A Rose of Yesterday. F. Marion Crawford

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СКАЧАТЬ scar on her forehead burning hot under her hair, and the temptation was great, though her anger at herself was greater. Harmon was alive, and she was a married woman, though he was a madman. She would not kiss the letter, but she laid it gently upon the smouldering embers, and then turned away, that she might not see it curling and glowing and blackening to ashes on the coals. That night a note from the director of the asylum told her that her husband was in excellent bodily health, without improvement in his mental condition. It was dated on the first of the month.

      After that she avoided the colonel for some time, but when she met him her face was again like marble, and only the soft, slow smile and the steady, gentle voice showed that she was glad to see him. Two years had passed since then, and he had not even guessed that she knew.

      He often sought her, when she was within reach of him, but their meeting to-day, in the fashionable antiquary's shop, at the cross-roads of Europe, was altogether accidental, unless it were brought about by the direct intervention of destiny. But who believes in destiny nowadays? Most people smile at the word 'fate,' as though it had no meaning at all. Yet call 'fate' the 'chemistry of the universe' and the sceptic's face assumes an expression of abject credulity, because the term has a modern ring and smacks of science. What is the difference between the two? We know a little chemistry: we can get something like the perfume of spring violets out of nauseous petroleum, and a flavour of strawberries out of stinking coal-tar; but we do not know much of the myriad natural laws by which our bodies are directed hither and thither, mere atoms in the everlasting whirlpool of all living beings. What can it matter whether we call those rules chemistry or fate? We shall submit to them in the end, with our bodies, though our souls rebel against them ever so eternally. The things that matter are quite different, and the less they have to do with our bodies, the better it is for ourselves.

      Colonel Wimpole looked at the miniature and saw that it was a modern copy of a well-known French one, ingeniously set in an old case, to fit which it had perhaps been measured and painted. He looked at the dealer quickly, and the man expressed his despair by turning up his eyes a very little, while he bent his head forward and spread out his palms, abandoning the contest, for he recognized the colonel's right to advise a friend.

      "What do you think of it?" asked Mrs. Harmon.

      "That depends entirely on what you mean to do with it, and how much you would give for it," answered the colonel, who would not have let her buy an imitation under any circumstances, but was far too kind-hearted to ruin the shopkeeper in her estimation.

      "I rather liked it," was the answer. "It was for myself. There is something about the expression that pleases me. The lady looks so blindly happy and delighted with herself. It is a cheerful little thing to look at."

      The colonel smiled.

      "Will you let me give it to you?" he asked, putting it into her hand. "In that way I shall have some pleasure out of it, too."

      Mrs. Harmon held it for a moment, and looked at him thoughtfully, asking herself whether there was any reason why she should not accept the little present. He was not rich, but she had understood from his first answer that the thing was not worth much, after all, and she knew that he would not pay an absurd price for it. Her fingers closed quietly upon it.

      "Thank you," she said. "I wanted it."

      "I will come back this afternoon and pay for it," said the colonel to the dealer, as the three went out of the shop together a few moments later.

      During the little scene, young Harmon had looked on sharply and curiously, but had not spoken.

      "How are those things made, mother?" he asked, when they were in the street.

      "What things?" asked Mrs. Harmon, gently.

      "Those things--what do you call them? Like what Colonel Wimpole just gave you. How are they made?"

      "Oh, miniatures? They are painted on ivory with very fine brushes."

      "How funny! Why do they cost so much money, then?"

      His questions were like those of a little child, but his mother's expression did not change as she answered him, always with the same unvarying gentleness.

      "People have to be very clever to paint them," she said. "That is why the very good ones are worth so much. It is like a good tailor, my dear, who is paid well because he makes good coats, whereas the man who only knows how to make workmen's jackets earns very little."

      "That's not fair," said young Harmon. "It isn't the man's fault if he is stupid, is it?"

      "No, dear, it isn't his fault, it's his misfortune."

      It took the young man so long to understand this that he said nothing more, trying to think over his mother's words, and getting them by heart, for they pleased him. They walked along in the hot sun and then crossed the street opposite the Schweizerhof to reach the shade of the foolish-looking trees that have been stuck about like Nuremberg toys, between the lake and the highway. The colonel had not spoken since they had left the shop.

      "How well you are looking," he said suddenly, when young Harmon had relapsed into silence. "You are as fresh as a rose."

      "A rose of yesterday," said Helen Harmon, a little sadly.

      Quite naturally, Colonel Wimpole sighed as he walked along at her elbow; for though he did not know that she had ever loved him, he remembered the letter he had written to the man she had afterwards married, and he was too much a man himself not to believe that all might have been different if he had not written it.

      "Where are you stopping?" he asked, when they had gone a few steps in silence.

      Mrs. Harmon named a quiet hotel on the other side of the river.

      "Close to us," observed the colonel, just as they reached the new bridge.

      They were half-way across when an exclamation from young Harmon interrupted their conversation, which was, indeed, but a curiously stiff exchange of dry information about themselves and their movements, past, planned, and probable. For people who are fond of each other and meet rarely are first of all anxious to know when they may meet again. But the boy's cry of surprise made them look round.

      "Jukes!" he exclaimed loudly. "Jukes!" he repeated, more softly but very emphatically, as though solely for his own benefit.

      'Jukes' was his only expression when pleased and surprised. No one knew whether he had ever heard the word, or had invented it, and no one could ever discover what it meant nor from what it was derived. It seemed to be what Germans call a 'nature-sound,' by which he gave vent to his feelings. His mother hated it, but had never been able to induce him to substitute anything else in its place. She followed the direction of his eager glance, for she knew by his tone that he wanted what he saw.

      She expected to see a pretty boat, or a big dog, or a gorgeous posted bill. Archie had a passion for the latter, and he often bought them and took them home with him to decorate his own particular room. He loved best the ones printed in violent and obtrusive colours. The gem of his collection was a purple woman on a red ground with a wreath of yellow flowers.

      But Mrs. Harmon saw neither advertisement nor dog, nor boat. She saw Sylvia Strahan. She knew the girl very well, and knew Miss Wimpole, of course. The two were walking along on the other side of the bridge, talking together. Against the blaze of the afternoon sun, reflected from the still lake, they could hardly have recognized the colonel and the Harmons, even if they had looked that way.

      "It's СКАЧАТЬ