“Polish up my other talents, and be an ornament to society, if I get the chance.”
It was a characteristic speech, and sounded daring; but audacity becomes young people, and Amy’s ambition had a good foundation. Laurie smiled, but he liked the spirit with which she took up a new purpose when a long-cherished one died, and spent no time lamenting.
“Good! And here is where Fred Vaughn comes in, I fancy.”
Amy preserved a discreet silence, but there was a conscious look in her downcast face that made Laurie sit up and say gravely, “Now I’m going to play brother, and ask questions. May I?”
“I don’t promise to answer.”
“Your face will, if your tongue won’t. You aren’t woman of the world enough yet to hide your feelings, my dear. I heard rumors about Fred and you last year, and it’s my private opinion that if he had not been called home so suddenly and detained so long, something would have come of it—hey?”
“That’s not for me to say,” was Amy’s prim reply, but her lips would smile, and there was a traitorous sparkle of the eye which betrayed that she knew her power and enjoyed the knowledge.
“You are not engaged, I hope?” And Laurie looked very elder-brotherly and grave all of a sudden.
“No.”
“But you will be, if he comes back and goes properly down upon his knees, won’t you?”
“Very likely.”
“Then you are fond of old Fred?”
“I could be, if I tried.”
“But you don’t intend to try till the proper moment? Bless my soul, what unearthly prudence! He’s a good fellow, Amy, but not the man I fancied you’d like.”
“He is rich, a gentleman, and has delightful manners,” began Amy, trying to be quite cool and dignified, but feeling a little ashamed of herself, in spite of the sincerity of her intentions.
“I understand. Queens of society can’t get on without money, so you mean to make a good match, and start in that way? Quite right and proper, as the world goes, but it sounds odd from the lips of one of your mother’s girls.”
“True, nevertheless.”
A short speech, but the quiet decision with which it was uttered contrasted curiously with the young speaker. Laurie felt this instinctively and laid himself down again, with a sense of disappointment which he could not explain. His look and silence, as well as a certain inward self-disapproval, ruffled Amy, and made her resolve to deliver her lecture without delay.
“I wish you’d do me the favor to rouse yourself a little,” she said sharply.
“Do it for me, there’s a dear girl.”
“I could, if I tried.” And she looked as if she would like doing it in the most summary style.
“Try, then. I give you leave,” returned Laurie, who enjoyed having someone to tease, after his long abstinence from his favorite pastime.
“You’d be angry in five minutes.”
“I’m never angry with you. It takes two flints to make a fire: you are as cool and soft as snow.”
“You don’t know what I can do; snow produces a glow and a tingle, if applied rightly. Your indifference is half affectation, and a good stirring up would prove it.”
“Stir away, it won’t hurt me and it may amuse you, as the big man said when his little wife beat him. Regard me in the light of a husband or a carpet, and beat till you are tired, if that sort of exercise agrees with you.”
Being decidedly nettled herself, and longing to see him shake off the apathy that so altered him, Amy sharpened both tongue and pencil, and began:
“Flo and I have got a new name for you; it’s ‘Lazy Laurence.’jv How do you like it?”
She thought it would annoy him, but he only folded his arms under his head, with an imperturbable “That’s not bad. Thank you, ladies.”
“Do you want to know what I honestly think of you?”
“Pining to be told.”
“Well, I despise you.”
If she had even said “I hate you” in a petulant or coquettish tone, he would have laughed and rather liked it, but the grave, almost sad, accent of her voice made him open his eyes, and ask quickly—
“Why, if you please?”
“Because, with every chance for being good, useful, and happy, you are faulty, lazy, and miserable.”
“Strong language, mademoiselle.”
“If you like it, I’ll go on.”
“Pray, do, it’s quite interesting.”
“I thought you’d find it so; selfish people always like to talk about themselves.”
“Am I selfish?” The question slipped out involuntarily and in a tone of surprise, for the one virtue on which he prided himself was generosity.
“Yes, very selfish,” continued Amy, in a calm, cool voice, twice as effective just then as an angry one. “I’ll show you how, for I’ve studied you while we have been frolicking, and I’m not at all satisfied with you. Here you have been abroad nearly six months, and done nothing but waste time and money and disappoint your friends.”
“Isn’t a fellow to have any pleasure after a four-year grind?”
“You don’t look as if you’d had much; at any rate, you are none the better for it, as far as I can see. I said when we first met that you had improved. Now I take it all back, for I don’t think you half so nice as when I left you at home. You have grown abominably lazy, you like gossip, and waste time on frivolous things, you are contented to be petted and admired by silly people, instead of being loved and respected by wise ones. With money, talent, position, health, and beauty—ah, you like that Old Vanity! But it’s the truth, so I can’t help saying it—with all these splendid things to use and enjoy, you can find nothing to do but dawdle, and instead of being the man you might and ought to be, you are only—” There she stopped, with a look that had both pain and pity in it.
“Saint Laurence on a gridiron,”jw added Laurie, blandly finishing the sentence. But the lecture began to take effect, for there was a wide-awake sparkle in his eyes now and a half-angry, half-injured expression replaced the former indifference.
“I supposed you’d take it so. You men tell us we are angels, and say we can make you what we will, but the instant we honestly try to do you good, you laugh at us and won’t listen, which proves how much your flattery is worth.” Amy spoke bitterly, and turned her back on the exasperating martyr at her feet.
In a minute a hand came down over the page, so that she could not
draw, and Laurie’s voice said, with a droll imitation of a penitent child, “I will be good, oh, I will be good!”
But Amy did not laugh for she was in earnest, and tapping on the outspread hand with her pencil, said soberly, “Aren’t you ashamed of a hand like that? It’s as soft and white as a woman‘s, and looks as if it never did anything but wear Jouvin’s best glovesjx and pick flowers for ladies. You are not a dandy, thank Heaven, so I’m glad to see there are no diamonds or big seal ringsjy on it, only the little old one Jo gave you so long ago. Dear soul, I wish she was here to help me!”
“So do I!”
The hand vanished as suddenly as it came, and there was energy enough in the echo of her wish to suit even Amy. She glanced down at him with a new thought in her mind, but he was lying with his hat half over his face, as if for shade, and his mustache hid his mouth. She only saw his chest rise and fall, with a long breath that might have been a sigh, and the hand that wore the ring nestled down into the grass, as if to hide something too precious or too tender to be spoken of. All in a minute various hints and trifles assumed shape and significance in Amy’s mind, and told her what her sister never had confided to her. She remembered that Laurie never spoke voluntarily of Jo, she recalled the shadow on his face just now, the change in his character, and the wearing of the little old ring which was no ornament to a handsome hand. Girls are quick to read such signs and feel their eloquence. Amy had fancied that perhaps a love trouble was at the bottom of the alteration, and now she was sure of it. Her keen eyes filled, and when she spoke again, it was in a voice that could be beautifully soft and kind when she chose to make it so.