Arthur Farnham awoke the next day with a flight of sweet hopes and
fancies singing in his heart and brain. He felt cheerfully and kindly
toward the whole human race. As he walked down into the city to
transact some business he had there with his lawyer, he went out of his
way to speak to little children. He gave all his acquaintances a
heartier "Good-morning" than usual. He even whistled at passing dogs.
The twitter of the sparrows in the trees, their fierce contentions on
the grass, amused him. He leaned over the railing of the fountain in
the square with the idlers, and took a deep interest in the turtles,
who were baking their frescoed backs in the warm sun, as they floated
about on pine boards, amid the bubbles of the clear water.
As he passed by the library building, Dr. Buchlieber was standing in
the door. "Good luck," he said; "I was just wishing to see you. One of
our young women resigned this morning, and I think there may be a
chance for our handsome friend. The meeting, you remember, is this
afternoon."
Farnham hardly recalled the name of the young lady in whose success he
had been so interested, although recent intimate occurrences might have
been expected to fix it somewhat permanently in his remembrance. But
all female images except one had become rather vague in his memory. He
assented, however, to what the doctor proposed, and going away
congratulated himself on the possibility of doing Maud a service and
ridding himself of the faintest tinge of remorse. He was not fatuous or
conceited. He did not for a moment imagine that the girl was in love
with him. He attributed her demonstration in the rose-house to her
"congenital bad breeding," and thought it only one degree worse than
other match-making manoeuvres of which he had been the object in the
different worlds he had frequented. He gave himself no serious thought
about it, and yet he was glad to find an apparent opportunity to be of
use to her. She was poor and pretty. He had taken an interest in her
welfare. It had not turned out very well. She had flung herself into
his arms and been heartily kissed. He could not help feeling there was
a balance against him.
As he turned the corner of the street which led to the attorney's
office where he was going, he saw a man standing by the wall with his
hat off, bowing to him. He returned the unusual salutation and passed
on; it was some moments before he remembered that it was one of his
colleagues on the Library Board. He regretted not having stopped and
made the effort to engage his vote for Maud; but, on second thought, he
reflected that it would be as well to rely upon the surprise of the
three to prevent a combination at the meeting. When he reached the
entrance of the building where his lawyer's offices were, he turned,
with a sense of being pursued by a shuffling footstep which had
hastened its speed the last few paces, and saw his colleague coming up
the steps after him with a perspiring but resolute face.
"Hold on, Cap," he said, coming into the shade of the passage. "I was
thinkin' o' comin' to see you, when I sighted you comin' round the
corner."
"I am glad to see you, Mr. Pennybaker," said Arthur, taking the clumsy
hand which was held out to him.
"Gettin' pretty hot, ain't it?" said Pennybaker, wiping his brow with
his forefinger and dexterously sprinkling the floor with the proceeds
of the action.
"No danger of frost, I think," Arthur assented, admiring the dexterity
of Pennybaker, but congratulating himself that the shake-hands was
disposed of.
"You bet your life. We're going to have it just sizzling from now on."
"Were you wishing to see me about anything in particular?" asked
Farnham, who saw no other way of putting an end to a meteorological
discussion which did not interest him.
"Well, yes," answered Pennybaker, getting around beside Farnham, and
gazing at the wall opposite. "I heerd this mornin' that Minnie Bell was
goin' to get married. My daughter is doing some sewing for her, and it
slipped out that way. She was trying to keep it secret. Some girls is
mighty funny that way. They will do anything to get engaged, and then
they will lie like Sam Hill to make believe they ain't. Well, that
makes a vacancy." He did not turn his head, but he cast a quick glance
sideways at Farnham, who made no answer, and Pennybaker resumed: "So I
thought I would come to you, honor bright, and see if we couldn't agree
what to do. That's me. I'm open and square like a bottle of bitters."
Farnham gave no indication of his surprise at this burst of candor, but
asked:
"What do you propose?"
"That's it," said Pennybaker, promptly. "I don't propose nothing--I
_ex_pose. You hear me--I _ex_pose." He said this with great mystery,
one eye being shut fast and the other only half open. He perceived that
he had puzzled Farnham, and enjoyed it for a moment by repeating his
mot with a chuckle that did not move a muscle of his face. "I'll tell
you the whole thing. There's no use, between gentlemen, of playing the
thing too fine." He took his knife from one pocket and from another a
twist of tobacco, and, cutting off a mouthful, began his story:
"You see, me and Bud Merritt and Joe Dorman have most generally agreed
on paternage, and that was all right. You are well fixed. You don't
want the bother of them little giblets of paternage. We've 'tended to
'em for what there was in 'em and for the good of the party. Now Bud he
wants to be auditor, and he's got Joe to go in with him, because, if he
gits there, Joe's brother-in-law, Tim Dolan, will be his debbity. Bud
is weak in the Third Ward, and he knows it, and he knows that Jake
Runckel can swing that ward like a dead cat; and so they have fixed it
all up to give the next vacancy to Jake for his sister. She's been
turned out of the school for some skylarking, and weighs pretty heavy
on Jake's hands. Very well. That's the game, and I'm a-kickin'! Do you
hear me? I'm a-kickin'!"
Pennybaker pushed up his hat and looked Farnham fairly in the face. The
assertion of his independence seemed to give him great gratification.
He said once more, slowly closing one eye and settling back in his
former attitude against the wall, while he aimed a deluge of
tobacco-juice at the base of the wall before him: "I'm a-kickin' like a
Texas steer."
He waited a moment to allow these impressive words to have their full
effect, while Farnham preserved a serious and attentive face.
"Well, this bein' the case," continued Pennybaker, "I comes to you, as
one gentleman to another, and I asks whether we can't agree against
this selfish and corrupt game of Merritt and Dorman. For, you see, I
don't get a smell out of what they're doin'. I'm out in the cold if
their slate goes through."
"I don't see that I can be of any service to you, Mr. Pennybaker. If I
have any influence in the matter, it shall be given to Miss Matchin,
whom I proposed once before."
"Exactly! Now you're talkin'. Miss Matchin shall have it, on one little
proviso that won't hurt you nor me nor nobody. Say the word, and it's a
whack."
And he lifted up his hand to strike the bargain.
"What is it?" asked Farnham, in a tone which was severe and
contemptuous, in spite of him.
"Namely, just this," answered Pennybaker, "You ain't on the make;
you're fixed. You don't care about these d---- little things except to
help a friend once 'n awhile," he said, in a large and generous way.
"But I ain't that kind yet. I've got to look out for myself--pretty
lively, too. Now, I'll tell you what's my racket. You let me perpose
Miss Matchin's name and then go and tell her father that I put it
through, and it'll be done slick as a whistle. That's all solid, ain't
it?"
Farnham's brow clouded. He did not answer at once. Pennybaker repeated
his question a little anxiously:
"That's all solid, ain't it?"
"You will excuse me, Mr. Pennybaker, if I do not quite understand your
racket, as you call it. I do not see how you make anything out of this.
Matchin is a poor man. You surely do not intend----"
"To strike Saul for a divvy? Nothing of the sort," said Pennybaker,
without the least offence. "The whole thing lies just here. Among
gentlemen there's no use being shy about it. My brother wants to be
assessor in Saul Matchin's ward. Saul's got a lot of influence among
the boys in the planing-mills, and I want his help. You see?"
Farnham thought he saw, and, after assenting to Pennybaker's eager
demand, "That's all solid?" he walked away, too much relieved by the
thought that Maud was provided for to question too closely the morality
of the proceeding which the sordid rascal had exposed to him.
In the afternoon, at the meeting of the board, the programme agreed
upon was strictly carried out.
Pennybaker proposed Miss Matchin's name as soon as the vacancy was
announced, to the amazement of his late confederates. They moved a
postponement, but to no purpose; Maud was elected; and the angry
politicians had no better revenge than to say spitefully to Pennybaker
on the stairs, as they went away, "How much did the Captain give you
for that sell-out?"--a jeer which he met by a smile of conscious
rectitude and a request to be informed the next time they organized a
freeze-out against him. It must be said, however, that he lost no time
in going to Matchin, informing him that he had succeeded in carrying
Maud in by unheard-of exertions, and demanding and receiving on the
spot five per cent of her year's salary, which he called "the usual
commission."
Saul announced the appointment that evening at supper. Maud flushed
crimson, and the tears started to her eyes. She was about to declare
she would not have it, when her father's next words put a different
face on the matter. "And it's no thanks to Cap'n Farnham, neither. He
tried it oncet, and couldn't make the riffle. But me and Joel
Pennybaker got together and done it. And now I hope, Mattie, you'll
behave yourself and save money. It's like a fortun' comin' to you, if
you're smart."
Maud found no reply ready. She could not wholly believe her father's
story. She still fancied the appointment came from Farnham, and there
was a certain bitterness in it; but, on the whole, she received it not
without a secret complacency. Mrs. Matchin's pleasure was checked by
her daughter's morose confusion. Sam made no pretence of being pleased,
but sat, unmoved by Matchin's speech, in scowling silence, and soon
went out without a word of comment. The scene he had witnessed in the
rose-house had poisoned his mind; yet, whenever he looked at Maud, or
tried to speak to her, he was met with an air of such fierce and
beautiful defiance, that his eyes fell and his voice stuck in his
throat. So the piece of good fortune, so anxiously awaited in the
household, brought little delight when it came. Maud reported for duty
next day, and soon learned the routine of her work; but she grew more
and more silent at home, and Saul's hope of a wedding in the family
died away.
Arthur Farnham walked away from the meeting with the feeling of a
school-boy who has finished a difficult task and who thinks he deserves
some compensating pleasure. The day had been fine and warm, but the
breeze of the late afternoon was already blowing in from the lake,
lending freshness and life to the air. The sky was filled with soft
gray clouds, which sailed along at a leisurely rate, evidently on very
good terms with the breeze. As Farnham walked up the avenue, he cast
about in his mind for the sort of dissipation with which he would
reward himself for the day's work and he decided for a ride.
But as he was drawing on his boots, it occurred to him, for the first
time in his life, that it was a churlish and unneighborly proceeding
for him to go riding alone day after day, and that he would be doing no
more than his duty to offer his escort to Miss Belding. He said Miss
Belding to his own thought--making it as formal and respectful as
possible. So, sending an order to his groom to keep his horse at the
stable for a moment, he walked over the lawn to the Belding cottage and
asked for the ladies.
"I believe they are upstairs, sir. Walk into the drawing-room, and I
will see," said the neat housemaid, smiling at Farnham, as indeed was
the general custom of women. He took his seat in the cool and darkened
room facing the door-way, which commanded a view of the stairs. He sat
in a large willow chair very much at his ease, looking about the pretty
salon, enjoying its pictures and ornaments and the fragrance of the
roses in the vases, as if he had a personal interest in them. The maid
came back and said the ladies would be down in a moment.
She had announced Farnham to Mrs. Belding, who had replied, "Tell him,
in a moment." She was in the summer afternoon condition which the
ladies call "dressing-sack," and after an inspection at the glass,
which seemed unsatisfactory, she walked across the hall to her
daughter's room. She found Alice standing by the window, looking out
upon the lake.
"There, I am glad you are all dressed. Arthur Farnham has called, and
you must go down and excuse me. I said I would come, but it will take
me so long to dress, he will get tired of waiting. You run down and see
him. I suppose there is nothing particular."
"Oh, mamma," said Alice, "I don't want to see him, and especially not
alone."
Mrs. Belding made large eyes in her surprise. "Why, Alice, what has got
into you?"
Alice blushed and cast down her eyes. "Mamma," she said, in a low
voice, "do not ask me to go down. You know what you told me last
night."
"There, that will do," said the mother, with a tone of authority.
"Perhaps I was foolish to tell you that silly little story, but I am
the judge of who shall visit this house. You are too young to decide
these questions for me, and I insist that what I told you shall make no
difference in your treatment of Mr. Farnham. You think too much of your
own part in the matter. He has come to see me, and not you, and I wish
you to go down and make my excuses for keeping him waiting. Will you
go?"
"Yes, I will go," said the young girl. The blush had left her cheek and
she had become a trifle pale. She had not raised her eyes from the
floor during her mother's little speech; and when it was over and her
mother had gone back to her room, Alice cast one glance at her mirror,
and with a firm face walked down the stairs to the drawing-room.
Farnham heard the rustle of her dress with a beating of the heart which
filled him with a delicious surprise. "I am not past it, then," was the
thought that came instantly to his mind, and in that one second was a
singular joy. When she came in sight on the stairs, it was like a
sudden enchantment to him. Her beautiful head, crowned with its masses
of hair drawn back into a simple Greek knot; her tall, strong figure,
draped in some light and clinging stuff which imposed no check on her
natural grace and dignity, formed a charming picture as she came down
the long stairs; and Farnham's eyes fastened eagerly upon her white
hand as it glided along the dark walnut baluster. His heart went out to
meet her. He confessed to himself, with a lover's instantaneous
conviction, that there was nothing in the world so utterly desirable as
that tall and fair-haired girl slowly descending the stairs. In the
midst of his tumultuous feeling a trivial thought occurred to him: "I
am shot through the heart by the blind archer," he said to himself; and
he no longer laughed at the old-fashioned symbol of the sudden and
fatal power of love.
But with all this tumult of joy in the senses waking up to their
allegiance, there came a certain reserve. The goddess-like creature who
had so suddenly become the mistress of his soul was a very serious
personage to confront in her new majesty. He did not follow the impulse
of his heart and rush forward as she entered the room. He merely rose
and bowed. She made the faintest possible salutation, and, without
taking a seat, conveyed her mother's excuses in a tone of such studied
coldness that it amused Farnham, who took it as a school-girl's
assumption of a grand and ceremonious manner suitable to a tete-a-tete
with man.
"Thank you," he said, "but I did not come especially to see your
mother. My object was rather to see you." She did not smile or reply,
and he went on, with a slight sensation of chill coming upon him from
this stony dignity, which, the more he observed it, seemed less and
less amusing and not at all artificial. "I came to ask if you would not
like to go to ride this afternoon. It is just gray enough for comfort."
"I thank you very much for being so kind as to think of me," she
replied, "but it will not be convenient for me to go."
"Perhaps the morning will suit better. I will come to-morrow at any
hour you say."
"I shall not be able to go to-morrow either, I think."
Even while exchanging these few words, Alice felt herself growing
slightly embarrassed, and it filled her with dismay. "I am a poor
creature," she thought, "if I cannot get this self-satisfied gentleman
out of the house without breaking down. I can't stand here forever
though," and so she took a seat, and as Arthur resumed his willow chair
with an air of content, she could not but feel that as yet the skirmish
was not in her favor. She called her angry spirit to her aid, and
nerved herself to say something which would promptly close the
interview.
His next words gave her the opportunity.
"But you surely do not intend to give up riding altogether?"
"Certainly not. I hope to ride a good deal. Andrews will go with me."
"Ah! Your objection to me as a groom is entirely personal, then."
"Now for it!" she thought to herself, and she said firmly, "Yes."
But the effort was too great, and after the word was launched her mouth
broke up into a nervous smile, for which she despised herself, but
which she could not control for her life.
Farnham was so pleased with the smile that he cared nothing for the
word, and so he continued in a tone of anxious and coaxing good-nature,
every word increasing her trouble:
"You are wrong as you can be. I am a much better groom than Andrews. He
has rather more style, I admit, on account of his Scotch accent and his
rheumatism. But I might acquire these. I will be very attentive and
respectful. I will ride at a proper distance behind you, if you will
occasionally throw a word and a smile over your shoulder at me."
As he spoke, a quick vision flashed upon him of the loveliness of the
head and shoulder, and the coil of fair hair which he should have
before him if he rode after her, and the illumination of the smile and
the word which would occasionally be thrown back to him from these
perfect lips and teeth and eyes. His voice trembled with love and
eagerness as he pleaded for the privilege of taking her servant's
place. Alice no longer dared to interrupt him, and hardly ventured to
lift her eyes from the floor. She had come down with the firm purpose
of saying something to him which would put an end to all intimacy, and
here, before she had been five minutes in his presence, he was talking
to her in a way that delighted her ears and her heart. He went rattling
on as if fearful that a pause might bring a change of mood. As she
rarely looked up, he could feast his eyes upon her face, where now the
color was coming and going, and on her shapely hands, which were
clasped in her lap. He talked of Colorado as if it were settled that
they were to go there together, and they must certainly have some
preliminary training in rough riding; and then, merely to make
conversation, he spoke of other places that should only be visited on
horseback, always claiming in all of them his post of groom. Alice felt
her trouble and confusion of spirit passing away as the light stream of
talk rippled on. She took little part in it at first, but from
monosyllables of assent she passed on to a word of reply from time to
time; and before she knew how it happened she was engaged in a frank
and hearty interchange of thoughts and fancies, which brought her best
faculties into play and made her content with herself, in spite of the
occasional intrusion of the idea that she had not been true to herself
in letting her just anger die so quickly away.
If Farnham could have seen into the proud and honest heart of the young
girl he was talking to, he would have rested on the field he had won,
and not tempted a further adventure. Her anger against him had been
dissipated by the very effort she had made to give it effect, and she
had fallen insensibly into the old relation of good neighborhood and
unreserved admiration with which she had always regarded him. She had
silenced her scruples by the thought that in talking pleasantly with
him she was obeying her mother, and that after all it was not her
business to judge him. If he could have known his own best interest, he
would have left her then, when her voice and her smile had become gay
and unembarrassed according to their wont, with her conscience at ease
about his faults, and her mind filled with a pleasant memory of his
visit.
But such wisdom was beyond his reach. He had felt suddenly, and once
for all, in the last hour, the power and visible presence of his love.
He had never in his life been so moved by any passion as he was by the
joy that stirred his heart when he heard the rustle of her dress in the
hall and saw her white hand resting lightly on the dark wood of the
stairs. As she walked into the parlor, from her face and her hair, from
every movement of her limbs, from every flutter of her soft and gauzy
garments, there came to him an assertion of her power over him that
filled him with a delicious awe. She represented to him, as he had
never felt it before, the embodied mystery and majesty of womanhood.
During all the long conversation that had followed, he had been
conscious of a sort of dual operation of his mind, like that familiar
to the eaters of hashish. With one part of him he had been carrying on
a light and shallow conversation, as an excuse to remain in her
presence and to keep his eyes upon her, and with all the more active
energies of his being he had been giving himself up to an act of
passionate adoration of her. The thoughts that uttered themselves to
him, as he chatted about all sorts of indifferent things, were
something like these: How can it have ever happened that such beauty,
such dignity, such physical perfection could come together in one
person, and the best and sweetest heart have met them there? If she
knew her value, her pride would ruin her. In her there is everything,
and everything else beside: Galatea, the statue, with a Christian soul.
She is the best that could fall to any man, but better for me than for
any one else. Anybody who sees her must love her, but I was made for
nothing else but to love her. This is what mythologies meant. She is
Venus: she loves laughter, and her teeth and lips are divine. She is
Diana: she makes the night beautiful; she has the eye and the arm of an
athlete goddess. But she is a woman: she is Mrs. Belding's daughter
Alice. Thank heaven, she lives here. I can call and see her. To-morrow,
I shall ride with her. She will love and marry some day like other
women. Who is the man who shall ever kiss her between those straight
brows? And fancies more audacious and extravagant fed the fever of his
heart as he talked deliberate small talk, still holding his hat and
whip in his hand.
He knew it was time he should go, but could not leave the joy of his
eyes and ears. At last his thoughts, like a vase too full, ran over
into speech. It was without premeditation, almost without conscious
intention. The under-tone simply became dominant and overwhelmed the
frivolous surface talk. She had been talking of her mother's plans of
summer travel, and he suddenly interrupted her by saying in the most
natural tone in the world: "I must see your mother before she decides.
I hope you will make no plans without me. I shall go where you go. I
shall never be away from you again, if I can help it. No, no, do not
frown about it. I must tell you. I love you; my whole life is yours."
She felt terribly shocked and alarmed, not so much at his words as at
her own agitation. She feared for a moment she could not rise from her
seat, but she did so with an effort. He rose and approached her,
evidently held in check by her inflexible face; for the crisis had
brought a momentary self-control with it, and she looked formidable
with her knit brows and closed lips.
"Do not go," he pleaded. "Do not think I have been wanting in respect
and consideration. I could not help saying what I did. I cannot live
without you any more than I can without light and sunshine. I ought to
have waited and not startled you. But I have only begun to live since I
loved you, and I feel I must not waste time."
She was deeply disturbed at these wild and whirling words, but still
bore herself bravely. She felt her heart touched by the vibration of
his ardent speech, but her maiden instinct of self defence enabled her
to stand on her guard. Though beaten by the storm of his devotion, she
said to herself that she could get away if she could keep from crying
or sobbing, and one thought which came to her with the swiftness of
lightning gave her strength to resist. It was this: "If I cry, he will
take me in his arms, and we shall repeat the tableau mamma saw in the
rose-house."
Strong in that stimulating thought, she said: "I am too sorry to hear
you say these things. You know how much we have always thought of you.
If you forget all this, and never repeat it, we may still be friends.
But if you renew this subject, I will never speak to you again alone,
as long as I live."
He began to protest; but she insisted, with the calm cruelty of a woman
who sees her advantage over the man she loves. "If you say another
word, it is the end of our acquaintance, and perhaps it is best that it
should end. We can hardly be again as we were."
Farnham was speechless, like one waked in the cold air out of a
tropical dream. He had been carried on for the last hour in a whirlwind
of emotion, and now he had met an obstacle against which it seemed that
nothing could be done. If he had planned his avowal, he might have been
prepared for rejection; but he had been hurried into it with no thought
of what the result would be, and he was equally unprovided for either
issue. In face of the unwavering voice and bearing of Alice, who seemed
ten times more beautiful than ever as she stood before him as steady
and unresponsive as a young Fate, his hot speech seemed suddenly
smitten powerless. He only said:
"It shall be as you wish. If I ever offend you again, I will take my
punishment upon myself and get out of your way."
She did not dare to say another word, for fear it would be too kind.
She gave him her hand; it was soft and warm as he pressed it; and if he
had only known how much softer and warmer her heart was, he would have
covered her hand with a thousand kisses. But he bowed and took his
leave, and she stood by the lattice and saw him go away, with eyes full
of tears and a breast filled with the tenderest ruth and pity--for him
and for herself.