CHAPTER XII.
CROSSES ON THE LINE.
It happened that not long after Cyn sang at a concert given in one ofthe principal halls of the city. Of course, a party from the HotelNorman attended. This party consisted not only of all the young people,but also included Mrs. Simonson.
Cyn made a great success, and was encored every time she sang. Never hadNattie so fully realized the beauty and brilliancy of her friend, as shedid upon that evening. Nor could she fail to observe that Clem, too, wasstartled into a new admiration. Was it because of this that aseriousness, quite foreign to the gay scene, fell over Nattie's face?
As for Celeste, she was decidedly envious, and had there been nogentlemen in the party, would have turned exceedingly glum. As it was,she, with some difficulty, called up her usual smiles, and contentedherself with whispering spitefully to Quimby,
"How can she appear before the public so? it seems _so_ unwomanly!"
"Charming, indeed!" replied Quimby, without the slightest idea of whatshe had said, as his attention was concentrated on Cyn, and his brainincapable of entertaining two ideas at once.
But while acknowledging her attractions, Quimby preserved his composure,arguing to himself in a common sense way,
"What is the use of a fellow falling in love with a girl that everyother fellow is sure to fall in love with too, you know?"
Mrs. Simonson, good soul, quite swelled with pride in her lodger, and byher behavior created the impression in the minds of people sitting near,that she was the singer's mother.
And Jo--unsentimental Jo--was entirely carried away. With the music, ofcourse, for music was art, and art, only in another branch, was his lifeand work; and was not Cyn a beautiful work of Nature, the mother of allart?
"He will be a very lucky man who shall call our Cyn his," whispered Clemto Jo, as she came out in answer to an encore.
"What!" ejaculated Jo, so savagely that every one turned to look at him,and Clem opened his eyes wide with surprise. "Bah! Nonsense!"
And some way or other, after this, the music sounded very dismal to Jo,and the close air of the room made his head ache; but he had beenworking very hard all day, and was tired, so this was quite natural.
Was Clem presuming on his good looks, and thinking of making Cyn _his_,he wondered? If he was, _she_ certainly would not be fool enough to--Jostopped here in his meditations, because he would like to have been alittle surer that she would not. Very strongly he felt just then that"things of a doubtful nature were sometimes very uncertain!"
It was, of course, no sentiment on his part that caused these emotions.He did not wish Cyn to throw herself away in matrimony, that was all;and so strong were his feelings on this point that he could not banishthe idea from his mind all the rest of the evening, and was noticeablythoughtful.
But he was very gay; even unusually, wildly gay on the way home, andkept Mrs. Simonson, whom he escorted, in such a state of laughter thatshe burst three buttons, and was all "wheezed up" when they reached thehotel.
"Why are you so thoughtful to-night?" Clem asked Nattie, as they walkeddown their street behind the rest, in the wake of Jo's gayety andCeleste's meaningless giggle. Celeste was clinging to the arm of theunwilling, but helpless Quimby, and chatting of the handsome tenor.
With a slight start, Nattie replied to Clem's question,
"I do not know. Am I?"
"Yes; you have hardly spoken a word all the way. Is anything thetrouble?" asked Clem, and she, looking moodily oh the ground, did notsee the anxiety in his eyes as he spoke.
"Nothing!" she replied; then startled him by bursting out passionately,
"I am tired of living with no object; with nothing but a daily routine.Can it be there is no better place in the world for me? That my lifemust be always thus? I _cannot_ be contented!"
Clem stopped short and stared at her agitated face.
"I never knew you were not happy, Nattie," he said, gently.
"Oh! I am not unhappy; I am only discontented," Nattie replied.
"You are somewhat contradictory in your statements," said Clem, as theywent on again, for she also had stopped. "Is it office troubles thatannoy you? Poor little girl, it _is_ a monotonous life!"
Nattie flushed at the tenderness in his voice.
"That is one thing," she replied, a little tremblingly, "but I wantsomething to work for, as Cyn has. I am ambitious; my present positioncan never content me; I am haunted all the time by an uneasyconsciousness that if I was smart I should be doing something to getahead; and yet, I don't know what to do!"
"I remember you once said something about becoming a writer; why not trythat?" suggested Clem.
They had reached their own landing at the hotel, and paused. Theremainder of the party had disappeared.
"It seems so hopeless," Nattie answered, dispiritedly; "there is noopening anywhere."
"But it will never do to wait for that, you know. If the world is aclosed oyster, we must open it. Isn't that the way Cyn did?" said Clem,half surmising the realization of the difference between Cyn's brilliantsuccess and her own plodding along that had caused her dejection and ashe spoke, he took her hand in his, but Nattie snatched it quickly away.
"Ah! Cyn!" she said in sudden and uncontrollable jealousy, "of course_you_ could never expect me to compare with her!"
Clem looked at her a moment, then some emotion flushed his face, and hewould have spoken had not Miss Kling, disgusted with her inability tocatch a word from inside, opened her door, saying sharply,
"Are you coming in, Miss Rogers?"
"Certainly," Nattie replied quickly, and already ashamed of her jealousoutburst. "Good night, Clem."
"But will you not come over and congratulate Cyn on her success?" heasked, detaining her. "I heard a carriage just stop, and think she is init."
"Not to-night; to-morrow," said Nattie, hastily, and left him before hecould again urge the request.
"Oh!" said Miss Kling, as Nattie closed the door behind her, "was thatMr. Stanwood who came home with you?"
"Yes;" Nattie answered, briefly. "I should hardly have thought MissArcher would have allowed it!" remarked Miss Kling, with a sneeze.
"I don't know why she should have forbidden it!" replied Nattie, coldly,yet looking somewhat startled. Poor Nattie's nerves were decidedlyunstrung to-night.
"You do not mean to say that you are ignorant of what every one elseknows?" queried Miss Kling, with a malicious sparkle in her eyes; "thatthey are just the same as engaged."
Nattie turned a very pale face towards her.
"I--I think you are mistaken," she faltered.
"Mistaken! no indeed!" said Miss Kling, positively; "I should think yourown eyes might tell you that! Why, Mrs. Simonson says, Miss Archer hasthought of nobody but him since he came into the house, and that anybodycan tell he is in love with her, from his actions and the attentions hepays her, and Celeste told me the same thing, long ago. But I supposeMiss Archer is willing he should come home with _you_. She isn't, ofcourse, jealous of _you!_"
There was a sneering emphasis in Miss Kling's last words, that made themanything but complimentary, as Nattie felt; but saying only, in a voiceshe vainly tried to steady,
"You may be right," she went into her own room, and locked the doorbehind her.
She knew now! knew what that first romantic acquaintance, that dejectionat the companionship lost in the obnoxious red-head, that joy when "C"was restored to her in Clem, that unsatisfied desire to have him back onthe wire, all to herself; that suppressed jealousy of Cyn, led to--andwhat it all meant; that she loved him! and he, did he, as they said,love Cyn? alas! who could help loving bright, beautiful Cyn? To attracthim to herself was only the romance of their first acquaintance--andeven this Cyn slightly shared; it was not Cyn's fault. Nattie could notbe guilty of the petty meanness of disliking her friend because shepossessed attractions superior to her own. But if he loved Cyn, then,indeed, had the curtain fallen on the sad ending of her romance; thelights were out, and all was da
rkness. _If_ he loved Cyn? Nattie, with thefirst full knowledge of her own feelings, could hardly hope otherwise,remembering their intimacy, his marked attention to her, his praise ofher, and her winning beauty and talents. Yes, it must be that he lovedher! Oh, why must Cyn be given everything, and she--nothing? What kindof fate was it that marked out the broad, sunny road for one, and thesomber, uneven pathway for another? Must her life be one of lonelydiscontent, a telegraph office at the beginning, and a telegraph officeat the end? was this to be all?
"No!" thought Nattie, raising her head proudly, and looking at the redand swollen eyes that gazed at her from the opposite glass. "Life _shall_give me something of its best; if not of love, then of fame! and I willwork and persevere until I gain it!"
Yet, for all of her resolution, Nattie sobbed herself to sleep. Not soeasy is it to renounce love, and look forward to a life barren of itsbest and sweetest gift.
And after this there was a change in her observable even to theundiscerning Quimby. Shadows had fallen over her face, lurked in hergray eyes and around the corners of her mouth. The old restlessness hadgiven place to a settled gloom. She was less often seen among the gaycircle that gathered in Cyn's parlor, pleading every possible excuse forstaying away, and when with them, to his surprise and delight, and toCeleste's dismay, she devoted herself to Quimby, to Jo--to any onerather than to Clem. For most of all had she changed to him. Afraid ofbetraying her secret, and unable to control the pain that overpoweredher when in his presence, now she knew her own heart, she avoided him inevery practicable way, and seldom, even over their wire, talked withhim. She was always "tired," or "busy," when he called her now.
Clem, surprised and puzzled by this unaccountable change, at firstendeavored to overcome her coolness, but ended by becoming cool in histurn, and talked and joked with Cyn more than ever. And if a touch ofthe shadows on Nattie's face sometimes crept over his own, she, in herself-engrossment, did not observe it.
If Quimby's hopes burned brighter at this state of affairs, and he wasconsequently happier, Jo, for some reason unexplained, was not. In fact,he was decidedly queer; now gay, now horribly cynical, not to saymorose.
Truly, Cupid, viewed in the character of a telegraphist, was far frombeing a success; for he had switched everybody off on to the wrong wire!
Cyn, gay unconscious Cyn, no more dreamed of Clem being supposedly inlove with her, than she did that Jo was so filled with thoughts of her,that, had he been a different kind of a man, one would have called himdesperately in love. But Cyn, unconscious of all this, saw, and withsorrow, the ever-increasing coldness between Nattie and Clem. For shehad quite set her heart on the romance that had commenced in dots anddashes culminating in orange blossoms--a Wired Love. But now, to hervexation, she saw her anticipations liable to be set at naught, andherself unable to obtain even a clew to the trouble. Like the "lineman," who goes up and down to find why the wires will not work, shecould not find the "break" anywhere, and decided that romances, whether"wired" or taken in the ordinary way, were certainly very unwieldythings to manage.
"It seems to me that you do not use that wire very often now," she saidone evening to Clem and Nattie, the latter of whom she had forciblydragged forth from the solitude of her room. "Were it not for me, itwould rust. Why! I used to hear your clatter into the small hours, butnow--"
"Now we are more sensible," concluded Nattie, leaning over the piano tolook at some music. "One gets tired of talking in dots and dashes aftera time!"
Poor Nattie's trouble made her bitter sometimes.
"Yes, one wants a person they don't know to talk with, in order to makeit interesting!" added Clem, not to be outdone.
"Good gracious!" thought Cyn, dismayed at the result of her probing."This is really dreadful!" then she exclaimed impulsively,
"I hope you have not quarreled, you two!"
"Oh! dear no!" replied Nattie quickly, "what should we quarrel about?"
But Clem, after looking at her a moment, advanced and held out his hand,saying frankly,
"I believe we have been cross to each other of late, although how ithappened I do not know! So let us make up and be good!"
Cyn looked up hopefully at this, but Nattie, who could hardly concealher agitation, replied coldly,
"I do not see that anything has been the matter!" and placing a limphand in his for an instant, turned away.
Clem bit his lip, then took out his watch, saying,
"I believe I have an engagement down town this evening. I shall have toleave you now, I fear, ladies."
Nattie celebrated his departure by bursting into tears that she vainlytried to hide, and was detected in this situation on the sofa by Cyn.
Cyn's arms were about her in a moment, and Cyn's voice said lovingly,
"What is it, dear? Tell me what is the matter lately? Trust me with it.Is it about Clem?"
With a determination, very brave and unselfish, but unfortunatelyentirely uncalled for, not to mar Cyn's happy love by her sorrow, Nattiechecked the tears, of which she was ashamed, and answered,
"No! I am very weak and foolish. The idea of my crying like aschool-girl! I am only unhappy because--because--I am nobody!"
And this was all the information the sympathetic and perplexed Cyn couldobtain.
Sitting that night on a low cricket before the fire with her dark hairunbound--and it was fortunate for Jo's peace of mind that he could notsee her just then, because she was such an interesting "study!"--Cynthought it all over, and could not, as she told herself, make out whatit was all about.
"I thought everything was going on so smoothly," she mused, "and nowhere is what Clem himself would term a cross on the wire! and no one canfind out where it is! Doesn't she love him, I wonder? I should, if I wasshe! Does he love her? if he does not, he is no kind of a hero! Ah! Iknow what would test the matter! a crisis! Now, for instance, if thehouse would only get on fire, and Nat burn up--that is, almost--and Clemsave her just in time--that is the sort of thing that brings theseheroes to terms in the dramas! but I suppose--everything is so differentin real life--Clem would not wake up in time, and she would burn to acrisp--or some one else would save her first--Quimby, for instance, heis always doing something he ought not! no, I don't think it would do torisk it! nevertheless, I am convinced that a crisis is what is essentialto complete the circuit, telegraphically speaking, or in other words, tobring down the curtain on every body, embracing everybody, with great_eclat!_"
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