Henry Floyd was a crank, at least so many people said; a few thought
he was a wonderful person: these were mostly children, old women, and
people not in the directory, and persons not in the directory do not
count for much. He was in fact a singular fellow. It was all natural
enough to him; he was just like what he believed his father had been,
his father of whom his mother used to tell him, and whom he remembered
so vaguely except when he had suddenly loomed up in his uniform at the
head of his company, when they went away on that march from which he
had never returned. He meant to be like him, if he was not, and he
remembered all that his mother had told him of his gentleness, his high
courtesy, his faithfulness, his devotion to duty, his unselfishness.
So it was all natural enough to Floyd to be as he was. But a man can
no more tell whether or not he is a crank than he can tell how old he
looks. He was, however, without doubt, different in certain ways from
most people. This his friends admitted. Some said he was old-fashioned;
some that he was “old-timey”; some that he was unpractical, the shades
of criticism ranging up to those saying he was a fool. This did not mean
intellectually, for none denied his intellect. He drove a virile pen,
and had an epigrammatic tongue. He had had a hard time. He had borne the
yoke in his youth. This, we have strong authority for saying, is good
for a man; but it leaves its mark upon him. He had been desperately
poor. He had not minded that except for his mother, and he had approved
of her giving up every cent to meet the old security debts. It had cut
him off from his college education; but he had worked till he was a
better scholar than he might have been had he gone to college. He had
kept his mother comfortable as long as she lived, and then had put up
a monument over her in the old churchyard, as he had done before to his
father’s memory. This, everyone said, was foolish, and perhaps it was,
for it took him at least two years to pay for them, and he might have
laid up the money and got a start, or, as some charitable persons said,
it might have been given to the poor. However, the monuments were put
up, and on them were epitaphs which recorded at length the virtues of
those to whom they were erected, with their descent, and declared that
they were Christians and Gentlepeople. Some one said to Floyd that he
might have shortened the epitaphs, and have saved something. “I did not
want them shortened,” said he.
He had borne the yoke otherwise also. One of the first things he had
done after starting in life was to fall in love with a beautiful woman.
She was very beautiful and a great belle. Every one said it was sheer
nonsense for Henry Floyd to expect her to marry him, as poor as he
was, which was natural enough. The only thing was that she led Floyd to
believe she was going to marry him when she did not intend to do it, and
it cost him a great deal of unhappiness. He never said one word against
her, not even when she married a man much older than himself, simply, as
everyone said, because he was very rich. If Floyd ever thought that she
treated him badly, no one ever knew it, and when finally she left her
husband, no one ever ventured to discuss it before Floyd.
Henry Floyd, however, had suffered,--that everyone could see who had
eyes; but only he knew how much. Generally grave and dreamy; when quiet
as calm as a dove, as fierce as a hawk when aroused; moving always in an
eccentric orbit, which few understood; flashing out now and then gleams
which some said were sparks of genius but which most people said were
mere eccentricity, he had sunk into a recluse. He was in this state
when he met HER. He always afterward referred to her so. He was at a
reception when he came upon her on a stairway. A casual word about his
life, a smile flashed from her large, dark, luminous eyes, lighting up
her face, and Henry Floyd awoke. She had called him from the dead. It
was a case of love at first sight. From that time he never had a thought
for anyone else, least of all for himself. He lived in her and for her.
He blossomed under her sympathy as a tree comes out under the sunshine
and soft breath of spring. He grew, he broadened. She was his sun, his
breath of life; he worshipped her. Then one day she died--suddenly--sank
down and died as a butterfly might die, chilled by a blast. With her
Henry Floyd buried his youth. For a time people were sympathetic; but
they began immediately to speculate about him, then to gossip about him.
It made no difference to him or in him. He was like a man that is dead,
who felt no more. One thing about a great sorrow is that it destroys all
lesser ones. A man with a crushed body does not feel pinpricks. Henry
Floyd went on his way calmly, doggedly, mechanically. He drifted on and
was talked about continually. Gossip would not let him alone, so she did
him the honor to connect his name with that of every woman he met. In
fact, there was as much reason to mention all as one. He was fond
of women, and enjoyed them. Women liked him too. There was a certain
gentleness mingled with firmness, a kind of protecting air about him
which women admired, and a mystery of impenetrable sadness which women
liked. Every woman who knew him trusted him, and had a right to trust
him. To none was he indifferent, but in none was he interested. He was
simply cut off. A physician who saw him said, “That man is dying of
loneliness.” This went on for some years. At last his friends determined
to get him back into society. They made plans for him and carried them
out to a certain length; there the plans failed. Floyd might be led up
to the water, but none could make him drink; there he took the bit in
his teeth and went his own way. He would be invited to meet a girl at a
dinner got up for his benefit, that he might meet her, and would spend
the evening hanging over a little unheard-of country cousin with a low
voice and soft eyes, entertaining her with stories of his country days
or of his wanderings; or he would be put by some belle, and after
five minutes’ homage spend the time talking to some old lady about her
grandchildren. “You must marry,” they said to him. “When one rises from
the dead,” he replied. At length, his friends grew tired of helping him
and gave him up, and he dropped out and settled down. Commiseration is
one of the bitter things of life. But Floyd had what is harder to bear
than that. It did not affect his work. It was only his health and his
life that suffered. He was like a man who has lost the senses of touch
and taste and sight. If he minded it, he did not show it. One can get
used to being bedridden.
One thing about him was that he always appeared poor. He began to be
known as an inventor and writer. It was known that he received high
prices for what he did; but he appeared to be no better off than when
he made nothing. Some persons supposed that he gambled; others whispered
that he spent it in other dissipation. In fact, one lady gave a
circumstantial account of the way he squandered his money, and declared
herself very glad that he had never visited her daughters. When this was
repeated to Floyd, he said he fortunately did not have to account to
her for the way he spent his money. He felt that the woman out under the
marble cross knew how his money went, and so did the little cousin who
was named after her, and who was at school. He had a letter from her in
his pocket at that moment. So he drifted on.
At length one evening he was at a reception in a strange city whither
his business had taken him. The rooms were filled with light and beauty.
Floyd was standing chatting with a child of ten years, whom he found
standing in a corner, gazing out with wide questioning eyes on the
throng. They were friends instantly, and he was telling her who the
guests were, as they came sailing in, giving them fictitious names and
titles. “They are all queens,” he told her, at which she laughed. She
pointed out a tall and stately woman with a solemn face, and with a
gleaming bodice on like a cuirass, and her hair up on her head like a
casque. “Who is that?”
“Queen Semiramis.”
“And who is that?” It was a stout lady with a tiara of diamonds, a red
face, and three feathers.
“Queen Victoria, of course.”
“And who am I?” She placed her little hand on her breast with a pretty
gesture.
“The Queen of Hearts,” said Floyd, quickly, at which she laughed
outright. “Oh! I must not laugh,” she said, checking herself and
glancing around her with a shocked look. “I forgot.”
“You shall. If you don’t, you sha’n’t know who another queen is.”
“No, mamma told me I must not make a bit of noise; it is not style, you
know, but you mustn’t be so funny.”
“Good heavens!” said Floyd.
“Oh! who is this coming?” A lady richly dressed was making her way
toward them. “The Queen of Sheba--coming to see Solomon,” said Floyd,
as she came up to him. “Let me introduce you to a beautiful girl, Sarah
Dangerlie,” she said, and drew him through the throng toward a door,
where he was presented to a tall and strikingly handsome girl and made
his bow and a civil speech, to which the young lady responded with one
equally polite and important. Other men were pressing around her, to
all of whom she made apt and cordial speeches, and Floyd fell back and
rejoined his little girl, whose face lit up at his return.
“Oh! I was so afraid you were going away with her.”
“And leave you? Never, I’m not so easily disposed of.”
“Everyone goes with her. They call her the Queen.”
“Do they?”
“Do you like her?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t,” she said, looking at him keenly.
“Yes, she is beautiful.”
“Everyone says so.”
“She isn’t as beautiful as someone else I know,” said Floyd, pleasantly.
“Isn’t she? As whom?”
Floyd took hold of the child’s hand and said, “Let’s go and get some
supper.”
“I don’t like her,” said the little girl, positively.
“Don’t you?” said Floyd. He stopped and glanced across the room toward
where the girl had stood. He saw only the gleam of her fine shoulders as
she disappeared in the crowd surrounded by her admirers.
A little later Floyd met the young lady on the stairway. He had not
recognized her, and was passing on, when she spoke to him.
“I saw you talking to a little friend of mine,” she began, then--“Over
in the corner,” she explained.
“Oh! yes. She is sweet. They interest me. I always feel when I have
talked with a child as if I had got as near to the angels as one can get
on earth.”
“Do you know I was very anxious to meet you,” she said.
“Were you? Thank you. Why?”
“Because of a line of yours I once read.”
“I am pleased to have written only one line that attracted your
attention,” said Floyd, bowing.
“No, no--it was this--“The whitest soul of man or saint is black
beside a girl’s.”
“Beside a child’s,” said Floyd, correcting her.
“Oh! yes, so it is--‘beside a child’s.’”
Her voice was low and musical. Floyd glanced up and caught her look, and
the color deepened in her cheek as the young man suddenly leant a little
towards her and gazed earnestly into her eyes, which she dropped, but
instantly raised again.
“Yes--good-night,” she held out her hand, with a taking gesture and
smile.
“Good-night,” said Floyd, and passed on up the stairs to the
dressing-room. He got his coat and hat and came down the stairway. A
group seized him.
“Come to the club,” they said. He declined.
“Roast oysters and beer,” they said.
“No, I’m going home.”
“Are you ill?” asked a friend.
“No, not at all. Why?”
“You look like a man who has seen a spirit.”
“Do I? I’m tired, I suppose. Good-night,--good-night, gentlemen,” and he
passed out.
“Perhaps I have,” he said as he went down the cold steps into the frozen
street.
Floyd went home and tossed about all night. His life was breaking up,
he was all at sea. Why had he met her? He was losing the anchor that had
held him. “They call her the queen,” the little girl had said. She must
be. He had seen her soul through her eyes.
Floyd sent her the poem which contained the line which she had
quoted; and she wrote him a note thanking him. It pleased him. It was
sympathetic. She invited him to call. He went to see her. She was fine
in grain and in look. A closely fitting dark gown ornamented by a single
glorious red rose which might have grown where it lay, and her soft hair
coiled on her small head, as she entered tall and straight and calm,
made Floyd involuntarily say to himself, “Yes”--
“She was right,” he said, half to himself, half aloud, as he stood
gazing at her with inquiring eyes after she had greeted him cordially.
“What was right?” she asked.
“Something a little girl said about you.”
“What was it?”
“I will tell you some day, when I know you better.”
“Was it a compliment?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me now.”
“No, wait.”
He came to know her better; to know her very well. He did not see her
very often, but he thought of her a great deal. He seemed to find in her
a sympathy which he needed. It reminded him of the past. He awoke from
his lethargy; began to work once more in the old way; mixed among
men again; grew brighter. “Henry Floyd is growing younger, instead of
older,” someone said of him. “His health has been bad,” said a doctor.
“He is improving. I thought at one time he was going to die.” “He is
getting rich,” said a broker, who had been a schoolmate of his. “I see
he has just invented a new something or other to relieve children with
hip or ankle-joint disease.”
“Yes, and it is a capital thing, too; it is being taken up by the
profession. I use it. It is a curious thing that he should have hit on
that when he is not a surgeon. He had studied anatomy as a sort of fad,
as he does everything. One of Haile Tabb’s boys was bedridden, and he
was a great friend of his, and that set him at it.”
“I don’t think he’s so much of a crank as he used to be,” said someone.
The broker who had been his schoolmate met Floyd next day.
“I see you have been having a great stroke of luck,” he said.
“Have I?”
“Yes. I see in the papers, that your discovery, or invention, or
whatever it was, has been taken up.”
“Oh! yes--that? It has.”
“I congratulate you.”
“Thank you.”
“I would not mind looking into that.”
“Yes, it is interesting.”
“I might take an interest in it.”
“Yes, I should think so.”
“How much do you ask for it?”
“‘Ask for it?’ Ask for what?”
“For an interest in it, either a part or the whole?”
“What?”
“You ought to make a good thing out of it--out of your patent.”
“My patent! I haven’t any patent.”
“What! No patent?”
“No. It’s for the good of people generally.”
“But you got a patent?”
“No.”
“Couldn’t you get a patent?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I’ll be bound I’d have got a patent.”
“Oh! no, I don’t think so.”
“I tell you what, you ought to turn your talents to account,” said his
friend.
“Yes, I know I ought.”
“You could be a rich man.”
“But I don’t care to be rich.”
“What! Oh! nonsense. Everyone does.”
“I do not. I want to live.”
“But you don’t live.”
“Well, maybe I shall some day.”
“You merely exist.”
“Why should I want to be rich?”
“To live--to buy what you want.”
“I want sympathy, love; can one buy that?”
“Yes--even that.”
“No, you cannot. There is only one sort of woman to be bought.”
“Well, come and see me sometimes, won’t you?”
“Well, no, I’m very much obliged to you; but I don’t think I can.”
“Why? I have lots of rich men come to my house. You’d find it to your
advantage if you’d come.”
“Thank you.”
“We could make big money together if----”
He paused. Floyd was looking at him.
“Could we? If--what?”
“If you would let me use you.”
“Thank you,” said Floyd. “Perhaps we could.”
“Why won’t you come?”
“Well, the fact is, I haven’t time. I shall have to wait to get a little
richer before I can afford it. Besides I have a standing engagement.”
“Oh! no, we won’t squeeze you. I tell you what, come up to dinner
to-morrow. I’m going to have a fellow there, an awfully rich
fellow--want to interest him in some things, and I’ve invited him down.
He is young Router, the son of the great Router, you know who he is?”
“Well, no, I don’t believe I do. Good-by. Sorry I can’t come; but I have
an engagement.”
“What is it?”
“To play mumble-the-peg with some boys: Haile Tabb’s boys.”
“Oh! hang the boys! Come up to dinner. It is an opportunity you may not
have again shortly. Router’s awfully successful, and you can interest
him. I tell you what I’ll do----”
“No, thank you, I’ll keep my engagement. Good-by.”
“That fellow’s either a fool or he is crazy,” said his friend, gazing
after him as he walked away. “And he’s got some sense too. If he’d let
me use him I could make money out of him for both of us.”
It was not long before Floyd began to be known more widely. He had
schemes for the amelioration of the condition of the poor. They were
pronounced quixotic; but he kept on. He said he got good out of them if
no one else did.
He began to go oftener and oftener down to the City, where Miss
Dangerlie lived. He did not see a great deal of her; but he wrote to
her. He found in her a ready sympathy with his plans. It was not just as
it used to be in his earlier love affair, where he used to find himself
uplifted and borne along by the strong spirit which had called him from
the dead; but if it was not this that he got, it was what contented him.
Whatever he suggested, she accepted. He found in her tastes a wonderful
similarity with his, and from that he drew strength.
Women in talking of him in connection with her said it was a pity; men
said he was lucky.
One evening, at a reception at her house, he was in the gentlemen’s
dressing-room. It was evidently a lady’s apartment which had been
devoted for the occasion as a dressing-room. It was quite full at the
time. A man, a large fellow with sleek, short hair, a fat chin, and a
dazzling waistcoat, pulled open a lower drawer in a bureau. Articles of
a lady’s apparel were discovered, spotless and neatly arranged. “Shut
that drawer instantly,” said Floyd, in a low, imperious tone.
“Suppose I don’t, what then?”
“I will pitch you out of that window,” said Floyd, quietly, moving a
step nearer to him. The drawer was closed, and the man turned away.
“Do you know who that was?” asked someone of Floyd.
“No, not the slightest idea.”
“That was young Router, the son of the great Router.”
“Who is the-great-Router?”
“The great pork man. His son is the one who is so attentive to Miss
Dangerlie.”
“I am glad he closed the drawer,” said Floyd, quietly.
“He is said to be engaged to her,” said the gentleman.
“He is not engaged to her,” said Floyd.
Later on he was talking to Miss Dangerlie. He had taken her out of the
throng. “Do you know who introduced me to you?” he asked.
“Yes, Mrs. Drivington.”
“No, a little girl.”
“Who? Why, don’t you remember! I am surprised. It was just in the
doorway!”
“Oh! yes, I remember well enough. I met a beauty there, but I did not
care for her. I met you first on the stairway, and a child introduced
me.”
“Children interest me, they always admire one,” she said.
“They interest me, I always admire them,” he said. “They are true.”
She was silent, then changed the subject.
“A singular little incident befell me this evening,” she said. “As I was
coming home from a luncheon-party, a wretched woman stopped me and asked
me to let her look at me.”
“You did it, of course,” he said.
She looked at him with her eyes wide open with surprise.
“What do you suppose a man said to me upstairs?” he asked her.
“What?”
“That you were engaged to someone.”
“What! That I was engaged! To whom, pray?” She looked incredulous.
“To a fellow I saw up there--Mr. ‘Router’, I think he said was his
name.”
“The idea! Engaged to Mr. Router! You did not believe him, did you?”
“No, of course I did not; I trust you entirely.”
She buried her face in the roses she held in her hand, and did not
speak. Her other hand rested on the arm of her chair next him. It was
fine and white. He laid his on it firmly, and leaning towards her, said,
“I beg your pardon for mentioning it. I am not surprised that you are
hurt. Forgive me. I could not care for you so much if I did not believe
in you.”
“It was so kind in you to send me these roses,” she said. “Aren’t they
beautiful?”
She turned them round and gazed at them with her face slightly averted.
“Yes, they are, and yet I hate to see them tied that way; I ordered them
sent to you loose. I always like to think of you as arranging roses.”
“Yes, I love to arrange them myself,” she said.
“The fact is, as beautiful as those are, I believe I like better
the old-fashioned roses right out of the dew. I suppose it is old
association. But I know an old garden up at an old country-place, where
my mother used to live as a girl. It used to be filled up with roses,
and I always think of the roses there as sweeter than any others in the
world.”
“Yes, I like the old-fashioned roses best too,” she said, with that
similarity of taste which always pleased him.
“The next time I come to see you I am going to bring you some of those
roses,” he said. “My mother used to tell me of my father going out and
getting them for her, and I would like you to have some of them.”
“Oh! thank you. How far is it from your home?”
“Fifteen or twenty miles.”
“But you cannot get them there.”
“Oh! yes, I can; the fact is, I own the place.” She looked interested.
“Oh! it is not worth anything as land,” he said, “but I love the
association. My mother was brought up there, and I keep up the garden
just as it was. You shall have the roses. Some day I want to see you
among them.” Just then there was a step behind him. She rose.
“Is it ours?” she asked someone over her shoulder.
“Yes, come along.”
Floyd glanced around. It was the “son of the great Router”.
She turned to Floyd, and said, in an earnest undertone, “I am very
sorry; but I had an engagement. Good-by.” She held out her hand. Floyd
took it and pressed it.
“Good-by,” he said, tenderly. “That is all right.”
She took the-son-of-the-great-Router’s arm.
*****
One afternoon, a month after Miss Dangerlie’s reception, Henry Floyd
was packing his trunk. He had just looked at his watch, when there was a
ring at the bell. He knew it was the postman, and a soft look came over
his face as he reflected that even if he got no letter he would see her
within a few hours. A large box of glorious old-fashioned roses was on
the floor near him, and a roll of money and a time-table lay beside
it. He had ridden thirty miles that morning to get and bring the roses
himself for one whom he always thought of in connection with them.
A letter was brought in, and a pleased smile lit up the young man’s face
as he saw the handwriting. He laid on the side of the trunk a coat that
he held, and then sat down on the arm of a chair and opened the letter.
His hand stroked it softly as if it were of velvet. He wore a pleased
smile as he began to read. Then the smile died away and a startled look
took its place. The color faded out of his face, and his mouth closed
firmly. When he was through he turned back and read the letter all over
again, slowly. It seemed hard to understand; for after a pause he read
it over a third time. Then he looked straight before him for a moment,
and then slowly tore it up into thin shreds and crumpled them up in
his hand. Ten minutes later he rose from his seat and dropped the torn
pieces into the fireplace. He walked over and put on his hat and coat,
and going out, pulled the door firmly to behind him. The trunk, partly
packed, stood open with the half-folded coat hanging over its edge and
with the roses lying by its side.
Floyd walked into the Club and, returning quietly the salutations of
a group of friends, went over to a rack and drew out a newspaper file,
with which he passed into another room.
“Announcement of Engagement: Router and Dangerlie,” was the heading on
which his eye rested. “It is stated,” ran the paragraph, “that they have
been engaged some time, but no announcement has been made until now, on
the eve of the wedding, owing to the young lady’s delicacy of feeling.”
That night Henry Floyd wrote a letter. This was the close of it:
“Possibly your recollection may hereafter trouble you. I wish to say
that I do not hold you accountable in any way.”
That night a wretched creature, half beggar, half worse, was standing on
the street under a lamp. A man came along. She glanced at him timidly.
He was looking at her, but it would not do to speak to him, he was a
gentleman going somewhere. His hands were full of roses. He posted a
letter in the box, then to her astonishment he stopped at her side and
spoke to her.
“Here are some roses for you,” he said, “and here is some money. Go home
to-night.”
He pushed the roses and money into her hands, and turning, went back up
the dim street.