"Probably because we have had orders not to go any farther."
"Do you mean that we are blocked?"
"The train ahead of us is. We shall stay here until that gets through."
"You seem very cheerful about it," she said, observing his expression.
"Ah, I should think so!"
His short lip curled in the first smile she had seen upon his strong,
brooding face. She could not help smiling in response, but she felt
bound to protest against his irresponsible view of the situation.
"Have you so much time to spend upon the road? I thought the men of this
country were always in a hurry."
"It makes a difference where a man is going, and on what errand, and
what fortune he meets with on the way. _I_ am not going to Volney."
She did not understand his emphasis, nor the bearing of his words. His
eyes dropped to her hands lying in her lap, still holding the glove she
had been mending.
"How nicely you do it! How can you take such little stitches without
pricking yourself, when the train is going?"
"It is my business to take little stitches. I don't know how to do
anything else."
"Do you mean it literally? It is your business to sew?"
The notion seemed to surprise him.
"No; I mean in a general sense. Some of us can do only small things, a
stitch at a time,--take little steps, and not know always where they are
going."
"Is this a little step--to Volney?"
"Oh, no; it is a very long one, and rather a wild one, I'm afraid. I
suppose everybody does a wild thing once in a lifetime?"
"How should _you_ know that?"
"I only said so. I don't say that it is true."
"People who take little steps are sometimes picked up and carried off
their feet by those who take long, wild ones."
"Why, what are we talking about?" she asked herself, in surprise.
"About going to Volney, was it not?" he suggested.
"What is there about Volney, please tell me, that you harp upon the
name? I am a stranger, you know; I don't know the country allusions. Is
there anything peculiar about Volney?"
"She is a deep little innocent," he said within himself; "but oh, so
innocent!" And again he appeared to gather himself in pained resistance
to some thought that jarred with the thought of Phebe. He rose and
bowed, and so took leave of her, and settled himself back into his
corner, shading his eyes with his hand.
He ate no luncheon, Phebe noticed, and he sat so long in a dogged
silence that she began to cast wistful glances across the aisle,
wondering if he were ill, or if she had unwittingly been rude to him.
Any one could have shaken her confidence in her own behavior; moreover,
she reminded herself, she did not know the etiquette of an overland
train. She had heard that the Western people were very friendly; no
doubt they expected a frank response in others. She resolved to be more
careful the next time, if the moody young man should speak to her again.
Her father was awake now, dressed and sitting up. He was very chipper,
but Phebe knew that his color was not natural, nor his breathing right.
He was much inclined to talk, in a rambling, childish, excited manner
that increased her anxiety.
The young man in No. 8 had evidently taken his fancy; his formal,
old-fashioned advances were modestly but promptly met.
"I suppose it is not usual, in these parts, for travelers to inquire
each other's names?" the old gentleman remarked to his new acquaintance;
"but we seem to have plenty of time on our hands; we might as well
improve it socially. My name is David Underhill, and this is my daughter
Phebe. Now what might thy name be, friend?"
"My name is Ludovic," said the youth, looking a half-apology at Phebe,
who saw no reason for it.
"First or family name?"
"Ludovic is my family name."
"And a very good name it is," said the old gentleman. "Not a common name
in these parts, I should say, but one very well and highly known to me,"
he added, with pleased emphasis. "Phebe, thee remembers a visit we had
from Martin Ludovic when we were living at New Rochelle?"
"Thee knows I was not born when you lived at New Rochelle, father dear."
"True, true! It was thy mother I was thinking of. She had a great esteem
for Martin Ludovic. He was one of the world's people, as we say--in the
world, but not of the world. Yet he made a great success in life. He
was her father's junior partner--rose from a clerk's stool in his
counting-room; and a great success he made of it. But that was after
Friend Lawrence's time. My wife was Phebe Lawrence."
Young Ludovic smiled brightly in reply to this information, and seemed
about to speak, but the old gentleman forestalled him.
"Friend Lawrence had made what was considered a competence in those
days--a very small one it would be called now; but he was satisfied.
Thee may not be aware that it is a recommendation among the Friends, and
it used to be a common practice, that when a merchant had made a
sufficiency for himself and those depending on him, he should show his
sense of the favor of Providence by stepping out and leaving his chance
to the younger men. Friend Lawrence did so--not to his own benefit
ultimately, though that was no one's fault that ever I heard; and Martin
Ludovic was his successor, and a great and honorable business was the
outcome of his efforts. Now does thee happen to recall if Martin is a
name in thy branch?"
"My grandfather was Martin Ludovic of the old New York house of Lawrence
and Ludovic," said the cadet of that name; but as he gave these
credentials a profound melancholy subdued his just and natural pride.
"Is it possible!" Friend Underhill exulted, more pleased than if he had
recovered a lost bank-note for many hundreds. There are no people who
hold by the ties of blood and family more strongly than the Friends; and
Friend Underhill, on this long journey, had felt himself sadly insolvent
in those sureties that cannot be packed in a trunk or invested in
irrigable lands. It was as if on the wild, cold seas he had crossed the
path of a bark from home. He yearned to have speech with this graciously
favored young man, whose grandfather had been his Phebe's grandfather's
partner and dearest friend. The memory of that connection had been
cherished with ungrudging pride through the succeeding generations in
which the Ludovics had gone up in the world and the Lawrences had come
down. Friend Underhill did not recall--nor would he have thought it of
the least importance--that a Lawrence had been the benefactor in the
first place, and had set Martin Ludovic's feet upon the ladder of
success. He took the young man's hand affectionately in his own, and
studied the favor of his countenance.
"Thee has the family look," he said in a satisfied tone; "and they had
no cause, as a rule, to be discontented with their looks."
Young Ludovic's eyes fell, and he blushed like a girl; the dark-red
blood dyed his face with the color almost of shame. Phebe moved uneasily
in her seat.
"Make room beside thee, Phebe," said her father; "or, no, friend
Ludovic; sit thee here beside me. If the train should start, I could
hear thee better. And thy name--let me see--thee must be a Charles
Ludovic. In thy family there was always a Martin, and then an Aloys, and
then a Charles; and it was said--though a foolish superstition, no
doubt--that the king's name brought ill luck. The Ludovic whose turn it
was to bear the name of the unhappy Stuart took with it the misfortunes
of three generations."
"A very unjust superstition I should call it," pronounced Phebe.
"Surely, and a very idle one," her father acquiesced, smiling at her
warmth. "I trust, friend Charles, it has been given thee happily to
disprove it in thy own person."
"On the contrary," said Charles Ludovic, "if I am not the unluckiest of
my name, I hope there may never be another."
He spoke with such conviction, such energy of sadness, only silence
could follow the words. Then the old gentleman said, most gently and
ruefully:--
"If it be indeed as thee says, I trust it will not seem an intrusion, in
one who knew thy family's great worth, to ask the nature of thy
trouble--if by chance it might be my privilege to assist thee. I feel of
rather less than my usual small importance--cast loose, as it were,
between the old and the new; but if my small remedies should happen to
suit with thy complaint, it would not matter that they were
trifling--like Phebe's drops and pellets she puts such faith in," he
added, with a glance at his daughter's downcast face.
"Dear sir, you _have_ helped me, by the gift of the outstretched hand.
Between strangers, as we are, that implies a faith as generous as it is
rare."
"Nay, we are not strangers; no one of thy name shall call himself
stranger to one of ours. Shall he, Phebe? Still, I would not importune
thee"--
"I thank you far more than you can know; but we need not talk of my
troubles. It was a graceless speech of mine to obtrude them."
"As thee will. But I deny the lack of grace. The gracelessness was mine
to bring up a foolish saying, more honored in the forgetting."
Here Phebe interposed with a spoonful of the medicine her father had
referred to so disparagingly. "I would not talk any more now, if I were
thee, father. Thee sees how it makes thee cough."
At this, Ludovic rose to leave them; but Phebe detained him, shyly doing
the honors of their quarters in the common caravan. He stayed, but a
constrained silence had come upon him. The old gentleman closed his
eyes, and sometimes smiled to himself as he sat so, beside the younger
man, and Phebe had strange thoughts as she looked at them both. Her
imagination was greatly stirred. She talked easily and with perfect
unconsciousness to Ludovic, and told him little things she could
remember having heard about the one generation of his family that had
formerly been connected with her own. She knew more about it, it
appeared, than he did. And more and more he seemed to lose himself in
her eyes, rather than to be listening to her voice. He sat with his back
to his companion across the aisle; at length the latter rose, and
touched him on the shoulder. He turned instantly, and Phebe, looking up,
caught the hard, roused expression that altered him into the likeness of
another man.
"I am going outside." No more was said, but Ludovic rose, bowed to
Phebe, and followed his curt fellow-passenger.
"What can be the connection between them?" thought the girl. "They seem
inseparable, yet not friends precisely. How could they be friends?" And
in her prompt mental comparison the elder man inevitably suffered. She
began to think of all the tragedies with which young lives are
fatalistically bound up; but it was significant that none of her
speculations included the possibility of anything in the nature of error
in respect to this Charles Ludovic who called himself unhappy.