The Argosy — page 386: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

372 Lest Harmony. looking ; always ready to run on errands, or to laugh over any trifle. Now I began to droop; rather suddenly, it must be confessed, but still in a very natural manner. I lost my appetite and spirits; I sighed a good deal when anyone was within hearing, and leaned at the window always in the twilight, looking out in a weary and spiritless manner. I refused all invitations to walk or drive or visit, and sat apart from Aunt Anna and Heinnch when we all were together. I never roused myself when he came in, or ran to greet him as I had been used to do, and I always answered very low and tiredly when I was spoken to. And all this time, while I tried so hard to droop and pine, his music maddened me. Often I knew I stopped it by the petulant, impatient words which rushed from my lips when, in my jealousy and despair, I saw how fully and entirely it could satisfy 4sm. One night he brought me in a bunch of pure white lilies, and my heart beat until I feared he could see it. But before I had carried the flowers to my face he had shut himself into his own room, with the art he loved, ah me! so far beyond all earthly friends! I left the lilies lying about the drawing- room all evening, to fade, just where he could see them ; moving them sometimes to bring them more surely within his notice. But I think he saw as little of my studied neglect as he did of the kisses I showered on my lilies that night before I locked them away among my few life- long treasures. That was a wakeful and unhappy night for me, but in the morning I had determined to throw off this gloom in which I had voluntarily wrapped myself. I would be bright and helpful in the house; I would be kind and cheerful, always ready with aid and interest and sympathy. I would make myself necessary to everyone; I would make his hfe happy and pleasant. It was but a lonely life he led, at best, and I had often heard how he lightened the burden and brightened the lot of a poor and struggling artist-brother. I came singing downstairs next morning in the blue mbbons which had lain hidden so long, and I laughed when I saw Heinrich watching me in grave surprise. I chatted volubly all day, and when he came from the opera that night he found me as wakeful as if it had been mid- day instead of midnight. But what difference did it make to him? He sat down to the piano, and went dreamily through parts of the opera he had heard, his head bent a little, and his eyes full of a deep and quiet happiness with which we knew that we had nothing to do. Once that summer Heinrich had taken me to hear the opera, but instead of pleasure it was a cruel painto me. An aching conscious- ness that he had forgotten my very existence marred all my enjoyment, and every strain which he rejoiced in stabbed me with a cruel pain. Perhaps—even though so engrossed—he saw this, for he never again proposed to take me, and never once had he taken me to hear his own music or his own matchless playing. And I was glad of this. I had GOGO SS (CO)