SUYDAM’S LEGACY AND HERMIA’S WILL.
Hermia attended her uncle’s funeral because Frank came over and insisted
upon it; and she and her brother-in-law were the only mourners. But few
people were in the church, a circumstance which Hermia remembered later
with gratitude. The Suydams had lived on Second Avenue since Second
Avenue had boasted a brick or brownstone front, but no one cared to
assume a respect he did not feel. Among the tablets which graced the
interior of St. Mark’s was one erected to the dead man’s father, who had
left many shekels to the diocese; but John Suydam was lowered into the
family vault with nothing to perpetuate his memory but his name and the
dates of his birth and death engraved on the silver plate of his coffin.
Hermia took no interest in her uncle’s death; she was even past the
regret that she would be the poorer by twenty-five dollars a year. When
she received the letter from Suydam’s lawyer, informing her that she was
heiress to a million dollars, her hands shook for an hour.
At first she was too excited to think connectedly. She went out and took
a long walk, and physical fatigue conquered her nerves. She returned
home and sat down on the edge of her bed and thought it all out. The
world was under her feet at last. With such a fortune she could
materialize every dream of her life. She would claim her place in
society here, then go abroad, and in the old world forget the Nineteenth
Century. She would have a house, each of whose rooms should be the
embodiment of one of that strange medley of castles she had built in the
land of her dreams. And men would love her—she was free to love in fact
instead of in fancy—free to go forth and in the crowded drawing-rooms
of that world not a bird’s flight away find the lover whose glance would
be recognition.
She sprang to her feet and threw her arms above her head. New life
seemed to have been poured into her veins, and it coursed through them
like quicksilver; she felt _young_ for the first time in the twenty-four
centuries of her life. She dropped her arms and closed her hand slowly;
the world was in the palm. She smiled and let her head drop back. She
moved it slowly on the pivot of her throat. Her eyes met the glass.
The cry of horror which burst from her lips rang through the room. For
this girl had lived so long and so consistently in her imagination that
it was rarely she remembered she was not a beautiful woman. During the
past hours she had slowly grasped the fact that, as with the stroke of a
magician’s wand, her dream-estates had been hardened from shadow into
substance; it had not occurred to her that the gift most coveted was the
one gift withheld.
She sank in a heap on the bed, all spirit and hope gone out of her. For
many minutes she remained motionless. Then she slowly straightened
herself until she was erect once more, and in her face grew a look of
hope fighting down doubt. In a moment hope triumphed, then gave way to
determination, which in turn yielded to defiance. She sprang forward and
with her clenched hand shattered her mirror into a star with a thousand
points.
“I _will_ be beautiful!” she cried aloud, “and I will never look into a
glass again until I am.”
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