"THEY MET, 'TWAS IN A CROWD."
It was long before Gilbert Roe could go to sleep, and the occupants of
adjoining chambers had abundant opportunity to sympathise with him. He
could not rest peacefully in his bed, and was driven to get up and
pace his room after his neighbours had retired. He thought he would
smoke, but could not find a light, so groped his way down passages and
staircases, where only a lamp was left burning here and there,
stumbling over boots at bedroom-doors, and arousing echoes in the
slumbering house, to ask for matches from the night-watchman.
Returned to his room he could not sit and smoke, but must go out upon
the gallery, marching up and down through the night-watches, till
every sleeper lay awake counting his footfalls and wishing him a
cripple. Towards morning he succeeded in growing drowsy, and turned
in, and this time slept till it was late. Maida joined him at the
breakfast-table, wishing him good morning with an easy intimacy of
proprietorship, which provoked him for some reason which did not
appear. However, her company was a relief after the weary solitude of
his midnight vigil, and in spite of himself he relaxed and grew
sociable.
"Come to church, Gilbert?" she said, when breakfast was over; and he,
having nothing better to do, consented. They walked leisurely along
the sands, as did also a good many of the younger company, who
objected to being mewed up in an omnibus.
"Let us step out a little," said Gilbert, "and join those folks in
front."
"It is too warm for stepping out much," she answered. "We have a long
walk before us. If we hurry we will be flushed and crumpled, and not
fit to be seen, when we go into church. And it is a close little place
at the best."
"Never mind. We can stop outside when we get there; but let's be
cheerful in the meantime. I see Miss Deane in that crowd on in front.
Come, let's join them."
"Oh yes! and that little Fanny Payson you were so set on dancing with
last night," Maida answered, a little crossly. "You'll have to take to
surf-bathing if you want to get in with that crowd. I think them real
frivolous, myself, and mighty conceited and stuck-up. My father might
have been a senator too, by now, if he had lived. He ran for Congress
the year I was born; and if he did not get sent there, it was none of
his fault."
"Never mind, Maida; you may go to Congress yourself yet, when
the woman's suffrage law passes. But you must take to wearing
glasses"--she had dropped using her goggles, I must observe, since
Gilbert's appearance--"to show that you have intellect. Intellect,
short-sight, and high culture, all run together, like a three-abreast
Russian team. If it wasn't for their short-sightedness they would drop
the high culture altogether, for they would see it don't pay in this
country. We have only a few professors and scientists all told, you
see. Three or four dozen women could marry them all, and the rest of
the men don't care to be kept humble all the time, by living with
wives who know more than themselves. That's why so many spectacled
women go lecturing. It's because nobody wants to marry them."
"To hear you talk, Gilbert, one would say you were just dreadful. You
do not really mean, I'm sure, that you believe a woman makes a better
wife for being ignorant or a fool. What companionship can there be
between an intelligent man and an empty-headed doll? And perhaps you
are not aware, but it is a fact, that the most successful female
lecturers are married women; and very poorly off their families and
invalid husbands would be, if they could not earn money that way."
"Maybe, Maida; I do not know from personal knowledge. I do not attend
many lectures, and I never heard a female lecture in my life; but if
you think the average man don't like what you call a doll--which, I
suppose, means a nice, soft, pretty little thing, who believes she is
not clever, and lets other women trample on her, as regards science
and things--you never were more mistaken in your life. Lots of smart
men find them the best company in the world; and--well--I know for a
fact that a woman may be no end of smart, and the very best of
company, though she don't read poetry, and knows nothing about the
'ologies.'"
"Natural intelligence, you mean, without any advantages of education.
To be sure, you find that in many a farmhouse--the kind of woman who
scrapes and saves to send all her sons to college, and sees one of
them elected President of the United States, and has her likeness in
all the illustrated papers. But if she had had culture, think what
such a woman would have become!"
"She would have become a female lecturer. The men would have been
afraid of her. She would never have been married, never had a son, and
never got her likeness into the magazines as mother of a President.
When men marry, they hope, at least, to be boss at home: and few have
the conceit to tackle a female steam-engine, expecting to be able to
break her in to quiet paces."
"But in cities you want culture to keep up your place in the
community. A poorly educated woman must be a drag on her husband's
social advancement."
"Not a bit of it. Our first families in Chicago and elsewhere, in this
country, and in every other, are noways remarkable for culture.
Sometimes it's money raises them, sometimes it's because their fathers
were of first families before them, or their friends. Culture may help
now and then--it's a distinction in its way, just like beauty or
talent; but there must be money, you bet! You country folks talk a
heap of nonsense about the help culture is, to rising in the world; so
do the newspapers, though they should know better. They think they
have it themselves, you see, so they crack it up for their own sakes."
"Oh, Gilbert! I am sorry to hear you speak like that. You used to
think very differently."
"Because I did not know any better, and I believed what I read in
print. We're not a highly cultured lot in the cities, I can tell
you--we successful folks, I mean. How could we be? It takes all we
can do to keep ourselves ahead of our neighbours. If we were to divide
ourselves between business and politics, or business and culture, we
would have to take a back seat in the community. It is not so much
special talent that is wanted, for getting on, as entireness. A man
must pour his whole self into the one groove, if he is to make a hit.
The whole of a very ordinary fellow is more, you see, and therefore
surer to win, than part of one of your superior people dabbling in
half-a-dozen different pursuits. Remember that, when you come to many,
Maida; and if you want to stand high, choose a man of one idea, and
that one his business."
"I know better than that, Gilbert," Maida answered, looking up in his
eyes with a fond but rather watery smile. She felt wounded by the
advice, but she took comfort, in that he was by her side while he
spoke, and could not mean it. It was only a man's thoughtless
speech--his rough way of being playful. For had he not kept faithful
through ten long years--long after she herself had ceased to expect or
hope? Had he not come back to her? and was not his presence the
strongest refutation of his worldly and cynical words?
And now, having gained, unconsciously to Maida, upon the party whose
appearance had started their discussion, she found they were abreast.
Gilbert drew towards them, leaving her somewhat apart, as if he would
join them.
"Good morning, Miss Deane," he said to Lettice, who was next him.
"Good morning, Mr Roe," she answered very coldly, passing behind
Walter Petty immediately after, and becoming engrossed in conversation
with Lucy Naylor, who walked on his other side.
Gilbert bit his lip, and Maida could not forbear a smile, to see with
the corner of her eye--for she would not turn her head--his chilling
reception by those he had been so eager to overtake, as if in
preference to her own company. They were all in close discussion now,
and completely ignored his presence. The distance widened between him
and them, while Maida walked straight forward; and not being minded to
walk alone, he was compelled, with something of a crestfallen air, to
return to her side.
Maida was not ill-natured. She betrayed no sign of having perceived
his discomfiture, and exerted herself to talk in a livelier way than
her wont, till he should recover from his mortification. She felt that
she was generous in doing this, and the neglect of the others seemed
to bind him to her by a rivet the more; so that her spirits rose, and
completely shook off the depression which his seeming weariness of her
company had been bringing on. He felt grateful in his turn that she
should so well cover his retreat, and enable him to bear up under the
snub he had been subjected to; the consequence being that they reached
Blue Fish Creek on terms of demonstrative good-fellowship, sang from
one hymn-book in church, and walked home by the sands again in cordial
intimacy.
"Jest look at them two interestin' young things!" Mrs Denwiddie
observed to her neighbour, as she pointed them out from the omnibus
window. "Ain't they fond, now! It makes me feel better to look at
them. It's kind of hard, you see, for us worldly-minded Americans,
sometimes, to believe about Adam and Eve and their innocent ongoings
mentioned in Scripter. There's nothing makes me so 'feared of turning
into one of them sceptics the ministers are so down on, as that
history; when I see the way young men and gals get on together, with
never a thought but dollars and cents and sich. 'There ain't one of
them as 'ud eat an apple as he knows'll disagree with him, jest to
please his Betsy, nowadays,' I thought. But there!--you see an
instance of what faithful love'll do. Jest look at them on the sands
there, wanderin' along! They might be babies gatherin' shells, with
their little spades in their hands."
"Do you mean the Montpelier schoolma'am?" the friend replied. "'Pears
to me always like as she was jest vinegar--with her blue glasses and
her knitting. I see she has left the glasses at home to-day--guess
it's to get a better look at her young man. Wonder what he thinks of
her? His taste must be pecooliar."
"They're true lovers, them two, believe me, Mrs Strange. If they
ain't, there's none sich. It's more'n ten years since they were
engaged, and he's been away all that time, to make his pile, and she's
been a-waitin' and a-workin' till he could come back to her, and never
a complaint. It's not a week yet, since she told me all about it, and
not a man would she listen to, in all that time, out of pure
faithfulness."
"There's few would try to shake her constancy, I'm thinkin'," said Mrs
Strange; but her companion was too busy talking to heed her, and
continued--
"Think of the young man keepin' her image before his mind's eye all
them years! and the world so full of gals, and temptations of all
kinds."
Lettice Deane, returning home in the same omnibus, sat opposite. She
raised her eyebrows, looking in the speaker's face, her nostrils
quivered, and the corners of her mouth, and then she buried her face
in her handkerchief and laughed silently; or, at least, so thought Mrs
Denwiddie, who returned her look with one of blackest indignation,
calling her, in her own mind, "A sassy brat, and that stuck-up as no
self-respectin' woman would demean herself by taking account of."
And the modern illustrations of Adam and Eve walked cheerfully
homeward along the sands. It was indeed Eden to one of them--an Eden
such as she had never hoped to enter, so bright that she could not
think what she had done to earn it. As for the other, it did not
appear exactly what were his thoughts, but he was cheerful, and
perfectly kind and attentive to his companion.
At dinner, Gilbert and Maida were early in their places. They had
earned an appetite by their long walk, and were duly hungry. Gilbert's
soup was before him, his spoon was lifted half-way to his mouth, when
the voices of a party in high spirits entering the room reached his
ear. The tone of a familiar voice among the others drew his attention,
and he raised his eyes. Senator Deane and his wife headed their party,
advancing up the room; behind came Lettice and Rose Hillyard. Gilbert
started, and the spoon slipped from his fingers and fell back in the
plate with a clatter which resounded through the room.
Rose's eye was drawn in the direction, and she saw him. She grew pale
to the lips and faltered, with a stop and a half-turn, as though she
would leave the room; then her colour flooded back and mounted to her
brow, her lips grew hard and set, and with a flash of the eye she
turned away her head and walked proudly forward to her place; taking
care that her back should be turned to the object which had disturbed
her.
Gilbert's blood had rushed into his face when their eyes met, but he
grew pale when she turned away, and he did not very speedily recover
himself. His soup was taken away untasted, and he refreshed himself
with ice-water instead.
Maida was filled with tender solicitude, and he would have been
overwhelmed with her inquiries and suggestions, if he had been
attending to what she said; but it scarcely seemed as if he were. "Was
it a qualm? Was he faint? Did he feel better now? Perhaps his heart
was weak, and he had over-exerted himself in the sun. She would never
forgive herself for taking him so long a walk. Would he not try some
wine?" which last was an ill-advised question, seeing they were then
in the State of Maine, where strong drink is not partaken of in
public. Not that an innkeeper's guests must go without--far from it;
but they must imbibe their stimulants _sub rosâ_, though the
concealment is merely of a conventional kind.
Gilbert ate very little dinner, and poor Maida never taxed her skill
to interest and enliven, with less success than during that meal.
Her companion attempted to eat one thing and another, and he drank
ice-water, but he had become deaf as the adder which refuses to hear
the voice of the charmer. He parted from her at the dining-room door,
saying he would go in search of brandy, as he really felt ill; and
Maida ended the Sunday which had begun so brightly, in solicitude and
wretchedness. She might have had as much sympathy as she pleased from
her elderly friend, but the unending Denwiddie babble was more than
she could endure. It was easier to be alone and nurse her anxiety.
There was a foreboding on her spirit which she could not define, a
clouding over of the future and its dawning hopes, which she felt but
could not explain. Nothing had happened, so far as she knew, but she
felt a frost in the air, which had been so warm and bland, and it was
nipping the blossoms in her poor fool's paradise.