Bangladeshi-Bengali.Com: Online Story. Who Was She?

I rose, made two steps forward, and then sat down with a groan of pain;

my left ankle was badly sprained, in addition to various minor

scratches and bruises. There was a revulsion of feeling, of course--

instant, complete, and hideous. I fairly hated the Unknown. "Fool that

I was!" I exclaimed, in the theatrical manner, dashing the palm of my

hand softly against my brow: "lured to this by the fair traitress! But,

no!--not fair: she shows the artfulness of faded, desperate

spinsterhood; she is all compact of enamel, 'liquid bloom of youth' and

hair dye!"

There was a fierce comfort in this thought, but it couldn't help me out

of the scrape. I dared not sit still, lest a sunstroke should be added,

and there was no resource but to hop or crawl down the rugged path, in

the hope of finding a forked sapling from which I could extemporize a

crutch. With endless pain and trouble I reached a thicket, and was

feebly working on a branch with my pen-knife, when the sound of a heavy

footstep surprised me.

A brown harvest-hand, in straw hat and shirtsleeves, presently

appeared. He grinned when he saw me, and the thick snub of his nose

would have seemed like a sneer at any other time.

"Are you the gentleman that got hurt?" he asked. "Is it pretty

tolerable bad?"

"Who said I was hurt?" I cried, in astonishment.

"One of your town-women from the hotel--I reckon she was. I was binding

oats, in the field over the ridge; but I haven't lost no time in comin'

here."

While I was stupidly staring at this announcement, he whipped out a big

clasp-knife, and in a few minutes fashioned me a practicable crutch.

Then, taking me by the other arm, he set me in motion toward the

village.

Grateful as I was for the man's help, he aggravated me by his

ignorance. When I asked if he knew the lady, he answered: "It's more'n

likely _you_ know her better." But where did she come from? Down from

the hill, he guessed, but it might ha' been up the road. How did she

look? was she old or young? what was the color of her eyes? of her

hair? There, now, I was too much for him. When a woman kept one o' them

speckled veils over her face, turned her head away, and held her

parasol between, how were you to know her from Adam? I declare to you,

I couldn't arrive at one positive particular. Even when he affirmed

that she was tall, he added, the next instant: "Now I come to think on

it, she stepped mighty quick; so I guess she must ha' been short."

By the time we reached the hotel, I was in a state of fever; opiates

and lotions had their will of me for the rest of the day. I was glad to

escape the worry of questions, and the conventional sympathy expressed

in inflections of the voice which are meant to soothe, and only

exasperate. The next morning, as I lay upon my sofa, restful, patient,

and properly cheerful, the waiter entered with a bouquet of wild

flowers.

"Who sent them?" I asked.

"I found them outside your door, sir. Maybe there's a card; yes, here's

a bit o' paper."

I opened the twisted slip he handed me, and read: "From your dell--and

mine." I took the flowers; among them were two or three rare and

beautiful varieties which I had only found in that one spot. Fool,

again! I noiselessly kissed, while pretending to smell them, had them

placed on a stand within reach, and fell into a state of quiet and

agreeable contemplation.

Tell me, yourself, whether any male human being is ever too old for

sentiment, provided that it strikes him at the right time and in the

right way! What did that bunch of wild flowers betoken? Knowledge,

first; then, sympathy; and finally, encouragement, at least. Of course

she had seen my accident, from above; of course she had sent the

harvest laborer to aid me home. It was quite natural she should imagine

some special, romantic interest in the lonely dell, on my part, and the

gift took additional value from her conjecture.

Four days afterward, there was a hop in the large dining-room of the

hotel. Early in the morning, a fresh bouquet had been left at my door.

I was tired of my enforced idleness, eager to discover the fair unknown

(she was again fair, to my fancy!), and I determined to go down,

believing that a cane and a crimson velvet slipper on the left foot

would provoke a glance of sympathy from certain eyes, and thus enable

me to detect them.

The fact was, the sympathy was much too general and effusive.

Everybody, it seemed, came to me with kindly greetings; seats were

vacated at my approach, even fat Mrs. Huxter insisting on my taking her

warm place, at the head of the room. But Bob Leroy--you know him--as

gallant a gentleman as ever lived, put me down at the right point, and

kept me there. He only meant to divert me, yet gave me the only place

where I could quietly inspect all the younger ladies, as dance or

supper brought them near.

One of the dances was an old-fashioned cotillon, and one of the

figures, the "coquette," brought every one, in turn, before me. I

received a pleasant word or two from those whom I knew, and a long,

kind, silent glance from Miss May Danvers. Where had been my eyes? She

was tall, stately, twenty-five, had large dark eyes, and long dark

lashes! Again the changes of the dance brought her near me; I threw (or

strove to throw) unutterable meanings into my eyes, and cast them upon

hers. She seemed startled, looked suddenly away, looked back to me,

and--blushed. I knew her for what is called "a nice girl"--that is,

tolerably frank, gently feminine, and not dangerously intelligent. Was

it possible that I had overlooked so much character and intellect?

As the cotillon closed, she was again in my neighborhood, and her

partner led her in my direction. I was rising painfully from my chair,

when Bob Leroy pushed me down again, whisked another seat from

somewhere, planted it at my side, and there she was!