“There is no need: I have no thought of such folly! My kindness to Felix
was the sparing him an avowal, which was simply absurd. A word, a laugh,
did it, for ridicule cures more quickly and surely than compassion.”
“I thought so. Why try to fence with me, Madama? you always get the
worst of it,” and Helwyze made the green twig whistle through the air
with a sharp turn of the wrist, as he rose to go; for these two, bound
together by a mutual wrong, seldom met without bitter words, the dregs
of a love which might have blest them both.
He found Felix waiting for him, in a somewhat haughty mood; Olivia
having judged wisely that ridicule, though a harsh, was a speedy cure
for the youthful delusion, which had been fostered by the isolation in
which they lived, and the ardent imagination of a poet.
“You were right, sir. What are your commands?” he asked, controlling
disappointment, pique, and unwillingness with a spirit that won respect
and forbearance even from Helwyze, who answered with a cordial warmth,
as rare as charming,—
“I have none: the completion of my wish I leave to you. Consult your own
time and pleasure, and, when it is happily accomplished, be assured I
shall not forget that you have shown me the obedience of a son.”
Quick as a child to be touched, and won by kindness, Canaris flushed
with grateful feeling and put out his hand impulsively, as he had done
when selling his liberty, for now he was selling his love.
“Forgive my waywardness. I _will_ be guided by you, for I owe you my
life, and all the happiness I have known in it. Gladys shall be a
daughter to you; but give me time—I must teach myself to forget.”
His voice broke as he stumbled over the last words, for pride was sore,
and submission hard. But Helwyze soothed the one and softened the other
by one of the sympathetic touches which occasionally broke from him,
proving that the man’s heart, was not yet quite dead. Laying his hand
upon the young man’s shoulder, he said in a tone which stirred the
hearer deeply,—
“I feared this pain was in store for you, but could not save you from
it. Accept the gentle comforter I bring you, for I have known the same
pain, and _I_ had no Gladys.”
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