Chapter 5 INTERCEPTED.

"You are up early," said Diva Thane, when she entered Coralie's room on the morrow, and found her standing by the window, enjoying the fresh, fragrant air, and the innumerable sweet and cheery sounds of the summer morning. "I thought that you would sleep late after your accident,—or what came so near to being one."

"How could I sleep late, when I was ordered off to bed so early?" rejoined Coralie, smiling brightly, and turning her clear brown eyes on her friend. "Besides, I had so much to think about," she added, softly and gravely, letting her glance go back to the flower-beds on the lawn.

But it was evident that her reflections, though possibly not without an occasional deep bass note of solemnity, had for the most part sung her a very siren's song of pleasantness and hope; none the less entrancing because a song without words of definite purport. The smile and the flush, with which she had listened, still brightened her face; and a corresponding light was seen shining from what seemed an interminable depth in her eyes,—eyes never so deeply illumined till now. Indeed, it struck Diva with a kind of vague amaze and sadness, that she had never seen this Coralie before! There was an unfamiliar freshness and softness about her, as if she were newly created. The brightness of her face, too, was such as to make her seem more nearly akin to the summer sunshine falling on her through the window, than to mortal shadows and sorrows. In truth, Diva found herself fancying that the sunshine was a good deal the brighter for the happy glow that it caught from her features.

Surprised, ere long, at Diva's silence, Coralie lifted her eyes, and encountered her friend's intent gaze. Immediately she seemed to become aware that a wonderfully subtle and delicate insight was making, not her face only, but her heart, the subject of its deep regard. The moment before, she did not know that there was anything in either which she cared to hide. Now, as if the existence of some secret were suddenly suggested to her by the fear of another's perception of it, she let her eyes fall, and a deep flush overspread her features.

Diva turned away with a sigh. She felt scarcely less lonely than she had seen herself in the vision of the preceding evening, when Coralie had seemed to be passing swiftly beyond her reach and ken, in a chariot of flame.

Nor was her sadness wholly for herself. She was gifted with a singular clearness of intuition, in regard to the relations of others; and Coralie's face affected her much as it would have done to find a rose suddenly budding out on a sunny winter's day, and mistaking it for the beginning of summer. Still, as is often the case with persons thus endowed, she did not fully trust her own intuitions, for the reason that they could give no clear account of themselves to her intellect. She now told herself, therefore, that her impressions were doubtless wrong, inasmuch as they were destitute of solid basis; she was even glad to believe so, quickly losing the thought of herself in that of her friend. Or it might be that she was seized with a diviner selfishness,—the certainty that, if any winter's night of frost and dusk were in store for Coralie, she herself must needs partake largely, through sympathy, of its chill and gloom.

As the friends stood thus silent, each busy with her own impressions (for they were of much too thin a consistency to be called thoughts), certain sounds from below, coming up to the window, attracted their notice. A horse was brought round to the side door, and, soon after, Bergan's voice was distinctly heard, speaking to Mr. Youle.

"That will do, thank you. I shall quite enjoy my ride through the valley, this lovely morning. Present my adieux to Miss Coralie; I trust that her night's rest has obliterated every trace of her last evening's experience. Good-bye."

"Why, that is Mr. Arling!" exclaimed Coralie, in sudden consternation. "What can have happened to take him away so suddenly?"

"I heard him telling your father, last night," answered Diva, calmly, "that he would be forced to return to town early this morning on business of importance."

"And he did not bid me good-bye!" murmured Coralie, discontentedly. "Besides, I have not half thanked him for saving me from those dreadful flames,"—and she shuddered at the recollection. "Oh, I must speak to him, before he goes."

She leaned out of the window, apparently with the intention of calling to him, but it was too late; he was already trotting down the avenue, followed by the groom who was to bring back the horse. She looked after him with a wistful gaze, and her eyes filled with tears.

Diva watched her thoughtfully,—intent, it would seem, upon some deeper and more perplexing phase of the matter than that immediately presented to her. Finally, she said, as if struck by a sudden thought:—

"If you want to speak to him so much, there is a way. You know the shorter path through the shrubbery to the entrance gate; we can intercept him."

"Oh, no! I could not do that," exclaimed Coralie, shrinking back and blushing deeply, "he would think—that is, it would look like thrusting myself in his way."

"He would think nothing," affirmed Diva, coolly, "except that we are out for a morning walk, as we have a good right to be; there never was a lovelier sky or earth to tempt one forth. Come, we must be quick."

And, without waiting for consent, or listening to remonstrance, Diva seized Coralie's hand, and hurried her down the stairs, and out through a different door from that by which Bergan had taken his departure,—where Mr. Youle still lingered,—so that they reached the shrubbery unobserved. Here, Diva slackened her pace a little, though she still kept hold of her half reluctant, and nearly breathless companion. They reached the gate before Bergan came in sight.

"Let us go back a little way," pleaded Coralie; "I don't want to be found waiting here."

"Why not?" asked Diva, composedly, seating herself on a low, broad stump by the way-side. "Mr. Arling is not a vain man, he will never suspect us of waiting for him. But if you must have an excuse for lingering here,—why, there are some exquisite ferns yonder,—gather them for your parlor vases."

Coralie hesitated, doubtful whether to stay or flee. Diva plucked a dainty leaf of wood-sorrel, and put it between the perfect curves of her own lips.

"Coralie," she suddenly asked, "how old am I?"

Despite her perplexity, Coralie could not help smiling at the absurdity of the question. "Are you losing your memory?" she inquired; "you are two years older than I."

"Oh, is that all? I thought I must have been at least a hundred,—it seemed such an age since I used to eat this green stuff with relish. But you are certainly young yet, though you do look a year or two older than you did yesterday."

Coralie quickly stooped over the ferns to hide her deeply-diffused cheeks. Diva continued, apparently without noticing her confusion:—

"However, if the little plant has lost much to the taste, it has gained more to the eye. I never noticed, in those days, what a delicately outlined leaf, and slender, translucent stem it had, nor how fresh was its tint of green. If Mr. Arling were here, now, he would turn that into a simile,—something about a spiritual sense developed out of an earthly one, or a refined enjoyment only to be attained through some loss of the capacity for commoner pleasures;—isn't that a little in his style? Ah! there he is."

Bergan was looking straight before him, so much absorbed in his own thoughts that he did not see the friends until he was close at hand. He immediately dismounted, flung his bridle to the groom, and came toward them with extended hand.

"So you were going to leave without bidding us good-bye," said Miss Thane, coolly, ignoring the offered hand, but looking him searchingly in the eyes.

If Bergan felt a little embarrassment under that look, he did not betray it.

"I supposed that you were not up," he answered, with perfect composure. "And whoever travels at this season of the year, had best do it betimes in the morning, before the sunbeams are hot as well as bright. Miss Coralie, I am glad to see you looking so fully yourself."

His sentence ended a little abruptly, as if whatever else he had intended to say was suddenly put out of his head. He, too, had become dimly aware of some subtle change or development in Coralie, since the evening before,—a more womanly grace, a new character of beauty; which, however, only served to bring the image of Carice vividly before him—Carice, as he had seen her last, and would never see her again, under the shadowy pines, by the dreaming river, with the newborn love-light in her eyes, and the dawn-rose of love in her cheeks. Scarce knowing what he did, he lifted his hand, to see if, haply, he might shut out both images together.

Coralie's eyes fell on that hand, which was carefully bandaged from wrist to knuckles; and the unconquerable shyness which had seized her, on Bergan's appearance, was instantly dissipated.

"What is that?" she asked;—"oh, Mr. Arling, were you burned last night in trying to save me?"

Bergan looked at Diva and smiled. "It is nothing," said he, lightly,—"only your aunt and Miss Thane insisted upon binding it up after I got home; and the least that I can do is to wear their kindly handiwork for a day or two."

"Oh, Diva," exclaimed Coralie reproachfully, the quick moisture coming into her eyes, "why did you not tell me?"

"Why should I?" replied Diva, with somewhat bitter emphasis; "hands heal quickly."

"Miss Thane is quite right," said Bergan; "the matter was not worth mentioning. Certainly, it was not worth one of those tears, Miss Coralie; you will make me too proud of having gotten a small scratch in the fray. If it were ten times as much, it would in nowise offset what I owe your father. Now I must bid you farewell, or I shall miss the train."

"Will you not come up again soon?" asked Coralie, coloring a little, but strong in the certainty that she could not err in showing her preserver the most cordial courtesy. "It must be good for you to leave the city as often as you can. And you have certainly earned the right to consider Farview as your home, whenever it suits you to do so."

"Thank you," said Bergan, bowing in acknowledgment of the kind and thoughtful invitation. "But I am necessarily a busy and homeless man, and it is the truest wisdom for me not to stray too far out of my proper orbit, lest I get dissatisfied with it. When I become more fully and firmly settled therein, a day's absence may not matter so much; and then, if your invitation still holds good, I shall be only too happy to avail myself of it."

"It must always hold good, just as a kindness once done is done forever," replied Coralie warmly, turning a deaf ear to the unseasonable inner voice that cried out against the coolness and reserve of Bergan's response, and holding out a tremulous little hand, by way of signature and seal to her promise.

Bergan gave the hand a friendly pressure, and bowed low to Miss Thane. "A pleasant summer to you both," said he, "full of flowers and sunshine, both material and metaphorical. Farewell."

He lifted his hat as he rode through the gate; very soon a turn of the road hid him from sight. Coralie stood looking somewhat wistfully at the point where he had disappeared.

"Peace go with him!" said Diva lightly. "He was in a great hurry to leave us, but he said 'Farewell' in a way to indicate that he should not be in a hurry to return. Fortunately, we are not the sort of damsels to pine after an unwilling knight."

Coralie turned instantly, and, with heightened color, signified her readiness to go home.

For some days her spirits were fitful and changeable; nothing now so gay, nothing now so sad, as her smile. During this time Diva watched over her with a silent, patient, careful devotion that surrounded her like the atmosphere, viewless, but beneficent. She saved her from annoyance; she shielded her from observation; she stood between her and her guests, taking up the burden of their entertainment in a way that would have seemed incredible to those accustomed to see her only languidly indifferent or coldly haughty. Though her heart might be narrow, it was certainly deep.

By and by, Coralie began to smile naturally once more, and Diva was satisfied that, though the rose could not "shut and be a bud again," it had received no lasting blight. If it could be kept from further harm, it might be expected to develop naturally into perfection of bloom and beauty,—not the hasty and one-sided maturity that comes of a worm at the heart.

She could now think of herself. Unselfish anxiety and effort had been very good for her thus far, there was not a doubt of that. Nevertheless, she was beginning to feel urgent need of quiet,—opportunity to commune with her own heart, and be still,—time to deal justly and thoroughly with questions seething in her mind ever since her talks with Bergan. But it was vain to look for quiet at Farview; the house was fast filling up with gay guests; and having once dropped her ice-mantle of reserve, she could not resume it without giving pain to her hosts. So, as Coralie was now quite capable of taking her rightful place as queen of the festivities, and as she had already stayed twice as long as had been contemplated at first, Diva went back to her studio.