The Opened Shutters. Clara Louise Burnham

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СКАЧАТЬ Lacey sank back in her chair and Dunham sprang to his feet as the girlish voice rang out, and a black-clothed figure stood before them. She had been standing behind one of the heavy hangings watching the passing in the seething street when the two entered the room, and until now had listened tense and motionless.

      For a silent moment the visitors faced the girl, whose crop of short, curly hair vibrated, and whose eyes sent forth sparks of blue fire as she stood there, indignation incarnate. Her glance roved from one to the other, and Miss Martha pinched herself to make certain that she had not fallen into a bad dream, while Dunham crimsoned under the burning gaze.

      "Syl—Sylvia, is that you!" exclaimed Miss Lacey unsteadily.

      The girl scorned to reply. White and accusing she stood. Miss Martha looked up at her companion appealingly. "Mr.—Mr.—Sir Walter—Oh, I don't know your name!"

      The young girl half closed her eyes and looked down on her aunt with a strange expression.

      "Do you," she asked slowly, "talk like that about your dead brother even to persons whose names you haven't learned?"

      "Great Scott!" thought Dunham, whose crimson was fast becoming prickly heat. "What have I got into!"

      "I know this gentleman—I do, Sylvia," returned Miss Martha earnestly. "He is your Uncle Calvin's—yes, your Uncle Calvin's trusted friend."

      "I should judge so," returned the girl, fixing the unhappy Dunham with her gaze. "I should judge his position to be very nearly one of the family. Does Uncle Calvin know his name?"

      Dunham had for some years been aware that his height was six feet. Now he appeared to himself to be shrinking together until he was twin to his employer. It would be a fortunate moment to present his card to these ladies! For the first time in his life he found his hands in his way.

      "The situation is very peculiar—very," stammered Miss Martha nervously, "and I'm very sorry, very sorry indeed that you were listening."

      "Oh, so am I!" ejaculated the girl, the angry tenseness of her face changing and her voice breaking as she threw up her hands in a despairing gesture. The pathos of the black figure struck through Dunham's mortification.

      "I wouldn't have hurt your feelings for anything," pursued Miss Martha earnestly.

      "Wouldn't you?"

      "No; and I wish you would believe it and not look at me so strangely. I never had hysterics in my life, but I feel as if I might have them right off, if you don't stop."

      The young girl had regained her self-control. "It might be the best ending to the interview," she said, "for I could leave you then to—to the trusted friend. I don't know what to do now." She clasped her hands over her face for a second, then dropped them.

      "She's dreadfully theatrical, dreadfully," thought Miss Lacey.

      "She is broken-hearted," thought Dunham; and pulling himself together he found his voice.

      "My name is Dunham, Miss Lacey," he said, meeting the blue eyes where the fire had burned out, showing the face so white, so young. "This is in the day's work for me, and I'm sorry. I am in Judge Trent's office, and he sent me here with your aunt to represent him."

      "My aunt saved a lot of time," rejoined the girl slowly, speaking low. "She represented them both while I stood there behind the curtain." Her hands pressed together, and she looked again from one to the other.

      "There isn't anything for you to stay for now, is there?" she added, after a painful silence.

      "Why, of course there is!" exclaimed Miss Martha. "We haven't made any plan at all."

      "What plan had you thought of making?"

      Miss Martha cleared her throat and looked up at Dunham.

      "I—we—wanted to ask what your plans were."

      "They're nothing to you, I'm sure," returned the girl.

      "Why, they're a great deal to us. You mustn't think Judge Trent and I don't feel any responsibility of you. We do."

      The girl's lips quivered into something that tried to be a smile.

      "How did you intend to show it before—before you came in here this morning?"

      "Why, we"—Miss Martha cleared her throat again, "we—feel sure, of course, that—unless your father left you money you—you will want to find something to do, and we intend to help you find it."

      Sylvia looked like a pale flower as she stood there. There rose in Dunham the involuntary desire to protect that any man who saw her would have felt.

      "And to pay your expenses until you do find it," he added hastily. "That is Judge Trent's idea," he declared, in a recklessly encouraging tone. "To pay your expenses so long as you need it."

      The girl's quivering smile grew steadier. Her pride stiffened under this man's regard.

      "Where?" she asked, with self-possession. "Not at the Touraine, probably."

      It was like a downward jerk on a balloon. Dunham suddenly remembered the memoranda and his employer's shaggy gaze.

      "At the Young Women's Christian Association," he replied apologetically.

      The girl laughed. "I don't like the sound of it," she said. "Is it some sort of reformatory?"

      "It is not," replied Miss Martha warmly. "That is a very good idea of your uncle's. I hadn't heard of it. It is a very generous and proper arrangement," with growing conviction. "Boston is dreadfully overcrowded, and you'd have probably done better in Springfield, whatever it's like; but I'll stay with you now,"—Miss Martha began taking off her gloves nervously—"and help you pack up and take you over to the Association, and see you settled. The superintendent can no doubt help you to find something to do, and perhaps everything will be all right, after all."

      Sylvia Lacey stretched out her hand. "Put those gloves on again, Aunt Martha. Your duty to me is done. You and Mr. Dunham can go home now."

      Miss Martha's eyes snapped behind her glasses. "What do you mean? What are you going to do, then?"

      The girl shrugged her shoulders carelessly. "Any one of half a dozen things. Get married, probably."

      Miss Martha stared. "Are you engaged all this time and we worrying ourselves like this?"

      "No, but a man, an actor, wants me to marry him. He believes I would do well on the stage."

      "Sylvia Lacey, you mustn't marry an actor. You mustn't consider such a thing!" The speaker sprang to her feet and took a step forward.

      "I haven't until now,"—Sylvia's white cheeks gave the lie to her nonchalant tone—"but father said he believed Nat would be good to me. I thought it very strange at the time, but he seemed much more certain that Nat would be kind than that you and Uncle Calvin would."

      "Sylvia, you mustn't be willful. You're a young girl. You must let your uncle and me think for you. I am going to remain with you until I see you moved. You can't stay in this hotel alone, not a day." Miss Martha glanced about as if she expected to see СКАЧАТЬ