genius. Such felicitous wording of subject-matter so objectionable: such an unassailable presentation of so indefensible a principle--could hardly have been the fruit of premeditation. Cornelia was allowing things to take their course.
"It isn't disagreeable! it's--" Bressant broke off, unable or unprepared to say what it was. "Why must we forget it?" he added, with a half-assured look of significance. "You said we were brother and sister, you know!"
She laughed in his face, at the same time drawing her hand from his arm, and stepping away from him. How tantalizingly lovely she looked!
"It won't do to carry the privileges of relationship too far, my dear sir! at least, not until after you're married. There! go back to your Sophie--I didn't mean to keep you so long--really! No, no!" as he made an offer to approach her; "go! and be quick, I advise you. Good-by!"
Bressant, as he walked on to the Parsonage, was possessed by an undefined conviction that he was learning a great deal not set down in the books. The page of the passions, once thrown open, seems to comprise every thing. The world has but one voice for the man of one idea.
Evidently, this man did not comprehend the nature of his position between these two women. Reason told him it was impossible he could love both at once; but there her information stopped. His senses assured him that, with Cornelia, he experienced a vivid rush of emotion, such as Sophie, strongly as he loved her, never awakened in him; but his senses could give him no explanation of the fact. His instinct whispered that he would not have dared, in his most ardent moments, to feel toward Sophie as he invariably felt toward her sister; but no instinct warned him of the danger which this implied. A sturdy principle, if it had not thrown light upon the question, would, at least, have pointed out to him the true course to adopt; but, unfortunately, principles, and the impulses which they are formed to control, are neither of simultaneous nor proportionate growth. Bressant, while partaking so liberally of emotional food, had quite neglected to provide himself with the necessary and useful correctives to such indulgences. Thus it happened that when he arrived, a little past his usual hour, at the Parsonage-door, his mental digestion was in a very disturbed condition.
In palliation of Cornelia's conduct, there is little or nothing to be adduced. Strong forces had been laboring within her during