Lemuel went through the next day in that licence of
revolt which every human soul has experienced in some
measure at some time. We look back at it afterwards,
and see it a hideous bondage. But for the moment
Lemuel rejoiced in it; and he abandoned himself boldly
to thoughts that had hitherto been a furtive and trembling
rapture.
In the afternoon, when he was most at leisure, he
walked down to the Public Garden, and found a seat
on a bench near the fountain where the Venus had shocked
his inexperience the first time he saw her; he remembered
that simple boy with a smile of pity, and then went
back into his cloud of reverie. There, safely
hid from trouble and wrong, he told his ideal how
dear she was to him, and how she had shaped and governed
his life, and made it better and nobler from the first
moment they had met. The fumes of the romances
which he had read mixed with the love-born delirium
in his brain; he was no longer low, but a hero of
lofty line, kept from his rightful place by machinations
that had failed at last, and now he was leading her,
his bride, into the ancient halls which were to be
their home, and the source of beneficence and hope
to all the poor and humbly-born around them.
His eyes were so full of this fantastic vision, the
soul of his youth dwelt so deeply within this dream-built
tabernacle, that it was with a shock of anguish he
saw coming up the walk towards him the young girl
herself. His airy structure fell in ruins around
him; he was again common and immeasurably beneath her;
she was again in her own world, where, if she thought
of him at all, it must be as a squalid vagabond and
the accomplice of a thief. If he could have escaped,
he would, but he could not move; he sat still and
waited with fallen eyes for her to pass him.
At sight of him she hesitated and wavered; then she
came towards him, and at a second impulse held out
her hand, smiling with a radiant pleasure.
“I didn’t know it was you at first,”
she said. “It seems so strange to see any
one that I know!”
“I didn’t expect to see you, either,”
he stammered out, getting somehow upon his feet, and
taking her hand, while his face burned, and he could
not keep his eyes on hers; “I—didn’t
know you were here.”
“I’ve only been here a few days.
I’m drawing at the Museum. I’ve just
got back. Have you been here all summer?”
“Yes—all summer. I hope you’ve
been well—I suppose you’ve been away—”
“Yes, I’ve just got back,” she repeated.
“Oh yes! I meant that!”
She smiled at his confusion, as kindly as the ideal
of his day-dream. “I’ve been spending
the summer with Madeline, and I’ve spent most
of it out-of-doors, sketching. Have you been
well?”
“Yes—not very; oh yes, I’m
well—” She had begun to move forward
with the last question, and he found himself walking
with her. “Did she—has Miss
Swan come back with you?” he asked, looking her
in the eyes with more question than he had put into
his words.
