On the following day there was the usual bustle of change and
departure that is characteristic of a large summer resort on Monday
morning. Stanton found Mrs. Mayhew very ready to occupy the seats
he had obtained, and all the more so from his statement of the fact
that several others had spoken for them.
"Ida, my dear," called her mother; "come here, I've good news for
you. Ik has got us out of that odious corner of the dining-room,
and secured seats for us at Mr. Van Berg's table."
"I wish no seat there," she said decisively.
"Oh, its all arranged, my dear; and a good many others want the
seats, but Ik was too prompt."
"I'll stay where I am," said Ida, sullenly.
"And have every one in the house asking why?" added Stanton,
provokingly. "Mr. Van Berg treats you as a gentleman should. Why
cannot you act like a lady toward him? If I were you I would not
carry my preferences for the Sibley style of fellows so far that
I could not be civil to a man like my friend."
"You misjudge me," cried Ida, passionately.
"You have a strange way of proving it. All that is asked of you is
to sit at the same table with a gentleman who has won the respect
and admiration of every one in the hotel, whose society is peculiarly
agreeable to your mother and myself, and who has also shown unusual
courtesy towards you ever since he learned who you were. What
else can I think--what else can others think, than that your taste
leans so decidedly to the Sibley style that you cannot even be
polite to a man of high culture and genuine worth?"
"You are too severe, Ik," said Mrs. Mayhew. "For some reason that
I cannot fathom, Ida does not like this artist; and yet I think
myself that she would subject herself to very unpleasant remarks
if she made any trouble about sitting at the same table with him."
"Can you not see," retorted Ida, irritably, "that Ik has not
considered us at all, but only himself? He wishes to be near Miss
Burton, and without giving us any chance to object, has made all
the arrangements so that we must either comply or else be the talk
of the house. It's just a piece of his selfishness," she concluded
with tears of vexation in her eyes.
"Oh, come Ida!" said her mother coaxingly, "I can see only a mole-hill
in this matter, and I wouldn't make a mountain out of it. As far
as I am concerned, I should enjoy the change very much, and, as you
say, the affair has gone too far now to make objection. I do not
intend that either you or myself shall be the subject of unpleasant
remark."
And so the matter was settled, but Ida's coldness and constraint,
when they all met at dinner, very clearly indicated that the change
had been made without her consent. Van Berg addressed her affably
two or three times, but received brief and discouraging answers.
"Your cousin evidently is not pleased with the new arrangement you
have brought about. I cannot see what I have done of late to vex
her."
"I'll tell you the trouble. You offend her by not being the
counterpart of Mr. Sibley," said Stanton, irritably.
Van Berg's brow darkened. "Do you think," he asked in a meaning
tone, "that she understands what kind of a man he is?"
"Oh, she knows that he can dance, flirt, and talk nonsense, and
she asks for nothing more and thinks of nothing further. I'm out
of patience with her."
Stanton's words contained the most plausible explanation of Ida's
conduct that occurred to Van Berg. The episode in the stage had
made them acquainted, and her preconceived prejudice and hostility
had been so far removed as to permit a certain degree of social
companionship, whose result would now seem only increased dislike
and distaste. As he supposed she would express herself, "he was
not of her style." Had she not spent the greater part of Sunday
afternoon and evening with Sibley? What other conclusion was
there save that he was "of her style," congenial both in thought
and character! And yet he still refused to entertain the belief
that she recognized in him more than a fashionable man of the world.
If only as the result of the pique originating on the evening of
the concert, Ida Mayhew had stood aloof from him, he could hope to
remove this early prejudice by better acquaintance. But if fuller
acquaintance increased her aversion, then he must believe that
the defects in her character were radical, inwrought through the
whole web and woof of her nature. He could not assume the "Sibley
style" if he would, and would not if he could, were her beauty a
hundred-fold greater, were that possible.
He was fast coming to the conclusion, therefore, that he must abandon
the project which had so fascinated him, and whose success had so
strongly kindled his imagination. And yet he did so reluctantly,
very regretfully, chafing as only the strong-willed do, when
confronted and thwarted by that which is only apparently impossible,
and which they still feel might and ought to be accomplished.
"I feel as the old alchemists must have done," he often thought.
"Here is a base metal. Why can I not transmute it into gold?"
But as the conviction of his impotence grew upon him he felt something
like resentment toward the one who had thwarted his purpose; and so
it naturally happened that when they met again at the supper-table,
his cool and indifferent manner corresponded with that of Miss Mayhew
to a degree that gave her a deeper pain than she could understand.
"Why should she care?" she asked herself a hundred times that
evening. But the unpleasant truth hourly grew more plain to her
that she did care.
Stanton and her mother quietly ignored her "foolish pique," as
they termed it. In truth the former was so preoccupied with Miss
Burton, and with jealousy of his friend, that he had few thoughts
for anything else.
He admitted to himself that he had never before been so thoroughly
fascinated and awakened; and it was in accordance with his
pleasure-loving, self-indulgent nature to drift on this shining
tide withersoever it might carry him.
But with a growing feeling of disquietude he saw that Van Berg
also was deeply interested in Miss Burton, and, what was worse, he
thought he detected an answering interest on her part.
Occasionally, when the artist's face was turned away so that she
obtained a good profile view of it, Stanton observed her looking
at him with an expression which both puzzled and troubled him. She
seemed to forget everything and every one, and to gaze for a moment
with a wistful, longing intensity that he would give his fortune
for were the glance directed toward himself. And yet when Van Berg
addressed her, sought her society, met her suddenly, there was no
heightening of color, nor a trace of the "sweet confusion" that is
usually inseparable from a new and growing affection in a maiden's
heart.
Apart from this occasion, furtive, and wistful look during which
her cheeks would grow pale and she appear for the moment oblivious
of present surroundings, her manner toward the artist was as frank
and natural as toward any one else. It was evident that she liked
and respected him, but even his jealousy could not detect the
certainty of anything more.
But what was the tendency of Van Berg's mind toward her? That was
the question which troubled him more and more every day. From the
time of their parting on the previous Sabbath evening there had
been a growing reluctance on the part of each to speak of one who
so largely occupied the thoughts of both. The old jest and banter
about the "school ma'am" ceased utterly, and they mentioned her only
occasionally as "Miss Burton." The old frank confidence between
them diminished daily, and in their secret consciousness they began
to recognize the fact that they might soon become open rivals.
The attitude of Van Berg toward the young stranger who had so deeply
interested him from the first hour of their meeting, was peculiar
but characteristic. His reason approved of her. Never before
had he met a woman who had seemed endowed with so many attractive
qualities. She was not beautiful,--a cardinal virtue with him--but
her face often lighted up with something so near akin to beauty
as to leave little cause to regret its absence and the conviction
grew upon him that the spirit enshrined within the graceful and
fragile form was almost perfection itself.
It became clearer to him every day that some deep experience or
sorrow has so thoroughly refined away the dross of her nature as
to make her seem the embodiment of truth and purity. What though
she still maintained complete reticence as to the past, avoiding
in their conversation all allusion to herself, as far as possible;
he still, in his inmost soul, knew he could trust her, and that
while her smiling face, like the sunlit rippling surface of mountain
lakes not far away, might hide dark, silent depths, it concealed
nothing impure.
He also felt that there was no occasion to imagine any deep mystery
to be part of her past history. The facts that she was poor and
orphaned suggested all the explanations needed, and he felt sure
that the sorrows she so sacredly and unselfishly shrouded from the
general view would be frankly revealed to the man who might win
the right to comfort and sustain her.
Could he win that right? Did he wish to win it? As day after day
passed he felt this question to be growing more and more vitally
important.
He was not one he believed who, like Stanton, could be carried away
by a sudden and absorbing passion. In any and every case, reason,
judgment, and taste would offer their counsel, and their advice
would be carefully weighed. With increasing distinctness, this
cabinet within his own breast urged him to observe this maiden well
lest the chief opportunity of his life pass beyond recall.
And he did study her character carefully. Stanton, with the keen
pain of jealousy, and Ida Mayhew with a disquiet and sinking of
heart that she could not understand, noted that he very quietly
and unobtrusively sought her society. When she spoke, he listened.
When it was possible without attracting attention his eyes followed
her, and yet his conduct was governed so thoroughly by good taste
and chivalric regard for the lady herself, that only eyes rendered
penetrating by the promptings of the heart would have seen anything
more than the general friendliness which she inspired on every
side.
Stanton, on the contrary, grew more undisguised and demonstrative
in his attentions, although he aimed to conceal his feeling under
the humorous and bantering style of address that was habitual with
him. The guests of the house were not very long in recognizing in
him an admirer of Miss Burton, but they imagined that his devotion
was caused more by a wish to while away his idle hours than from
any other motive; and it was also quite evident that the young lady
herself took the same view. She gave a light and humorous aspect
to everything she said, and permitted him scarcely an opportunity
for a solitary "tete-a-tete." In vain he placed his bays and buggy
at her disposal.
"I am social and gregarious in my tastes," she would reply, "and
need the exhilaration of a party to enjoy myself."
Thus Stanton was led to a course of action decidedly in contrast
with his past tendencies. He would attach his bays to a roomy
carriage, giving her a "carte-blanche" in making up the party if
she would be one of the number. He would perspire like a hero in
any boating excursion or picnic that she would originate; and thus
the fastidious and elegant fellow often found himself in unwonted
company, for, with an instinct peculiarly her own, she soon found
out the comparatively poor and neglected in the hotel, and appeared
to derive her chief pleasure in enlivening their dull days.
Quick-witted Stanton early learned that the surest way to winning
a smile from her was to be polite to people that, hitherto, he had
habitually ignored. To Miss Burton herself he made no secret of
the fact that his course was prompted only by a desire to please
her, but she smiling persisted in ascribing it all to his good-nature
and kindness of heart.