They had common friends, and it would not have been surprising had she met him at the different affairs to which she went, always through her mother's desire. But the dread of coming upon him slowly departed as the months rolled by and with them all token of him. Time and again she would hear allusions to him. "Dr. Kemp has developed into a misogynist," pouted Dorothy Gwynne. "He was one of the few decided eligibles on the horizon, but it requires the magnet of illness to draw him now. I really must look up the symptoms of a possible ache; the toilet and expression of an invalid are very becoming, you know."
"Dr. Kemp made a splendid donation to our kindergarten to-day. I have not seen him since we were in the country, and he thought me looking very well.
He inquired after the family, and I told him we had a residence, at which he smiled." This from Mrs. Levice. Ruth would have given much to have been able to ask after him with self-possession, but the muscles of her throat seemed to swell and choke her while silent. She went now and then to see Bob Bard in his flower-store; he would without fail inquire after "our friend" or tell her of his having passed that day. Here was her one chance of inquiring if he was looking well, to which the answer was invariably "yes."
She sat one night at the opera in her wonted beauty, with her soft, dusky hair rolled from her sweet Madonna face. Many a lorgnette was raised a second and a third time toward her. Louis, seated next to her, resented with unaccountable ferocity this free admiration that she did not see or feel.
As the curtain went down on the first act, he drew her attention to some celebrity then passing out. She raised her glass, but her hand fell nerveless in her lap. Immediately following him came Dr. Kemp. Their eyes met, and he bowed low, passing on immediately. The rest of the evening passed like a nightmare; she heard nothing but her heart-throbs, saw nothing but his beloved face regarding her with simple courtesy. Louis knew that for her the opera was over; the tell-tale bistrous shadows grew around her eyes, and she became deadly silent.
"What a magnificent man he is," murmured Mrs. Levice, "and what an impressive bow he has!" Ruth did not hear her; but when she reached her own room, she threw herself face downward on her bed in intolerable anguish. She was not a girl who cried easily. If she had been, her suffering would not have been so intense, --when the flood-gates are opened, the river finds relief. Over and over again she wished she might die and end this eager, passionate craving for some token of love from him, or for the power of letting him know how it was with her. And it would always be thus as long as she lived. She did not deceive herself; no mere friendship would have sufficed, --all or nothing after what had been.
Physically, however, she bore no traces of this continual restraint. On the contrary, her slender figure matured to womanly proportions. Little children, seeing her, smiled responsively at her, or clamored to be taken into her arms, there was such a tender mother-look about her. By degrees her friends began to feel the repose of her intellect and the sympathy of her face, and came to regard her as the queen of confidantes. Young girls with their continual love episodes and excitements, ambitious youths with their whimsical schemes of life and aspirations of love, sought her out openly. Few of these latter dared hope for any individual thought from her, though any of the older men would have staked a good deal for the knowledge that she singled him for her consideration.
