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Show PLAYING WITH FIRE It has passed into a truism that it is a dangerous thing to play with fire, and Mrs. Richmond found it so, to her cost, during the summer she spent at the Dovecote. Mr. Richmond had been a model lover at the time of their marriage, but, like many another, possession had made him secure, and by almost imperceptible degrees he had abandoned those tender acts and assurances which are the staff of life to some women, without which existence is not to be tolerated. He was neither unkind nor unmindful, but he was absorbed and busy; he had a thousand schemes on foot, and, having married her for love, he took it for granted that she knew the fact too well to doubt it or to need to hear it repeated daily, not aware that there are some women who live in fear lest "love died in the last expression." He no longer told her she was the prettiest woman in the world, although he still believed it; nor begged her to wear his favorite flower; nor chose her colors; in fact, he omitted any comments on her appearance; she was the same heroine to him, whether in velvet or homespun, whether rosy with youth or ashen hard with age. He rarely had time to go out with her nowadays, and she missed the attentions, the endearments, the flatteries, which had sweetened her daily life, and began to question if he had outgrown her and his love; if she had "gone off" in her personal appearance, if her mind had gathered rust while his was sharpened and brightened by friction with men and affairs. She began to tremble for her happiness, to devise means for improving herself, for preserving youth, or its semblance. She once even went so far as to try a little rouge on her cheeks, and was rewarded by Mr. Richmond asking if she were ill. "You looked flushed," he said, "and a high color doesn't become your style." She threw the rouge away, and studied her style. She read tedious books of travel, philosophy, and science, that she might develop some mental charm to hold him; she almost wished she might have some serious illness, something to startle him out of his indifference. Of course, Mr. Richmond never dreamed of this silent tragedy going on at his fireside -- that fireside which seemed to him like a little heaven on earth -- and when business obliged him to run over to London for some months, and it was proposed that she should take rooms at the Dovecote, "by the ??? of the sex," it was the last straw. "He would carry me abroad with him if he still cared for me," she thought, not understanding, with womanly lack of logic, that he was "not on pleasure bent," and would have no spare moments for picture gallery or drawing-room. "Have I lost all attraction," she asked herself, "or was it a mistake to suppose I had any, a mistake which he has been finding out? Would he fall in love with me, I wonder, if we were both single? Would anybody?" If she could only make him a trifle jealous -- and that was the touchstone of love! The guests at the Dovecote were all ladies, married and single, with the exception of Roger Laurence, who had come down to fill his sketch book, shoot birds, and do a little loitering in a quiet nook, he said. The time hung heavily on Mrs. Richmond's hands, perhaps she signified as much, perhaps Mr. Laurence divined it. "Do you row, Mrs. Richmond?" he asked one day. "No, Mr. Richmond was always going to teach me when I was first married, but he never had time." She spoke in the "sad imperfect tense," and sighed without knowing it. "Let me teach you," he begged, and so it happened that the other inmates of the Dovecote used to laugh and call Mrs. Richmond the water-nymph and Mr. Laurence the river-god. In accepting the invitation Mrs. Richmond had had no other thought than to please her husband with a new accomplishment on his return, hoping that together they might explore all the sinuous? windings of the river, and renew their days of love making. The idea of showing him that another man valued her companionship found a spell in her ??? which he had overlooked, arrived later. She had not counted on finding any pleasure in the presence of Mr. Laurence or his all concealed admiration. He was simply a young man who was inclined to be obliging and courteous. But presently she was looking forward to these excursions, presently detected that the fact of Mr. Laurence preferring her companionship, when there were youth and beauty to choose from lent her a subtle sense of power, restored the self-confidence she had lost, gave her a ??? of surprise, such as a girl who had always believed herself plain might experience if some one should ??? she was bewitching. Mrs. Richmond would have been wise had she recognized the dangers of the situation and avoided them. But who of us is wise in season? In the first place, she had committed herself to these pleasurings, so to speak; it would be embarrassing to withdraw, would look as if she were prudish and vain, had taken the affair as serious. At the same time, she was grateful to him for convincing her that her power to please had not deserted her, and her long-repressed vanity asserted itself. This delicious flattery was too pleasant to be given up all at once -- to-morrow, maybe; but, to paraphrase an old poem: "To-day itself is too late, The wise denied themselves yesterday." She satisfied her conscience, however, by sending Mr. Richmond a faithful account of their comings and goings, although with the best intentions in the world, she naturally omitted something, since there are a hundred delicate shades of intonation and expression in the daily intercourse of two people which no letter can transcribe. If the season had not been so fine, and the scenery so enticing, Mrs. Richmond would have wearied, perhaps, of rocking forever on the tide by sunset, by moon rise, of anchoring in some silent cave, where the wild flowers looked at their image in the water, where the stars lay like jewels, where Mr. Laurence lighted his meerschaum, and ??? his ??? aspirations, his doubts, his beliefs [unreadable line] flattering! To have heard him, one would have supposed that Mrs. Richmond was commissioned to write his biography. It must be confessed that there were times when his egotism rather bored her; but when she hesitated about continuing their recreations, a word to the effect that no one else sympathized with his moods, shared his sentiment, understood him, carried the day. Slipping home on the tide to the Dovecote landing one night, so dark they could hardly see each other's faces, after a silence in which they listened to the whippoorwill's lonesome tune, the soft sighing of the water washing against the shore, he leaned toward her and said, slowly, "Do you know, I should like to drift on so forever -- with you. I love you." At that instant it seemed to Mrs. Richmond as if the heavens had rolled together like a scroll. She felt stunned and faint. "Row ashore, Mr. Laurence," she gasped, but there was command in her whisper. "I have been to blame. I have been blind, but I love my husband." Not a word was spoken as they shot through the darkness to the landing. Then, as he assisted her over the slippery stairs: "I thought," he said -- "I thought you were a widow." But Mrs. Richmond's cup was not yet full. Her humiliation was not complete till she read the letter which arrived for her a few days later: "You are a cruel wicked woman, Mrs. Richmond," [it said}. "Roger Laurence was my own, my lover, my all, and you, you ??? wife, you have stolen his heart away from me -- not because you needed it -- merely to [unreadable line]. Where makes want, may you live to want such love as this of which you have defrauded. "ERNESTINE SAYRE". The same mail brought a line, also, from across the sea. "Some anonymous idiot writes me that young Mr. Laurence has been devoting himself to you, to the girl of his dreams." (wrote Mr. Richmond). "While I do not doubt you, my darling Rose, I began to see that you may have felt the lack of attentions which a Benedict is so apt to omit or neglect, and I should take passage in the Comet, a month earlier than I intended, in order to let the ??? understand that you have a lover in your husband. JOHN RICHMOND." It was the next week that Mrs. Richmond went to town to see about opening her house. It would seem like their honey-moon over again -- no more misunderstandings, no more separation. As she stepped upon the pavement the newsboys were crying themselves hoarse. "What do they say?" she asked of a passer -- "what do they say?" "Wreck of an ocean steamer, the Comet." After all, Roger Laurence was not mistaken. Mrs. Richmond must have been a widow on that dark night before he left the Dovecote. -- Harper's Bazar [Bazaar]. |