But she did not put all this into words. Her aunts would not have understood. She did not understand herself. She rose from the tea-table presently, with a murmured excuse, leaving the food on her plate untasted, to Miss Joanna's great distress, and wandered into the drawing-room and sat down at the piano. The keys seemed to respond with unusual readiness to her touch, the music expressed in some vague way what she could not put into words. She played on restlessly, feverishly, for more than an hour, passing from one thing to another; Chopin nocturnes, waltzes, Hungarian dances, fragments from Wagner; anything she could remember.
The drawing-room remained dim for the sake of coolness; it was unlighted except for a lamp at a corner-table, beside which Miss Joanna sat with her knitting. As Elizabeth played she nodded comfortably and presently fell asleep. This was always the effect of Elizabeth's playing; she said she found it very soothing. Miss Cornelia sat upright in an old-fashioned, high-backed chair close to the piano. She moved her head in time to the music, and the thin little silvery curls that framed in her worn, delicate face seemed to sway in unison with the melody. She wore a black gown, a trifle antiquated in fashion but falling about her in graceful folds, and some rich old lace softened the outlines of her throat. There was a gentle, tremulous dignity about her nowadays. Miss Cornelia was very happy in moments like these. It was touching to see the pride she took in Elizabeth's music. But after awhile this evening the girl let her hands drop on the keys, and said impatiently: "Oh, it's no use, I can't say what I want to say. The music's in me, but it won't come out. If you could have heard that man to-day at Aunt Rebecca's."
"Do you mean that young Halleck, my dear?" said Miss Cornelia in surprise, and pronouncing his name with evident distaste. "I didn't know that he played."
"He can do anything," Elizabeth declared. "He paints, he can improvise by the hour, he sings as well as any opera-singer, and—he is very handsome. He would make a superb Lohengrin or Tristan," she added, thoughtfully "only, unfortunately, his voice is barytone. I wonder why Wagner showed such partiality to tenors."
"But he is not—going on the stage, is he, my dear?" asked Miss Cornelia, tentatively. She felt more anxiety than pleasure at hearing of this paragon.
"I don't know," said Elizabeth, "and it doesn't much matter. I am not to know him, you see, because his people used to live in the village years ago, and Aunt Joanna saw him playing on the road." She spoke bitterly.
"But, my dear, I—we never meant anything of the kind," protested Miss Cornelia. But Elizabeth went on without heeding her.
"Of course I know the rules of the Neighborhood. They would no more think of knowing a young man from Bassett Mills than they would a convict. But I don't really belong to the Neighborhood; I'm only on the outskirts, as it were—tolerated for your sake and for Grandmamma's. I'm tired of being a sort of nondescript—neither flesh, fowl, nor good red herring." The girl's face was hard, but she spoke quietly, in a matter-of-fact tone, as if stating inevitable truths.
Miss Cornelia sat mute, bewildered, her whole soul wrung by a powerless resentment against fate. If by any sacrifice on her part she could have provided for Elizabeth congenial society—the charming young girls and attractive young men of whom she and her sister had often dreamed—she would have made it thankfully; but with all her love, there was nothing—or there seemed to her nothing that she could do. They had given Elizabeth every advantage, she was beautiful and charming; and the result of it all was that she felt herself to be "a sort of nondescript, neither flesh, fowl, nor good red herring." It was a very bitter thought for Miss Cornelia.
Elizabeth, seeing this, felt remorseful for the second time that day. "Don't look so unhappy, auntie," she said, quickly. "It's not your fault—no, nor mine either; and, I suppose, it's not the fault of the Neighborhood. People can't help being narrow and conservative; they were born so. But then, Aunt Cornelia, when—when I don't have so many friends, you can't expect me to draw the line so awfully closely." Something like a sob crept into the girl's voice, but she went on with hardly a pause: "You mustn't think that I would want to know—any one. This man isn't like the rest of Amanda's friends. Only wait till you hear him sing—you would lose your heart, I'm sure, on the spot. And now, confess, auntie, you would like me to have my picture painted. The girls at school used to say that I would make a glorious picture. Do you think I would make a pretty picture, auntie?" She went over to Miss Cornelia and put her arms around her, looking up into her face with laughing, brilliant eyes, from which all bitterness had disappeared.
"My darling." Miss Cornelia, bewildered by the quick change of mood, could not find words. She thought that Elizabeth would make the prettiest picture in the world; but to have told her so would have been to run counter to all her ideas of propriety. So she finally said, with due regard for accepted formulas: "You shouldn't think so much about looks, Elizabeth. If you are good, that's the main thing."
"Of course, it's the main thing," Elizabeth assented, "but I'm afraid if it came to a choice, I'd rather be pretty, auntie, and so would most people." She ended with a light little laugh, and Miss Cornelia, in spite of her principles, attempted no rebuke.
The look of gaiety soon faded from Elizabeth's face. With a quick, impatient little sigh, she walked over to the window, and looked out into the night. It was still and sultry; heavy storm clouds were gathering and obscured the sky. The old elm trees, growing close about the house, cast sombre shadows; they seemed to keep out what little air there was. Elizabeth, as she leaned her hot cheek against the cool glass of the window-pane, felt again a sense of stifling, of being in a cage. It was useless to beat her wings; life was outside, but she could not reach it. "Oh, I would give anything in the world," she thought "just to breathe, to be free, to know what life is."
Suddenly she turned around with a start. There was a voice in the hall; some one spoke her name. A moment later a young man was advancing towards her across the dimly-lighted room. Mechanically she went to meet him. She did not think of her aunts, she did not think of anything but his presence.
"Have I—come too soon?" Paul Halleck asked, as he took her hand.
Chapter VI
Elizabeth drove again, a few weeks later, through shady, fragrant lanes, on her way to Bassett Mills. It was early in the morning, but the sun was already hot. The wild-roses along the road-side had mostly departed, the grass in the fields had a parched look. It was a long time since any rain had fallen, and the roads were thick with dust. All the freshness of the early summer had faded. But for these signs of premature blight and the scorching effect of the sun, Elizabeth seemed to have no eyes.
She drove along in a happy dream. There was a brilliant color in her cheeks, a radiant light in her eyes. She bloomed like a rose that has unfolded every petal to the summer sunshine. The fields through which she passed were not the familiar pasture-lands and "places" that skirted the road to Bassett Mills; they were the flowery meadows of poetic Arcadia, on the road that led to Paradise.
It was something of a bore, under the circumstances, that she must first of all go to Bassett Mills, but Miss Joanna had intrusted her with numerous commissions, that she could not very well refuse to discharge. That was the reason why she had started so early. There was a brook in a meadow near by; a brook shaded by weeping willow trees, under which nowadays a young artist sat sketching for many hours at a time. Elizabeth's drives, or walks had for the last few weeks led no further. But to-day she had decided to go first to Bassett Mills, and be back in time for the usual engagement, of which her aunts knew nothing.
The affair was not really so clandestine. There was no reason why she should have kept it secret beyond a vague embarrassment, an unwillingness to speak