Chapter 2 NEW ACQUAINTANCES.

"Well, Coralie," said Mr. Youle, an hour later, as he preceded Bergan into the drawing-room of the fine old family mansion that had been the home of the Youles for many years, "bring out your laurels, I have brought you a conquering hero."

"Oh! it is Mr. Arling; he is very welcome." And Coralie, who had seen Bergan two or three times in her father's office, greeted him with marked cordiality, and gave him her small, soft hand.

It is odd how strong a resemblance can co-exist with perfect dissimilarity of features and complexion. Though she was very lovely—this Coralie Youle—and with a blithesome and bewitching loveliness all her own, Bergan had never been able to look upon her, nor could he see her now, without some deep, keen pain, as from an unhealed wound. There were tones in her voice which reminded him of one that he would hear no more; and she had ways and gestures which continually awakened memories not yet softened by distance into lines and tints of perfect purity and peace. And yet, what an irresistible, subtle charm in her was this very power to pain him!

"You said that Mr. Arling was a conquering hero, papa," she went on, turning to Mr. Youle. "Have you gained the case, then, after all? That is wonderful indeed! How did it happen? Tell me all about it."

Nothing loath, Mr. Youle gave a sufficiently graphic account of the scene in the court-room, taking occasion to lavish no small amount of hearty encomium upon Bergan's share in it.

"How I wish I could have been there to see!" exclaimed Coralie, when the recital was ended, her cheeks glowing with sympathetic excitement; "it sounds like a chapter out of a novel, rather than a bit of real life. Mr. Arling does, in truth, deserve the laurels of victory; and, by the way—Diva! where are you?—here is some one who is worthy to give them to him."

No one had noticed, until now, that a lady was standing in the window, half concealed by the curtain. But, as she came forward everything else seemed to fade out of sight, for the moment, and leave only her, standing there alone in the clear, cold light of her marvellous beauty.

Before this, Bergan's ideal of proud and queenly beauty had been painted with dark hair and eyes; he now saw reason to change it at once and forever. The lady was the most perfect blonde that he had ever seen. Her hair was of the palest brown, with only a faint gold light in it; her eyes were blue or gray, he could not tell which, at the moment, nor would he have been less puzzled after a much longer acquaintance; and her complexion was fair and colorless, almost, as marble; yet never had he beheld anything so stately, so proud, so calm, and—it must needs be said—so cold. She came forth from the shadow of the curtain as Galatea might have done, had she been endowed with life only, not with love.

Worthy she might be to crown a victor, in right of her queenliness, but the laurels from her hands, Bergan thought, would be very chill!

"Miss Thane!" exclaimed Mr. Youle, "why this is a surprise, and a most pleasant one. It is seldom that you allow any of us to see you here, except Coralie."

"Because my visits are usually morning visits," replied Miss Thane, in a low, yet singularly musical monotone, that harmonized perfectly with her face, "when I know that you are sure to be better engaged than in gossipping with me."

Mr. Youle slightly raised his eyebrows, in good-humored recognition of the possibly careless, possibly studied, ambiguity of this explanation; but he let it pass without comment, as Coralie hastened to present her guests to each other.

Bergan bowed low, with the graceful deference which always marked his bearing toward women; but Miss Thane was guilty of no waste of civility. She slightly inclined her head, vouchsafed him a single glance out of her wondrous eyes, and coolly turned back to the window, to lose herself, a moment after, in a fit of abstraction.

Miss Youle—Mr. Youle's maiden sister, and the mistress of his household since his wife's death, many years ago—now appeared, clad in a thick, black silk that rustled like a field of corn in the wind, and dropped Bergan her stately, old-time courtesy. And Coralie immediately began to repeat the story of the trial to her, aided and abetted by Mr. Youle; from which embarrassing iteration Bergan would have been glad to escape, by joining Miss Thane at her window, had not her manner seemed to indicate so clearly that she was amply sufficient to herself, and did not care to be anything to anybody else. But the eloquence of Coralie and Mr. Youle finally came to a pause, if not to an end; Miss Thane roused from her abstraction; and the party went down to dinner.

Bergan was inclined to be somewhat silent, at first. Lonely dweller in offices, hotels, and restaurants, that he had been, for the year past, he had half lost the habit of conversation; besides, Coralie's tones continually swept the chords of association in a way to thrill him with a sombre mixture of pain and pleasure, and keep his mind confusedly vibrating between the present and the past. But he was too conscientiously courteous to allow himself long to remain a dead weight upon his hosts; and, though it cost him an effort, he was soon talking with the old ease and fluency, enriched by a profounder thoughtfulness, and a subtler play of imagination. In his hands, commonplace subjects discovered hidden treasures; while loftier themes gleamed and glowed like stained windows seen against a golden western sky. Miss Thane lost something of her apathetic manner, after awhile, and paid him the compliment of listening with attention, if not with interest. And opposite to him was Coralie's listening, speaking face, full of such quick comprehension and sympathy, that he could scarcely help being beguiled into a fuller, freer expression of thought, opinion, and feeling, than he would have believed possible, an hour before.

But was it not Miss Thane's subtle management, rather than Coralie's sympathy, which finally led the talk into the sombre channels dug by human disappointments, losses, and failures, and kept it there until they had returned to the drawing-room? Then Bergan said, by way of dismissing the subject:—"But all these things are to be looked at as materials, not results. Happy the prophetic vision which sees the perfect form of the Future rising from the chaos of past and present!—as a sculptor sees before him, not a rough block of marble, but the finished statue,—an architect, not shapeless heaps of stone and mortar, but the grand completed temple."

"Let him but look far enough," rejoined Miss Thane, "and he can behold a sadder phase,—the statue broken and defaced, the temple overthrown and prostrate; once more a rough block of marble, and shapeless heaps of stone."

"Nay," replied Bergan, "it is at that very point that Prophecy should spread her whitest wings, and soar to the temple not made with hands, and the jewelled walls of the city let down from the clouds. Miss Coralie," he continued, glancing at the open piano, "do you sing?"

"Not much; I play mostly. But Miss Thane does. Dear Diva, won't you sing for us?"

Miss Thane looked at Bergan, but he said nothing. If he had added a word to Coralie's entreaty, the chances are that she would not have sung. But since she had only Coralie to oblige—Coralie, who alone seemed to have found the deep way to her heart, and to whom she rarely refused anything—she went straight to the piano, took the first music that presented itself, which happened to be Rossini's "Cujus Animam," and began to sing, not only with perfect method—that might have been expected—but with exquisite feeling. Her voice was a rich contralto, deep and broad as a river flowing to the sea, and bearing the listener whither it pleased. There were tears in the eyes of her auditors, when she had finished, and would have been, doubtless, had she sung anything else, for the quality of her voice touched that point of perfection, which, in this world, gives a pleasure closely akin to pain.

She waited a moment, but no one spoke; then she put her fingers again on the keys, and, looking far out into the evening dusk, sang a dismal, hopeless dirge, which Bergan felt intuitively to be her own; and which wrung his heart with passionate longing and pain. She would sing no more.

Yet no one could talk after those heartbreaking strains. So Bergan quietly took his leave.

Coralie wound her arm round her friend's waist, and drew her to the window, to watch him down the street. "What do you think of him?" she asked.

"I think—that he has a genius for conversation," replied Miss Thane, coolly.

"Oh, Diva, you know that is not what I mean! How do you like him?"

"I like no one—but you. I think I might respect him in time. As for you, little one, take care you do not like him too well."

"Why?" asked Coralie, blushing.

"Because he has buried his heart—the best part of it—in somebody's grave."