CHAPTER XVIII.
“REMEMBER THAT I LOVED YOU WELL.”
The beautiful stranger pushed Cinthia gently into a chair, and sat down by her side.
“I hope you will not think me intruding, my dear girl; but you inspire me with a strange interest. Are you here alone?” she cried, earnestly.
“Alone!” answered Cinthia in a tragic tone, as she lifted her anguished dark eyes and scanned the other’s face.
She beheld one of the sweetest, fairest faces she had ever beheld.
The lady might have been thirty-five or more, but she possessed that charm of beauty that always suggests youth—perfect features, a complexion fresh as the morning; large, tender eyes of the brightest blue, and abundant tresses of shining golden brown hair, while a mouth like Cupid’s bow in form, and crimson as a rose, revealed in a dazzling smile small pearly white teeth, that added the last charm to her winsome loveliness.
Cinthia gazed fixedly at that winning face, drew a long breath of emotion, and instantly became captive to beauty’s bow and spear.
She was irresistibly drawn to the graceful woman whose sweet, silvery voice sounded like music in her ears as she exclaimed:
“You are in trouble, dear; I feel it, see it in your pale face and sad eyes. I hear it in the anguish of your voice. And you are alone, you say! Then I dare not go away and leave you like this, lest harm befall you. Let me help you!”
“No one can help me,” Cinthia answered in stubborn despair; but all the while that voice and smile were thrilling her heart with subtle tenderness.
“Then the case must indeed be serious,” cried the lady, gently slipping her arm around Cinthia’s waist, moved by an impulse she scarcely understood herself; while she continued, gently:
“My heart aches for your sorrow, dear, and although we are strangers to each other, I long to comfort you. Confide in me, and perhaps I can help you. Is it a question of lack of means? Or, sadder still, of—love?”
“Of love!” burst out Cinthia; and she dropped her head on that silken shoulder in a passionate outburst of tears, won in spite of herself by the divine art of sympathy.
And then, since both were strangely, magnetically attracted to each other, it was not hard for her to draw from Cinthia the brief, sad story of her life and love down to the very moment when she had opened the door to fly out into the street with the half-formed plan of suicide yet in her mind.
Oh, what a pathetic, moving story it was! And how it touched the listener’s tender heart, moving her to tears!
She could sympathize with all that Cinthia told her, and could share in her resentment against her unloving father, her strict aunt, and the lover whose affection had not been proof against the schemes of his proud mother. To her eyes, as to Cinthia’s, it all looked as if Mrs. Varian and Everard Dawn had made of the hapless lovers a sacrifice to a family feud vaguely hinted at in the lady’s confession to Cinthia, that her mother had been her bitterest enemy and was unforgiven in her grave.
With all her heart she espoused Cinthia’s side, and freely expressed contempt for Arthur’s part in the girl’s sorrow.
“He has acted the part of a coward, forsaking you thus at the command of his haughty mother, and I would think no more of him, dear, for he is not worth it,” she exclaimed, warmly.
Cinthia only sighed. She did not believe now that she could ever put Arthur out of her thoughts.
In spite of his seeming injustice to her, and the humiliation he had put upon her, something in her heart vaguely pleaded in his defense—perhaps his illness and pallor, and the keen anguish of his voice when he had said to her so sadly that they must bid each other an eternal farewell.
There had been something solemn, even tragic, in that parting, almost like the farewell of death. Resentment did not have any part in its supreme despair. It was rather
The lovely stranger continued earnestly;
“You are young yet, and in time a new love may replace this lost one, and bring you great happiness.”
“Happiness is not for me. I am ill-fated!” moaned Cinthia.
“Do not feel so despondent. The young are naturally morbid. I know that by experience. I have had a great sorrow in my own life, and overlived it.”
Cinthia looked at her almost incredulously, she seemed so fair and bright, and her inexperienced eyes could not read the signs of a past grief in the delicate lines about the lips and eyes.
“I have overlived it, and so will you,” repeated the lady.
“Tell me how to do it. Help me!” cried Cinthia, appealingly; and as the lady remained gravely silent a moment, she added:
“Oh, if I could be filled with some great excitement that would occupy my thoughts, I believe I could put him out of my mind, except in very quiet moments. I was thinking just before you came in that I would like to go on the stage to become a great actress.”
An expression of dismay lowered over the fair face regarding her so intently, as Cinthia continued, eagerly:
“As we came to the hotel this morning, I saw through the carriage windows large posters announcing the appearance of a great actress to-night and this afternoon in a popular play. I have been thinking of her, and that I would like to have such a life. Do you think if I tried that I—might succeed?”
“Ah, child, you do not know what labor and trouble would be involved in such an undertaking.”
“I should not care for that—it would be what I need to turn my thoughts away from Arthur. And, indeed, the desire has taken hold on me, fascinates me. I intend to try.”
“No, dear, you must not do it. It is not wise, nor desirable. I am glad that I happened in on you this morning, for there is no one more capable of advising you in this crisis of your life. I tell you stage-work is heartache and sorrow even when crowned with a little success such as Madame Ray’s, whose name you read on the posters this morning. I tell you this, and I ought to know, for I am that woman!”
“You?” Cinthia cried, wide-eyed and wondering, and with a sad smile. The other answered:
“Yes.”
Taking Cinthia’s hand, and caressing it softly in both her own, she added:
“When I was young, like you, I had a great sorrow that sent my thoughts wandering, like yours, in search of a sensation in which to drown memory and grief. I turned to the stage, and after a period of drudgery and patience most painful to remember, earned a measure of success; so I am in a position to know what I am talking about, and to advise you against the course that I myself adopted. Not for worlds, my dear, would I have you go on the stage. No, no; it is a feverish life in the glare of the foot-lights. When I am rich enough to live without my work, I shall immediately retire to a private life.”
But she saw that her words had not convinced Cinthia. The feverish fascination was still in her mind, the longing to escape from the painful present into something new and strange.
But she persevered:
“If you will listen to me, dear child, you will yield to your father’s wish to place you in school for two years. Believe me, the course of study will be far less hard than the training for the stage. Suppose you come with me now to our rehearsal, and remain for our matinée performance? It will give you a glimpse of theatrical life behind the scenes that may perhaps turn your mind from this fascination.”
“I will be glad to go with you,” answered Cinthia, eager for escape from the wretched present, and with strange reluctance to part from the charming actress.
“We will go at once, then,” said Madame Ray, rising, and adding: “Perhaps you should ask Mrs. Varian’s leave?”
“I shall do nothing of the kind,” Cinthia answered, rebelliously. “I have told her I wished to be alone, and she will not even know I am gone.”
“But your father might arrive.”
“He can not do so until very late, and I will probably be back when he comes,” Cinthia answered, but wishing in her heart that she were going this moment so far out of her old life that she need never encounter her father again—the stern, unloving father for whom she did not pretend an affection.