The Oldest Flame by Elisabeth Grace Foley

 

The Oldest Flame
     
    A man would incur any danger for a woman…would
    even die for her! But if this were done simply
    with the object of winning her, where was that real
love of
    which sacrifice of self on behalf of another is the
truest proof?
     
    ~ Anthony Trollope
     
    Mrs. Meade gazed with much pleasure and
contentment over the view from the garden bench where she sat.
Below the well-kept gardens of the other houses strung out down the
slope of the hill, a silvery glimpse of the river in the valley
twinkled bright in the afternoon sun, with a lovely vista of wooded
hills rising beyond it. Here in the garden, the air of the summer
afternoon was soft and peaceful, with bees humming among the
flowers and now and then the sweet piercing song of a bird from the
trees high overhead.
    Mrs. Meade looked around the garden again,
her admiration mixed with something like marveling. The latter
expression was accompanied by a touch of motherly fondness as she
turned to look at her companion, who was leaning against the tree
which cast its shade over the bench.
    “How you have grown, Mark!” she said. “The
last time I saw you, you were just a rambunctious schoolboy. And
now look at the fine young college man you’ve grown into.”
    Mark Lansbury grinned with just a touch of
self-consciousness. He was a dark, good-looking boy of nineteen,
tall and athletic, with a pair of arresting, expressive brown eyes.
With Mrs. Meade, whom he had always regarded in the light of a
favorite aunt, he was always at his ease, and did not find it
necessary to observe the dignity that had become rather more
important to him since attaining the aforementioned collegiate
status.
    “Everything seems to have moved very quickly
for your family these past few years,” said Mrs. Meade. “Your
father’s promotion—this beautiful new house—and then you off to
college. I’ve missed seeing all of you, these years you’ve been so
busy. I was so very happy when I received your mother’s invitation
last month, to find she had remembered me.”
    “She could never forget you!” said Mark
warmly. “None of us could. Mother was always thinking about you,
even when things were busiest. I’ve heard her speak of you a
hundred times.”
    “Well, as things have turned out, I’m glad
she chose this summer to invite me, since the Greys are here. It’s
been so good to see them again too.”
    Mark did not answer this. He picked at the
smooth bark of the tree, looking down at the grass at Mrs. Meade’s
feet, the animation of a moment before gone from his face. Mrs.
Meade observed him quietly for a moment, and then, in a voice and
manner so light and natural it could never have aroused any
suspicion of ulterior motives, entered on an entirely new
subject.
    “How do you like college?” she said. “Your
father told me you were doing very well, but you’ve hardly said a
word about it since I’ve been here. Was your first year a good
one?”
    “Oh, yes, it was fine,” said Mark, shying a
broken bit of bark at the ground. “But to tell you the truth, I
haven’t been thinking much about college lately.”
    “There’s something else on your mind, then?”
said Mrs. Meade, who had already divined as much.
    “Some one else, anyway,” Mark mumbled,
looking down again with a little color in his face.
    “My dear boy, don’t tell me you’ve tumbled
into a love-affair already!”
    “Oh, I didn’t tumble,” said Mark, looking
over at her with an uneasy smile, as if he already half regretted
sharing his secret. “It’s been coming on steadily enough.” He
paused. “It’s Rose, of course. Could you even think it was anyone
else?”
    There was something different in his voice as
he spoke these last words, a subtle ring of feeling that made Mrs.
Meade look up at him with closer attention. His restless eyes met
hers for an instant. Yes, he had grown up a good deal, she thought.
Sensitive, earnest, impatient, ardent—all those qualities of youth
were