nothing less than pained--though he took care not to let her know it--to
find how far astray she was as to some of the fundamental doctrines of
Christianity. For fear she might find out his distress, he took his
midday meal alone. And indeed, Miss Garnet may have had her suspicions,
for over their ice-cream and coffee she said amusedly to Mrs. Fair, and
evidently in reference to him,
"I am afraid it was only the slightness of our acquaintance that kept
him from being pos-i-tive-ly pet-u-lent."
She seemed amused, I say, but an hour or so later, in her own room, she
called herself a goose and somebody else another, and glancing at the
mirror, caught two tears attempting to escape. She drove them back with
a vigorous stamp of the foot and proceeded to dress for a cold afternoon
walk among the quieted wonders of a resting city, without the Fairs, but
not wholly alone.
LIX.
THIS TIME SHE WARNS HIM
As Miss Garnet and her escort started forth upon this walk, I think you
would have been tempted to confirm the verdict of two men who, meeting
and passing them, concluded that the escort was wasting valuable time
when they heard him say,
"It did startle me to hear how lightly you regard what you call a
memorized religion."
But this mood soon passed. A gentleman and lady, presently overtaking
them, heard her confess, "I know I don't know as much as I think I do; I
only wish I knew as much as I don't." Whereat her escort laughed
admiringly, and during the whole subsequent two hours of their promenade
scarcely any observer noticed the slightness of their acquaintance.
Across the fields around Suez their conversation would have been
sprightly enough, I warrant. But as here they saw around them one and
another amazing triumph of industry and art, they grew earnest, spoke
exaltedly of this great age, and marvelled at the tangle of chances that
had thrown them here together. John called it, pensively, a most happy
fortune for himself, but Barbara in reply only invited his attention to
the beauty of the street vista behind them.
Half a square farther on he came out of a brown study.
"Miss Barb"--It was the first time he had ever said that, and though she
lifted her glance in sober inquiry, the music of it ran through all her
veins.
"--Miss Barb, isn't it astonishing, the speed with which acquaintance
can grow, under favorable conditions?"
"Is it?"
"Oh, well, no, it isn't. Only that's not its usual way."
"Isn't the usual way the best?"
"Oh--usually--yes! But there's nothing usual about this meeting of ours.
Miss Barb, my finding you and your friendship is as if I'd been lost at
midnight in a trackless forest and had all at once found a road. I only
wish"--he gnawed his lip--"I only wish these three last days had come to
me years ago. You might have saved me some big mistakes."
"No," Barbara softly replied, "I'm afraid not."
"I only mean as a sister might influence an older brother;
cheering--helping--warning."
"Warning!" murmured Barbara, with drooping head and slower step. "You
don't know what an evil gift of untimely silence I've got. If I've
failed all my life long as a daughter, in just what you're supposing of
me----"
"O come, now, Miss----"
"Don't stop me! Why, Mr. March"--she looked up, and as she brushed back
a hair from her ear John thought her hand shook; but when she smiled he
concluded he had been mistaken--"I've been wanting these whole three
days to warn you of something which, since it concerns your fortunes,
concerns nearly everyone I know, and especially my father. Is it
meddlesome for me to be solicitous about your ambitions and plans for
Widewood, Mr. March?"
"Now, Miss Garnet! You know I'd consider it an honor and a delight--Miss
Barb. What do you want to warn me against? Mind, I don't say I'll take
your warning; but I'll prize the friendship that----"
"I owe it to my father."
"Oh, yes, yes! I don't mean to claim--aha! I thought that tolling was
for fire! Here comes one of the engines!--Better take my arm a
minute--I--I think you'd better--till the whirlwind passes."
She took it, and before they reached a crossing on whose far side she
had promised herself to relinquish it, another engine rushed by. This
time they stood aside under an arch with her hand resting comfortably in
his elbow. It still rested there when they had resumed their walk, only
stirring self-reproachfully when John incautiously remarked the street's
restored quietness.
Barbara was silent. When they had gone some distance farther John asked,
"Have I forfeited your solicitude? Will you not warn me, after all?" He
looked at her and she looked at him, twice, but speech would not come;
her lips only parted, broke into a baffled smile, and were grave again.
"I suppose, of course, it's against measures, not men, as they say,
isn't it?"
"It's against men," said Barbara.
"That surprises me," replied John, with a puzzled smile.
"Why, Mr. March, you can't suppose, do you, that your high ambitions and
purposes----"
"Oh, they're not mine; they're my father's. The details and execution
are mine----"
"But, anyhow, you share them; you've said so. You don't suppose your
associates----"
"What; share them the same way I do? Why, no, Miss Barb; it wouldn't be
fair to expect that, would it? And yet, in a certain way, on a lower
plane--from a simply commercial standpoint--they do. I don't include
your father with them! I only wish I could reflect the spirit of my
father's wishes and hopes as perfectly as he does."
"Mr. March, don't men sometimes go into such enterprises as yours simply
to plunder and ruin those that go in honestly with them?"
"Oh, undoubtedly. You see, in this case----"
"Mr. March----"
"Yes, Miss Barb----"
"I believe certain men are in your company with that intention."
"But you don't know it, do you? Else you would naturally tell your
father instead of me. You only----" He hesitated,
"I only see it."
"Oh--oh! have you no other evidence--only an intuition?"
"Yes, I have other evidence."
"Ah!" laughed John. "You've got higher cards, have you?"
Her eyes softly brightened in response to his. The next instant the hand
in his arm awoke, but lay very still, as four men passed, solemnly
raised their silk hats to March, and disappeared around a corner. They
were the commercial travelers!
Her hand left his arm to brush something from her opposite shoulder, and
did not return, but hid somewhere in her wrap, tingling with a little
anguish all its own, in the realization that discovery is almost the
only road to repentance. At the same time it could hear, so to speak,
its owner telling, with something between a timorous courage and a calm
diffidence, how, in Suez, she had drawn out a business man, unnamed, but
well approved and quite disinterested, to say that she might tell Mr.
March that, in his conviction, unless he got rid of certain
persons--etc.
"I can tell you who it was, if you care to know. He said I might."
"No," said John, thoughtfully. "Never mind." And they heard their own
footsteps for full two minutes. Then he said, "Miss Barb, suppose he is
disinterested and sincere. Say he were my best friend. The thing's a
simple matter of arithmetic. So long as your father and Jeff-Jack and I
hang together there are not enough votes in the company to do anything
we don't want done. I admit we've given some comparative strangers a
strong foothold; but your father trusts them, and, if need be, can watch
them. Does anybody know men better than Jeff-Jack does? But he knew just
what we were doing when he consented to take charge of the three
counties' interests; however, I admit that doesn't prove anything, Miss
Barb, I know who said what you've told me, and I esteem and honor and
love him as much as you do--wait, please. O smile ahead, if you like,
only let me finish. You know we must take some risks, and while I thank
him--and you, too, even if you do speak merely for your father's sake--I
tell you the best moves a man ever makes are those he makes against the
warnings of his friends! 'Try not the pass, the old man said,' don't you
know?"
"This wasn't an old man."
"Wasn't it General Halliday?"
"No, sir, it was the younger Mr. Fair."
"Henry Fair," said John very quietly. He slackened his pace. He did not
believe Fair cared that much for him; but it was easy to suppose he
might seize so good a chance to say a word for Miss Garnet's own sake.
"Miss Barb, I don't doubt he thinks what he says. I see now why he
failed to subscribe to our stock, after coming so far entirely, or
almost entirely, to do it. He little knows how he disappointed me. I
didn't want his capital, Miss Barb, half as much as his fellowship in a
beautiful enterprise."
"He was as much disappointed as you, Mr. March; I happen to know it."
John looked at his informant; but her head was down once more.
"Well," he said, cheerily, "I'll just have to wait till--till I--till
I've shown"--a beggar child was annoying him--"shown Fair and all of
them that I'm not so green as I----" He felt for a coin, stood still,
and turned red. "Miss--Miss Barb----" A smile widened over his face, and
he burst into a laugh that grew till the tears came.
"What's the matter?" asked Barbara anxiously, yet laughing with him.
"Oh, I--I've let somebody pick my pockets. Yes, every cent's gone and my
ticket to New York. I had no luck here yesterday, and I was going on to
New York to-morrow." He laughed again, but ceased abruptly. "Good
gracious, Miss Barb! my watch!--my father's watch!" The broad smile on
his lips could not hide the grief in his eyes.
LX.
A PERFECT UNDERSTANDING
As they resumed their way Barbara did most of the talking. She tried so
hard to make his loss appear wholly attributable to her, that only the
sweetness of her throat and chin and the slow smoothness of her words
saved her from seeming illogical. She readily got his admission that the
theft might have been done in that archway as the engine rushed by. Very
good! And without her, she reasoned, he would not have stopped. "Or, if
you had stopped," she softly droned, with her eyes on her steps, "you
would have had----"
"Oh, now, what would I have had?"
"Your hands in your pockets."
"That's not my habit."
"Oh, Mr. March!"
"My d-ear Miss Barb! I should think I ought to know!"
"Yes, sir; that's why I tell you." They laughed in partnership.
Mr. March was entirely right, Barbara resumed, not to tell his mishap to
the Fairs, or to anyone, anywhere, then or thereafter. "But you're cruel
to me not to let me lend you enough to avoid the rev-e-la-tion." That
was the utmost she would say. If he couldn't see that she would rather
_lose_--not to say lend--every dollar she had, than have anyone know
where her hand was when his pocket was picked, he might stay just as
stupid as he was. She remained silent so long that John looked at her,
but did not perceive that she was ready to cry. She wore a glad smile as
she said:
"I've got more money with me than I ought to be carrying, anyhow."
"Why, Miss Barb, you oughtn't to do that; how does that happen?" He
spoke with the air of one who had never in his life lost a cent by
carelessness.
"It's not so very much," was her reply. "It's for my share of Rosemont.
I sold it to pop-a."
"What! just now when the outlook for Rosemont--why, Miss Barb, I do
believe you did it to keep clear of our land company, didn't you?"
"Mr. March, I wish you would let me lend you some of it, won't you?"
"No, I'll be--surprised if I do. Oh, Miss Barb, I thank you just the
same; but my father, Miss Barb, gave it to me, as a canon of chivalry,
never to make a money bargain with a lady that you can't make with a
bank. If I'm not man enough to get out of this pinch without--oh,
pshaw!"
In the hotel, at the head of the ladies' staircase, they stood alone.
"Good-by," said John, unwillingly. "I'll see you this evening, shan't I,
when I come up to say good-by to your friends?"
Barbara said he would. They shook hands, each pair of eyes confessing to
the other the superfluity of the ceremony.
"Good-by," said John again, as if he had not said it twice already.
"Good-by. Mr. March, if you want to give securities--as you would to a
bank--I--I shouldn't want anything better than your mother's poems."
He glowed with gratitude and filial vanity, his big hand tightening on
hers. "Oh, Miss Barb! no, no! But God bless you! I wonder if anyone else
was ever so much like sunshine in a prison window! Good-by!" She felt
her hand lifted by his; but, when she increased its weight the merest
bit, he let it sink again and slide from his fingers.
He was gone, and a moment later she was with the Fairs, talking slowly,
with soft smiles; but her head swam, she heard their pleasant questions
remotely as through a wall, and could feel her pulse to her fingers and
feet. He had almost kissed her hand. "The next time--the next
time--sweet heaven send this poor hand strength to resist just enough
and--and not too much." So raved the prayer locked in her heart, or so
it would have raved had she dared give it the liberty even of unspoken
words.
Meanwhile, John March lay on his bed with the back of his head in his
hands.
"I've offended her! There was no mistaking that last look. This wouldn't
have happened if she hadn't let her hand linger in mine. Oh, I wish to
heaven girls were not so senselessly innocent and sisterly! Great Caesar!
I'd give five hundred dollars not to have drooled that drivel about
being her brother! George! She ought to know that only a fool or a scamp
could make such an absurd proposal. I wonder if she still wants to lend
me her money! I'd rather face a whole bank directorate with an overdrawn
account than those Fairs this evening. I know exactly how they'll look.
For it will be just like her to tell Mrs. Fair, who'll tell her husband,
and they'll bury the thing right there with me under it, and 'Miss
Garnet' will excuse herself on the plea of fatigue, and the conversation
will drag, and I'll wish I had cut my throat in Pulaski City, and"--a
steeple clock tolled the hour----"Oh, can it be that that's only six!"
At tea he missed them. Returning to his room, he had hardly got his
hands under his head again, trying not to think of his financial
embarrassments because it was Sunday, when a new idea brought him to his
feet. Church! Evening service! Would she go? He had not asked her when
she had intimated that the Fairs would not. In his selfish enjoyment of
her society he had quite forgotten to care for her soul! He ought to go
himself. And all the more ought she, for he was numbered among the saved
now, and she was not. She _must_ go. But how could she unless he should
take her? His Christian duty was clear. He would write an offer of his
services, and by her answer he would know how he stood in her regard.
Her reply was prompt, affirmative, confined to the subject. And yet, in
some inexplicable way it conveyed the impression that she had never
suspected him of the faintest intention to carry her hand to his lips.
The sermon was only so-so, but they enjoyed the singing; particularly
their own. Both sang from one book, with much reserve, yet with such
sweetly persuasive voices that those about them first listened and then
added their own very best. The second tune was "Geer," and, with John's
tenor going up every time Barbara's soprano came down, and _vice versa_,
it was as lovely see-sawing as ever thrilled the heart of youth with
pure and undefiled religion. They sang the last hymn to "Dennis." It
was,
"Blest be the tie that binds
Our hearts in Christian love!"
and they gratefully accepted the support of four good, sturdy, bass
voices behind them. But it was the words themselves, of the fourth and
fifth stanzas, that inspired their richest yet softest tones, while the
four basses behind them rather grew louder:
"When we asunder part
It gives us inward pain,
But we shall still be joined in heart
And hope to meet again.
"This glorious hope revives
Our courage by the way,
While each in expectation lives
And longs to see the day."
On the sidewalk the four basses again raised their four silk hats and
vanished. They were the commercial travelers.
As the two worshippers returned toward their hotel, Barbara spoke
glowingly of Mr. and Mrs. Fair; their perfect union; their beautiful
companionship. John, in turn, ventured to tell of the unbounded esteem
with which he had ever looked upon Barbara's mother. They dwelt, in
tones of indulgent amusement, on the day, the hour, the scene, of John's
first coming to the college, specially memorable to him as the occasion
of his first real meeting of the Rose of Rosemont. Barbara said the day
would always be bright to her as the one on which she first came into
personal contact with Judge March. John spoke ardently of his father.
"And, by the bye, that day was the first on which I ever truly saw you."
"Or Johanna!" said Barbara. "Johanna's keeping Fannie Ravenel's new
house. She's to stay with her till I get back." But John spoke again of
Barbara's mother, asking permission to do so.
"Yes, certainly," murmured his companion. "In general I don't revere
sacred things as I should," she continued, with her arm in her escort's,
and "Blest be the tie"--still dragging in their adagio footsteps; "but
my mother has all my life been so sacred to me--not that she was of the
sort that they call otherworldly--I don't care for otherworldliness
nearly as much as I should----"
"Don't you?" regretfully asked John; "that's one of my faults too."
"No; but I've always revered mom-a so deeply that except once or twice
to Fannie, when Fannie spoke first, I've never talked about her." Yet
Barbara went on telling of her mother from a full heart, her ears
ravished by the music of John's interjected approvals. They talked again
of his father also, and found sweet resemblances between the two dear
ones. Only as they re-entered the hotel were both at once for a moment
silent. Half way up the stairs, among the foliage plants of a landing
ablaze with gas, they halted, while John, beginning,
"Two hearts that love the same fair things"--
recited one of his mother's shorter poems.
"Why, Mr. March!" His hearer's whisper only emphasized her sincere
enthusiasm. "Did your mother--why, that's per-fect-ly beau-ti-ful!"
They parted, but soon met again in one of the parlors. Mrs. Fair came,
too, but could not linger, having left Mr. Fair upstairs asleep on a
lounge. She bade Barbara stay and hear all the manuscript poems Mr.
March could be persuaded to read, and only regretted that her duty
upstairs prevented her remaining herself. "Good-by," she said to John.
"Now, whenever you come to Boston, remember, you're to come directly to
us."
John responded gratefully, and Barbara, as the two sat down upon a very
small divan with the batch of manuscript between them, told him, in a
melodious undertone, that she feared she couldn't stay long.
"What's that?" she asked, as he took up the first leaf to put it by.
"This? Oh, this is the poem I tried to recite to you on the stairs."
"Read it again," she said, not in her usual monotone, but with a soft
eagerness of voice and eye quite new to him, and extremely stimulating.
He felt an added exaltation when, at the close of the middle stanza, he
saw her hands knit into each other and a gentle rapture shining through
her drooping lashes; and at the end, when she sighed her admiration in
only one or two half-formed words, twinkled her feet and bit her lip,
his exaltation rose almost to inebriety. He could have sat there and
read to her all night.
Yet that was the only poem she heard. The title of the next one, John
said as he lifted it, was, "If I should love again;" but Barbara asked a
dreamy question of a very general character; he replied, then asked one
in turn; they discussed--she introducing the topic--the religious duty
and practicability of making all one's life and each and every part of
it good poetry, and the inner and outer conditions essential thereunto;
and when two strange ladies came in and promptly went out again John
glanced at the mantel-clock, exclaimed his surprise at the hour, and
gathering up the manuscript, rose to say his parting word.
"Good-by." His hand-grasp was fervent.
"Good-by," replied the maiden.
"Miss Barb"--he kept her hand--"I want a word, and, honestly--I--don't
know what it is! Doesn't good-by seem to you mighty weak, by itself?"
"Why, that depends. It's got plenty of po-ten-ti-al-i-ty if you give it
its old sig-nif-i-ca-tion."
"Well, I do--every bit of it! Do you, Miss Barb--to me?"
She gave such answer with her steady eyes that her questioner's mind
would have lost its balance had she not smiled so lightly.
"Still," he responded, "good-by is such unclaimed property that I want
another word to sort o' fence it in, you know."
The maiden only looked more amused than before.
"I don't want it to mean too much, you understand," explained he. The
hand in his grew heavier, but his grasp tightened on it. "Yet don't you
think these last three days' companionship deserves a word of its own?
Miss Barb, you've been--and in my memory you will be henceforth--a
crystalline delight! The word's not mine, it's from one of my mother's
sweetest things. Can't I say good-by, thou 'crystalline delight'?"
"Why, Mr. March," said Barbara, softly pulling at her hand. "I don't
particularly like the implication that I'm per-fect-ly trans-par-ent."
"Now, Miss Barb! as if I--oh pshaw! Good-by." He lifted her hand. She
made it very light. He held it well up, looking down on it fondly.
"This," he said, "is the little friend that wanted to help me out of
trouble. Good-by, little friend; I"--his lips approached it--"I love
you."
It flashed from his hand like a bird from the nest. "No-o!" moaned its
owner.
"Oh, Miss Gar--Miss Barb!" groaned John, "you've utterly misunderstood."
"No"--Barbara had not yet blushed, but now she crimsoned--"I've not
misunderstood you. I simply don't like that way of saying----"
"I didn't mean----"
"I know it, Mr. March. I know perfectly well you don't expect ever to
mean anything to anybody any more; you consider it a sheer
im-pos-si-bil-i-ty. That's the keystone of our friendship."
John hemmed. "I wouldn't say impossibility; I'd say impracticability.
It's an impracticability, Miss Barb, that's all. Why, every time I think
of my dear sweet little mother----"
"Oh, Mr March, that's right! She _must_ have your whole thought and
care!"
"She shall have it, Miss Barb, at every cost! as completely as I know
your father has and ought to have yours!" He took her hand. "Good-by!
The understanding's perfect now, isn't it?"
"I think so--I hope so--yes, sir."
"Say, 'Yes, John.'"
"Oh, Mr. March, I can't say that."
"Why, then, it isn't perfect."
"Yes, it is."
"Well, then, Miss Garnet, with the perfect understanding that the
understanding is perfect, I propose to bid this hand good-by in a
fitting and adequate manner, and trust I shall not be inter--!--rupted!
Good-by."
"Oh, Mr. March, I don't think that was either fair or right!" Her eyes
glistened.
"Miss Barb, it wasn't! Oh, I see it now! It was a wretched mistake!
Forgive me!"
Her eyes, staring up into his, filled to the brim. She waved him away
and turned half aside. He backed to the door and paused.
"Miss Barb, one look! Oh, one look, just to show I'm not utterly
unforgiven and cast out! I promise you it's all I'll ever ask--one
look!"
"Good-by," she murmured, but could not trust herself to move.
He stifled a moan. She gave a start of pain. He thought it meant
impatience. She took an instant more for self-command and then lifted a
smile. Too late, he was gone!
LXI.
A SICK MAN AND A SICK HORSE
"Thank you, no," said Miss Garnet at the door of Mrs. Fair's room,
refusing to enter. "I rapped only to say good-night."
To the question whether she had heard all the poems read she replied,
"Not all," with so sweet an irony in her grave smile that Mrs. Fair
wanted to tell her she looked like the starlight. But words are clumsy,
and the admirer satisfied herself with a kiss on the girl's temple.
"Good-night," she said; "dream of me."
Several times next day, as the three travelers wound their swift course
through the mountains of Pennsylvania, Mrs. Fair observed Barbara sink
her book to her lap and with an abstracted gaze on the landscape softly
touch the back of her right hand with the fingers of her left. It
puzzled her at first, but by and by--