"It is to be no secret," he shortly answered.
I had no more to say. Cornelius rose impatiently, walked about the room, came back to his place, and still looked unable to get over the irritating consciousness of having been overheard.
I rose to go; he suddenly detained me.
"Stay," he said, with a profound sigh, "it is most provoking--the more especially as there is no dipping you into Lethe--but '_Hon[n]i soit qui mal y pense_.' I did not say one word of which I need be ashamed, and as to its being a little ridiculous--why, it is very odd if a man cannot afford to be ridiculous now and then--eh, Daisy?"
He gave me an odd look, half shy, half amused. He could not help enjoying a joke, even though it might be at his own expense.
"Then you are not vexed with me, Cornelius?" I asked, looking up.
"Not a bit," he replied, smiling with perfect good-humour; "I acquit you of wilful indiscretion, my poor child; I should have shut the door--but one cannot think of everything."
He had laid his hand on my shoulder. I turned round and pressed my lips to it, for the first time, scarce knowing why I gave him the token of love and homage he had yielded to Miriam. It is thus in life; we are perpetually bestowing on those who give back again, but rarely to us.
Every trace of vexation passed away from the face of Cornelius; he made room for me by his side, and as I sat there in my familiar attitude, he shook back his hair, and observed, with philosophic coolness--
"After all, she would have known it to-morrow; only," he added, a little uneasily, "I think there is no necessity to let Miriam suspect anything of all this: you understand, Daisy?"
"Yes, Cornelius," I replied submissively.
He smiled.
"What a docile tone! Do you know, my pet, it is almost a pity there is not some romantic mystery in this matter; how discreet you would be! how you would carry letters or convey messages! but your good offices will never be needed."
He spoke gaily; I tried to smile, but he little knew how my heart was aching.
"I suppose, Cornelius, you will marry Miss Russell," I observed after awhile.
He smiled again.
"Soon, Cornelius?" He sighed and shook his head.
"Will you still live in this house?"
"Provided Miriam does not think it too small," he replied with a perplexed air, "but by uniting it to the next-door house, it would be quite large enough. Then I could have the upper part of both houses with a sky-light,--much better than a place in town; besides, I shall want her to sit to me--eh, Daisy?"
He turned to me; my face was partly averted from his gaze, or he must have read there the sharp and jealous torment every word he uttered awakened within me. Who was this stranger, that had stepped in between Cornelius and me, whose thought absorbed all his thoughts, whose image effaced every other image, who already made her supposed wishes his law, already snatched from me my most delightful and exclusive privileges? He seemed waiting for a reply; I compelled myself to answer--
"Yes, Cornelius."
"For our gallery, you know," he continued.
I did not reply; I felt sick and faint. He stooped and looked into my face with utter unconsciousness in his.
"How pale you look, my little girl!" he said, with concern; "and you are feverish too. Go up to your room."
He bade me good-night, and kissed me two or three times with unusual warmth and tenderness. Jealousy is all quickness of spirit and of sense.
I reluctantly endured caresses which I knew not to be mine; if I dared, I would have repelled those overflowings of a heart in whose joy and delight I had not the faintest part. Sweeter, dearer to me was the quiet, careless kiss I was accustomed to get, than all this tenderness springing from love to another. I was glad when Cornelius released me from his embrace; glad to leave him; glad to go upstairs and be wretched in liberty.
Never since Sarah had told me that my father was going to marry Miss Murray, had I felt as I now felt. The grief I had passed through after his death was more mighty, but it did not, like this, attack the existence of love and sting it in its very heart. Cornelius married to Miriam Russell, parted from us in the sweet communion of daily life, living with her in another home, painting his pictures for her and with her sitting to him or looking on,--alas! where should I be then?--was a thought so bitter, so tormenting, that it worked me into a fever, which fed eagerly on the jealousy that had given it birth.
Gone was the time when I stood next to Kate in his heart, and my loss was the gain of her whom I had heard him making the aim of his future, the hope and joy of his life. His love for her might not exclude calmer affections, but it cast them beneath at an immeasurable distance. I could not bear this. I was jealous by temper and by long habit. My father had accustomed me to the dangerous sweetness of being loved ardently and without a rival; and though I had not expected so much from Cornelius, yet slowly, patiently, by loving him to an excess, I had made him love me too; and now it was all labour lost: she had reached at once the heart towards which I had toiled so long, and won without effort the exclusive affection it was hard not to win, but utter misery to see bestowed on another.
The manner of Kate on the following morning showed me she knew nothing; breakfast was scarcely over when she rather solemnly said to her brother--
"Cornelius, what did you do to that child whilst I was out yesterday?"
He stood by the fire-place, looking down at the glowing embers and smiling at his own thoughts; he woke from his reverie, shook his head, opened his eyes, and looked up astonished.
"I have done nothing to her, Kate," he replied, simply.
"She has been crying herself to sleep, though!"
I had, and I heard her with dismay; he gave me a keen look.
"Her nerves are weak," he suggested.
"Nonsense! did you ever know a fair-haired, dark-eyebrowed man or woman to have weak nerves?"
"I know dark eyebrows are a rare charm for a blonde."
"Nonsense! charm!--I tell you it is an indication of character--of energy and wilfulness. It is all very well for the fair, meek hair to say, 'Oh!
I'm so quiet;' I say the dark, passionate brow tells me another story, and as Daisy never cries without a reason, I should like to know what she has been crying about."
"Her health affects her spirits, that is all," hastily replied Cornelius; "come up with me, Daisy, it will cheer you."
I obeyed reluctantly. It was some time however before Cornelius took any notice of me. He stood looking at a study for a larger picture begun during my illness. It represented poor children playing on a common, and was to be called "The Happy Time."
"And don't they look happy?" observed Cornelius, turning to me with a smile.
He was perhaps struck with the fact that the child he addressed did not look a very happy one, for, with the abruptness of a thing suddenly remembered, he said--
"By the bye, what did you cry for, Daisy?"
I hung down my head and did not reply.
"Did you hear me?"
"Yes, Cornelius."
"Then answer, child."
I did not; he looked astonished.
"Answer," he said again.
I felt myself turning red and pale, but to tell him I was jealous of Miriam Russell! no, I could not; the confession was too bitter, too humiliating.