THE FILIAL MARTYR
Miss Wildmere appeared in one of her most brilliant moods that
evening. There was a dash of excitement, almost recklessness, in her
gray eyes. She and Mr. Arnault had been deputed to lead the German,
but she took Graydon out so often as to produce in Mr. Arnault's eyes
an expression which the observant Mr. Wildmere did not like at all. He
had just returned from dreary, half-deserted Wall Street, which was
as dead and hopeless as only that region of galvanic life can be at
times. He had neither sold nor bought stock, but had moused around,
with the skill of an old _habitué_, for information concerning the
eligibility of the two men who were seeking his daughter's hand. In
the midsummer dullness and holiday stagnation the impending operation
in the Catskills was the only one that promised anything whatever. He
became more fully satisfied that Arnault's firm was prospering. They
had been persistent "bears" on a market that had long been declining,
and had reaped a golden harvest from the miseries of others. On the
other hand, he learned that Henry Muir was barely holding his own, and
that he had strained his credit dangerously to do this. He knew about
the enterprise which had absorbed the banker's capital, and while
he believed it would respond promptly to the returning flow of the
financial tide, it now seemed stranded among more hopeless ventures.
There was no escaping the conviction that Muir was in a perilous
position, and that a little thing might push him over the brink.
Therefore, he had returned fully beat upon using all his influence in
behalf of Arnault, and was spurred to this effort by the fact that his
finances, but not his expenses, were running low. His wife could give
but a dubious account of Stella's conduct.
"In short," said Mr. Wildmere, irritably, "she is dallying with both,
and may lose both by her hesitating folly."
His daughter's greeting was brief and formal. A sort of
matter-of-course kiss had been given, and then he had been left to eat
his supper alone, since his wife could not just then be absent from
her child. At last he lounged out on the piazza, sat down before one
of the parlor windows, glanced at the gay scene within, and smoked in
silence. Before the German began, Graydon passed him several times,
regarding him curiously and with a growing sense of repulsion. He
disliked to think that the relation between this man and the girl he
would marry was so close.
Before the evening was over, Mr. Wildmere saw that his daughter was in
truth pursuing a difficult policy. The angry light in Arnault's eyes
and the grave expression on Graydon's face proved how fraught with
peril it was to his hopes. Neither of her suitors liked Stella's
manner that evening, for it suggested traits which promised ill for
the future. Graydon, who understood her the less, was the more lenient
judge.
"Not only Arnault," he thought, "but her father also, has been
pressing her toward a course from which she revolts, and she is half
reckless in consequence."
He endeavored by his quiet and observant attention, by the grave and
gentle expression of his eyes, to assure her once more that she could
find a refuge in him the moment that she would decide absolutely in
his favor. She understood him well, and was enraged that she could not
that night go out with him into the moonlight, put her hand in his,
and end her suspense.
Her father had whispered, significantly, when they met, "Stella, I
must see you before you give Mr. Muir further encouragement;" and she,
feeling that it might be among her last chances, for the present, of
showing Graydon favor, was lavish of it. But it was not the preference
of strong, true, womanly choice; it was rather the half-defiant aspect
with which forbidden fruit might be regarded.
As the great clock was about to chime the hour of midnight the dancing
ceased. Arnault seemed determined to have the last word, and Graydon
interposed no obstacle. The former walked on the piazza by Stella's
side for a few turns in moody silence. Her father still sat at his
post of observation. Mrs. Wildmere had been with him part of the time,
but he had not had much to say to her.
"Mr. Arnault," said Stella, satirically, at last, "I will not tax your
remarkable power for entertainment any longer. I will now join papa,
and retire."
"Very well, Stella," was the quiet reply; "but before we part I shall
speak more to the point than if I had talked hours. By this time
another week the question must be decided."
She bowed, and made no other answer.
"Stella," said her father when they were alone and he had regarded for
some moments her averted and half-sullen face, "what do you propose to
do?" There was no answer.
After another pause he continued: "In settling the question, represent
your mother and myself by a cipher. That is all we are, if the logic
of your past action counts for anything. Again I ask, What do you
propose to do? No matter how pretty and flattered a girl may be, she
cannot alter gravitation. There are other facts just as inexorable.
Shutting your eyes to them, or any other phase of folly, will not make
the slightest difference."
"I think it's a horrid fact that I must marry a man that I don't
love."
"That is not one of the facts at all. Stock-gambler as I am, and in
almost desperate straits, I require nothing of the kind. Knowing you
as I do, I advise you to accept Arnault at once; but I do not demand
it; I do not even urge it. If you loved me, if you would say, 'Give
up this feverish life of risk; I will help you and suffer with you
in your poverty; I will marry Graydon Muir and share his poverty,' I
would leave Wall Street at once and forever. It's a maelstrom in
which men of my calibre and means are sucked down sooner or later. The
prospects now are that it will be sooner, unless I am helped through
this crisis."
"I believe you are mistaken about the Muirs being in financial
danger."
"I am not mistaken. They may have to suspend daring the coming week."
"I know that Graydon Muir has no suspicion of trouble."
"He is but a clerk in his brother's employ, and has just returned from
a long absence. Mr. Muir is one of the most reticent of men. I have
invested in the same dead stock that is swamping him, and so know
whereof I speak. Should this stock decline further--should it even
remain where it is much longer--he can't maintain himself. I know, for
I have taken pains to obtain information since I last went to town."
"But if the stock rises," she said, with the natural hope of a
speculator's daughter, "he is safe."
"Yes, _if_."
"How much time will you give me?" she asked, the lines of her face
growing hard and resolute.
"This is to be your choice, not mine," said her father, coldly. "You
shall not be able to say that I sold you or tried to sell you. Of
course it would be terribly hard for me to lose my footing and fall,
and I feel that I should not rise again. Arnault worships success
and worldly prestige. You are a part of his ambitious scheme. If you
helped him parry it out he would do almost anything you wished, and he
could throw business enough in my way to put me speedily on my feet.
You must make your choice in view of the following facts: You can go
on living here, just as you are, two or three weeks longer, dallying
with opportunity. By that time, unless I get relief and help, I shall
reach the end of my resources, and creditors will take everything. The
Muirs cannot help me, and I don't believe they would in any event. I
am not on good terms with Henry Muir. If they go down now they will be
thoroughly cleaned out. Arnault has long been devoted to you, and you
could have unbounded influence over him if you acted in the line of
his ruling passion. It would gratify his pride and add to the world's
good opinion of him if I prospered also. In plain English, we may all
be in a tenement house in a month, or I on safe ground and you the
affianced wife of a rich man."
"Well," said Stella, coldly, "you have given me facts enough. It's a
pity you couldn't have brought me something better from Wall Street
after all these years."
"What have you brought to me during these past years," he demanded,
sternly, "but constant requests for money, and the necessity for
incessant effort to meet new phases of extravagance? You have not
asked what was kind, merciful, and true, but what was the latest
style. Few days pass but that I am reminded of you by a bill for
some frippery or other; but how often am I reminded of you by acts of
filial thoughtfulness, by words of sympathy in my hard battle of life
when I am present, or by genial letters when absent? I have spent
three hot days in the city seeking chiefly your interest, and a more
mechanical, perfunctory thing never existed than your kiss of greeting
to-night. There was as much feeling in it as in the quarter that I
handed to the stage-driver. I have spent thousands on your education,
but you don't sing for me, you don't read to me, you never think of
soothing my overtaxed nerves by cheerful, hopeful talk. Were I a steel
automaton, supplying your wants, I should answer just as well, and in
that case you might remember the laws of matter and apply a little oil
occasionally. What are the motives of your life but dress, admiration,
excitement, a rapid succession of men to pass under your baleful
fascination, and then to pass on crippled in soul for having known
you? Unless you can give Graydon Muir a loving woman's heart, and mean
to cling to him for worse as well as better, you will commit a crime
before God and man if you accept him. With Arnault it is different. In
mind you are near enough of kin to marry. As long as you complied with
fashionable and worldly proprieties, he would be content; but a man
with a heart and soul in his body would perish in the desert of a home
that your selfishness would create."
"It's awful for you to talk to me in this way!" she whined, wincing
and crying under his arraignment.
"It's awful that I have to speak to you in this way, either to make
you realize what deformities your beauty hides, so that you may apply
the remedy, or else, if you will not, to promote your union with a man
content to take for a wife a belle, and not a woman.
"I suppose I am chiefly to blame, though, or you would be different,"
he added, with a dark, introspective look. "I was proud of you as
a beautiful child, and tried to win your love by indulgence. Heaven
knows, I would like to be a different man, but it's all a breathless
hurry after bubbles that vanish when grasped! Well, what do you
propose to do? You see that you can't hesitate much longer."
"I will decide soon," she answered, sullenly. Although her conscience
echoed his words, and she felt their justice, her pride prevailed, and
she permitted him to depart without another word.